Sun. Jul. 10, 2022 – well, it certainly was hot

By on July 10th, 2022 in decline and fall, lakehouse, personal

And will probably be hot again today.   101F in the shade meant “no outdoor work for me”.   If it takes a while to get there today, I can maybe get the grass cut before the universe tries to boil my brains in my skull….

Did my pickups yesterday.   Learned that a new auction company is not trustworthy.  It only cost me about $20 and an hour of my life, so it was a cheap lesson.   The items were not broken in the pictures, nor were they described as broken.  Never the less, they were broken.  Liars. They seemed ashamed but still insisted I take the item.  I’ll fix it by using parts from another, but it’s a project, a small project, and I don’t need any more projects.

On the other hand, one of the guys at my hobby meeting gave me the name of another foundation repair guy who might be able to help me at the BOL.   I’ll call him on Monday and try to get something set up.  I also watched a bunch of videos last night, and now I want to be sure an engineer is involved in the hill retaining design.   Past experiences and guidance from solution providers can probably provide a workable solution, but having an engineer look at it can’t hurt.   We are looking for a 50 year or more solution to the problem.  And I’ve got a better idea of the failure modes of retaining walls than I had.

Two steps forward, one and a half steps back.

It’s always something.

So, now I’m stacking up knowledge.  As my own infrastructure provider, I guess I better.

Stack something, lots of it.

nick

71 Comments and discussion on "Sun. Jul. 10, 2022 – well, it certainly was hot"

  1. SteveF says:

    #2 is straight up eugenics.  Very popular with socialists, one worlders, and modern ‘elites’.

    Eugenics got a bad rep because of the self-described elites, but it’s not entirely a bad thing. All else being equal, would you choose to have children with a healthy, intelligent woman or with a simpleton who needs life-long medication to deal with a congenital hormone defect?

    I wrote about this a few months ago. Long essay but the part in favor of soft eugenics is at the end; the first 3400 words is support for this.

    https://www.dailypundit.com/dailypundit.wordpress/2022/03/06/idiocracy-on-the-horizon/

    https://coldfury.com/2022/03/06/idiocracy-on-the-horizon/

  2. Clayton W. says:

    The problem with eugenics is that slippery slope.  It HAS to be voluntary.

    Offering free birth control and sterilization would not be a bad thing.  Probably.  Maybe.  See ‘Idiocracy’ for a counter example.

  3. MrAtoz says:

    All else being equal, would you choose to have children with a healthy, intelligent woman or with a simpleton who needs life-long medication to deal with a congenital hormone defect?

    What does she look like? Asking for Mr. Ray.

  4. Greg Norton says:

    We worked on the garage instead. Sigh. Being responsible isn’t all that fun some days. We made a lot of progress and got a lot accomplished. Lived vicariously through our friends excited texts. 

    @Jenny – I had to pass on an opportunity to meet and get Dan Aykroyd’s signature on the box for my bottle of his Crystal Skull vodka when we lived outside Portland.

    Grad school responsibilities. In retrospect, I should have gone for the signature.

    I do not even drink. My bottle sits in a very safe place in my living room, right next to my R2D2 cookie jar, the first “Star Wars” licensed product. 

  5. Ray Thompson says:

    What does she look like? Asking for Mr. Ray.

    Oh, you people can be cruel, funny, but cruel. Around these parts I would settle for having at least half their teeth.

  6. SteveF says:

    I wrote a short story about a couple of normal kids being exposed to a bunch of inbreds from hill country. I didn’t specify which hills they were from, which left it open for readers to share their stories. Oh, the tales they told! One guy was an Army medic (?) assigned to work with people in a clinic in western North Carolina or Virginia. One guy told about his great uncle from the Tennessee flatlands who married a woman from the hills of east Tennessee and unfortunately married into her family. One person moved to Los Angeles to get as far as physically and culturally possible from his community of inbreds in Arkansas. And so on.

  7. dkreck says:

    One person moved to Los Angeles to get as far as physically and culturally possible from his community of inbreds in Arkansas. 

    Wonder how that worked out. It’s only a hundred miles from LA to Bakersfield 😀 

  8. Greg Norton says:

    From the “Unix/Linux Is A Guru Full Employment Act” files:

    This morning, my home server’s Samba/CUPS interface suddenly decided to start working and spit out a pair of documents I sent to the queue six months ago, after upgrading Fedora to yet another release where they changed the Samba defaults.

    I don’t know if it is the recent Fedora upgrade or Windows 10 patch which fixed the problem while we were gone, but the remote printer works again.

    I was contemplating nuking Fedora from orbit and starting over. Now I’m not going to touch that configuration.

    Until the next time the printer breaks.

    Now that I think about it, the network was turned off while we were away. If Windows patched itself, that must have happened either last Saturday morning or overnight.

    I’ve had weird things happen, both online and meatspace, over the past few months so we kept the details of our 4th trip quiet until after the fact. I’m sure my neighbor was disappointed that he didn’t get to catch someone breaking into our house. He seemed excited at the prospect of using some of his sporting goods on a varmint after the incident in our driveway over Spring Break.

  9. Lynn says:

    All else being equal, would you choose to have children with a healthy, intelligent woman or with a simpleton who needs life-long medication to deal with a congenital hormone defect?

    I have only been on medication for my congenital heart defect since I was 49.  We can argue about the simpleton.

  10. drwilliams says:

    The advice used to be to look at the mother to see how the daughter will turn out. Not definitive, but useful and probably centuries old.

    Can’t recall hearing the same advice for father/son, though. 

  11. Lynn says:

    Oh, you people can be cruel, funny, but cruel. Around these parts I would settle for having at least half their teeth.

    I asked my neighbor last Monday if he wanted to talk about putting in the shared driveway extension again to give us both U driveways.  He replied, while looking at his wife, somebody got seven new teeth and he is broke again. 

    His wife got up in the middle of the night, 7 months pregnant two years ago.  She had cramps and fell in their bathroom, hitting the toilet on the way down.  She broke her jaw in three places, losing the seven teeth.  Turned out the baby had died and she was losing the baby.  

    But she got pregnant again and they now have 15 year old and 5 month old boys.  And she now has 7 new teeth.  

    BTW, his two Etherium Crypto machines are still running.

  12. drwilliams says:

    4chan hacks iCloud account of smartest man the president knows:

    https://twitchy.com/samj-3930/2022/07/10/ruh-roh-4chan-community-claims-to-have-hacked-hunter-bidens-icloud-account-and-if-some-of-this-stuff-is-legit-yikes/

    That huge sucking sound you hear is Maxwell’s Demon gathering up all the spineless msm slugs and moving them to the other end of the room for the Laptop II Free soy and koombayah singalong.

  13. Clayton W. says:

    I have only been on medication for my congenital heart defect since I was 49.  We can argue about the simpleton.

    Sorry. Lynn, but you don’t qualify for plumbing reasons.  #SuperStraight

  14. Greg Norton says:

    BTW, his two Etherium Crypto machines are still running.

    The market is suddenly trending down for graphics cards with less than 6 GB RAM. I’m not sure if the hashing for crypto is getting tighter, requiring more GPU power, or fewer cab drivers are buying rigs.

    $300 is still pricey for a name manufacturer 4 GB GTX 1650. Those should be $70 discount bin items by now.

  15. Alan says:

    Today’s serving of Kamala’s secret family recipe Word Salad… 

    “I think that, to be very honest with you, I do believe that we should have rightly believed, but we certainly believed that certain issues are just settled,” Harris said. “Certain issues are just settled.”

    Yahoo News: VP Kamala Harris says Democrats didn’t codify Roe v. Wade because they ‘believed certain issues are just settled’.
    https://news.yahoo.com/vp-kamala-harris-says-democrats-153833858.html

  16. Denis says:

    The advice used to be to look at the mother to see how the daughter will turn out. Not definitive, but useful and probably centuries old.

    In Ireland, this comes out as “don’t buy the calf before you’ve seen the cow”!

  17. Greg Norton says:

    4chan hacks iCloud account of smartest man the president knows:

    It doesn’t matter. If the House changes hands, don’t count on Impeachment.

    The Senate will go after Fauci if the majority shifts, but that’s about it.

    And Fauci will retire before going in front of Rand Paul on a weekly basis.

  18. drwilliams says:

    “Climate Change is not a financial risk”: HSBC Responsible Banking Head Resigns

    Essay by Eric Worrall

    “Climate change is not a financial risk” — HSBC’s head of responsible investment Stuart Kirk resigns

    “Investing is hard. So is saving our planet. Opinions on both differ. But humanity’s best chance of success is open and honest debate. If companies believe in diversity and speaking up, they need to walk the talk. A cancel culture destroys wealth and progress,” he wrote.

    There is no place for virtue signalling in finance. Likewise as a writer, researcher and investor, I know that words or trading shares can only achieve so much. True impact comes from the combination of real-world action and innovative solutions.”

    Read more: https://www.itnews.com.au/digitalnation/news/climate-change-is-not-a-financial-risk-hsbcs-head-of-responsible-investment-stuart-kirk-resigns-582404

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/07/09/climate-change-is-not-a-financial-risk-climate-skeptic-hsbc-responsible-banking-head-resigns/

     cancel culture destroys wealth and progress

    That is the goal. The 21st century equivalent of Lenin’s rope, streamlined so we hang ourselves.

  19. Greg Norton says:

    Yahoo News: VP Kamala Harris says Democrats didn’t codify Roe v. Wade because they ‘believed certain issues are just settled’.

    Until Ted Kennedy assumed room temperature, the Dems had six months in 2009 during which they could have done anything they wanted with control of the House, a super majority in the Senate and full public support of The Chosen One. Obviously, the Old School Marm running the Supreme Court was not going to stand in the way of any “foolish” political choices.

    Roe was known to be in trouble going back to before the ink dried on the published decision.

  20. drwilliams says:

    “Monday, this is a $25 stock”

    Already, Twitter shares were down more than 5% in after-hours trading on Friday to $34.70.

    https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/elon-musk-twitter-deal-lawsuit-what-happens-next-rcna37413

    Stock price crash Monday, SEC suspends trading.

    Twitter board makes threats of litigation, continues lying about bot %.

    Musk gets fed up at some point and says: 

    “Our analysis shows actual percentage is x% or close to it. I’m filing lawsuits against every member of the Twitter board personally, seeking compensation for the loss in value of my $2.64 billion investment, and demanding an immediate investigation to determine every person involved in this fraud.

    “I’ll note again that the entire Twitter board does not have a significant amount of investment in the company that they are purporting to manage. ”

  21. Nick Flandrey says:

    From your mouth to God’s ear….

    n

  22. Nick Flandrey says:

    Slept thru any chance to do yard work in the morning.   It’s 103F in the sun and that’s up 5F in the last 20 minutes.

    In other news, just got email from Joe, who was maintaining Karenware, and Karen’s Power Tools, written by Karen Kenworthy of windows magazine..   He’s shutting it all down.    It’s been a long time, and he can’t do it anymore.  There are still a couple useful utilities there even 20 years later.

    https://www.karenware.com/karens-power-tools-utilities-for-windows 

    Nothing lasts forever.

    n

  23. Nick Flandrey says:

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/07/authorities-respond-massive-fire-explosion-oklahoma-natural-gas-plant-forcing-major-evacuations/

    Authorities Respond to Massive Fire After Explosion at Oklahoma Natural Gas Plant, Forcing Major Evacuations

    Yesterday afternoon

  24. Nick Flandrey says:

    Maybe the Germans won’t be sitting in the dark  shivering this winter.   Or warming themselves over burning barrels of federal regulations…

    In Pipeline Poker, Canada Folds: Will Release Sanctioned Russian Gas Turbine

    Move comes as Germans wring hands over pending Nord Stream 1 shutdown

    on the other hand.

    French, German Leaders Warn Populations “Prepare For Total Cut-Off Of Russian Gas” As Social Unrest Looms

    by Tyler Durden

    Sunday, Jul 10, 2022 – 11:00 AM

    European populations are bracing for a frigid upcoming winter amid an impending avalanche of high energy costs and emerging inflation. On Sunday French Economy and Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire warned that Russia is poised to totally halt gas supplies to Europe and that people must now “prepare”.

    “Let’s prepare for a total cut-off of Russian gas; Today that is the most likely option,” Le Maire told an audience at an economic conference in Aix-en-Provence.

    He later additionally explained to reporters, “You also have to prepare load-shedding plans, we are doing it. It means looking in a very specific way at each company, each employment area; Which are the companies that should reduce their energy consumption and which are the ones that cannot.”

  25. Greg Norton says:

    Stock price crash Monday, SEC suspends trading.

    Nah. The big players are going to support TWTR out of fear that the whole online ad industry will vaporize. At 160 PE, $30 plus already has no basis in reality.

    Vanguard upped their stake in the company from 10 to 12% as soon as Musk announced his offer, and I’ll bet their big S&P index fund is heavily weighted with FANG.

  26. Pecancorner says:

    The weather report and forecast. Since about May this year! 🙂

  27. drwilliams says:

    @Greg Norton

    Stock price crash Monday, SEC suspends trading.

    “Nah. The big players are going to support TWTR out of fear that the whole online ad industry will vaporize. At 160 PE, $30 plus already has no basis in reality.

    Vanguard upped their stake in the company from 10 to 12% as soon as Musk announced his offer, and I’ll bet their big S&P index fund is heavily weighted with FANG.”

    We’ll see. At some point the stock trades become transparently akin to an economy based on mutual car washing.

    Vanguard’s investment may be trivial in comparison to their entire holdings, in which case the story will do far more damage than the actual losses. Might even get a footnote in a Stuart Kirk speech.

  28. Nick Flandrey says:

    wow, 111F in the sun here in Houston.   That is HOT.

    n

  29. MrAtoz says:

    103℉ at the SA airport. I received several emails from CPS about WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE from the heat today. My Dark Sky app says the same through Tuesday.

  30. EdH says:

    Vanguard upped their stake in the company from 10 to 12% as soon as Musk announced his offer, and I’ll bet their big S&P index fund is heavily weighted with FANG.
     

    Vanguard hasn’t been the same since Bogle left.

  31. EdH says:

    … I received several emails from CPS about WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE from the heat today. My Dark Sky app says the same through Tuesday.

    100F exactly, here in the California High Desert at 1 pm. Weather Underground says 100+ for the next 9 days, after which it will cool down…to 99F.

    ”But it’s a dry heat, Sarge”.

  32. Rick H says:

    Here in the Olympic Peninsula (“somewhere opposite Mutiny Bay WA”), current temp at 1:25pm PDT is 70.2F, 68% humidity, winds from the south at 1-4mph under mostly clear blue skies. 

    Forecast this week is 55-75F, light winds, mostly clear, slight chance of light rain towards the end of the week.

    Slight site tweaking continues; nothing most will notice.

  33. EdH says:

    …current temp at 1:25pm PDT is 70.2F, 68% humidity, winds from the south at 1-4mph under mostly clear blue skies. 
     

    That’s just being cruel…

    That said, I went to the Port Townsend wooden boat festival, years ago, lovely area. 

  34. CowboyStu says:

    @EdH:

    Not sure about your exact location, but recently read an article about bad odors in Hinkley due do composting waste there.  Many years ago I made several trips to Opal Mtn by getting off old 66 and going north on Hinkley Road and through Hinkley.

  35. Greg Norton says:

    In other news, just got email from Joe, who was maintaining Karenware, and Karen’s Power Tools, written by Karen Kenworthy of windows magazine..   He’s shutting it all down.    It’s been a long time, and he can’t do it anymore.  There are still a couple useful utilities there even 20 years later.

    VB6 runtime will be supported through EOL of Windows 10, but a big challenge for anyone picking up the maintenance will be a build environment.

    That generation of Visual Studio doesn’t run on Windows 10, and most new hardware won’t boot anything older than that. Plus you really want the Pro compiler.

  36. Nick Flandrey says:

    Before I upgrade my cams by buying a dedicated NVR, I’m doing the upgrades/updates to my linux mint install and to the NVR software.    I’m at 3.6 installed NVR and they are at 4.0

    There are a whole lotta bug fixes and a bunch of new features.  Some of the fixes are things that have bugged me, and I’m hoping that the issue of restarting every 24 hrs should be fixed as well.

    I looked and the NVR I want is out of stock, so I’m hoping this upgrade works well.   Also, just as a note, some really capable cams from speco are significantly reduced in price.   Stuff that used to only be available in $1000 cams is now in $250 cams.

    I hate messing with running systems, even if they have issues(that I”m working around).   I hope the updates to linux  FFMPG and dotnet don’t mess me up.

    n

  37. Alan says:

    >> Slight site tweaking continues; nothing most will notice.

    Time for the Easter Egg hunt… 

  38. drwilliams says:

    A Proposed National Agreement on Abortion

    COMMENTARY

    By Steve McIntosh – RCP Contributor

    If liberal values mean anything, they include the basic right to bodily autonomy, which is central to each citizen’s political sovereignty.

    https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2022/07/10/a_proposed_national_agreement_on_abortion_147869.html

    So, in the first sentence we have an implicit admission that liberal values don’t mean anything.

    Which we already had ample proof of.

    But I’d be interested in seeing how Steve-O can square that claim with the liberal enthusiasm for vaccines, which included wholesale violations of bodily autonomy, free speech, and ample video from multiple countries of unarmed grannies being beaten to the pavement.

    phooey!

    And then the guy goes on to show that he’s just another cheap liar torturing electrons. Hang it up, poseur, and take a page out of Jeff Tobin’s book.

  39. Greg Norton says:

    That generation of Visual Studio doesn’t run on Windows 10, and most new hardware won’t boot anything older than that. Plus you really want the Pro compiler

    And I almost forgot about the Visual Studio 6 Pro service packs which, AFAIK were only on MSDN CDs.

  40. MrAtoz says:

    Before I upgrade my cams by buying a dedicated NVR, I’m doing the upgrades/updates to my linux mint install and to the NVR software.    I’m at 3.6 installed NVR and they are at 4.0

    Would you mind sharing make and model, Mr. Nick?

  41. drwilliams says:

    Road Test: Towing with F-150 Lightning (‘lectric) vs. GMC Denali (gas)

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/07/10/e-vehicles-are-like-covid-vaccines-sold-to-public-based-on-wildly-unrealistic-exaggerations/

    Spoiler: ‘lectric capacity sux

    Note: Computer entry of trailer dimensions for the ‘lectric looked over-estimated, but it’s not clear whether the actual trailer weight was entered.

    ADDED:
    Note 2: The Denali was getting 8.9 mpg at 52mph. That sux, too. A friend got 7.9mpg at 60mph in a recent move with a 15″ U-Haul cube van (gas, Ford E350 platform) with an auto trailer in tow.
    Note 3: The Ford was down to 9% when it was recharged after 86 miles. It took 45 minutes to get to 75% charge at a Walmart Supercharger. The true mph for the Ford would suck dead bunnies through a small straw.

  42. Greg Norton says:

    Sam’s Club run today. Two stores since one doesn’t carry Spaghetti Os.

    Coke product 2 Liters mostly unavailable at the Spaghetti Os store, and the other was limited to Coke Classic and Sprite.

    Chicken prices holding at 99 cents/lb for thighs and drumsticks, $2.99/lb for wings.

    While in South Texas this week, we ended up paying $18 for 12 wings at one restaurant. The order of 12 was not listed on the menu and was an upsell after the waiter saw my teenage son.

  43. Greg Norton says:

    Road Test: Towing with F-150 Lightning (‘lectric) vs. GMC Denali (gas)

    Spoiler: ‘lectric capacity sux

    The F150 Lightning commercials I saw this Spring fetishized the feature of being the only house in the neighborhood with power during a city wide blackout. I don’t recall anything about towing capacity.

    EV vehicles not practical? Show Ya.

    It doesn’t matter if the power feed only lasts 10 minutes.

  44. drwilliams says:

    Sunday at Ace of Spades HQ is always fun. About 80% of the time I read the Saturday Night Jooke that I missed by watching old tv shows the night before. Then the regular Book Thread and Food Thread.

    In the latter today was this comment:

    One of the oddest and most disturbing things about the current crop of 20-somethings I know is that they are almost completely detached from the realities of their world. They have no idea where their food comes from; they have no idea where the technology that runs their world comes from; they have even less of an idea how to maintain it; and their answer to most problems is: call somebody to take care of it.

    Which squares with my observation that there are far too many good tools showing up in estate auctions, and they are bringing very reasonable prices. It’s not uncommon to see good chest/roller cabinets up for sale either with tools, or with the tools sold separately, sometimes by the drawer. I put an inspection on my calendar for next week. Not interested in the Matco storage, but there’s a ton of sockets and wrenches that look like high-quality ‘Murican-made. Ya never know when I might be called on to outfit a squad of auto mechnics,,,

  45. drwilliams says:

    The F150 Lightning commercials I saw this Spring fetishized the feature of being the only house in the neighborhood with power during a city wide blackout.

    Lynn: “I never noticed the power was out for an hour last night”

    Must have been filming in an odd neighborhood–more and more folks have gennies.

    And the neat thing about a generator is that you don’t have to register it with the state (yet) and pay a yearly tax. Easier to wash, too.

  46. lpdbw says:

    @Nick,

    Before I invest in a scanner, I’m listening on this website.  You have to dodge the adblocker but it has a link for that at the lower left.

    Can you confirm that sounds similar to your scanner?  Covers much the same info?

    Thanks.

  47. Alan says:

    >> 100F exactly, here in the California High Desert at 1 pm. Weather Underground says 100+ for the next 9 days, after which it will cool down…to 99F.

    ”But it’s a dry heat, Sarge”.

    I said the same thing to the Thanksgiving turkey. 

    104 in the AZ desert, high of 106 projected. RH 16%. Not all that bad in the shade. 

  48. Kenneth C Mitchell says:

    San Antonio, Far West Side:  5:30 PM, 102 degrees, 35% RH. I’m accustomed to Central Cacafornia (DRY) heat, but this felt MUCH hotter. 

  49. Nick Flandrey says:

    @mrAtoz, I am currently running Agent by Ispy on a dedicated pc as my NVR.   It’s free for personal use.   I’ve had a bunch of issues, which I’ve moaned about here over the last couple of years, including the switch to Mint Linux on the machine because windows update kept breaking the freaking software.   Haven’t touched my Mint install in months, and Greg gave me a command line to automatically restart the software if it had shut down…  so I was ok, working around the issues.

    Noticed that there was new version available, updated Mint, and installed the new NVR software.

    I’m using the software because I have a mix of cams, some quite old (but were VERY high quality when new.)  And because of being an old fan of JerryP, sometimes I do the silly stuff so others don’t have to.   In this case I was testing the pc/os/free NVR software to see if I’d recommend it to people in lieu of a dedicated hardware NVR.

    I would NOT recommend it, unless you had specific reasons as it takes more management than a hardware device.    On the other hand, it will do facial recognition, with a plug in it will do license plate capture, and it supports almost every IP camera ever made.

    I’ll have to see what weirdness ensues from the updates.  It seems to be running ok at the moment, although one cam isn’t working.

    If it isn’t stable, I’ll probably bite the bullet and buy a new Speco NVR with a massive harddrive.   8TB isn’t enough for 12 cams, as I can only store a couple of weeks video, and I’m tired of managing the disk space/file retention manually.

    —————–

    and in other news,   ATT fiber re-enabled their hated “DNS Error Assist” without notice, and re-enabled marketing shite I’d previously opted out of.   The Error Assist just collects every website you’ve ever been to and sells that info to others..   Nothing vile about that.  Right?   Nothing at all intrusive about that.  Right?  Cattle?  

    =========

    I’m hiding in my office, under the guise of doing network and NVR stuff, because it’s now 114F in the sun here.

    And most of my yard is sunny.

    n

  50. Jenny says:

    Spent a couple hours on the roof blowing detritus from the vents and surface, cleaning gutters, looking for damage. Used spray can flex seal stuff on a couple suspect spots on gutters. Felt like ½ hour. Couldn’t figure out why I was so beat until I saw the time. 
     

    I need to trim back a pine. It doesn’t touch, however the overhang is enough to have completely filled gutters I cleaned in 2021. Couple soft spots in the patio roof and a corner of the garage. Shingles looked good, nothing peeled up or cracked or loose. Half the roof is a two story drop and long steep hill. I’m very careful indeed. The roof has a shallow pitch and with good footing fortunately. 
     

    I was going to weed whack / mow however I think I’m done. I’ll hope the rain holds off another couple days. 

  51. JimB says:

    About four degrees above normal here, but comfortable, so I made measurements at 1445, near the high of the day: 106 F, 62 Wet Bulb, which converts 4% Relative Humidity using the standard sea level psychrometric chart, or 5.7% RH corrected to our elevation of 2500 ft. Looking back through scattered records, that’s the lowest I have ever measured and recorded, by a couple percent. I tend to only make measurements when things seem unusually poor, but today it is very good. The evaporative cooler was cycling until 1400, which is what caused me to make the measurements. It usually runs continuously after about 1000 on more normal days. I keep the thermostat set to 73 F, and it is currently 72 here in my basement office and 74 at the warmest point upstairs. I am happy. Relative Humidity is 57% indoors. This is using 330 watts. In a week, the forecast is for higher humidity. I will suffer.

    My new wireless outdoor thermometer reads slightly high, because its reflectivity is lower that my old unit. It is in the shade, but gets a lot of reflected radiation. I need to shield it, another project.

    Nick, I assume your thermometer in the sun is shiny metal, or it would read a lot higher compared to one in the shade. Next time you climb up to replace the battery (?), consider installing a 12” or so long vertical shiny tube about 2-3” in diameter over that sensor. It should have a shade over the top, but the top and bottom should be open to air circulation. That should make it read closer to air temperature. I am going to try something similar, and will post results if I ever get around to it. My old wired sensor was just a shiny cylinder about ¼” in diameter and 2” long. It compared favorably day or night with the shiny mercury in glass thermometer I use to calibrate. The new one has no adjustment, and is white plastic. That makes it read a couple degrees high in the daytime.

    Been playing around with an added heat pump design that would give us more economical heat and refrigeration AC during high humidity. I hate to speculate what the power consumption will be, but it will be way lower in the winter as it will replace electric resistance backup heat. A bit tricky to model. It will work with our evaporative cooling and our solar heat. It should not need resistance heaters, even in extreme low temperatures. Should also be affordable as it will be DIY. A big project.

  52. Nick Flandrey says:

    Can you confirm that sounds similar to your scanner?  Covers much the same info?

    –nope it does not.    I don’t know what channels the ‘broadcaster’ is actually listening to, it’s not clear from the description.   It sounds like it might be the “normal” channels for those districts.  It’s not the dispatch channels, but it’s got some dispatch traffic, but not JUST dispatch.

    With that app/site you are stuck with whatever the ‘broadcaster’ is putting out.

    I mostly listen to the Gulf Coast Interop channels, zone 77, of the TxWARN main network.  That’s where the cool surveillance and bust traffic routinely is.

    RadioReference has more info about the TxWARN system.

    I don’t normally listen to dispatch channels because there is a LOT of traffic on them.

    I picked up a bunch of scanners lately, including a couple of digital uniden Home Patrols, which I like a lot.  I’ve been considering offering a couple (cheaper than ebay sellers) to readers here.  They’d still be around $400 probably.

    n

  53. paul says:

    109F for a high today.  Down to 107.  Whatever.  When the various cats are laying in the shade panting, it’s freaking hot.

    I have a jury summons postcard.  And of course I have to go.  Jeans and shoes and a shirt….. yeah, gotta get dressed up.   Ain’t shaving, eff their “court appropriate attire” horse droppings. 

    Anyway.  Back to the a/c unit…..

    I used a stick a couple of times to get the outside fan going.  And then that didn’t work.  So I have this 30″ or maybe 32″ fan.  It’s a garage fan, sort of.  Blows lots of air but out on the patio, it’s so loud you can’t hear anything.  “roar”  

    So, fan is laying on top of the compressor….. spinning the blades, and well, just saying, proof of a bad starting cap is very strong.

    The dogs want to go outside.  Five minutes max they want back in.  Huh.  We don’t have to walk all the way to the gate to go poop.  Grin.  They sure are amusing. 

  54. lpdbw says:

    I’ve been considering offering a couple (cheaper than ebay sellers) to readers here. 

    I’m interested.  The email address attached to this name is active, and we can discuss opsec as needed.  I’m assuming you can see that email address.

  55. Greg Norton says:

    I have a jury summons postcard.  And of course I have to go.  Jeans and shoes and a shirt….. yeah, gotta get dressed up.   Ain’t shaving, eff their “court appropriate attire” horse droppings. 

    My last jury summons for Williamson County got cancelled the night before via notice posted on the web site. You’ll probably see something similar happen.

  56. JimB says:

    @paul, here in Cali, we can ask for an exemption if 70 YO. My wife did. I will wait until my next jury summons to try. Maybe something for you to anticipate.

    I have been on three juries, and all were interesting. One was very interesting. All taught me to never be a defendant. Never.

  57. JimB says:

    @paul, of the three cats we have had here in the desert, none would pant unless they ran a ways. None of them ran during the day in summer.

    One was a prolific hunter, so I watched him. He would go out just before dark, and would sit under a bush. He would simply wait for some hapless prey to go by and pounce, no running required. He also did that in full daylight when he wanted to, but evening was his favorite time to hunt.

  58. lynn says:

    It was 106 F at my house outside Rosenberg, TX when I got home at 6pm.  It was 99 F at my parents house on Lavaca Bay when I left at 4pm.

  59. Paul Hampson says:

    There are still a couple useful utilities there even 20 years later.

    Still using Karen’s Replicator for my daily backup.   I got burned early on by proprietary formats, compression, etc.   Memory/storage is cheap and reliable, and so is Replicator, at least through Windows 10.

  60. nick flandrey says:

    Currently 102F and not sunny at all.  I’m guessing that’s pretty close to the actual temperature.

    Found a replacement in the stacks for one of my dead cams.  So I can see the back yard again.

    NVR software is stable so far.

    n

  61. Alan says:

    >> My new wireless outdoor thermometer reads slightly high, because its reflectivity is lower that my old unit.

    @JimB, make/model? Recommended? Thanks.

  62. JimB says:

    @Alan:

    https://thermopro.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/sections/360007564293-TP-63A

    Recommended? Only if you can put up with a battery powered remote reading thermometer. I have had others that are no longer available that were better and cheaper. This one is OK, but somewhat quirky. I was attracted by their advertising patter. It is not a long term device. Pretty affordable, so give it a try. They have occasional sales and promotions.

    My old thermometer was a Computemp, made in Nebraska. Sadly, no longer manufactured, but had it since about 1990. Still works, but needed something different. I have different model, never used. What I would really like is something that works over POE Ethernet. There is one, but pricey, and has other limitations. Also requires building and programming, and might not be ready for prime time. I hate battery powered stuff.

  63. Rick H says:

    Re: outdoor thermometers and weather stations

    I got this one, Ambient Weather WS-2000 Smart Weather Station with WiFi Remote Monitoring and Alerts. Mounted on a ¾” galvanized pole out back. Wireless to your wi-fi network, with nice color display unit for inside. 

    Feeds to Weather Underground, so you can see your stats on the WU weather site (mine is here) . Seems reliable. The wind readings on mine are not always accurate due to the placement of the pole (only 25 feet NE of the house, but prevailing wind here is southerly, so ‘building swirling’ causes issues). No other good placement for it on my property, though.

    Cost on Zon is $299, but I found it for about $239 somewhere else. 

    Another option for just temps is this one from ThermoPro; under $20. Or this one, under $30.

  64. lynn says:

    “Challenge of the Unknown (Perry Rhodan #32)” by Clark Darlton
       https://www.amazon.com/Challenge-Perry-Rhodan-Clark-Darlton/dp/B0006XFG78?tag=ttgnet-20/

    Book number thirty-two of a series of one hundred and twenty-six space opera books in English. The original German books, actually pamphlets, number in the thousands. The English books started with two translated German stories per book and transitioned to one story per book with the sixth book. The German books were written from 1961 to present time, having sold two billion copies and even recently been rebooted again. I read the well printed and well bound book published by Ace in 1973 that I had to be very careful with due to age. I bought an almost complete box of Perry Rhodans a decade or two ago on ebay that I am finally getting to since I lost my original Perry Rhodans in The Great Flood of 1989. In fact, I now own book #1 to book #103, plus the Atlan books.
       https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Rhodan

    BTW, this is actually book number 40 of the German Pamphlets. There is a very good explanation of the plot in German on this website of all of the PR books. There is automatic Google translation available for English, Spanish, Dutch, Japanese, French, and Portuguese.
    https://www.perrypedia.de/wiki/Aktion_gegen_Unbekannt

    In this alternate universe, USSF Major Perry Rhodan and his three fellow astronauts blasted off in a three stage rocket to the Moon in 1971. The first stage of the rocket was chemical, the second and third stages were nuclear. After crashing on the Moon due to a strange radio interference, they discover a massive crashed alien spaceship with an aged male scientist (Khrest), a female commander (Thora), and a crew of 500. It has been over ten years since then and the New Power has flourished with millions of people and many spaceships headquartered in the Gobi desert, the city of Terrania.

    Perry, Thora, Krest, and 700 of their crew from the Ganymede have stolen a brand new 5,000 foot diameter spherical warship from Arkon that Rhodan named the “Titan”. Perry and his men escape the Arkon system with the computer brain minions desperately searching for them. The Titan and the Ganymede make a small three light year translation to the planet Zalite, home to a race descended from the Arkonides.

    One has to remember that this book was written in German in 1962 and translated to English in 1973. Many items that came about in the 1970s and beyond such as cell phones are not reflected in the book. However, commercial aircraft commonly traveling at Mach 3 are not available to the public as talked about in the book. Niels Bohr’s saying “Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future” comes to mind.

    Two observations:
    1. The publisher should have put two to four of the translated stories in each book. Having two stories in the first five books worked out well. Just having one story in the book is too short and would never allow the translated books to catch up to the German originals.
    2. Anyone liking Perry Rhodan and wanting a more up to date story should read the totally awesome “Mutineer’s Moon” Dahak series of three books by David Weber.
       https://www.amazon.com/Mutineers-Moon-Dahak-David-Weber/dp/0671720856?tag=ttgnet-20/

    My rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
    Amazon rating: 5 out of 5 stars (1 reviews)

  65. lynn says:

    “Operation Mincemeat” on Netflix, Highly recommended.

       https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1879016/

  66. nick flandrey says:

    Still 92F with thunder rumbling in the distance.   

    Been banging my head against a replacement cam for the one that just failed today that was watching my front door.   It’s been failing and I guess today was just too damn hot.

    Same manufacturer as the old cam, but less capable unit.   I can see the stream from its internal web page but I can’t get a freaking stream off it any other way.  I know I had a stream off it at one point, but can’t remember the voodoo and lost the config I used.  What SHOULD work, just doesn’t.

    I’m going to find another cam, because I’ve spent enough time on this one.

    n

  67. Rick H says:

    Re: Operation Mincemeat – good show, but the original “The Man Who Never Was” (1956) might be better. 

    The book might be even better; I recall reading it in my teens, I think.

  68. drwilliams says:

    It was a Scholastic book for years. 

  69. nick flandrey says:

    Well, different cam, same model, but different firmware.   Found the setting to turn on streaming.   Can’t stream without that turned on.   I’d swear it wasn’t in the other cam.   FFS.   Well, I’m back to my normal complement of cams anyway.

    We’ll see if the NVR restarts or pukes before tomorrow. 

    ————–

    didn’t rain, and the thunder has stopped.   It is 89F now. 

    n

  70. lynn says:

    “Texas grid operator urges electricity conservation as heat wave drives up demand”

        https://www.texastribune.org/2022/07/10/texas-blackouts-power-ercot/

    “With a punishing heat wave across Texas driving record high power demand, The Electric Reliability Council of Texas late Sunday sent out a request that Texans cut back on their energy use on Monday.

    ERCOT, the state’s power grid operator, asked Texans to turn up their thermostats and postpone running major appliances between 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Monday. ERCOT has also called on large electric customers to lower their electricity use.

    Total forecasted power demand is expected to surpass 79 gigawatts on Monday, ERCOT said — which would set another record.”

    Oh no, here comes Bozo O’Rourke.

  71. Geoff Powell says:

    @rickh:

    Cost on Zon is $299, but I found it for about $239 somewhere else. 

    That link took me to Zon UK, even though the link is to .com, where the device is £669, not just the dollar/pound equivalent, but a factor of TWO higher. I should coco.

    G.

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