Mon. May 23, 2022 – what the everlovin’ what?

By on May 23rd, 2022 in culture, decline and fall, personal

Hot and humid again, like most summer days in Houston. Yesterday started cool after the rain, but warmed up later.

The title is in reference to every tool I use to make these posts changing completely last night. Ugly and confusing doesn’t begin to describe what I’m looking at. BLANK PAGE doesn’t really guide one through the process. wordpress apparently just decided to kill the option of the old way of interacting with their software. I freaking hate arrogant developers. YOUR WAY IS NOT MY WAY AND IT IS NOT BETTER.


I got a late start yesterday, because of SLEEP. But then I did go out and pick up some preps. I had some misadventure narrowly averted with my fridge/freezer. I’m not the type of person to throw up my hands and accept that my fridge full of food is about to be warmer without trying some things myself. That isn’t nature, btw, it’s learned. Troubleshooting, and the willingness to try stuff are vital skills when things are going pear shaped. There will be a LOT of pear shaped things coming at us in the next few years, because there have been a lot of pear shaped things coming at us for the LAST two years. If you aren’t in the habit of fixing your own stuff, or at least narrowing down the range of problems, you should definitely start working on that. There are good books about fixing household stuff, and there is a massive amount of info on youtube about almost any repair you could make. If it’s already broken, you might as well try, and you will learn things.


Did a quick shopping trip to the local “small” HEB, but I won’t do my usual rundown on empty shelves. There were plenty, but it was late on a Sunday. The only one I’m sure was an actual shortage was Mexican sparkling water, which had a “limit two” sign on it specifically saying they were short stocked.

Chicken legs and thighs were up 10%, hamburger was up, and selection and quality of beef cuts were still down from “normal”. There were not a lot of sale items either.

Get it while you can.

And stack it up.

nick

108 Comments and discussion on "Mon. May 23, 2022 – what the everlovin’ what?"

  1. Greg Norton says:

    Hmm, nah… 

    For EV owners in Texas, conserving electricity doesn’t just mean charging during off-peak hours. It also means adjusting driving habits—perhaps driving less overall or not turning the air conditioning down quite as far.

    “One word: ‘Merica. Supply and demand, baby.”

    Seriously, though, the Tesla owners I know directly are some of the most selfish people I’ve ever met.

    The people dropping six figures on a Jesus Truck and infrastructure to charge in less than 24 hours will be topping off every night. Any laws attempting to restrict charging hours without enforcement devices on the power lines will be regarded as interesting suggestions but not intended for them.

    ERCOT and the utilities are just praying to make it to the bailout package signing ceremony next Spring.

  2. Nick Flandrey says:

    71F and the sun is coming up.  93%RH but no rain atm.

    Today should be fixing the gennies and doing stuff here.  It may include running around to get stuff.

    Also it’s my last scheduled ‘daddy daughter free time’ of the school year.

    Should be busy.

    n

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  3. Pecancorner says:

    @Rick,   in these few days since the host moved the site to a different server, my access has been very consistent: about 8 seconds, which is certainly reasonable.  I haven’t had a single time where it delayed.  So to me, it seems the move was successful in resolving the problem.  Thank you, and please thank the folks at the ISP.   While the slow load was really just an annoyance, it is nice to have it taken care of.   And, your responsiveness has been just great, could not ask for better if you were being paid! 🙂 

  4. Pecancorner says:

    wordpress apparently just decided to kill the option of the old way of interacting with their software. I freaking hate arrogant developers. YOUR WAY IS NOT MY WAY AND IT IS NOT BETTER.

    I’ve believed for a long time that the arrogance of software companies and developers (in the aggregate as well as individually) is dangerous to liberty, and I think we see are seeing the impact in our 20-somethings.   They’ve been so trained to passively accept whatever rule changes are made in their tools and their toys that they expect the same autocratic governance in the rest of their lives. 

      It’s not just the screens themselves, but the change in the corporate approach, the hiding of the back end.   I’ve heard all the arguments and protests, but that passivity didn’t happen with televisions, nor with personal computers, nor with original game systems.  It came after corporations decided to wrest control from the users, and to autocratically enforce changes without the individual having any recourse or choice.  Choosing the color of the phone is not a choice. 

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  5. Nick Flandrey says:

    I was a bit premature calling it a sunny day.   Sun never quite poked thru, and now I felt a drop or two while waiting for the school bus.  Still cool too, with a bit of swirly wind.

    n

  6. Greg Norton says:

    The title is in reference to every tool I use to make these posts changing completely last night. Ugly and confusing doesn’t begin to describe what I’m looking at. BLANK PAGE doesn’t really guide one through the process. wordpress apparently just decided to kill the option of the old way of interacting with their software. I freaking hate arrogant developers. YOUR WAY IS NOT MY WAY AND IT IS NOT BETTER.

    Anymore, a lot of developers view the world strictly through Visual Studio Code and Git Hub. Mac. Windows. Linux.

  7. Nick Flandrey says:

    https://globalnews.ca/news/8863120/monkeypox-virus-outbreak-europe-spread/ 

    Monkeypox likely spread through sex at 2 raves in Europe, expert suggests

    A leading adviser to the World Health Organization described the unprecedented outbreak of the rare disease monkeypox in developed countries as “a random event” that might be explained by risky sexual behavior at two recent mass events in Europe.

    In an interview with The Associated Press, Dr. David Heymann, who formerly headed WHO’s emergencies department, said the leading theory to explain the spread of the disease was sexual transmission among gay and bisexual men at two raves held in Spain and Belgium.

    Monkeypox has not previously triggered widespread outbreaks beyond Africa, where it is endemic in animals.

    “We know monkeypox can spread when there is close contact with the lesions of someone who is infected, and it looks like sexual contact has now amplified that transmission,” said Heymann.

    Reading “A World Lit Only by Fire” I’m seeing some disturbing parallels to today.

    n

  8. Clayton W. says:

    Reading “A World Lit Only by Fire” …

    That is  great book.  It describes the world for a common man (Well, northern European, but since that is what our society is based on/from it works)  around the time of Magellan.  

  9. Nick Flandrey says:

    If you haven’t checked up on Barbara in a while, she’s had her knee replacement surgery and is healing well so far.  Doing the home PT and ice it routine…

    She’s had a bunch of issues with major appliances, including freezer and fridge.   It must be  that time of year…

    n

  10. Nick Flandrey says:

    On the scanner the cops are staking someone out,  and the neighbors keep calling the cops on their suspicious vehicle…  which is hi-larious.

    n

  11. Ray Thompson says:

    I’ve believed for a long time that the arrogance of software companies and developers (in the aggregate as well as individually) is dangerous to liberty, and I think we see are seeing the impact in our 20-somethings.

    When I worked for the bank in San Antonio in the 80’s I spent the morning behind the teller line observing. I was responsible for all the online systems, teller, ATM, CIF. We ran software from a commercial company, Florida Software. I was never really impressed with the software but it was not my decision.

    I watched a customer come to the counter and want to withdraw $15.00. The teller had to enter 1, 5, ., 0,0. I asked why. The teller said it was necessary to always include the cents. I then watched her enter an account number of a really old account, something like 5 digits. The teller had to enter 5 leading zeros. She said if she did not the system would return an error as all 10 digits were required. I watched another teller enter a transfer of 100,000.00 from one account to another. She accidently entered the comma as that made it easier for her to tell the number. Entering 1000000.00 made it error prone. We had some customers with a few hundred million dollars that moved money around weekly.

    I spent the next couple of weeks developing some code. That code would take anything input and try to determine the number. Enter 1,000 and the system would realize it was $1,000.00. Enter “1” and the system would know it was one dollar. The amount could be left or right justified or anywhere within the entry block. I installed the code and it front ended all money amounts entered into the system.

    When I explained it to the tellers I just told them to enter the amount anyway they wanted. Leading dollar signs, commas, decimal points, etc. were optional but would be recognized if needed. They were amazed. Teller productivity went up tens of percent, errors went down tens of percent. Queue lines moved faster as the tellers were entering less and having fewer errors.

    Florida Software found out somehow and asked for the software. The bank informed Florida Software, sure, for $50K. Florida Software declined and never did make the change in their software.

    My position is that computers are smart and should be able to make a reasonable guess based on input. Don’t make it hard on the user. Programmers and developers should be required to use, or at least observe, their software in operation. Make that experience in a real-world situation with actual users. Listen to the user suggestions, watch the user actions, locate the choke points. Then fix the stupidity. Coders don’t think the same as the users. What is obvious to the coder may be foreign to the user.

    Church’s Fried Chicken would send every HQ employee, including the CEO, to a restaurant in a different city. Spend a week frying chicken, working the front line, cleaning tables. A friend of mine worked for Church’s and said it was a real eye opener as to how the real world worked.

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  12. Pecancorner says:

    Via WUWT:

    Fire at a bus depot in Potters Bar, just North of Greater London

    It is thought that up to seven hybrid buses had gone up in flames and “you could hear several loud bangs which they said were tyres” he said.”  ….

     No idea, at this stage if the fire started in a battery; however, this quote also in the report: –
    “Eyewitness Shaun Cunningham said he heard an “unbelievable noise that sounded like a jet” and he saw a bus had “exploded into a ball of flames”.”

  13. SteveF says:

    Reading “A World Lit Only by Fire” I’m seeing some disturbing parallels to today.

    Purchased. Because I didn’t already have five years’ worth of reading on my Kindle.

    (Probably more than five years, given the amount of free time, clear of interruptions, I typically have. Most of that is classics, both fiction and non-, most of which are slow reading. There there are the many history books and number of “educated general audience” science and math books. And a couple million words of modern fiction. So it’s obvious that I needed to buy another book.)

  14. SteveF says:

    My position is that computers are smart

    Computers are stupid and deterministic based on a list of rules. However, they can and should be set up to give the illusion of understanding and intelligence.

    (Implication for consciousness and free will in human beings is left as an exercise for the reader.)

    Programmers and developers should be required to use, or at least observe, their software in operation.

    I very strongly agree. Too bad the modern so-called best practice is to put a wall of business analysts and project managers between the developers and the users. Can’t have those grubby developers talking to them and going off script and telling truths that the managers were keeping secret. eg, I infuriated a PM one time by telling the customer that I’d written a Perl script to automate the modfication of thousands of text files, doing the entire job in four hours of coding and testing and then five minutes of processing. The PM had been telling the customer that the eight developers would need another two months to modify them all by hand and would need another half million dollars. (The vendor was CGI, so Greg will no doubt appreciate the money-grubbing, incompetence, and dishonesty.) I pissed off another PM by telling a client that a requested feature couldn’t possibly be delivered next week because it was a solid month’s work; the PM had been promising the quick delivery in order to get sign-off on the bigger job and had planned to blame incompetent developers when it wasn’t delivered on time. (To be fair, that latter bit was speculation, based on her having done just that on other features.)

  15. nick flandrey says:

    One of the striking things in WLOBF is his damning and matter of fact portrayal of the degeneracy in the Catholic Church.   It’s not the church history I learned…

    n

    And what happened?  I had to check box both cookie warnings again, and my name wasn’t autofilled here.   Youtube needed me to fully log in too, which it never does…   Did the whole web reset?

  16. nick flandrey says:

    Straight from the CDC

    Monkeypox Virus Infection in the United States and Other Non-endemic Countries—2022

        

    what the heck happened to the editor?

    The Massachusetts Department of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are investigating a confirmed case of monkeypox in the United States. On May 17, 2022, skin lesions that had several features suspicious for monkeypox—firm, well circumscribed, deep-seated, and umbilicated lesions—on a Massachusetts resident prompted specialized Laboratory Response Network (LRN) testing of swab specimens collected from the resident; preliminary testing confirmed the presence of DNA consistent with an orthopoxvirus using Orthopoxvirus generic and non-variola Orthopoxvirus real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays. This group of viruses includes monkeypox virus (the causative agent of monkeypox). Testing at CDC on May 18 confirmed the patient was infected with a West African strain of monkeypox virus. The patient is currently isolated and does not pose a risk to the public.

    Cases of monkeypox have previously been identified in travelers from, or residents of, West African or Central African countries where monkeypox is considered to be endemic. CDC is issuing this Health Alert Network (HAN) Health Advisory to ask clinicians in the United States to be vigilant to the characteristic rash associated with monkeypox. Suspicion for monkeypox should be heightened if the rash occurs in people who 1) traveled to countries with recently confirmed cases of monkeypox, 2) report having had contact with a person or people who have a similar appearing rash or received a diagnosis of confirmed or suspected monkeypox, or 3) is a man who regularly has close or intimate in-person contact with other men, including those met through an online website, digital application (“app”), or at a bar or party. Lesions may be disseminated or located on the genital or perianal area alone. Some patients may present with proctitis, and their illness could be clinically confused with a sexually transmitted infection (STI) like syphilis or herpes, or with varicella zoster virus infection.

  17. drwilliams says:

    Speculation

  18. drwilliams says:

    Speculation that the spike in monkeypox is related to two raves—on in Spain, the other in Belgium—where it was spread by gay men having indiscriminate sex (oxymoron noted).

  19. drwilliams says:

    I wonder if I could get a grant to teach monkeys to stay away from gay men?

  20. nick flandrey says:

    Jebus H,   I’m looking at summer reading lists recommended by D1’s middle school.   First one is something called TX TAYSHAS.

    1, looks ok, teen drama about having to makeup missed school over the summer

    2. college admissions scandal and a half brother that is “one bad day away from an overdose”

    3 “A memoir exploring what it was like growing up a black, queer male.”

    4 “readers are taken through the death of Tabby’s boyfriend to the trial. Tabby’s point of view isn’t revealed until the very end.”

    5 “Amelia and Jenna are best friends who plan on attending college
    together, until Jenna dies in a car crash. Now Amelia has to figure
    out how to continue on as just Amelia.”

    6 “When an assignment to argue the Nazis’ Final Solution is
    assigned, Logan & Cade do all they can to argue against the
    merits of not completing the assignment due to the sensitive
    nature of the topic.”

    7 “Los Angeles, 1992, Ashley should be riding high, though as the
    only black kid in her friend group, she’s not quite sure how she fits
    into it. But when the Rodney King Riots erupt, Ashley will
    encounter how the weight of history bears down on us all.”

    8 “A summer heatwave causes a blackout in New York City through
    the night, but love blossoms into new beginnings for the different
    characters of long-time friends, bitter exes, and first time meeters.”

    9 “Lana’s dream is to represent Puerto Rico”

    10 teen suicide  “What happens to those you leave behind? What if you could
    experience the aftermath before moving on? Ellie has committed
    suicide, but before she can move on, she is stuck reliving the
    events that lead up to her suicide, questioning her every move and
    trying to comprehend what led her to the choice she made.”

    Then 7 that are fantasy/sf

    then a cuban girl in england,

    daughter of undiagnosed parkinsons dad, keeps home and school separated until they aren’t then her world blows up.

    19 Still dealing with the death of her father seven months ago,
    Beckett suddenly finds herself the center of rumor after finding a
    baby in the girls’ locker room. She learns how rumors and
    omissions can tear a family apart or bring them together.”

    20 “After receiving a heart transplant, athlete Chloe begins to have
    abilities and desires she never had before. She learns of a concept
    called cell-memory where recipients of organ donation can do
    things that belonged to the organ donor. Exploring these
    experiences, she discovers there is so much more to life.”

    21  “Julian Luna wanted to live his life fully his senior year and then go
    off to college; however, in one drunk night, his world is turned
    upside down with a tweet. A funny coming out novel about first
    love and being true to yourself.”

    22 “Layla has lived her life with dirty clothes and matted hair without
    anyone questioning it. When a school project asks students to
    document a biome, she shows the deplorable conditions of her
    house, leading to a CPS investigation and her running away. On
    her own as always, she has to figure out how to navigate the
    media storm and stand up to her bullies.”

    and it goes on and on like that.   FFS, no wonder the kids are messed up.   Add the dreary downbeat music they listen to and I’m surprised any of them make it out of high school alive.

    n

  21. nick flandrey says:

    there’s one titled “Prepped”

    “Becca lives in a doomsday prepper community. Her marriage to
    another member is arranged, and she is expected to stay in the
    community after graduating. Becca secretly applies to college and
    dreams of escaping. An accident sends the preppers spiraling
    deeper into their beliefs as Becca struggles to get out.”

    n

  22. nick flandrey says:

    This one looks like a barrel of laughs..

    “Rural voices : 15 authors challenge
    assumptions about small-town
    America

    Candlewick Press Carpenter, Nora Shalaway (editor)

    This diverse collection of short stories depicting the lives of teens
    in rural America. shatters stereotypes. Written in traditional prose,
    verse or graphically, the stories include teens of all genders, race,
    ethnicities, socio-economic statuses, etc. The only thing all these
    teens have in common – their homes are in rural America.”

    or this one–

    “Somewhere Between Bitter and
    Sweet

    Little, Brown Books for
    Young Readers Kemp, Laekan Zea

    This book set in Austin, Texas, is full of Latinx culture, the love of
    food, and deals with some hard hitting issues: being
    undocumented, struggling with mental health issue, dealing with
    strained familial relationships, and going after your dreams.”

  23. nick flandrey says:

    I lost count but out of about 90 books, 17 list male authors, and there are one or two that might be male.

    Surprising number of chinese authors.

    Far more organ transplant plots than the ZERO I would have expected.

    n

  24. Clayton W. says:

    Seems pretty dark and deep for middle school.  D1 is 13, right?  Going into 7th grade, I’d guess.  

    Most of them seem a little early, 1 or 2 years, I’d guess, but with mainstream media that way it is today the subjects might not be out of place.  More emphasis on woke, of course.  

    I’d hold off on the gender and sex stuff for a year or two, but my peers at that age (1977-78) were beginning to explore, so maybe appropriate.  Not from a Father’s point of view, of course, but think back to when you first started exploring the topic.

  25. Greg Norton says:

    My position is that computers are smart and should be able to make a reasonable guess based on input. Don’t make it hard on the user. Programmers and developers should be required to use, or at least observe, their software in operation. Make that experience in a real-world situation with actual users. Listen to the user suggestions, watch the user actions, locate the choke points. Then fix the stupidity. Coders don’t think the same as the users. What is obvious to the coder may be foreign to the user.

    Church’s Fried Chicken would send every HQ employee, including the CEO, to a restaurant in a different city. Spend a week frying chicken, working the front line, cleaning tables. A friend of mine worked for Church’s and said it was a real eye opener as to how the real world worked.

    I spent a couple of days watching our call center reps use our software at GTE. This floor in the center, located in the old switch building near the freeway in Downtown Tampa, handled the company territories in Kentucky.

    Based on that couple of days of observation, I came away not only with a better understanding of how people used and regarded the software, but with the anecdotal-based rule of thumb that half of Kentucky was either going to prison, getting out of prison, or receiving harassing calls from someone in prison, all requiring adjustments to residential phone service.

    The urban legend in the African American community in the 80s was that the Klan owned Church’s. Totally untrue, but those kinds of stories die hard in that demographic. I imagine that being white and working in one of those restaurants in an urban center would be eye opening.

  26. nick flandrey says:

    The American Library Associations list for “older” kids, 11-14

    OLDER

    Amber and Clay. By Laura Amy Schlitz. Illus. by Julia Iredale. Candlewick (9781536201222). 
    Set in Ancient Greece, this epic novel in verse traces the converging journeys of two children, a slave and an aristocrat.

    Boy, Everywhere. By A. M. Dassu. Lee & Low/Tu (9781643791968).
    The Syrian civil war uproots a boy and his family, forcing them to leave the comforts of home and journey toward safety in England.

    Call and Response: The Story of Black Lives Matter. By Veronica Chambers. illus. HarperCollins/Versify (9780358573418).
    This reference book about the Black Lives Matter movement and its historical context includes helpful lists, timelines, and photographs. 

    Dawn Raid. By Pauline Vaeluaga Smith. Illus. by Mat Hunkin. Levine Querido (9781646140411).
    Sofia’s life and values change when she is affected by the injustices of 1970s New Zealand and learns about the Polynesian Panthers’ fight for civil rights. 

    Fallout: Spies, Superbombs, and the Ultimate Cold War Showdown. By Steve Sheinkin. Roaring Brook (9781250149015). 
    This thrilling history of the Cold War breaks down the events preceding, and key players involved in, the Cuban Missile Crisis. (A 2022 Sibert Honor Book)

    The Genius under the Table: Growing up behind the Iron Curtain. By Eugene Yelchin. Illus. by the author. Candlewick (9781536215526).
    Yevgeny, a Jewish boy growing up in the Soviet Union, hopes to identify a talent that will allow him to rise above his circumstances in this comical memoir.

    The In-Between. By Rebecca K. S. Ansari. HarperCollins/Walden Pond (9780062916099).
    Cooper and his little sister, Jess, stumble upon a dark mystery when they become curious about their new neighbor across the alley.

    The Last Cuentista. By Donna Barba Higuera. Levine Querido (9781646140893).
    Centuries after Earth is destroyed, Petra arrives on a new planet, where she uses traditional stories and cunning to outwit enemies and rescue other survivors. (The 2022 Newbery Medal winner and the 2022 Pura Belpré Children’s Author Award winner)

    The Legend of Auntie Po. By Shing Yin Khor. Illus. by the author. Penguin/Kokila (9780525554882). 
    This graphic novel interweaves historical fiction and surreal adventure as Mei reimagines the tale of Paul Bunyan with a Chinese heroine to cope with ramifications of the Chinese Exclusion Act.

    —- not the only suggested book about the injustice of the Chinese Exclusion Act.

    A Place to Hang the Moon. By Kate Albus. Holiday/Margaret Ferguson (9780823447053). 
    Recently orphaned and evacuated from war-torn London, siblings William, Edmund, and Anna work with a librarian to find a family who will adopt them. 

    Race Against Time: The Untold Story of Scipio Jones and the Battle to Save Twelve Innocent Men. By Sandra Neil Wallace and Rich Wallace. illus. Astra/Calkins Creek  (9781629798165).
    This account details the successful efforts of African American attorney Scipio Jones to free 12 wrongly convicted Black men in 1924.

    Recognize!: An Anthology Honoring and Amplifying Black Life. Ed. by Wade Hudson and Cheryl Willis Hudson. illus. Crown (9780593381595).
    Employing a variety of formats and subjects, this powerful collection proclaims the importance of Black lives past, present, and future.

    Revolution in Our Time: The Black Panther Party’s Promise to the People. By Kekla Magoon. illus. Candlewick (9781536214185).
    Providing historical and contemporary context, this thorough account of the Black Panther Party details its history, evolution, and impact. 

    Salt Magic. By Hope Larson. Illus. by Rebecca Mock. Holiday/Margaret Ferguson (9780823450503).
    In a twisty graphic novel set after WWI, a mysterious lady in white turns the local water supply salty, leading Vonceil to try to undo the curse.

    Six Crimson Cranes. By Elizabeth Lim. Knopf (9780593300916).
    Lim draws upon Andersen’s “The Wild Swans” and Asian folklore in her story of Princess Shiori’s efforts to escape her stepmother’s dark magic and save her brothers.

    A Snake Falls to Earth. By Darcie Little Badger. Levine Querido (9781646140923).
    Applying conventions of traditional Lipan Apache storytelling, this lyrical novel follows the entwining stories of Native teen Nina and Oli, a snake boy from the spirit world. (A 2022 Newbery Honor Book)

    Thanks a Lot, Universe. By Chad Lucas. Abrams/Amulet (9781419751028).
    Brian and Ezra navigate their changing relationship while also dealing with challenges related to foster care, sexual identity, and anxiety.

    While I Was Away. By Waka T. Brown. HarperCollins/Quill Tree (9780063017115). 
    This novel, based on the author’s childhood, chronicles 12-year-old Waka’s culture shock as she spends a summer in Japan with her grandmother to improve her Japanese language skills.  

    –bold is my emphasis

    n

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  27. nick flandrey says:

    Their freaking “all ages” list doesn’t have an editorial point of view, does it??

    ALL AGES

    Hear My Voice / Escucha mi voz: The Testimonies of Children Detained at the Southern Border of the United States. By Warren Binford for Project Amplify. illus. Workman (9781523513482). 
    Striking illustrations by Latinx artists complement the bilingual testimonies of children detained in inhumane conditions at the U.S.-Mexico border. 

    I Am an American: The Wong Kim Ark Story. By Martha Brockenbrough and Grace Lin. Illus. by Julia Kuo. Little, Brown (9780316426923).
    In a defining court case, Wong Kim Ark’s victory guaranteed birthright citizenship for all Americans. 

    Legacy: Women Poets of the Harlem Renaissance. By Nikki Grimes. illus. Bloomsbury (9781681199443).
    This collection of oft-overlooked works by women poets of the Harlem Renaissance is interwoven with Grimes’ own golden shovel poetry. 

    Make Meatballs Sing: The Life and Art of Corita Kent. By Matthew Burgess. Illus. by Kara Kramer. Enchanted Lion (9781592703166).
    This biography explores the life of artist and Catholic nun Corita Kent, who used her art as a form of activism and inspired people to see the sacred in the everyday.

    ¡Mambo Mucho Mambo! The Dance that Crossed Color Lines. By Dean Robbins. Illus. by Eric Velasquez. Candlewick (9781536206081).
    By exploring the history of mambo and Latin Jazz, this book demonstrates the power of music and dance to transcend racial and cultural barriers. Simultaneously published in Spanish and English.

    Nano: The Spectacular Science of the Very (Very) Small. By Jess Wade. Illus. by Melissa Castrillón. Candlewick (9781536217667). 
    Vivid illustrations and helpful diagrams complement this engaging and kid-friendly exploration of nanoscience.

    Niños: Poems for the Lost Children of Chile. By María José Ferrada. Illus. by María Elena Valdez. Tr. by Lawrence Schimel. Eerdmans (9780802855671).
    This book is an ode to the 34 Chilean children who lost their lives during the years of Pinochet’s regime.

    The Sea-Ringed World: Sacred Stories of the Americas. By María García Esperón. Illus. by Amanda Mijangos. Tr. by David Bowles. Levine Querido (9781646140152).
    Poetry, prose, and artwork combine in this collection of traditional tales from 18 Indigenous cultures that span from Argentina to Alaska. (A 2022 Batchelder Honor Book)

  28. SteveF says:

    I have a few ideas for books for middle-grade readers:

    • A few prepper families cooperate to build skills and share ideas and to defend each other at need. The broader economy suffers a number of shocks (which we later learn is because of politicians and plutocrats manipulating the system for their own benefit) and electric power becomes unreliable and many staples are expensive and hard to find. Non-prepper neighbors and relatives arrive and demand to share in the wealth that the preppers have.
    • A true-believing liberal needs an organ transplant. Ze learns that race is not simply a social construct.
    • All of the teachers, administrators, and school board in a public school district are massacred on an “in-service” day in which the teachers are paid to hang around the school with no students. The parents in the district got fed up with endless brainwashing and incompetence, ever-increasing school taxes, and the impossibility of making changes through legal means.
  29. nick flandrey says:

    @clayton, at that age I was reading mostly SF with some horror, and adventure.     Some of the SF had weird enough sex, and Alien was terrifying.   That was also the period of VC Andrews and Lawrence Sanders with all the weirdness they entailed.

    I also loved the Agatha Christie books and some about “The Toff”.

    I’d read thru the entire kids library and was starting on the adult library, having gone thru the Bobbsey Twins, Tom Swift, Jr, and any other series, as well as pretty much everything Alan Dean Foster ever wrote.

    I’m objecting to the relentless multi-culti, and LBGHTEIEIO, death and death, and sickness themes.  

    WTF are the BOYS supposed to read if they don’t care about sucking their best friend off?

    n

    10
  30. paul says:

    Most of the books on that list seem designed for girls.  As in boring to me.   Where’s the rocket ships and robots?

    The time traveling liver sounds interesting.  ◔_◔ 

  31. SteveF says:

    Part of my daughter’s 9th Grade reading list:

    • Macbeth
    • Pilgrim’s Progress
    • Pride & Prejudice
    • A Tale of Two Cities

    There were more but I don’t recall them off the top of my head.

    There are a number of things I don’t care for with the private school my daughter attends and the tuition is impacting my budget, but it’s keeping her away from the craphole public schools.

  32. Clayton W. says:

    What IS missing is something to replace the coming of age stories for boys.  “My side of the mountain”, the Heinlein juveniles, stuff like that.  I don’t know what the equivalent for girls is.

    Despite what the woke crowd would say, western European culture conquered the world (and yes, did a fair bit of evil along the way).  The world would not have the standard of living we enjoy today if it were not brought kicking and screaming into the modern world.  It is said that in 1900 it took 100 farmers to feed one person in the city and today those numbers are reversed.  And much of the world still does not produce the amount of food per acre as the US or Europe.

    And these United States of America (perhaps still united a little) are an AMAZING gift.  With just a bit of luck, hard work, and perseverance anyone can learn to become an American.  Passport carrying accepted the world over.  I don’t know of anywhere else like that, except maybe Canada.

    That story ought to be taught.

  33. Greg Norton says:

    The PM had been telling the customer that the eight developers would need another two months to modify them all by hand and would need another half million dollars. (The vendor was CGI, so Greg will no doubt appreciate the money-grubbing, incompetence, and dishonesty.)

    It really depends on what part of CGI, client’s industry, and the time frame.

    Plus, every CGI drone serves two masters, their direct report Project Manager and their Member Manager, often with separate priorities.

    When I called my Project Manager to serve notice, I got quite an earful about his own dissatisfaction with CGI, with him having been a legacy AMS employee who was essentially “sold down the river” to the Canadians in the early 00s.

    He said, and I quote, “This company [CGI] is weird.”

    My Member Manager didn’t seem to care when I served notice even though my six month review was mostly about him telling me that I couldn’t look at internal postings without a deal being cut where the hiring Project Manager would provide him with someone to take my place on his (Member Manager’s) org chart

    As I’ve noted before, my Member Manager was stocking shelves at Buc-ee’s in Temple within a year of my departure.

    To be fair, Perl is not something that can be easily maintained, particularly when you get into the kind of developers CGI manages to retain after a year or so. Plus, depending on the industry, the third party libraries through … CPAN? … can be a significant security risk.

  34. SteveF says:

    To be fair, Perl is not something that can be easily maintained

    It was a one-off. (Or possibly a tweak-and-do-again if I’d missed something.)

    The project was to convert an Oracle Financials app from one pattern of coding account-subaccount strings to another. (Along the lines of “change a 25-character column from 6 account, 7 subaccount, and 12 unused characters to 8 account, 6 subaccount, and 11 unused”. Once the 5,000 (?) source code files were converted and the Financials were tested and accepted, Perl script would not be needed.

    Plus, I put 50-ish lines of comment into the 50-ish line script.

  35. Greg Norton says:

    I’d read thru the entire kids library and was starting on the adult library, having gone thru the Bobbsey Twins, Tom Swift, Jr, and any other series, as well as pretty much everything Alan Dean Foster ever wrote.

    Quentin Tarantino undertook an interesting artistic experiment in being Alan Dean Foster, writing the novelization of his own movie, “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood”.

    The novelization is a “must read” if you want to fill in a few blanks in the movie. I read a big chunk of it during our Spring Break trip. Sadly, I did not finish and that will probably have to wait for the next trip.

  36. MrAtoz says:

    Part of my daughter’s 9th Grade reading list:

    • Macbeth
    • Pilgrim’s Progress
    • Pride & Prejudice
    • A Tale of Two Cities

    There were more but I don’t recall them off the top of my head.

    There are a number of things I don’t care for with the private school my daughter attends and the tuition is impacting my budget, but it’s keeping her away from the craphole public schools.

    Those were on my public school list in the 60s and early 70s. Today, most PS call them racist, sexist, patriarchal shite, etc.

    And, boys ARE girls, too, Mr. Paul. Soy Boys, that is, just what the PLTs want your sons to be.

    The Ghost of OFD: “The commies took over without firing a shot.”

  37. Rick H says:

    Administrivia ….and random comments while I catch up on the discussions this morning…

    @Nick – The title is in reference to every tool I use to make these posts changing completely last night. Ugly and confusing doesn’t begin to describe what I’m looking at. BLANK PAGE doesn’t really guide one through the process. wordpress apparently just decided to kill the option of the old way of interacting with their software.

    That’s the new ‘block’ editing system, which has been around for several WP version (maybe a year?). You can just type stuff, and a paragraph ‘block’ will be automatically applied. The block system is supposed to make it easier to format pages as you like them.

    In fact, the new WP 6.0 (coming out this week) will have the ability for users to create their own theme using the block process (although old non-block themes – like this one – will still work.)  Never been a fan of the new block system (see “Get Off My Lawn!”).  

    So there is a plugin that returns the post editor back to the ‘classic version’. That has been installed here a while, but got temporarily disabled yesterday while testing if various plugins were causing slow database queries.  Forgot to re-enable it. Did that this morning.

    Re: hosting costs here, and offers to help out 

    Barbara says she is ‘ok for now’, so no donations needed.

     My position is that computers are smart and should be able to make a reasonable guess based on input.

    I’ve always thought (and tried to practice) using the “SAD” method of user input forms. SAD = “Stupid Answer Detection”. If you have an input field, then the code behind validation should always have provisions for weird input – “SAD”.

  38. MrAtoz says:

    Ack! SiriusXM streaming stopped. The player won’t even load in the browser.

    I blame the lack of Gravatars.

    I blame the lack of Gravatars.

    I blame the lack of Gravatars.

  39. nick flandrey says:

    @rick, so it’s all your fault!!!

    Cool, I’m glad we can get it back.   That block editor sucks dead bunnies.

    n

  40. Rick H says:

    I blame the lack of Gravatars.

    Just because you say it three times doesn’t make it true.

    And maybe the ‘disappearance of the Gravatars’ would make a good science fiction story. Or apocalyptic .

    2
    1
  41. paul says:

    I ordered a used copy of A World Lit Only by Fire.  The comments go from “sucks” to “pretty good” with little in between.  

    It looks interesting.  One more for the stack of un-read books. 

  42. Rick H says:

    @rick, so it’s all your fault!!!

    Cool, I’m glad we can get it back.   That block editor sucks dead bunnies

    Mea Culpa.

    The ‘block editor’ process does take a bit of getting used to. Whole new ‘ brain muscle memory’ to learn.  Wasn’t a big fan of it when it came out – partly due to ‘GEOML’ , and partly inertia on my part.  I usually add that “Classic Editor” function to all the sites I build. 

    Plugins ad a bit of overhead to the WP system. And they can be a security risk, if not built and maintained properly. It takes a bit of time to make a good and secure plugin. And to keep them updated (for instance, adjusting to new versions of PHP – PHP 8 broke a few things, although there was notice about soon-to-be deprecated features that got deprecated in PHP 8.x)  

     I’ve got about 10 plugins now. A couple of them need updating for PHP 8.x. 

  43. Greg Norton says:

    It was a one-off. (Or possibly a tweak-and-do-again if I’d missed something.)

    One-offs tend to stick around a lot longer than we intend.

    I have a one-off that ended up being used to generate production TV schedule data for the Death Star’s Uverse app for nearly a decade. I know it was mine because I didn’t prioritize HD channels over standard def version during development and there were lots of user complaints for years about the situation.

    My first Python program, but, as bad as it was, it ran in four minutes on my dual core Core 2 laptop. The outsourced production version, written in C#, needed eight hours to generate the identical files from the same XML input file running on a beefy Dell server.

  44. Rick H says:

    @PecanCorner – in these few days since the host moved the site to a different server, my access has been very consistent: about 8 seconds, which is certainly reasonable.  I haven’t had a single time where it delayed.  So to me, it seems the move was successful in resolving the problem.  Thank you, and please thank the folks at the ISP.   While the slow load was really just an annoyance, it is nice to have it taken care of.   And, your responsiveness has been just great, could not ask for better if you were being paid!

    That 8-10 second page load time is about what I have seen since the move. A very few times more than that.

    I’m hoping that the 500 errors are also gone. Will need to be alerted by others if those happen. I haven’t seen any on my page loads.

    Glad to help out. I enjoy (most) of the discussions here. 

  45. EdH says:

    Saw the remastered Star Trek: The Motion Picture 2022, Sunday,  very nicely done.  

    Takes me back.

    Theater was almost empty sadly.

    Guy directly behind us (in the nearly empty theater) was talking to the screen. When the lights came up afterwards I complimented him on his USS Enterprise ball cap, CVN 65. It turns out that he had relatives that flew F-14s on the Enterprise back in the day, and personally knows the special effects guys from the movie…

    I told him to compliment them, next time they talk.

  46. Pecancorner says:

    “Reading “A World Lit Only by Fire” I’m seeing some disturbing parallels to today.”

    “That is  great book.”

    “Purchased. Because I didn’t already have five years’ worth of reading on my Kindle.”

    “I ordered a used copy of A World Lit Only by Fire.  ”

    Yep,  I’ve put one in my cart too.   Looks like it strikes a nerve with us. 

    I went to over to Amazon to see  about getting a copy, and this sentence from the blurb struck me:  

    It speaks to the failure of medieval Europe, writes popular historian William Manchester, that “in the year 1500, after a thousand years of neglect, the roads built by the Romans were still the best on the continent.”

    There’s an old part of old State Highway 10 here, and  I drive on it every week. It was built in the 1920s or 30s out of concrete.  The part that remains is in beautiful, driveable condition despite heavy stock trailers and RVs driving on it every day for the past ~100 years.  

    Contrast that with the asphalt 67/377 for which it serves as access , about to undergo its third sealcoating/repaving in the 15 years we’ve lived here.  

    There are similar old concrete roads in many places, that still take a lot of heavy traffic and hold up to it. Without maintenance, our asphalt roads will disintegrate within a decade.   

    More than a metaphor in that. 

  47. Rick H says:

    I’ve been watching a couple of nice series – “Bosch Legacy” on FreeVee (used to be IMDB). Good series. There are prior seasons, which are also good, but been watching the latest. FreeVee has ads, but they are very unobtrusive – maybe 90 seconds total each break, and just a few breaks in the entire show. Not like the other commercial channels, where you get a 5 minute commercial break every 8 minutes.

    Another good series I’ve enjoyed is the new “Lincoln Lawyer” on Netflix. Good remake/rebuild of the Michael Connelly books. That one has kept me up too late a few nights. Up to episode 9 on that one, out of 10 episodes on this ‘season’. 

      Also watching “Night Sky” on Amazon Prime; a bit quirky, but JK Simmons is a favorite actor, and his parts with Sissy Spacek are nice to watch. A good mysterious show. New episodes every Friday night; not sure of the total number.

  48. MrAtoz says:

    I’m going to start “Night Sky”. I think there are 8 episodes.

  49. lynn says:

    @clayton, at that age I was reading mostly SF with some horror, and adventure.     Some of the SF had weird enough sex, and Alien was terrifying.   That was also the period of VC Andrews and Lawrence Sanders with all the weirdness they entailed.

    I was reading the adult Heinleins in Junior High.  “The Moon Is a Hard Mistress” has line marriages and “I Will Fear No Evil” has an old man’s brain transplanted in to a young woman’s body.  Eye opening.

        https://www.amazon.com/I-Will-Fear-No-Evil/dp/0441359175?tag=ttgnet-20/

  50. lynn says:

    I’m going to start “Night Sky”. I think there are 8 episodes.

    Slow to start and slow to end but awesome.  JK Simmons and Sissy Spacek are very comfortable in their roles.  Recommended on Amazon Prime.

    https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/night_sky

  51. lynn says:

    Another good series I’ve enjoyed is the new “Lincoln Lawyer” on Netflix. Good remake/rebuild of the Michael Connelly books. That one has kept me up too late a few nights. Up to episode 9 on that one, out of 10 episodes on this ‘season’. 

    I binged that also this weekend.  They did “The Brass Verdict” book, the second Lincoln Lawyer.  The ten episodes move at light speed.  Highly recommended on Netflix (the best streaming service by far).  I loved his 1960 ??? convertible Lincoln sedan.

        https://www.amazon.com/Brass-Verdict-Lincoln-Lawyer-Novel/dp/1455567396?tag=ttgnet-20/

    I was investigating the source code for f2c, a fortran to c translation tool, while I was watching it.  I was having to rewind a lot.

    https://www.netlib.org/f2c/

  52. lynn says:

    I’m hoping that the 500 errors are also gone. Will need to be alerted by others if those happen. I haven’t seen any on my page loads.

    I have not see a 500 error since the move.  Good job !

  53. lynn says:

    Pearls Before Swine: Friday is just three days away from Monday

        https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2022/05/23

    I hate reverse logic.

  54. Pecancorner says:

    Those school reading lists remind us that librarians are not our friends. They look so harmless. They seem so nice. They are responsible for all of this.

    Junior High…   I had been reading Andre Norton’s children’s books, but someone handed me a copy of The Martian Chronicles and that lead to the rest of Norton’s books, to Heinlein, Le Guin, etc.    From then on until I discovered theology in my early 20s, Science Fiction and Fantasy were my main fiction reading.   

    In 7th grade, one of my teachers was a fan of Jesse Stuart, so I read his books about life in Appalachia, and Pearl Buck stands out.  Also the usual best sellers of the era – Love Story, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, The Crystal Cave, etc.   

  55. lynn says:

    Questionable Content: It Does A Body Good

        https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4791

    Melon is going there if Faye does not duct tape her quick enough.

  56. lpdbw says:

    I wrote a general purpose character-cell forms package with preset data type editing.  You declared fields to be different data types and user input was taken and, if possible and reasonable, massaged from the input form into the expected form.  Leading zeroes could be added, commas could be ignored, etc.

    When I came to the DATE types, I went whole-hog.  I would accept mmddyy, monddyy, dd-mon-yyyy, leading zeroes weren’t required, excess punctuation was ignored, you could use hypens or slashes or periods or skip them… and my users loved it.  The package always hinted to enter dd-mon-yyyy, but I had a lot of users who were used to flying through prompts with their 10 key pads, and they knew they could just do mmddyy.

    This was in 1984.

  57. MrAtoz says:

    Jeebus. One Heart Beat Away:

    Kamala Harris explains what it means ‘when we talk about the children of the community’

    The new WH mouthpiece is giving The Kamel a run for the money, tho.

  58. lynn says:

     My position is that computers are smart and should be able to make a reasonable guess based on input.

    I’ve always thought (and tried to practice) using the “SAD” method of user input forms. SAD = “Stupid Answer Detection”. If you have an input field, then the code behind validation should always have provisions for weird input – “SAD”.

    I do this all over my software user interface.  We have generic rules for the type of data (temperature has max and min values, one of four dimensional units: F, C, R, K) to custom dialog rules (if you put in A then C must have a value also, if not A then B must be entered, etc).  With almost 150 dialogs, the amount of custom logic that we have is amazing.   And a pain in the buttocks to maintain.

    I wrote my own Win32 WindowObject and DialogObject C++ classes.  I borrowed Anders Hejlsberg’s Smalltalk library and wrote a C++ version of it.  Microsoft should have used it for C++ MFC but Anders Hejlsberg was working for Borland at the time.

  59. Robert "Bob" Sprowl says:

    Summer of 1986. I was the new Director of Computer Services at the San Bernardino Community District.  I had been warned that registration was always a disaster with long lines of students.   And it was.   We had students in three long lines at each step:  admissions, registration and  fee payment.

    There weren’t enough operators and we had a few spare work stations so I had some of the spares added and pulled most of my staff to work at the various tasks.  Kirk, my “hot shot” programmer lost his temper at “This Stupid Job” and left.  I was told about it and the scene he made and told to handle him by a senior college administer.

    I found him in his office coding like mad man.  “So tell me what’s going on,” I said.

    “The screens and the forms and all F**ked Up. They don’t match at all.  I talked to Barry (our very senior programmer /database manager)and we’re fixing them.”

    They took the code for the screens and rearranged it so that each form could be processed in sequence usually on one screen.   While he was working, Barry was tweaking the database, revising some screens and then started testing; and the Programming Supervisor was arranging for operator’s training the hour before “Registration” in the morning.  I left them alone; it was not the time to interrupt them on how this had occurred.  Kirk worked all night, Barry came in early and tested Kirk’s revisions.  

    Training happened the next morning and the operators were generally pleased. 

    I helped relocate some work stations so there was a single long line in the first step.  I got a lot of flack at first but since the complaints went down, that didn’t last long.  

    The Programming Consortium we belonged to had kittens about the unauthorized changes.  That fix is a another story.

  60. Paul Hampson says:

    Because I didn’t already have five years’ worth of reading on my Kindle.

    Yep.  Currently working my way through the Harvard Bookshelf, because.

  61. paul says:

    When I was in HS the Librarian just ran the library as far as I could see.  She, first year, and He, second year, ordered interesting looking books from various catalogs.  They had a budget for new books.  They let me pick a few books, too.  Because while Shop was fun, I didn’t fit in that group of kids.  Lack of speaking Spanish and mostly a lack of all those kids grew up together and I didn’t belong.  So I sort of hung out in the library.  And helped with stuff like re-shelving books.  Just for something to do.  And I got to read all of the new books. 

    There was no woke or multi-cult BS.

    During my Senior year, Mr. Fang (say Fong) had to get an operation.  He was from China.  Which China, I don’t know.  I never knew what his operation was for but guess who ran the library for TWO months?  It was great.  Do the first two periods in English class.  Eng 4 and Eng 5 (for “college bound” but I wasn’t asked) and the the rest of my classes was just do the homework.

    Oh, and the only Xerox machine in the school district was in the HS library.  And me, yeah, right up my little mechanical alley.  

    Fun times.  Spend a month calling Xerox twice a week to come fix the machine.  Then what the heck, it’s so  broke I can’t make it worse, go for it.  Paper mis-feeds out the wazoo and what copies it made were streaky smears.  I had Xerox guts all over the floor when the Xerox tech showed up one morning and about blew a gasket.  Blah blah blah and I told him to go away…. go talk to the boss, Mr. Salinas.  He’s right there, see? ….  Lots of glass walls.  Then I finished.  Slid the drum in, shut the doors and turned it on.  Hit print just as the blustering dude came back.  And it was perfect.

    Of course he had to do it all over.  And I watched him.  Yeah, I missed oiling a spot.  Didn’t have any oil, so, hey, leave some, ok?

    Mr. Fang came back to work a couple of weeks later.  He was a skinny guy to start with, maybe 130 pounds fully dressed and wet and he lost 20 pounds.  Yikes…. talk about looking frail.  I had heard he was coming back so I busted butt for a week and had the library looking brand new.  Dusted and shelves fronted. 

    He asked if I was getting paid.  The library looked great.  No.  No pay but I didn’t have to go to class and that’s good enough.

  62. Pecancorner says:

    Our school libraries have been cesspools for the past ~20 years and the librarians got away with it because we all had such fond memories.    But the book lists Nick posted wouldn’t be there, the “Trans Story Time”, the banning of Laura Ingalls Wilder, wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for librarians. 

    Today’s librarians still look kind and harmless and appear to dote on the kids and make them feel wonderful. That’s what groomers do. Is there a difference, given what is on the shelves?  

    Yes, even the one each of us knows so well who goes to our church.  Go look at what is on their shelves. 

  63. Ray Thompson says:

    When I came to the DATE types, I went whole-hog

    Problem with dates is figuring out which is first, month or day. Is 02032021 February 3, 2021, or March 2, 2021? Early in the century figuring out what is the year became an issue. 20052002 could be February 20, 2005 or could be May 20, 2002. Some dates are obvious when the day in the month gets to 13 or higher but is still not foolproof. Anything below that and it is a guessing game. Some of the last code I worked on was used overseas. I gave up trying to resolve dates in a single field and used separate fields, drop downs actually, for the date. No more ambiguity.

    Numbers were fairly easy, text was easy to justify properly unless the user truly wanted leading, or trailing spaces, dates nope when dealing inside and outside the U.S.

  64. nick flandrey says:

    In elementary, after 2nd grade, I was put in a group of about ten or 12 and we spent the next few years mostly in the library (called a “media center” in those benighted days).   We were in some sort of accelerated program and did all of our work there.   Only had homeroom with our grade levels, and gym.   Finished every english textbook in the district thru high school level.   Finished most of the math too.  We were doing modular arithmetic, different number bases, algebra, etc  in fifth and sixth, so 7th at the Junior High was quite a shock when we were back to learning fractions.  And playing with the colored sticks (cuisenart sticks?  sounded like that, one centimeter square and then all the whole numbers of centimeters long.  Supposed to teach math.   Didn’t.)  Junior High didn’t “believe” in tracking kids by ability.  And they had a woody for the New Math.   I did very poorly.   

    And then I had some head injuries, 3 in a year, and my math skills declined precipitously, along with my memory.   I tell the kids my issues are trauma related, not genetic.  I’m not sure it’s a comfort to them, but it’s meant to be.

    n

  65. lynn says:

    “EU advises countries to plan vaccines for monkeypox outbreak”

        https://metro.co.uk/2022/05/23/eu-advises-countries-to-plan-vaccines-for-monkeypox-outbreak-16693859/

    “The report does not recommend mass vaccination programmes of people not at particular risk, but says that those exposed could be given the jab.”

    Obviously, various vaccines will be going on for the rest of our lives.  We will be so sick from the vaccines that we will die early.

    Hat tip to:

        https://www.drudgereport.com/

    4
    1
  66. nick flandrey says:

    Even the UN can see it coming, with the emphasis on MASS MIGRATION.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/un-food-head-warns-conditions-worse-arab-spring-inflation-riots-spread

    He pointed out that social-economic instabilities are already developing in Sir Lanka, Indonesia, Peru, and Pakistan, adding “that is only a sign of things to come.”

    There are “49 million people in 43 countries … and those are the countries that we need to be extremely concerned about because that will result in famine, destabilization, and mass migration — if we don’t get ahead of this,” Beasley said. 

    -human osmotic pressure

     n

  67. drwilliams says:

    @Nick

    catching up last night:

    Ice was blocking the fan

    Presume you know but some may not: That’s the #1 indication of low freon.

  68. drwilliams says:

    @Lynn

    I have it on good authority that saran wrap is not good barrier from a mother of four.  She was a mother of three before the saran wrap failed.

    Knew a guy at the hospital that was fond of snagging XXL latex gloves whenever he could. Claimed they had other uses. 

  69. nick flandrey says:

    Yep, Daily Mail hates disney…

    And a four-day Park Hopper Plus ticket…..- jumped from a low of $546.65 to a low of $559.53.

    •  JUMPED $13!   oh, right-

    On average, Inside the Magic reports, the ticket prices are about $20 or 2 to 6 percent higher than they were just the year before.

    I wish my gas bill, or my grocery bill was only 2-6% higher than last year.

    I’ll grant that some of the other changes are ‘nickel and dime-ing’ people,  but FFS, WAGES are up 20-25% aren’t they?   Disney loves low cost foreigners but SOME of the staff is American, and even with company dorms, they still have to pay at least what the other places are paying.

    n

  70. nick flandrey says:

    Knew a guy at the hospital that was fond of snagging XXL latex gloves whenever he could. Claimed they had other uses. 

    substitute “K-Y jelly” in that sentence and you’ve got one of MY coworkers, back when I was still in high school.

    n

  71. Greg Norton says:

    I was investigating the source code for f2c, a fortran to c translation tool, while I was watching it.  I was having to rewind a lot.

    f2c is an fugly mess. The lexer looks like humans hand coded it, but the parser is obvious yacc output.

    The yacc source is spread across the gram* files which were used to produce gram.c.

  72. Alan says:

    >> WTF are the BOYS supposed to read if they don’t care about sucking their best friend off?

    Umm, Playboy of course, but just for the articles, really!

  73. Alan says:

    >> The ‘block editor’ process does take a bit of getting used to. Whole new ‘ brain muscle memory’ to learn.  Wasn’t a big fan of it when it came out – partly due to ‘GEOML’ , and partly inertia on my part.  I usually add that “Classic Editor” function to all the sites I build. 

    “GEOML?”

    1
    1
  74. Alan says:

    @Rick H, I’m seeing a (new?) ‘progress spinner’ upon clicking Save after editing an existing comment. Any easy way to add the same when the Submit Your Comment button is clicked? Would help indicate that the ~15 second ‘add comment’ process was underway, especially on my phone where sometimes I don’t know if the button click was recognized. Thanks.

  75. nick flandrey says:

    Yah, nothing says “punk” like a prada tank top and perfect teeth…

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-10846721/Iris-Law-puts-racy-display-sheer-dress-Pistol-UK-premiere.html 

    Gut it and dance around in its skin.

    n

  76. SteveF says:

    Currently working my way through the Harvard Bookshelf, because.

    Likewise. Currently on vol 5 (Ralph Waldo Emerson) and vol 7 (St Augustine), reading whichever I feel like reading at the moment. Read barely any of vol 6 (Burns poetry) because it was horrid. Worse than Milton’s poetry (vol 4), which I did manage to muscle through.

    I just finished a book on, er, the intersection of sociology, psychology, brain physiology, and history, not sure how else to describe it, and have started a history book (the role of ‘national honor’ in kicking off WWI). I should put a brain-candy novel in the “whichever I feel like reading” rota for whenever my brain needs a rest but the last two or three that I started didn’t catch my interest. (But given a choice between one of the meh novels and Burns poetry, I’d take the novel. Bleh on Burns poetry!)

    —-

    re tracking, advanced classes, or getting out of class to do something useful,  nope, none of that where I was. Everyone in an age range went into the same grade. Everyone was together in elementary school, from the retards (two in my class of 30) to the math prodigy with a college reading level in third grade. I recall only two kids who’d been “held back”, and they were boys with behavior problems; I don’t recall anyone flunking for bad grades, though it was regularly threatened. NYS had either no or extremely restricted home schooling at the time and there were no private schools in our town; a well-nigh perfect situation for the little commie social manipulators running the schools. So far as I recall, high school had one AP course, AP calculus, which nominally got you credit for one semester of college calculus but in practice didn’t count for anything and the students had to take Calc 101 in college anyway. There was a reason I dropped out of high school and started college a few months after my 17th birthday.

  77. nick flandrey says:

    Tried to get into school, hit three kids with his car after being escorted off, wanted to blow something up.  WTF?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10847145/Driver-California-arrested-striking-three-children-carrying-incendiary-device.html 

    California man driving car with ‘incendiary device’ inside strikes three children outside elementary school after being kicked off school grounds just moments before

    • An unidentified driver entered Taft Elementary School without permission in Santa Ana Monday morning
    • He was escorted off campus by security while the school was on lockdown
    • He left and drove off in his car before hitting the three students walking on a sidewalk near the school
    • Three ‘incendiary devices’ were found in the suspect’s vehicle by police
  78. SteveF says:

    f2c is an fugly mess. The lexer looks like humans hand coded it

    Ad hoc is the recommended way to lex FORTRAN code, last I knew.

    Gut it and dance around in its skin.

    That’s fine from a moral point of view but there are some practical problems. I’m a good twice her size. I don’t see any way to turn her into a skin suit. There’s a reason that Buffalo Bill went for the plus-size chicks, you know.

    “GEOML?”

    “Get off my lawn”. Not sure about the E. Probably a typo, but maybe “Get Effin Off My Lawn” or “Get Everyone Off My Lawn” or some such.

  79. Alan says:

    >> I’ve been watching a couple of nice series – “Bosch Legacy” on FreeVee (used to be IMDB). Good series. There are prior seasons, which are also good, but been watching the latest. FreeVee has ads, but they are very unobtrusive – maybe 90 seconds total each break, and just a few breaks in the entire show. Not like the other commercial channels, where you get a 5 minute commercial break every 8 minutes.

    Another good series I’ve enjoyed is the new “Lincoln Lawyer” on Netflix. Good remake/rebuild of the Michael Connelly books. That one has kept me up too late a few nights. Up to episode 9 on that one, out of 10 episodes on this ‘season’. 

      Also watching “Night Sky” on Amazon Prime; a bit quirky, but JK Simmons is a favorite actor, and his parts with Sissy Spacek are nice to watch. A good mysterious show. New episodes every Friday night; not sure of the total number.

    Bosch Legacy is near the top of our ‘to watch’ list. If you haven’t watched any of Bosch I’d recommend starting from the beginning so you know the backstory when you get to Legacy.

    Planning to start Lincoln Lawyer tonight. Goliath (on Prime, starring Billy Bob Thornton) is also good if you like lawyer series.

    Night Sky is also on the list.
    If you like JK Simmons check out Counterpart (on Prime) and if you really like him consider Oz.
    And Outer Range (on Prime) was a good SF western.

    One more – Toyko Vice (on HBOMax).

  80. Greg Norton says:

    I’ll grant that some of the other changes are ‘nickel and dime-ing’ people,  but FFS, WAGES are up 20-25% aren’t they?   Disney loves low cost foreigners but SOME of the staff is American, and even with company dorms, they still have to pay at least what the other places are paying.

    The vast majority of the labor is local. Florida passed minimum wage in 2020. Between now and 2026, it will increase from $10 to $15, $1 every September.

    Wall Street wants Chapek fired and a deal cut with DeSantis.

    Tom Cruise will finnish off “Doctor Strange” this weekend. Disney has to hope “Bob’s Burgers” has some box office.

  81. Greg Norton says:

    Ad hoc is the recommended way to lex FORTRAN code, last I knew.

    Yeah, but there’s always one smart alec in every compilers class who thinks they can hand code better than lex/flex. Mine was no exception.

    The yacc code is meant for the Plan 9 implementation. You can’t trust those Labs people for a second.

  82. nick flandrey says:

    Isn’t Bob’s Burgers gross with really ugly artwork?

    n

  83. nick flandrey says:

    Desktop CNC mill, at a pro level.   $5k

    https://store.bantamtools.com/collections/machines 

    n

  84. Rick H says:

    @lynn (I think it was you that is waiting for a Starlink?) An option for you?

    Saw this story: https://www.pcmag.com/news/want-starlink-immediately-meet-starlink-rv-which-has-no-waitlist 

    As the name suggests, Starlink RV is designed for users who like to take road trips or go camping. But most importantly, if you subscribe, the company will immediately ship out a Starlink dish to your address. 

    “At this time, there is no waitlist — all orders will be shipped shortly after the order is placed,” SpaceX’s support page says(Opens in a new window). “However, supply is subject to network and equipment availability.”

    There is an active ‘pocket’ available in East Bernard/Kendleton area – maybe you know someone there that can order the package for you.

  85. Greg Norton says:

    Ad hoc is the recommended way to lex FORTRAN code, last I knew.

    “.and.” 

    Bah. Fortran.

  86. Rick H says:

    @Rick H, I’m seeing a (new?) ‘progress spinner’ upon clicking Save after editing an existing comment. Any easy way to add the same when the Submit Your Comment button is clicked?

    Isn’t the ‘bouncing left-right ball’ in the browser ‘tab’ area good enough for you? (Or similar on your device?)

    Since that the submit button action is client-side, then there would have to be some client-side javascript that would ‘fire’ when you hit the submit button.  But the ‘bouncing ball’ works well for me. 

    Or, reach for your beverage container, take a sip, put it back down, and the page should be there about the time you put the beverage container down.

  87. Greg Norton says:

    Isn’t Bob’s Burgers gross with really ugly artwork?

    You’re forgetting the mother’s voice actor.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D4c38Q7sYc

    And Disney was ashamed of “Midnight Madness” once upon a time.

  88. nick flandrey says:

    automate the collection and analysis of data in challenging GPS-denied environments, delivering revolutionary efficiency, safety and operational insights to underground mining and other industries. Our core areas of expertise are drone autonomy, SLAM-based LiDAR mapping and data analytics.

    https://www.emesent.io/   

    hovermap ST

    Tough yet lightweight, the Hovermap ST is the latest version of the unique LiDAR mapping and autonomy payload that combines advanced collision avoidance and autonomous flight technologies to allow drones to fly autonomously in challenging GPS-denied environments.

    Pretty freaking cool, and a bit scary.

    n

  89. ITGuy1998 says:

    Isn’t the ‘bouncing left-right ball’ in the browser ‘tab’ area good enough for you? (Or similar on your device?)

    Since that the submit button action is client-side, then there would have to be some client-side javascript that would ‘fire’ when you hit the submit button.  But the ‘bouncing ball’ works well for me. 

    Or, reach for your beverage container, take a sip, put it back down, and the page should be there about the time you put the beverage container down.
     

    It just sounded like a suggestion to me. Is the snark really necessary?

  90. lynn says:

    If you like JK Simmons check out Counterpart (on Prime) and if you really like him consider Oz.
    And Outer Range (on Prime) was a good SF western.

    JK Simmons’s finest hour was in The Accountant with Ben Affleck playing the severe autistic guy.  I love that movie, I could totally understand it.  Why should a person need to speak to other people every day ?

         https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_accountant_2016

    Outer Range on Prime was good but was bordering on the edge of too weird for me.  Counterpart had a good first season and then got too serious for me in the second season. 

  91. lynn says:

    @lynn (I think it was you that is waiting for a Starlink?) An option for you?

    Saw this story: https://www.pcmag.com/news/want-starlink-immediately-meet-starlink-rv-which-has-no-waitlist 

    As the name suggests, Starlink RV is designed for users who like to take road trips or go camping. But most importantly, if you subscribe, the company will immediately ship out a Starlink dish to your address. 

    “At this time, there is no waitlist — all orders will be shipped shortly after the order is placed,” SpaceX’s support page says(Opens in a new window). “However, supply is subject to network and equipment availability.”

    There is an active ‘pocket’ available in East Bernard/Kendleton area – maybe you know someone there that can order the package for you.

    Yeah, they sent me an email today that they need more satellites up in the sky before they can adequately serve our area in central Fort Bend County.    Here is the saturation map:

        https://www.starlink.com/map?source=rv

    East Bernard / Kendleton is 20+ miles away from the office.

  92. lynn says:

    I think that I could get Starlink Business for my business.  It has a double sized dish and more bandwidth.  But the up front cost is $2,500 and the monthly cost is $500.  A little rich for my blood right now.

        https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/23/spacex-raises-prices-for-launches-and-starlink-due-to-inflation.html

  93. Alan says:

    >> Isn’t the ‘bouncing left-right ball’ in the browser ‘tab’ area good enough for you? (Or similar on your device?)

    See, that’s the downside of having a very high-end PC, Chrome doesn’t object to, let’s count, 46 open tabs, so not much visible there.

    But…more of a cold frosty beverage sounds like a good approach  🙂

  94. lynn says:

    Ad hoc is the recommended way to lex FORTRAN code, last I knew.

    “.and.” 

    Bah. Fortran.

    I’ve got 850,000 lines of Fortran in my software.  And 450,000 lines of C++ code.  Each one has its strengths and weaknesses.  Mixing the two in an EXE or DLL is its own special little hell.

    The biggest problem is that Fortran starts its array indexes with a one.  C++ starts with a zero.  Causes problems between the programmers ears like you would not believe.

    I converted my steam table code from Fortran to Pascal in 1985 and then to C in 1987.  Was a big learning experience.

        https://www.winsim.com/steam/steam.html

  95. lynn says:

    Man, $82.00 for 19.5 gallons of regular unleaded.  Wow.  

  96. Alan says:

    >> JK Simmons’s finest hour was in The Accountant with Ben Affleck playing the severe autistic guy.  I love that movie, I could totally understand it.  

      Counterpart had a good first season and then got too serious for me in the second season. 

    Yes, loved him in The Accountant. Anna Kendrick wasn’t too hard on the eyes either.

    It got confusing at times in season two of Counterpart keeping track of which Howard was in some of the scenes.

  97. Rick H says:

    Is the snark really necessary?

    Wasn’t intended. I just can’t see the reason behind adding a feature when that ‘feature’ is essentially already there.  Which is what I intended with my response.

    But, I’ll apologize for the perceived snark. Not that there are other instances of snark around here.

    Whoops. Did it again ….

  98. drwilliams says:

    Reading lists for every level of public education are a steaming pile of crap*.

    But how could it be otherwise?

    The Democrats and the teachers unions have been in control of the classroom for generations. Teaching is no longer the goal–the goal is indoctrination. Indoctrination best takes place in the absence of history, so history is not taught. 

    I could go on, but preaching to the choir for the most part. Anyone care to mount a defense?

    When I was in college I chanced upon the pre-WWI entrance examination. It showed that the expectations of a college-bound high school graduate were far higher than they were then, and that trend has continued. Pournelle identified the problem long ago as credentialism. Now we have it in reductio ad absurdum  as any discrimination based on ability is simply proof of racism, sexism, LBGTQWERTYism or some other imaginary ism, so the go along get along is anything with a warm body that toes the SJW line is degreed with thousands of dollars of debt and the taxpayers held hostage.

    *A national movement of parents attending school board meetings and using their allotted time to read selected passages from the reading lists would be interesting. No arguments, just reading for the benefit of the local cable access channel. Get arrested. Demand jury trial of peers. See how the judges like that crap being read into the record. 

  99. drwilliams says:

    Not that there are other instances of snark around here.

    We resemble that.

  100. drwilliams says:

    @Lynn

    Man, $82.00 for 19.5 gallons of regular unleaded.  Wow.  

    If everyone planned their trips more efficiently and backed the speed 5mph closer to the posted limit, we wouldn’t be anticipating $8 a gallon gas.

    Yeah.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JQS6H2AXdM

  101. Greg Norton says:

    The biggest problem is that Fortran starts its array indexes with a one.  C++ starts with a zero.  Causes problems between the programmers ears like you would not believe.

    “CLRS”, the standard Algorithms text, has a pseudocode which features array indexes that start at 1. Implementing the examples in the book in Python is fairly straightforward, but C gets dicey. I wondered if it was deliberate to train undergraduates how to think in those situations.

    I’ve always had a mental block on order of precedence. When the instructors at GTE new recruit training decided that they wanted me washed out of the program as an example to the others, they kept hammering the subject on the milestone exams. That was the last time it mattered in my career.

  102. Greg Norton says:

    If everyone planned their trips more efficiently and backed the speed 5mph closer to the posted limit, we wouldn’t be anticipating $8 a gallon gas.

    A truck is a truck. A Corolla is a Corolla.

    5 MPH won’t make a bit of MPG difference above 55 MPH with a modern overdrive transmission and an empty bed on a new truck. They’re designed to be efficient at 70.

    Reinstating the 55 MPH limit would be about shooting the manufacturers’ CAFE planning in the head. 

    They might as well give us back the more reliable six speed transmissions.

  103. drwilliams says:

    Affirmative action is next in the crosshairs, and the most compelling argument is that the court does not have to go to the constitution to find guidance.

    Mitchell’s argument is simple. Rather than argue over the constitutionality of affirmative action, which is somewhat difficult to pin down, the court could simply demand that all recipients of public money comply with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which is clear cut. Here’s what Title VI says:

    No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

    https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2022/05/23/after-roe-supreme-court-may-do-away-with-affirmative-action-heres-how-it-could-happen-n471389

    More discussion, of course, but that’s the argument. Same argument I’ve been making for years, and I’m pretty sure it was put forth in something I read.

  104. drwilliams says:

    @Greg

    5 MPH won’t make a bit of MPG difference above 55 MPH with a modern overdrive transmission and an empty bed on a new truck. They’re designed to be efficient at 70.

    I’ve seen a lot of counterintuitive test results. Tailgate up vs tailgate down vs mesh tailgate. Topper on vs. topper off:

    https://tfltruck.com/2021/08/ford-f-150-topper-mpg-test/

    but I can’t say as I’ve ever seen a claim that 80 is more efficient than 75, or that 75 is more efficient than 70, which are numeric examples of 

    “backed the speed 5mph closer to the posted limit”

    Is there some variation of a Zeno’s Paradox out there that claims infinite gas mileage at the speed of light? 

    Or does Tesla’s new Judas truck have a windmill that dissociates water to produce fuel, so the faster you go the more fuel you make?

  105. Nick Flandrey says:

    Well something weird happened at my end of the interwebs.   Not only did I have to log in here and accept the cookies, I’ve had to do it everywhere.  Ebay, amazon, google, youtube, all treated me as a new device today.

    I wonder if ATT fiber changed IPs or something.

    n

    and I’m off to bed.  Early tonight.

  106. lynn says:

    “CLRS”, the standard Algorithms text, has a pseudocode which features array indexes that start at 1. Implementing the examples in the book in Python is fairly straightforward, but C gets dicey. I wondered if it was deliberate to train undergraduates how to think in those situations.

    One of these days, I am going to read a programming manual past the second chapter.  I’ve got about 80 or 90 programming books, I use them as reference manuals when I have a question about a language or a procedure.  So, I have no formal training in programming, just doing since the age of 15.  I am not including the class at TAMU on IBM 370 Assembly Language that I surprisingly made a B in.

  107. Nightraker says:

    Can’t drive 55!

    https://youtu.be/RvV3nn_de2k

    🙂

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