F’ing freezing today! Crazy cold, and blowing snow everywhere. Just kidding. Hot and humid today, like yesterday and tomorrow. Well into the 100s even in the shade, and pretty dang hot in the sun.
So of course I ended up working outdoors and in the driveway. Finished cutting the grass. Part of that was clearing a path through the driveway for the mower, which led to some other cleaning and stacking. And it was hot. Really hot.
So I took some breaks and drank electrolyte stuff, and sat in the A/C to cool off.
Then I unloaded the wood planks I bought, and stacked them in the attic. They will be floor up there eventually, but not today. Too hot.
What I didn’t do is go to Costco or Lowes. One more day of procrastination, or maybe two… Sometimes I just go with the flow and it usually works out ok.
Getting cleaned up and to the restaurant for dinner took me into the evening, and it was late when I got home.
Just an ordinary day, without any dramatic actions or challenges, or for that matter triumphs. But a good day nonetheless. And a couple of things on the list got done.
Sometimes, that’s the best you can hope for.
More stacking later.
n
California is 50% of the new car market in the US. If the state legislates a standard, the manufacturers really have no choice but to go along. The current administration will just tuck in and draft behind whereas Trump was pushing back to some extent.
50% sounds a bit high.
@RickH
“I also miss my youth. At least, the parts I can remember.”
Memory is the second thing to go. I forget what the first one is.
My mom bought a 67 Camaro RS new. Yellow, black vinyl top with yellow interior. This was before she met my dad. She took it to have the oil changed. The guy took the old oil out ok, but neglected to put any back in. I know that the engine wasn’t dead after that, as apparently it was caught quickly. The life of the engine was severely shortened though. Dad said he did a lot of work on it, up to replacing the camshaft in the driveway. They finally traded it in sometime in 74 or 75, replaced with a Datsun B210.
I remember that post. It set me off. Not about gay marriage or lesbians, but that they deserved the US Medal of Honor for their actions. Sorry, Dr. Bob, no way. Rest In Peace, sir.
cornhole <—> plugs is hilarious. They should have put his face on it.
On trolls:
Yes, don’t respond. But, if it is posting nasty stuff, it should be deleted. It seems the only real guide here is be civil. Simple
@Denis:
I just got back from a visit to my parent’s. I helped dad untangle his network. One issue that popped up was I discovered his TP-Link switch was not only managed, but had an IP address of 192.168.0.1 assigned to it, which was the same as his DSL modem. Resolving that obviously fixed a lot of issues. I don’t know if that was the issue you were having, but check out what the default setting is when you get the replacement (if it’s capable, that is).
Added: I just looked up the specs, and it doesn’t look like it is a managed switch, but check just to make sure. I agree with others that your issue sounds like a DNS issue, but it could be an IP conflict too. When you get the replacement switch, hook it in with just the one pc attached. If that works, add things one at a time.
Parents are in NE TN, and my son had an appt at Vanderbilt on the way back, so we took I40 to Nashville. I timed it so one of our stops would be at Buc-ee’s in Crossville. It wasn’t as busy as the one in GA – we were able to pull right in and fill up. It was still busy, though. Lines to checkout were 20 to 30 deep. No lines for the restrooms. I would have tried some food, but we were short on time and already had lunch in Knoxville. One is being built in Athens, AL, and it looks like it will open in a few months. I’ll make a trip there once the hoopla dies down. So, 10 years maybe?
Those crazy Amish:
Boys, ages 10 and 14, turn themselves in for beating death of 73-year-old man
I just can’t imagine the home environment where those kids were raised.
I had one, bought in early 1973 if I remember correctly. Went to a theatre to watch James Bond, “Live and Let Die”, opening scene and he is in a bedroom and checks his watch. A Pulsar LED watch. People in the theatre oohed. I had one. Activated it and raised my wrist. People oohed again. Having a James Bond gadget, priceless.
Nah, FLASHLIGHTS used to be something new and special with the LED lights, SureFire, Peter Gransee, and other modders. Now with the current crop of quite good, and cheap, LEDs there is not much left. Bob and I would get in discussions and disagreements about lights. I always advocated, and still do that everyone should have at least one high quality and durable flashlight running CR123 batteries. Long shelf life, long run time, etc. Now I also advocate just buying a bunch of cheap lights and stash them everywhere. Nothing wrong with 20 or 30 lights in the house and a half a dozen in the vehicle. May cost, what $50.00 tops.
I use headlamps in my work in the church studio. Yes, I am no longer in charge, but I have to fix things. I buy the three for $12.00 including batteries at Costco. When the batteries expire, I toss the lights and buy three more. Cheaper almost than buying just the batteries. I get a new light and headband in the process.
Yep. I don’t mind being corrected. I do not like being put down, told I am ignorant, can’t write (I right very goodly), and other slams. For some the enjoyment of putting others down is to compensate for their lack of, well, anything.
This is not a journal for publication. The number of grammar errors, spelling errors, dropped words, etc. is a lot. I have written 24 articles in technical journals. I went back and read some and my English was not great. I asked the publisher why she never fixed my grammar errors. She stated that I write like I talk and it makes the articles easier to read. People that read the journal understand the mistakes and just move on. They are not reading the articles to get better at grammar, they are reading the articles to learn. This was done before spell chuckers and there are some misspelled words that remained in the articles.
At my age, I already know what the first one to go.
Make certain there is only one device handing out IP addresses, one DNS server. I had a client that started having intermittent connectivity issues. I could find nothing wrong. Only thing that had changed was a new modem from the ISP had been installed. I was baffled.
Then while I was sleeping it hit me. The new modem was configured to hand out IP addresses along with the router. I went back to his place of business, accessed the modem and turned off the modem DNS server. Everything was back to working normally. The installer did what was his standard install, probably factory settings, that messed with the DNS on the router.
Yep – fairly common problem. That was happening at my parent’s house too, though worse, as he had two separate networks – 192.168.0.0 and 192.168.6.0 because he added a linksys ap in the living room and connected it to the switch like a router. I got all of that untangled. It took a good two hours, mainly because I was having him do the driving.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-11009325/Photos-powerful-James-Webb-predecessor-Hubble.html
This is cool. I’m looking forward to lots of great images from the JW telescope.
I would do my own research, but then only I would have the answers, and I think the brain trust here could be helpful, and the discussion seems to be popular.
To wit: FLASHLIGHTS. Lumens vs Candela. John Correia at Active Self Protection emphasizes you need both; lumens are not the be-all-end-all. I don’t even understand the difference, or how you would find Candela info.
Discuss. Or not, as suits you.
Kudos to Apple for their security. Someone just tried to reset my Apple ID. I got a notice on my phone which I declined. I also got an email from Apple. A code in the email is required to reset the password. Apple will not allow password to be reset unless one of those items is responded in the affirmative. I have a strong password, even I don’t remember the password. I have to use a password manager. The only real danger is if someone intercepts my email, probably very unlikely.
Thank you both. The new TP-Switch is indeed an unmanaged one. I have it boxed up and ready to go back to Big River and another good old dumb D-Link switch on its way instead.
There is only one device on our network set up to assign addresses, that being the DHCP function of the cable modem/router. We don’t have an additional router between the cable modem and the network, although I am considering doing that, as the provider has a fairly draconian lock on the settings of the cable modem/router. As it is only a small network, and keeping track manually is feasible, I would like to assign static IP addresses to a number of devices, including the network printer, which otherwise switches addresses each time it reboots, which is a nuisance…
Probably is now, but that was conventional wisdom in the industry forever.
OTOH, Toyota US HQ moved to Dallas and Nissan is in … Tennessee … ?
The market has changed, but California still sets the standards.
I almost forgot about Sif. I still remember watching the first Thor movie for the first time and see this beautiful woman in armor and thinking, “Damn… just damn.” She needs her own movie where she just stands there in armor, weapon in hand, with the wind blowing her hair for 2 hours. lol
I’ve had a lot of strange activity on various accounts for the last couple of months.
I don’t want to go into specifics, but someone is making a lot of effort, including messing with my work account.
Googling around quickly, it looks like 20-25% of the new car market now.
I don’t see any new Toyota Sienna minivans around here with local dealer plate franes. Every one has a San Jose/San Francisco area or LA dealer. Those seem like the modern Connestoga Wagons for the exodus from California, and they are all hybrids, now, Toyota having bent the knee to the market.
I have yet to see a Rav4 Prime. Dealers in CA and elsewhere are getting double the sticker for those if one report I heard on the local San Antonio car repair talk show was accurate.
I’ve worked in too many restaurant kitchens (dish washing and general “do what we tell you”) to be comfortable eating food prepared out of my sight. I’ve mentioned standards of hygiene on a number of blogs and fora and a number of professional chefs have told me “That doesn’t happen in my kitchen!” Maybe not, but cutting corners to save time and reusing food to save money happened in every restaurant I worked in.
Very strongly agree.
I agree with this, too.
But what I’d do, if I were administering the site, would be block the entire IP address range used by NumbaNuts’s VPN. Think about removing the ban after a month or three.
Isn’t that just the tip of the iceberg, though? The ingredients you use at home are also harvested, prepared, and packaged out of your sight. There’s a LOT of hands on your food from the time it sprouts or is slaughtered until you’re picking it up off of a grocery store shelf.
Well, I will say the site was a lot more libertarian under RBT and is certainly a lot more conservative these days. That may explain why some users have drifted. Though, new ones have arrived. So, probably a wash. I’m not implying that’s a problem – just an observation. I’ll comment what I’ll comment no matter what direction the site takes as a whole. I’m here for the familiar faces (so to speak).
When the GOP put Bishop Mittens up against Obola, I left the Republican Party. Both parties suck dead bunnies these days. I call myself a conservatarian. Conservative leaning libertarian. I don’t think I will register with a party ever again. Did I mention they suck dead bunnies.
Sure, but then I cook it and kill most of the germs.
The same cannot be said when restaurant staff drop half a dozen slices of toast on the floor, pick them up, and put them on plates.
I sometimes refer to myself a classic liberal. I do that only in the presence of libtards, progtards, and other communists-in-all-but-name and only to piss them off, but it’s an accurate description.
I always advocated, and still do that everyone should have at least one high quality and durable flashlight running CR123 batteries. Long shelf life, long run time, etc. Now I also advocate just buying a bunch of cheap lights and stash them everywhere. Nothing wrong with 20 or 30 lights in the house and a half a dozen in the vehicle. May cost, what $50.00 tops.
—this is the same style of advice I gave about buying computers. It used to be smart to buy the best you could afford, and upgrade at least once, with the goal of squeezing the last electron out of it. Now though, it makes more sense to buy the cheapest machine that will do the job you need it to do, and replace it when you have another job, or the kruft gets so bad it won’t do the job anymore. NB- this is possibly changing as new machines aren’t getting better or cheaper as quickly as they used to.
n
Even Bob was shifting conservative (NOT republican) over time. I’m fairly socially liberal and politically conservative so it’s not a surprise more of that would come out. The middle of the spectrum has been moving to the ends for a few years now, mostly the same ones I’ve been host, so it might look like it’s just me/here. I think we’re in an existential fight, and the left is not sane.
Lots of folks take the opposite view.
n
I think we’re in an existential fight, and the left is not sane.
+1000.
I can’t say that I miss my youth but certainly miss the energy and endurance that I had. I could sure use it now.
Politically , like Steve F, I will say I am a liberal (notice the small “l”). I also think of myself as the “crimson Tory”. Socially liberal but (very) conservative fiscally. A lost cause at the moment.
Before the “print”
After!
inflation is headed up. Prices, ex a depression, are headed up. But then we knew this.
n
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-11008779/MailOnline-reveals-exactly-NASAs-new-James-Webb-images.html
I think there are more pix at that link than the earlier link. Very pretty pix indeed.
n
I’m enjoying the banter between Musk and tRump. Both have huge, thin skinned, egos.
tRump’s thin skinned ego will keep him from the Presidency again. You want guys like Musk on your side, not Giuliani.
Ron DeSantis 2024! I think Sen. Cruz and a lot of GOPers can get behind him.
I heard someone, can’t remember who, that said Trump had 2024 in the bag if only he could have STFU about 2020.
Hey, wasn’t that guy who kept being found with dead male hookers, who had a fetish for shooting them up with drugs, a hillarity/Klinton bundler?
I can’t think of good google keywords, and I know someone here remembers.
I was assured last night that he was a Republican, a state senator in fact.
n
DeSantis will most likely survive reelection, but it will be ugly since the Dems would like to ensconce Val Demings ln Rubio’s seat to add to the list of possible Jesus candidates for 2024.
Cruz has to decide between the Senate and the Presidency in 2024 if I understand Texas law correctly.
I bought a new Honda hybrid in April. I was impressed by the technology, I like to reduce pollution if practical (I don’t see CO2 as a polluter). It really works well around metropolitan areas giving excellent mpg and an EV like drive (most of the time it is electric motor driven only). Longer distance, highway, motoring is good but close to a standard ICE as the hybrid efficiencies at high speed are more limited.
Was he? Or was the mass moving waaay leftward while he stayed in place?
ref the occasionally-quoted bit of wisdom that JFK would be considered a fascist by today’s “liberals” and even centrists.
So you’re the cause of it! I’d been wondering.
Until very recently I was socially liberal. “What do I care what you do, so long as it doesn’t affect me?” That changed a few months ago when I read a few things which led me to put facts together in a different way. I have a long essay in the works but haven’t had blocks of time free in which to work on it. Short version: Today’s permissive, individualistic society doesn’t work.
I have ordered a cheap little laptop / phone / small crap repair kit since the daughter’s ASUS laptop failed to boot today. I tried to open it with a micro screwdriver but no joy after I got two screws loose. There is dried milk in the same corner as the battery, is that a bad thing ? Sigh.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077D7WMZV?tag=ttgnet-20
I offered to buy her a new laptop last Christmas. She said she wanted a new desktop and would pick one out. Here it is July and no chosen desktop. My daughter has inherited my procrastination gene.
Of course, I have complete new desktop parts sitting in front of my computer desk, under my 55 inch tv supported by my old, old, old AR-1 speakers. AR is the old Acoustic Research company. No, I don’t procrastinate at all.
I got the new micro toolkit from Big River this morning and the old laptop is fully open. There is milk and crumbs everywhere. I have told the wife that the laptop is toast. It is an old ASUS UX360A. I have yet to find the hard drive so I am going to do some research online. Hopefully I can pull whatever is on the hard drive off since she has never backed it up.
I have the full story this morning. The daughter tipped a glass of milk on to the keyboard. Which, acted as a hundred funnels and distributed the milk very completely inside the main board and everything else. And the bread crumbs did soak up a lot of the milk. It is very disgusting.
Nick: https://investortimes.com/freedomoutpost/dead-male-prostitute-piles-meth-found-clinton-mega-donors-home-no-arrests/
Thanks Steve, that makes Gillum on the east coast and Buck on the west…
n
Ha, ha. Mr. SteveF for the win. Gaslighting to the max “he was a Republican”. I have family members that do it all the time. They hate being confronted with facts.
Lynn, I downvoted your 12:41 comment for the yuck factor. Yuck.
MrAtoz, I’ve been assured that Obamacare was rammed through by Congressional Republicans. I’ve been assured that fuel shortages of the past and high prices today are because of Trump’s policies. (“Shortages” referring to when the pipeline up to the Northeast was hacked, IIRC.) I’ve been assured that… Bah. It’s endless. I can’t tell if any given imbecile is really that stupid and ill-informed or if he’s intentionally lying.
Hah hah! /end Munz voice
–It’s been my experience that no one cares that much while the money is rolling in. Once the money stops or slows, suddenly everyone wants an accounting. It’s easy to be “laid back” when you’re rolling in it. Not so much when a lot of people are yelling at you about their vanishing wealth.
n
I have family members that do it all the time.
– and then they countered with ‘I’ve got a wide stance’ from the toe tapping bathroom incident of (feels like) a decade ago. INSTANTLY countered. So top of mind.
n
The new version of the iSpy Agent software NVR has some quirks. They have addressed a couple of the issues I had, so that’s good.
Their storage configuration still sucks dead bunnies.
They default to a folder on your install drive, never ask if there is somewhere else you would like to put the video and audio files, and then make it really hard to change. Almost any camera config item can be copied to all the other cams with one or two clicks, but not storage location. You have to do that manually for each one, and it’s buried several layers deep. Then you have to do it again for the audio recordings from that camera. And storage location did not survive the import of the previous camera configs.
And for some reason, the first time I did it, it didn’t stick. So my main HD quickly filled up, and it just silently stopped storing video. The 8TB storage drive was ignored.
It does now support some settings that dropped my cpu usage from 98% on all 8 cores to ~80% with some spikes to 100% across the cores. Video transcoding takes a lot of horsepower. Even a modest GPU makes it easier.
They finally documented the settings for archiving and automatic storage management, so I’ll read thru that and see if I can get that set up. No info that I saw about how the archive drive will deal with filling up. A dedicated hardware NVR usually has a checkbox to just enable recording until the drive is full, and then doing rolling deletes of oldest files as new files get written. Very simple and a good choice for most users.
Still not recommended unless you have specific needs.
n
California is 50% of the new car market in the US. If the state legislates a standard, the manufacturers really have no choice but to go along. The current administration will just tuck in and draft behind whereas Trump was pushing back to some extent.
50% sounds a bit high.
At 39 million, California is 12% of the USA population. I highly doubt that Cali is 50% of new auto sales. I might go with 25% though due to Cali’s high individual income.
xkcd: The Best Camera
https://xkcd.com/2645/
Ok, it is the best camera for an astronomer / physicist. But not when I am taking a picture of my cute dog.
Explained at:
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2645:_The_Best_Camera
wrt cali and autos, you don’t see “49 states” versions of cars any more. They are all cali compliant.
n
The difference is that Gillum was a tool for Benny Crump to gain legit power in the Democrat Party and would have been discarded the moment the ink was dry on the new Florida Supreme Court appointments on Jan 1, 2019 had the election for Governor gone another way.
Buck is a big donor and power broker.
“Arrest made in rape of Ohio girl that led to Indiana abortion drawing international attention”
https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/2022/07/13/columbus-man-charged-rape-10-year-old-led-abortion-in-indiana/10046625002/
An undocumented Amish man ?
Hat tip to:
https://www.drudgereport.com/
“Coasting?” So, pretty much everyone. I would say MOST people are coasting at their job. Once you’re past the stages of “where the hell is xyz at?” and know whose requests matter and whose doesn’t, then nearly everyone is on autopilot. From a Facebook perspective it’s rather like this, “This is Facebook and my name isn’t Mark Zuckerberg, so there’s a limit to how many shits I give.” There used to be (probably still is) some vid out there of some motivational business speaker telling owners that it’s absurd to expect their employees to care about their company as much as the owners do. It’s never going to happen.” He then goes on to ramble on about the other ways to motivate workers and whatnot.
wrt cali and autos, you don’t see “49 states” versions of cars any more. They are all cali compliant.
n
I think that the automobile manufacturers generally found that keeping track of two different versions of cars was a pain. Plus, several other states followed Cali down that road.
“The following states that have adopted the California standards are: Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico (2011 model year and later), New York, Nevada, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Vermont, and Washington (2009 model year and later), as well as the District of Columbia.[5][6][7][8] Such states are frequently referred to as “CARB states” in automotive discussions because the regulations are defined by the California Air Resources Board.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_vehicle_emission_standards
How is a nine year old even fertile?
n
–added – ask if we’d have seen any arrest made if NOT for the national attention.
“I think that the automobile manufacturers generally found that keeping track of two different versions of cars was a pain.
– the result is taxation without representation. The cal emissions controls add cost to the vehicle. They are mandated by law. Law made by people that don’t represent me, and over whose conduct I have no recourse or control. California’s desires replace Federal law, nationwide, because of “convenience.”
bad policy.
n
So, pretty much everyone. I would say MOST people are coasting at their job.
– most, but not all. You’ve always got some hard chargers, and some people who just don’t know how to slack, who hold themselves to an internal standard.
But yeah, forest fires remove the deadwood.
n
Scanner has cops working street dealing…
“negative, he’s holding it in his ass crack…”
n
Crack kills!
Backup cameras. A lot of video-related Patents and royalty agreements still result in checks being mailed to PO Boxes in Los Altos and Los Gatos. Not as many as there used to be, but we haven’t gone through the expiration of all the Patents covering video and compression once streaming started rolling.
Patents issued prior to 1995 were good until 2015. Anything after 1995 expires after 15 years IIRC.
Modern nutrition has a lot to do with it. There was some concern about trace amounts of growth hormones present in meat and dairy, but most of that is gone now. Pediatricians don’t get overly worried unless a girl menstruates before age 9 or has hit 16 without starting yet. The median is 12.5 years.
Yikes. I’ve got one one each side of that average.
n
Lynn, I downvoted your 12:41 comment for the yuck factor. Yuck.
Hey, I could have posted a picture.
I forgot to mention that she now has my travel laptop. Which, I rarely take on the road with me now as the phone does the job.
How is a nine year old even fertile?
n
–added – ask if we’d have seen any arrest made if NOT for the national attention.
I have been told that steroids in the McDonalds hamburgers are making kids go through puberty earlier. I am not sure that I believe that.
And how many McDonalds hamburgers are kids eating ? The drive through on our McDonalds is busy beyond belief.
“Exelon, PG&E, PSEG and others call on Congress to pass ‘ambitious’ clean energy spending package”
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/exelon-pge-pseg-congress-clean-energy-spending/627137/
“Major utilities, solar companies, storage developers and others have called on U.S. lawmakers to pass a reconciliation package that includes tax credits for wind, solar, and batteries, expanded efficiency incentives and support for clean transportation.”
“President Joe Biden has set a goal for the country to consume 100% clean electricity by 2035 and for half of new car sales to be electric by 2030. Experts say the targets are aggressive but possible with accelerated investments.”
Give me money, give me moah money !
The USA is broke, dead broke. People are just robbing the corpse.
Everything is going into the next spending bill. They get one more reconciliation vote this year before the midterms.
A friend brought over a pile of HDDs from old PC’s and externals. I’m using the Drive eRazer I’ve had for years to wipe them. That thing has come in handy.
Bonus: he pulled a Crucial esata SSD from somewhere. I’ll keep that one for sure.
Is there a market for sata drives?
“The Giant’s Partner (Perry Rhodan #33)” by Clark Darlton, translated by Wendayne Ackerman
https://www.amazon.com/Giants-Partner-Perry-Rhodan-33/dp/2441660160?tag=ttgnet-20/
Book number thirty-three 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 41 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/Der_Partner_des_Giganten
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 are sitting in their brand new 5,000 foot diameter spherical warship from Arkon that Rhodan named the “Titan” on the planet Zalite, three light years away from Arkon. The Ganymede and her crew of 300 are also with them. But something is wrong with Zalites and there are telepathic / hypnotic jelly fish called the Moofs all over the planet and in their spaceships. The Giant Positronic Brain on Arkon partners with Perry Rhodan in solving this mystery.
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 (2 reviews)
Why not go with a 50-point scale and then rate it 44/50? 🙂
@nick
How is a nine year old even fertile?
I know several girls who started menstruating at at 9 and 8.
Nutrition. Hormones. Unclear though there are a few studies out there. A woman is born with all the eggs she’s going to have. Starting menstruation earlier implies a younger age of eggs being used up. One egg per cycle, alternating sides, until they’re all gone. So egg release stops between 35-40 instead of 40-45?
Beyond the conflict between starting families later / fertility potentially diving in 30’s, few nine / ten year old girls are emotionally / mentally prepared for dealing with 4-5 days of blood every month. I was a teen, a practical one, and I found it a bit much. I see evidence in my 10 year old that menstruation will be here sooner than later. We’ve had lots of chats, supplies are on hand. She’s as ready as I can make her. Not looking forward to the turmoil.
I feed our family organic as possible, whole milk not low fat (rumored to concentrate hormones naturally present in milk to unwanted levels), etc. keep her physically active and trying for skinny rather than padded. There are drugs to delay onset but that cure may be worse than early onset.
Fortunately there are better products available today than in years past to address the practical aspects of menstruation.
anyway.
Trolls. Expunge away. The whole grotto was getting drug down by the proverbial monkey flinging poo. Would have been a different story had the unwarranted behavior been the exception. I rarely identified any of those posts that moved any conversation forward or opened an interesting new line of thought. The nasty was getting increasingly personal. I found my behavior regarding contributing / reading regularly was altered by the poo flinging. I’m no shrinking violet.
So thanks.
We just ordered this Dell PC for the daughter to replace her four ? five ? year old dead laptop.
https://deals.dell.com/en-us/productdetail/eqww
My criteria was 16 GB of ram and 1 TB SSD M.2 drive.
Why not go with a 50-point scale and then rate it 44/50?
I use this scale:
https://xkcd.com/1098/
I’ve been reading this site since Jerry Pournelle recommended it on his blog decades ago. I don’t normally comment, but felt like I wanted to let people know I find the information presented here interesting. I like the fact that the site isn’t just people screaming about the latest outrage. It’s obvious that the regular commenters here are intelligent people and I enjoy reading the comments here. Losing Bob so soon after Jerry really had me worried, but Nick I’m glad you were able pick up where Bob left off and keep this place going. Thanks!
That system will perform quit well. May spoil you to change out some work systems. A SSD changes everything.
I have an Intel I9, 64 gig of ram, two 2 TB M.2 SSDs in my desktop system. I also have two 1 TB SSDs stuck on the back side where the cables run. There are mounts back there for 2.5″. SSDs. Good spot for SSDs out of my old system. Water cooled. Quiet, quiet, quiet.
Photoshop seems to run really well in that environment by assigning the second M.2 as a work disk. System is fast. Boots from power off to W11 screen in 15 seconds. The initial install of W11 took 45 seconds from start to the desktop appearing. Applications open very quickly. MSWord in less than second, Photoshop in about 4 seconds.
Overkill, but will most likely be the last desktop system I buy. I figure I have 10 years left, this system should last 10 years.
I agree with this. About 20 years ago, RBT appointed me Super Administrator on both the technical forum and this forum. I never had to implement a correction on this forum, but I felt it necessary on the technical one. One person post an incredibly negative post regarding his purchase from a reseller. I had never seen any posting where every sentence was 100% negative. When I realized that the vendor was in London and no other forum participants were living there, I deleted the post. He was very unhappy in his next and last post. I never felt that my deletion was a mistake. I agree with Nick and Jenny.
If the MSM wrote headlines for Biden the way they did for Trump, this morning we would have had:
Biden flees to Europe Before Record Inflation Report
If the MSM wrote headlines for Biden the way they did for Trump, this morning we would have had:
Biden flees to Europe Before Record Inflation Report
Can you imagine what the inflation will be if Biden gets his six trillion dollar Build Back Better program passed ?
His buddy Buttwhatever will be handing out billions of dollars like candy. Oh wait, he is already doing that.
I thought that reconciliation votes on spending had to be “revenue neutral”.
That’s why the student loan program was nationalized to help pay for Obamacare.
Granted, reconciliation is a Senate rule and not a part of the Constitution but so is the filibuster.
ERCOT is at $5,000/MWH. Or, $5.00/kwh. We ran through the 78,395 MW peak today with just 1,000 MW of spinning reserve. Something happened around 3pm or so and looks like we lost a couple of big power generators.
https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards
This cannot last. The average age of the steam units, half of the power supply in Texas, is well over 30 years old. Maybe approaching 50 years old, most of them were built in the 1960s and 1970s. They will fail if driven this hard. Boiler tube leaks, pump failures, generator failures, etc.
Warning: squick ahead
re preteen pregnancy and very early menarche: Physical or emotional trauma can result in early menarche. (It can also result in delayed puberty in both girls and boys.) Exposure to semen can result in early menarche. Because a young girl’s exposure to semen probably involves trauma, I don’t know if semen’s effect has been isolated.
If a ten-year-old is pregnant, odds are that she was abused for years already.
They are spending whatever is necessary to get through the election.
Republicans don’t want to face Robert Francis sitting in the Governor’s Mansion.
For Dems, the prospect of the son-in-law of William Sanders taking that office is a huge unknown. The party wasn’t always thrilled with his votes in the House.
whew, made it to costco and home. 102F in the sun and 50%RH.
Have some observations coming.
n
@tony russo, thank you, I appreciate it more than you know when someone ‘de-cloaks’ and comments. I’m glad you stuck around, and still find value here.
If this site was just a memorial, instead of a living breathing site, I think visits would drop to zero far too soon.
@jenny and steve, thanks for the info, and yeah, some squick… but that is humans, sacks full of squick.
n
California Political Donor Sentenced To 30 Years In Sex Fetish Drug Overdoses
https://www.oxygen.com/crime-news/ed-buck-30-years-drug-overdose-killings-gay-men
Arrest made in rape of Ohio girl that led to Indiana abortion drawing international attention
The Columbus Dispatch
https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/2022/07/13/columbus-man-charged-rape-10-year-old-led-abortion-in-indiana/10046625002/
June 22 to July 12 is more than three weeks. Be interesting to find out who was controlling information so that the AG had none.
Yeah, and the mother made the report, not the mandatory reporter.
n
Nice to see Buck didn’t escape justice.
n
It’s everywhere.
n
It seems I missed the festivities last night with the under-bridge dweller.
Without going into the building, the new window unit was barely running this morning. 7am-ish in central Texas. Inside the building the temp was 78f as set. The a/c was almost silent. I don’t know it the a/c ever turned totally off or it it was maintaining. I think the PC in there may be louder by a hair. The refrigerator kicked on and was much louder.
While messing around there today, putting everything more or less back in place and running the vacuum, it was 78f and about 40% humidity. If the humidity stuff is correct. I played with the fan speed. It was on Auto. I tapped it to High and the fan sped up. So the thing was blowing somewhere about Medium speed. It was 104f outside.
So far, I’m impressed.
The electric bill arrived today. 734 kWh. This month last year was 589 kWh.. They also show the temperature. Eyeballing it, it looks like the highs last year were in the low to mid nineties. This year has pushed a bit over 100f every day. So there’s a fudge factor if 10 degrees makes a huge difference.
But…. I just replaced a failing a/c unit that could just get the room down to 88f overnight. I thought about replacing it last year because the bill was creeping up every month.
I did an experiment a few years ago. Trying to cut the electric bill…. I turned the a/c off, opened the windows and had a fan blowing out through the screen. I tried the fan the other way but the room was warmer. The electric bill increased about $30. Seems the fridge and the two freezers were working much harder. So, net, running the a/c saves about $25, the beer is colder, and I have a cool place to sip that beer.
The a/c dudes showed up today. A day early. They didn’t have the exact starting capacitor for the heat pump’s outside fan. So he connected two. Parallel or in series, I didn’t think to ask. I’m kicking myself for not getting the model number etc of the old capacitor. $202 total. Fixed. He thought my 30″ fan laying on top of the compressor was pretty cool.
And now it looks like we may get some thunder storming going on. Good times.
Our usual AC service is so backed up that they can’t get out until August 16th.
No rush. We haven’t had annual service in three years, but I am a little concerned about the motor noise on our newer unit lately.
The blower is variable speed. I’d hate to think about what that motor costs to replace.
When money is tight, no one will pay a premium for pure EV or hybrid. There’s virtue signalling and there’s missing a meal or a mortgage payment.
And while Starbucks has sometimes positioned itself as an affordable luxury, $5 coffees are gonna be out of style soon.
A lot of things that people spend money on without much thought will be getting a hard look when the cupboards are bare.
People will lengthen the time between haircuts, do less dry cleaning, put off buying new cars/furnishings/appliances/homes, cut subscription services, car washes, and “enrichment” activities for kids.
I’m sure there are other things, but that was what jumped up and waved.
n
Oh yeah, the system is out of its 10 year warranty by….. May 2, 2012. Figures. May, June, and a few days of July.
Oh well.
I thought that I was cynical about how scummy people are. But then I went to law school and read caselaw about notable crimes and civil suits over the years. Gah. People are scum.
That’s what quotas and bans on IC engines are for, duh.
Chief diversity officers, five of the twelve layers of corporate vice president, college degrees in anything but medicine, accounting, and STEM…
As best as I remember, when the blower in the house decided to eat a bearing, the a/c folks said that’s a $600+ blower. I got lucky and the owner of the company happened to be in Austin and swung by to get the part. I mean, I had my 80 year old Mom here… it was fixed the same day. It was under warranty but still about $250 for the service call.
Noodling around for somethng else, I found this:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4076850/Mexican-man-charged-rape-19-deportations-removals.html
posted by Nick on 30 Dec 2016
I tried to find out the result of the case. There was one claim in the Google summary from a “bad” site that he served a year in the Geary County lockup before his case was “quietly disposed of”. Other than that, every link I found was from the original report.
One link did indicate that Senator Grassley (R-IA) had asked some questions of the Obama administration, so it may be that his office could provide some info.
But it does pose the question as to how many similar cases are “quietly disposed of”.
This latest is more than a little grotesque and is not going to get buried easily.
I did get a laugh out of the public defender. After the girl ID’d him and the perp confessed, he comes out with:
real geni-ass material there.
My first thought was the judge should let him have his way: “Gee, Clark, you’re absolutely right. Howsabout you come down tomorrow morning about 8AM and you can walk him out the front door? That will give time for this ruling to hit the news cycle about four times, so you have the biggest audience for your speech.”
Parallel most likely. Capacitance is additive in parallel and intuitive.
OTOH, replacing resistors in my burglar alarm circuits after a lightning strike required very specific values which I cobbled together doing the inverse of the inverse math with the standard selection available at Radio Shack.
I wouldn’t have thought that application would need a very specific uF value, but I’m not an AC guy.
Regarding Costco. . .
Not crowded. Had a chat with the door guy. Asked him if I was crazy or if the place was looking more like a fortress. He’s a long term (12yrs at this location) employee who I recognize by sight.) “Whaddaya mean?” Well, there are two new HUGE generators behind a GIANT fence out behind the store… Oh, well storm season is coming. Mgmt spent $500K on the two gennies because they lose $100K PER HOUR if the store isn’t selling. The gennies are big enough that the whole store will just switch over, and no one will know the difference.
He also admitted that yes, they did pour a concrete raised area in front to block off some of the entryway.
The gennies were behind a 12-16ft fence, btw. That is a trend I’m noticing all over town. LOTS of new fences going up around warehouses, stores, and infrastructure. SERIOUS fences. But that’s for another post.
In the store, there were sale items, and nice displays. They made the electronics area smaller though, and the computer/phone/tablet area has a lot more cardboard “take this to the cashier” things than it has product in boxes on the shelf.
There wasn’t any cream in the dairy cooler. Meats weren’t crazy expensive, in fact they were reasonable, but I also saw several more cuts of steak in very thin versions. Who eats a ½” thick ribeye? Price per package is lower that way though. Australian lamb hasn’t changed price much in the last two years. I didn’t see ANY spiral sliced or premium ham though. Nor did I see any multi hundred dollar slabs of beef. The packaged seafood freezer was kinda thin on stock. But canadian maple syrup might be a dollar cheaper than last year.
There were lots of asian packaged foods, many more than in the past. And there were a lot fewer choices for bulk rice, but there was at least one in each category (ie parboiled, jasmine, plain…) and the prices weren’t crazy, 40c to 200c per pound depending on variety. Keto stuff was everywhere. Almost all the canned veg was national brands, no Kirkland. They moved the $16 bags of weird veg chips and other strange snacks to the back wall where the dogfood used to live. Oddly, dogfood and toys were prominent at the end of the main left side of the store, just before wine and beer.
The store is still laid out low, and spread out. They weren’t giving out a lot of sample food either.
There were a LOT of cheaper choices in the wine bins, including Kirkland branded box wine.
I didn’t walk the clothes, books, seasonal or toy aisles this trip. They had regular chicken in stock and I had 6 bulk packs defrosting in my cart. It’s the first time in a while that they had legs in the vac pac that weren’t organic. And only 99c / pound. No bone-in thighs though, only boneless/skinless for $3.50 a pound. King crab legs were down to $38/ pound but in short supply and not flying off the shelf. Oddly, no catfish at all. Some tilapia, whitefish, and some salmon, but less in the cooler and less of a selection than 2 years ago.
The store looked better than my last trip, but it’s not back to “normal” by any stretch.
n
Not crowded. Had a chat with the door guy. Asked him if I was crazy or if the place was looking more like a fortress. He’s a long term (12yrs at this location) employee who I recognize by sight.) “Whaddaya mean?” Well, there are two new HUGE generators behind a GIANT fence out behind the store… Oh, well storm season is coming. Mgmt spent $500K on the two gennies because they lose $100K PER HOUR if the store isn’t selling. The gennies are big enough that the whole store will just switch over, and no one will know the difference.
He also admitted that yes, they did pour a concrete raised area in front to block off some of the entryway.
The gennies were behind a 12-16ft fence, btw. That is a trend I’m noticing all over town. LOTS of new fences going up around warehouses, stores, and infrastructure. SERIOUS fences. But that’s for another post.
It is almost as if the USA is becoming a third world country.
“$100K PER HOUR”
Likely gross sales, not gross profits.
Typical grocery store makes about 2%, so $2k per hour profit.
For 3 years (the outside of the 1-3 year “no brainer” payback) they would have to average $500,000/$2000/3 or about 83 hours per year.
I suspect the real calculation involves losing the freezers after x hours. Whatever “x” is, they weren’t worrying about it previously, and now they are.
I hope they run on unicorn farts. plugs gonna be mad. Gonna cut off theys fuel.
IIRC, markup at Costco is a consistent 3%. Our late host cited the exact number on a few occasions.
Costco must have constant cash flow to survive. The generators were capex, paid out of memberships.
Anything not carried in the stores like the auto buying program or carpet are license deals, where the vendor pays Costco a fixed annual fee. Consistency is king.
Costco management is left wing. Well documented. No conspiracy theories necessary.
The Governor of WA State is one of their wards. Costco lawyers wrote the state’s liquor deregulation.
NOVA has a program on the Webb telescope this evening.
Yeah, I noticed that yesterday at our Costco as well. Just about every food aisle had something keto, and the snack section was loaded down. Luckily the Kirkland brand almonds are still in good supply.
YUUUP! Where does the constitution say: “We the people of the United States and those here illegally from Guatemala ……..”?
From yesterday…
>> This was the sign of the coming financial apocalypse only 4 years ago, now it’s a spin worthy headline about “now is a good time for a vacation in Europe.”
Good until Petey gets Uncle Joe to issue an EO that quarantines citizens trying to return to the US of A.
>> A lot of ass-kicking and timeless stereo equipment.
A lot of cash laid out at J & R on Park Row in NYFC.
>> The same cannot be said when restaurant staff drop half a dozen slices of toast on the floor, pick them up, and put them on plates.
Hey, all good as long as they shout out “Five Second Rule.”
So rather than do a whole post, I’ve noticed a bunch of new physical security stuff around my neighborhood.
The HEB regional distro center got a new fence. It’s shaped wire panels, not chain link, but it is higher and more solid than the old fence.
The Walgreens distro center got a MASSIVE set of new bollards near the gate to their lot, and a huge new chain link fence. Most bollards you see are like 4-6″ steel pipe, set in the ground and filled with concrete. These look like 12″ pipe, and they define a chute in front of the gate. Once in the chute, it’s a lot harder to exit, and you’re not ramming your way out.
Several other businesses upgraded their gates or their fence lately too.
I’ve noticed new gennies behind a couple businesses, and now they are typically fenced.
The used car lot near me has fenced in all their delivery trucks to keep the cats from being stolen. They’re all corralled in the middle of the lot.
Neighbor across the street is fencing their driveway and adding a driveway gate…
And cameras are sprouting like mushrooms after the rain. Most of the intersections in my area have “pole cams” now, separate from the cams for the signal lights.
Keep an eye open in your area, and see it the BigCorps are upping their security. See if the mom and pops are too.
n
I came to this site in the mid-1990s, having read and followed a recommendation by Dr Pournelle of one of Bob’s books about building PCs.
The information in the book was enough to show me how to repair a non-working 386 that I had picked up for buttons from my then employer, along with two Apple Macintosh machines.
I swapped the Macs for replacement parts to get my PC running and Windows 3 installed, and Bob was my mother’s brother! My hand-me-down 286 PC/AT with the monochrome CRT went away.
I became a daily visitor to Bob’s journal page (still in journal, not blogological, order at the time), and have been ever since. TTGNET is my first port of internet call every day.
Like Tony, I was dismayed when we lost Jerry and Bob, so I am very glad and grateful that Barbara and Nick kept the door open, the lights on and the signal-to-noise ratio high.*
*apart maybe, from SteveF 🙂
This reminds me, Mrs Denis has expressed the reasonable wish that I install an alarm / remote surveillance system at our BOL. I am tempted to go the path of least resistance with a doorbell/alarm/cameras/lights package from Amazon Ring: Ring.com
The hardware seems pricey, and they try hard to upsell to a monthly subscription to access useful features. There is also some doubt about what Amazon is doing with the Ring data. On the other hand, Amazon is behind the products, rather than some no-name Chinese generic manufacturer, in case support or replacements are needed..
Has anybody used the Ring stuff, or does anybody have recommendations for good alternatives?
The COVID cough is keeping me awake, so I might as well be “working” on the to-do list… I’m not allowed to expire until everything is taken care of!
Re: remote cameras: I use Wyze products – indoor and outdoor and doorbell. They have a battery-based outdoor camera that lasts about 3 months between charges. You do have to subscribe to get longer storage. Pretty good motion detection alerts. They also have a home monitoring service.
I can access and control my cameras anywhere using their phone app. Their products are inexpensive but appear well-built. They connect via wireless and your ISP, so you do need internet access to store and view camera and ‘events’.
No DVR capability, though. But ‘cloud storage’ of your videos. Plus local storage on micro-SSD’s.
@Nick
Short version of a true story I heard last month:
Local U-Haul let a truck out on a 4-hour rental. Grandmother type seemed in a rush when she brought it back curing busy time, so manager went out to pull it around. Awful noise when started. Looked underneath and the cat was partially removed. They hadn’t got the job done because the welded re-rod installed around the cat had slowed them down. (Joke later was that the sawzall had burned out)
Ford E650 platform. Replacement cat $2300. Charged to credit card on file. They expect cc to bounced, but the DL was blacklisted in their system.
There are places here where they’ll steal all the cats, then come back in a week and steal all the replacements.
Cats should be one of those things the scrap yards won’t accept, like city property, or fridges without an HVAC license.
That would reduce the theft dramatically.
n
Newsom arrives at White House to measure curtains after Brandon runs for Europe?
https://twitchy.com/dougp-3137/2022/07/13/uh-oh-clay-travis-spotted-something-diabolical-in-timing-of-dem-governors-white-house-visit/
Whew! We have our AC units professionally inspected twice a year (See these wiggly things at the end of my arms? All thumbs.) and last May or so, they determined that the air conditioner compressor had a freon leak and that it would be cheaper to replace the unit instead of repairing it. So we had that done probably the last pleasant week of spring, and the new unit is purring along. Needing to have A/C repairs at this time of the year would be hideous, in the San Antonio heat.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/07/guest-post-evs-are-not-the-future.php
It’s great to see a company that is discontinuing all it’s normal cars in favor of SUV’s and truck be concerned about their customer’s needs.
SteveF said
That’s because the law no longer accepts “He needed killin’.” as a reason.
https://www.takimag.com/article/revolution-time/
smile or check your pulse:
https://twitter.com/SlenderSherbet/status/1545818113060573189
Ford is building a new Fusion/Mondeo platform, just not in North America.
People stopped buying cars when gas was $2.50/gallon and $500/month on 2% notes could get them into a $40,000 truck.
People with trucks should have to park them manually without power steering to get license tabs.
Automatic lane keeping is another way of saying “I’m a dumbass that can’t drive.”
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/07/guest-post-evs-are-not-the-future.php
It’s great to see a company that is discontinuing all it’s normal cars in favor of SUV’s and truck be concerned about their customer’s needs.
All of Ford’s gasoline car customers left and went to Toyota and Honda years ago. And their profit margin is way higher on F-150s and SUVs.
Whoa, suppose to be only 94 F tomorrow. The guys and gals at ERCOT are all screaming with joy.
https://www.wunderground.com/forecast/us/tx/sugar%20land/77469