Hot and humid, although… it was a bit cooler for part of the day. Still plenty stifling later in the afternoon. Hot humid and still equals Nick soaked to the skin while barely working.
Did some stuff in the morning at home. Then got moving to do errands. One auction pickup. One trip to Lowes for more pex stuff. Then went by my rent house and replaced the damaged fence pickets. Of course, the fence is western red cedar, and I bought pressure treated… because I forgot. The pressure treated is 3/8″ wider than existing. So I’m not quite done, I need to rip two pickets to width, one to make up the remainder of 5 pickets in a row, and one for a lone picket further down the fence. Of course my saw is at the BOL. I’ll take the pickets with me, rip them and return to finish the job. It’s always something.
On the other hand, I have the tools and experience to do the work. I’m not at the mercy of someone else, and I can do the work to whatever level of fit and finish suits me. There are a lot of things like that in the life of a homeowner, and landlord especially. I think there will be a lot more of that as the economy worsens. People won’t have the cash to pay someone else for the work. The flip side is possible too, if you have cash or something of value, there might be lots of skilled craftsmen available to do the work for you. The trick is having something of value. For most it will likely just be the sweat of their brow. Moral of the story? Have a skill someone will pay for. Or have something skilled people will accept as payment.
Either way, stacks help.
nick
Or maybe just a major leak. While it was a natural disaster, consider Lake Nyos, where escaping CO2 killed more than a thousand people.
On the other hand, apparently you can pump CO2 into certain types of rock, such as basalt, it will chemically combine with the rock over the course of a few months. That kind of project could make sense, depending on the expense and energy requirements.
Whatever model you choose, there are unanswerable questions. If the big-bang, then where did it come from? Why did it start? If steady-state, much the same questions. The problem is: we are *in* the universe, and cannot really imagine what might be *outside* of it. For example, we are trapped moving along the time axis. If you could step outside of time, like you can step outside of a room, what might you see?
I find the simulation argument compelling. We can simulate complex systems on our computers. Why might we not be a simulation in a far more powerful computer? Is it possible that we, someday, might be able to hack the simulation? Zero-point energy, for example.
Of course, whoever is running the simulation may be in a simulation themselves. It could be simulations “all the way down” (or up) 😛
Why is it always these half-a**ed Pixar themed “rides” and not, say, “The Haunted Mansion”?
I’ve always been mystified by the three hour standby line for “Toy Story Mania”, but I don’t get the Germany pavilion at EPCOT either. People love getting tanked up at the fake Oktoberfest.
https://wdwnt.com/2022/08/man-states-he-was-punched-by-young-boys-after-telling-them-he-has-brain-cancer-others-say-he-assaulted-a-minor-at-toy-story-mania-ride-in-walt-disney-world/
At least we know the answer is 42.
I went the other way on Bob’s recommendation – I remember his “independence day” posts. I went to Ubuntu, now Mint for my personal PC. Other than missing my good old PaintShop Pro, there is little or nothing that I find windows did that Linux won’t, and I have had few, or no, instances of having to go to command lines and under-the-bonnet manipulations.
In Ireland, we have proportional representation by the single transferrable vote. A good system, if difficult to explain. Designed by an American!
Here are RBT’ videos on YouTube. Alas, the napalm one seems to have gone away. Hint – dissolve styrofoam (packing peanuts) in petrol (gasoline) to get an inflammable gel. Lots of current videos showing Ukrainians making Molotow cocktails by this method.
https://youtube.com/user/TheHomeScientist
Currently 59f here in the plateau. Suck it Mr. Nick, and anyone else in Texas. 🙂 High today will not get above 80f. Slept with the bedroom vent open and a small fan on the other end of the trailer moving air from an open window. Really nice. Summer here is just about over.
Tonight is our last night at the park. Lot of empty spaces as it is now off season. One place close to us was filled with a huge RV, dual rear axle, big sucker. Automated leveling system that has enough force to lift the tires free from the ground. Four slide outs so interior space is probably bigger than many two bedroom apartments. They only stayed one night even though the site label indicated a week. I suspect they moved to a more level spot.
Even my small trailer is larger than some apartments I saw in Norway and Germany, especially Norway. I might be able to live in this full time if I was the only person. But not two people. A week is long enough.
I have talked with a few people with large RVs on a bus chassis that live in the RV full time. They have a fixed address somewhere because of the IRS. Their mail is sent to this address and they have the mailed forwarded. Once a year they return to their base station for doctors appointments and such. They typically will stay in one place for a month and move on to the next location. Washer and drier in the RV for laundry, dishwasher for the dishes. They like the lifestyle.
Rain returns this week in Austin.
We saw plenty of rain in Nashville and Memphis at the beginning of the month. The first day was a nice change but I think we all ended up with Covid from the trip to Graceland during an all day deluge, with all of the tourists huddled under whatever shelter existed on the grounds waiting for buses and crowded into the open parts of the house.
Some parts of the trip were cancelled due to iffy weather forecasts for the mountains and the last minute change of vehicle forcing everyone to pack light.
@Denis
“Cartridge bag” exactly described what I’m looking for. At some point in the distant future I will post the result. In the meantime, thanks for the tip.
>>Other than missing my good old PaintShop Pro<<
That would be 4.12, IIRC. Such a sweet program. Went the way of UltraEdit.
79F and saturated with the sun coming up and warming the air. ALMOST felt cool waiting for the school bus. 20 minutes late today, after being on time yesterday. Whatever change they made went backwards.
Today should be some driving around, some getting ready to head north, some cleaning up the house. Anyone who thinks females are inherently neat hasn’t lived with teen girls.
n
Prior to a certain release, PaintShop Pro was a fairly portable program, allowing piracy on a massive scale just by dragging/dropping the program directory. This continued well into the era of InstallShield and attempts by Microsoft to clean up uninstalls.
Around the time Traveling Software’s products stopped being effective, PaintShop Pro started using a more sophisticated install with registry changes. Maybe it was around the time the Egghead Ponzi folded when their business model couldn’t handle sophisticated installers either.
I used to use PSP daily. Was a great piece of software.
n
>>Other than missing my good old PaintShop Pro<<
That would be 4.12, IIRC. Such a sweet program. Went the way of UltraEdit.
—
I have Jasc Paint Shop Pro 7. I bought version 2 or 3. Then ver. 5. Skipped ver. 6. I was getting tired of upgrading every time I turned around. Ver.7 was the last. There were a few more versions before Corel bought the company and raised the price. Problem solved.
I don’t know about portability. It was always easier to stuff the floppies and then a CD into the drive and let set-up run.
I just received my July hvac usage report for my downstairs Honeywell thermostat. 155 hours of cooling in 2021 vs 219 hours of cooling in 2022. It was warmer, but the big difference is my wife started teleworking 2 days a week a few months ago, and those 2 days are on days I’m at the office. So we adjusted to have the daytime temp not be our normal at home temp of 77 instead of the away temp of 80.
We are still coming out ahead though with teleworking as I average using about a quarter tank of gas a week. My wife averages half a tank. Compare that to a full tank a week for both of us in the past, and it adds up.
A classic day at Daynotes…
https://www.ttgnet.com/journal/2017/04/11/tuesday-4-april-2017-2/
found while looking for something else.
n
I appreciate that link Nick. Reminded me of when RBT got me reading Joe Konrath’s ebooks from Amazon.
Or maybe just a major leak. While it was a natural disaster, consider Lake Nyos, where escaping CO2 killed more than a thousand people.
On the other hand, apparently you can pump CO2 into certain types of rock, such as basalt, it will chemically combine with the rock over the course of a few months. That kind of project could make sense, depending on the expense and energy requirements.
Humans can take up to 15% CO2 in the air before we have problems breathing. But, we are uncomfortable after 5% or so. I don’t know about other mammals. Wikipedia says that we are uncomfortable at 1% but that makes no sense. You have 4% CO2 in your exhaled breath.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide#Toxicity
I think that any CO2 system under pressure for a long time is dangerous. CO2 is a weak acid (carbonic acid) and attacks iron amongst other metals. High pressure pipes are made of iron and steel. They will be under attack and after 20, 50, or 100 years, things will not be good.
We are currently at 0.04% CO2 in our atmospheric air on Earth. CO2 capture and storage systems are just not wise at this point. However, CO2 capture systems for flooding crude oil reservoirs make a lot of sense.
I just received my July hvac usage report for my downstairs Honeywell thermostat. 155 hours of cooling in 2021 vs 219 hours of cooling in 2022. It was warmer, but the big difference is my wife started teleworking 2 days a week a few months ago, and those 2 days are on days I’m at the office. So we adjusted to have the daytime temp not be our normal at home temp of 77 instead of the away temp of 80.
Just wait until your wife starts going through the change (menopause). My wife calls it her own personal summer, she started at 46 since she only has one ovary. I find the thermostat set at 70 F at the time.
Capture CO2 by growing trees. Use the trees to make lumber. Use the lumber to build houses. Sequesters the carbon for 40-50 years and doesn’t need any market shenanigans as people are ALREADY doing it.
n
Ah, but that misses the point. Our overlords want shenanigans. That way, they can give the appearance of helping us while enriching themselves.
We were limited to 6% on the submarine, IIRC, but we really didn’t like it when it got over a few percent. I thought 2% we started getting headaches. The limit is getting the CO2 out of the blood, so it may very well be below 4%.
Capture CO2 by growing trees. Use the trees to make lumber. Use the lumber to build houses. Sequesters the carbon for 40-50 years and doesn’t need any market shenanigans as people are ALREADY doing it.
n
And grow corn ! Wheat ! Cotton ! Maize ! Sorghum ! Strawberries !
>>However, CO2 capture systems for flooding crude oil reservoirs make a lot of sense. <<
Could you explain that, please? I can’t make any sense out of it.
Origins of the universe; Big Bang vs Steady State? WISE scientists need to admit that we’re still pretty new at this and there’s a lot we DO NOT KNOW. Part of that is that we’ve never BEEN there. We’re guessing, and sometimes, we’ve guessed wrong. And some of the theories are pretty weird. “Dark Matter”? Our great-grandchildren will think of “dark matter” the way we think of “luminiferous aether”. There’s always some new thing.
Lynn writes:
My wife said that she didn’t have “hot flashes”, she had “power surges”.
WRT Big Bang: What caused THAT? And we can keep going down that rabbit hole as far as you like.
WRT Steady State: It’s always been here? How does that work?
Not picking on anyone, or everyone, but all these theories just kick the can further back. I’ve never seen a theory that starts it off. WELL, not exactly true: An old mentor of mine posited that the absence of anything started the bang, but offered no reasoning behind that theory.
Oh, and if the Universe is expanding, what is it expanding into?
Begs the question could we reduce hvac costs by giving people hormone therapy? Setting thermostats at 50F in the winter and 80 in summer could save bigbux.
80 deg. F on the AC thermostat is not a productive environment.
For mere mortals to comprehend space is just not possible.
Scientists state the universe is expanding because of the red shift in the light from the stars. How do they not know that stars may normally be red in color? I guess they figured it out somehow. So many assumptions made to fit what scientist think what is happening.
What is certain, the more we think we know, the more we find that we don’t know. Or that what we thought we knew, is not what we thought we knew and must now know something different to know.
Does the universe have no edge? Does it fold back on itself? Is it a ‘warped’ folding, so a theoretical straight line travel would not bring you back to where you started?
This is way above my pay grade. One of those things that ‘it seems to work OK, and I don’t need to figure out why’.
“Texas company hopes to ‘de-extinct’ Tasmanian tiger in next 10 years”
https://www.chron.com/news/science-environment/article/Texas-company-hopes-to-de-extinct-Tasmanian-17379267.php
What could go wrong ?
>>However, CO2 capture systems for flooding crude oil reservoirs make a lot of sense. <<
Could you explain that, please? I can’t make any sense out of it.
You use CO2, water, steam, etc to push the oil from sparse areas of the reservoir to collect in central areas. You choose the pushing agent based on the weight of the gas / oil in the crude reservoir. Mostly people use water since most crude is lighter than water and the crude is displaced by the water. The entire city of Midland, Texas has a massive water flood in the reservoir underneath it.
Begs the question could we reduce hvac costs by giving people hormone therapy? Setting thermostats at 50F in the winter and 80 in summer could save bigbux.
Hormone therapy has doubled and tripled the rate of breast cancer in women. Do not take that stuff lightly. You must be tested for the bad genes and other stuff that I don’t know of.
My wife took a drug for five years after having breast cancer to suppress the hormones in her body. I cannot remember what the name is but it is nasty.
>>You use CO2, water, steam, etc to push the oil from sparse areas of the reservoir to collect in central areas. … <<
Ahh, I see. Intellectually it all makes sense, but it’s hard to imagine doing that on on an industrial scale. But I guess that’s what you do!
It’s the permeability of those pockets which I have a hard time wrapping my head around. Must be a helluva big operation.
“Back to school ad shows Texas child wearing body armor for first day back”
https://www.chron.com/politics/article/Back-to-school-ad-shows-Texas-child-wearing-body-17374969.php
And so the political crap starts. Bozo will start a civil war in Texas if he goes door to door seizing people’s guns.
In addition to panspermia, didn’t Fred Hoyle have some cacamamie idea that oil wasn’t the result of a biologic process?
I wonder how you could test that.
The weather just broke in a huge way in Austin within the last hour.
Robert Francis only chance is rolling blackouts, and those seem extremely unlikely through the end of the month looking at the forecast. 70s next week?!?
It always happens here around the time school starts.
So much for global warming. Summertime in Texas is hot.
Of course, with rain comes power problems at our Fancy Lad campus in Austin proper. I came back from lunch to find my development server access down. Now that I’m back in, all of my GNU screen sessions are gone. Grrrr.
Austin Energy.
The nice thing about getting old is that it allows one the leeway of forgoing forbearance.
~jim
Would you be so kind to get off my lawn, please?
>>You use CO2, water, steam, etc to push the oil from sparse areas of the reservoir to collect in central areas. … <<
Ahh, I see. Intellectually it all makes sense, but it’s hard to imagine doing that on on an industrial scale. But I guess that’s what you do!
It’s the permeability of those pockets which I have a hard time wrapping my head around. Must be a helluva big operation.
The Saudis put nine million barrels of sea water from the Persian Gulf into their super super giant reservoir Ghawar for every million barrels of crude oil that they produce. They are trying to keep the reservoir pressure at 3,600 psia, supercritical. They have 83 operating GOSP (gas oil separation plants) running at all times. The initial design was using our software.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghawar_Field
>>The Saudis put nine million barrels of sea water from the Persian Gulf into their super super giant reservoir Ghawar for every million barrels of crude oil that they produce. They are trying to keep the reservoir pressure at 3,600 psi <<
That’s one big fracking operation!
3,600 PSI? That’s insane. Either the permeability of the rock is infinitesimal or them be some bigass pumps.
Shirley you’re joking.
>>The Saudis put nine million barrels of sea water from the Persian Gulf into their super super giant reservoir Ghawar for every million barrels of crude oil that they produce. They are trying to keep the reservoir pressure at 3,600 psi <<
That’s one big fracking operation!
3,600 PSI? That’s insane. Either the permeability of the rock is infinitesimal or them be some bigass pumps.
The pumps have GE turbine drivers using GE Frame 7Es which are up to 75,000 hp.
Like I said, there are 83 GOSP plants. Each plant would cost about a billion dollars today.
If they let the reservoir pressure drop then the crude oil is so light and sweet (no H2S) that it will flash into natural gas. I have heard that Ghawar is down to four to six million barrels of crude oil production per day now, it was was eleven million barrels per day forty years ago. There is only one super super giant in the world, that is Ghawar.
“Liz Cheney is already raising money for her next effort”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/liz-cheney-is-already-raising-money-for-her-next-effort-191415830.html
Liz Cheney thinks that she is going to run for Prez in 2024. That is delusional, she is a middle of the road candidate. You know what happens in the middle of the road, you get run over.
The weather just broke in a huge way in Austin within the last hour.
My truck says that it is 105 F outside when I ran over to Chikfila for lunch. We are getting some serious compression of the atmosphere with those cold fronts rolling in from the north.
>> Wikipedia says that we are uncomfortable at 1% but that makes no sense. You have 4% CO2 in your exhaled breath.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DZbSlkFoSU
In addition to panspermia, didn’t Fred Hoyle have some cacamamie idea that oil wasn’t the result of a biologic process?
I wonder how you could test that.
What ? Crude oil and natural gas come from the compression and conversion of ferns and other natural plant matter from tens of millions of years ago.
>”Scientists state the universe is expanding because of the red shift in the light from the stars. How do they not know that stars may normally be red in color? I guess they figured it out somehow.”
They look at the spectrum of light from a star and match the separation of the lines with the atomic spectra we see on earth. The stellar spectra are shifted toward the red. This shift is assumed to be a Doppler shift caused by the relative speed of the star. The larger the shift, the faster the star is receding from us.
The thermometer right outside my back door currently reads 76.
My souvenir from a trip to the “American Pickers” store in Nashville. Don’t go expecting much other than their own merchandise.
I note that there has been an increase in PayPal ‘invoice’ phishing emails. They look quite convincing, but if you follow their instructions, you’ll be asked to install some ‘diagnostic’ software. Which is malware, of course.
KrebsOnSecurity has an article about it here. I’ve gotten 3-4 of them just today. Only by looking deep into the mail headers (with a mail header analysis tool like here will you see that there are invalid or misleading SPF and DKIM records.
“Danger, Wil Robinson!”
(In the middle of a ‘heat advisory’ here in WA – current outside temp is 78F.)
>> On the other hand, apparently you can pump CO2 into certain types of rock, such as basalt, it will chemically combine with the rock over the course of a few months. That kind of project could make sense, depending on the expense and energy requirements.
Is this a one-way process (i.e. waste disposal) or two-way (i.e. storage)?
>>What ? Crude oil and natural gas come from the compression and conversion of ferns and other natural plant matter from tens of millions of years ago. <<
The Bible said it, I believe it, and that settles it.
~jim
(Former member of the flat earth society)
… and carbonate beer! (I fell down the home-brew rabbit hole…)
Glad to help! I have the PSP files from an old install of a version that is old enough that just copying over the directory still works, perhaps 4.12 or 4.14. I probably got it as trialware on a floppy disc attached to PCPro magazine in the good old days. It still ran fine on a recent-ish Windows (10?) PC that my wide has last time I checked. Great program.
Dilbert: Asok Demonstrates Neural Chip
https://dilbert.com/strip/2022-08-18
You ain’t gonna brain chip me, I read The Mandibles book.
https://www.amazon.com/Mandibles-Family-2029-2047-Lionel-Shriver/dp/006232828X?tag=ttgnet-20/
Chips? Like have a chip in your hand so you can just wave and pay?
No thanks. Chips move. How that works with a chip in the web between your thumb and fingers is unknown to me.
But. Would you rather have a brother steal your wallet or chop off your hand? I can replace my wallet.
Chips? Like have a chip in your hand so you can just wave and pay?
No thanks. Chips move. How that works with a chip in the web between your thumb and fingers is unknown to me.
But. Would you rather have a brother steal your wallet or chop off your hand? I can replace my wallet.
Nope, in The Mandibles book, they chip people at the base of the brain stem so the chip can talk with the Starlink satellites about a person’s finances.
Wow, I am the number one review for The Mandibles book out of 1,355 reviews.
“Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 Review”
https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/samsung-galaxy-z-fold-4
I was tempted until I saw the $1,799 price !
“… The Mandibles book …”
Unreadably depressing.
I tried, I really tried, but I couldn’t make it past the first couple of chapters.
“Emerging small reactors projected to provide 90 GW of nuclear power to the US grid by 2050: NEI survey”
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/emerging-small-reactors-projected-to-provide-90-gw-of-nuclear-power-to-the/629936/
“The push for carbon-free energy will drive the growth of small modular reactors, or SMRs, with 300 of them expected to be online by 2050 supplying 731 TWh of power, according to the results of a survey the Nuclear Energy Institute conducted with a subset of its member utilities and released Aug. 5.”
“A study by Vibrant Clean Energy commissioned by NEI estimated the costs of the “first of its kind” SMR at $3,800 per kW at the low end and $5,500 kW at the high end. The higher projected cost factors in possible deployment constraints, such as supply chain limits, license delays and a limited skilled workforce.”
There are zero installed around the world so that is quite an extrapolation.
I can buy a 48 MW gas turbine for $950/kw plus another $200/kw (SWAG) to install it. The cost differential is just too high.
“… The Mandibles book …”
Unreadably depressing.
I tried, I really tried, but I couldn’t make it past the first couple of chapters.
I love depressing dystopian books. The Mandibles really gets depressing in the middle and the end.
One thing that really blew me away about the book is the seizure of ALL gold by the feddies including wedding rings. Gold was the basis of the family patriarch’s wealth. When that gold was seized from his various bank lockboxes, his entire wealth cratered.
I have two gold teeth, I wonder if they would take those too.
So much for the dog training video on Facebook. What a piece of crap Facebook is. Too many whirligigs for this old brain to figure out.
@Jenny
Thanks for the tip but it was too many hoops to jump through. I’m pretty good with dogs anyway yet I can always use some pointers.
Until the next freeze during a double whammy holiday weekend, with everyone in Texas, including the gas industry regulators, “working” from home after noon on Thursday.
The fix is in for Abbott to win reelection, with the consensus being that February 2021 will be forgotten quickly and the utility companies bailed out during the regular session of the Legislature this Spring.
Had a bit of rain spatter down. Then it stopped.
I was overheated so I came in, and the power went out. ThenThen the storm hit. Pouring down rain here.
N
I don’t have my debugging office PC on a UPS. You know how I know this ? I just got hosed in a 1+ hour debugging session by three power outages so far.
At least the outside temperature dropped from 98 F to 75 F. That is quite the change.
I think we just got half an inch. And there is absolutely zero runoff to the back pond. Or the front pond.
Until the next freeze during a double whammy holiday weekend, with everyone in Texas, including the gas industry regulators, “working” from home after noon on Thursday.
The fix is in for Abbott to win reelection, with the consensus being that February 2021 will be forgotten quickly and the utility companies bailed out during the regular session of the Legislature this Spring.
The gas turbines will be ok as long as they have 10 to 20,000 gallons of diesel stashed away on site for each gas turbine.
Why do the utility companies need a bailout ? My natural gas utility just doubled their rates, my normal $30/month summer bill just went to $58. Who else needs a bailout ?
I just got my office electric bill for $350. 10 cents per kwh looks real good now. But my two year office building contract expires in Feb 2023 so I suspect that is going up 50+% from what I am hearing.
Power just came back up.
One and a half hours early by their initial estimate.
I was wishing I’d worked on the gennie instead of the string trimmer earlier. Prepper fail.
n
Jo Walton’s TOR columns from 2008 to now:
http://www.michaelcross.me.uk/jowalton/TorComAllPosts.htm
From this entry page:
http://www.michaelcross.me.uk/jowalton/index.html
My favorite column:
https://www.tor.com/2008/07/27/citizengalaxy/
“What Heinlein was unbeatable at was writing total immersion. His universes hold together perfectly, even though he describes them with very few strokes. From the first words of Citizen you’re caught, you’re there beside the slave block that stands by the spaceport in Jubbalpore as a beggar buys a slave. There’s something so compelling about the prose, about the story, that I find myself totally sucked in every time. There are books I can re-read in a fairly detached way — I do know what’s going to happen, after all — but this isn’t one of them. I’d love to analyse how Heinlein does it — I’d love to be able to copy how Heinlein does it, and so would a lot of people — but no, the sheer force of storytelling drags me through at one sitting without pause every single time.”
One of my next rereads:
https://www.tor.com/2009/06/14/the-worst-book-i-love-robert-heinleins-friday/
“Friday is one of Heinlein’s “late period” novels. The general rule if you haven’t read any Heinlein is to start with anything less than an inch thick. But of his later books, I’ve always been fond of Friday. It’s the first person story of Friday Jones, courier and secret agent. She’s a clone (in the terms of her world an “artificial person”) who was brought up in a creche and who is passing as human. It’s a book about passing, about what makes you human. I think it was the first female out-and-out action hero that I read. It’s also a book about being good at some things but with a large hole in your confidence underneath. No wonder I lapped it up when I was seventeen!”
So, is Jo Walton an affirmed Heinlein apologist ?
And if you do not know who Jo Walton is, she wrote the 2011 Hugo winning fantasy book, “Among Others”, about growing up in mixed human-fae family in Wales. She managed to review 40 or 50 SF 1960s – 1970s books in the book which made it unique and interesting.
https://www.amazon.com/Among-Others-Hugo-Award-Winner/dp/0765331721?tag=ttgnet-20
Anyone here use alternate DNS servers? I used to, but stopped because it didn’t seem to make much improvement, but recently I have been getting DNS errors on my Frontier DSL. I found this article:
https://www.techradar.com/news/best-dns-server
and I am thinking of trying the Cloudflare free version. Everything has changed since I last used Open DNS, and now it seems I can simply enter a new address in my router. I will try it, but still am looking for advice. Thanks in advance.
@Lynn
The Motorola Startac was introduced in 1996 at $1000. IIRC, it was $300 about a year later.
“Judge unseals DOJ’s application for Mar-a-Lago search warrant stating ‘evidence of a crime’ and orders DOJ to prepare REDACTED version of Trump raid affidavit giving the government one WEEK to reveal what information it wants to black out”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11124613/Huge-security-outside-federal-courthouse-ahead-decision-unsealing-Mar-Lago-raid-affidavit.html
Well, now we know what the DOJ is going to charge Trump with.
Hat tip to:
https://www.drudgereport.com/
@Lynn
John Christopher, No Blade of Grass (1956)
“Judge unseals DOJ’s application for Mar-a-Lago search warrant stating ‘evidence of a crime’ and orders DOJ to prepare REDACTED version of Trump raid affidavit giving the government one WEEK to reveal what information it wants to black out”
In other news, black ink futures surged 25% this afternoon.
94.140.14.14
94.140.15.15
>>John Christopher, No Blade of Grass (1956) <<
Yikes! If it’s anything like the old movie, pass the Prozac. I haven’t read that so thanks for the tip.
Just changed the router to use 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1 DNS addresses. Simple with my new router. My old one, about ten years ago, would not accept DNS changes. Now am using the free Cloudflare DNS servers, as verified with
https://www.dnsleaktest.com/
All seems to work fine. Will watch for any DNS errors, but the log in the router shows clean DNS hits, where before on the Frontier DNS servers there were errors. Time will tell.
AT&T is currently running a $1000 off sale, good to the end of the month. A friend told me he saw a trade-in deal for certain Galaxy phones, working or nonworking, that gets the Z Fold 4 for free. I will ask him where he found that. It is apparently for an unlocked Z Fold 4.
I have wanted one for a while, but passed on the Z Fold 3 because there were some issues, mostly software that couldn’t work well with the large screen. There are still some issues, but now apparently much better. The review you cited is pretty favorable. I have seen a demo Z Fold 3, and the screen fold artifact doesn’t bother me.
My wife and I have new phones, and might be unwilling to trade so soon, even if free. I have never had an unlocked phone, and am a little scared to try one. I prefer dealing with a single source. Twice now I have had problems, and the AT&T store guys came to my aid. They spent hours recently untangling my account because of a problem their corporate idiots caused. I tried and stalled out spitting nails. Our local store has been great for years.
Friday was an interesting book. I bought it when it came out, of course.
I confess that the idea of a balkanized US, so brilliantly portrayed, was so upsetting that I never read it again.
Yet here we are in 2022, half way there.
The lights stayed on this summer … well, except in Austin Energy service areas. The political debt for that will have to be paid.
ERCOT just appointed a new CEO. They almost got away with keeping that flying below the radar. It is a big club, and you aren’t in it.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careersandeducation/ercot-names-pablo-vegas-as-new-ceo-during-urgent-closed-door-meeting-after-name-leaked-to-media/ar-AA10IZWq
Friday was an interesting book. I bought it when it came out, of course.
I confess that the idea of a balkanized US, so brilliantly portrayed, was so upsetting that I never read it again.
Yet here we are in 2022, half way there.
Heinlein famously called roughly 1960 to past now “The Crazy Years”. He did not mention when they were going to stop. Of course, one of his future histories turned the USA into a theocracy with a radio preacher from Louisiana becoming the new prophet dictator.
>> For mere mortals to comprehend space is just not possible.
…
What is certain, the more we think we know, the more we find that we don’t know. Or that what we thought we knew, is not what we thought we knew and must now know something different to know.
Do we really, really need to know? I guess it depends…a quick search of, yes, the internet, (sorry, my Encyclopedia Britannica long ago went to the thrift store) reveals the the Earth will remain habitable for somewhere between tomorrow and five billion years. So we potentially have time to get Elon-ville up and running on Mars while we wait for another earth-like planet to pop up on Google maps.
>> “Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 Review”
https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/samsung-galaxy-z-fold-4
I was tempted until I saw the $1,799 price !
Seriously? I paid, iirc, $250 for my NIB Pixel 2XL from Swappa. Not sure what it doesn’t do that that $1,799 “phone” does?!
Keeping up with the Jones’s?
Techno Lynn
https://dilbert.com/search_results?terms=Techno-bill
Who had the biggest slip stick?
n
>> “Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 Review”
https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/samsung-galaxy-z-fold-4
I was tempted until I saw the $1,799 price !
Seriously? I paid, iirc, $250 for my NIB Pixel 2XL from Swappa. Not sure what it doesn’t do that that $1,799 “phone” does?!
The increased screen space is nice. That means no tablet or laptop on trips. I only rarely carry a laptop now anyway.
I thought that the phone was going to be $999 or something like that. $1,799 is totally crazy.
for only $895 plus shipping you can have the biggest slipstick:
Giant Classroom Demonstrator Pickett N1010 Trig Teaching Slide Rule
https://www.ebay.com/itm/304538035580
The belt holster would cause back issues….
n
The belt holster would cause back issues….
to say nothing of the high heels…
We had one of those in my junior college, freshman electronics, ca. 1975?
I don’t recall it every being used, as a teaching aid or anything else.
>>to say nothing of the high heels…<<
Does this really add to the conversation, or are we supposed to be amused at your cleverness?
We are not amused.
For the prepper who has everything, “NukAlertTM Nuclear Radiation Detector/Monitor (Keychain Attachable) Alarm”
https://www.amazon.com/NukAlertTM-Radiation-Detector-Keychain-Attachable/dp/B004SZ2HXQ?tag=ttgnet-20/
I think that this is a real radiation detector.
Hat tip to:
https://areaocho.com/something-wicked-this-way-comes/
>> I thought that the phone was going to be $999 or something like that. $1,799 is totally crazy.
I think I’ll stick with my current phone and use the money I “saved” and acquire another gub and more amno. One certain item of the latter has been hard to find locally.
~jim
“We are not amused”
I’m glad you were able to share your feelings.
I was working as a teaching assistant in the late ’70s at the University of Kansas, teaching physics 101 lab. Simple experiments. One of my students waltzed into class with a backpack FULL of high-end slide rules; the University Bookstore was giving them away, because with the new-fangled “calculators” available, nobody was buying slide rules. He gave them all away to people in the class.
I still have mine….
I’ve got a couple, and a book on how to use them, but haven’t had the time… I had a TI-30 or 35 (with red leds) and later a TI scientific, like the one on my desk at the moment. Never had to learn the slide rule. I wonder where my dad’s ended up. I don’t remember seeing it in his stuff, but I know he had one. Leather holster too.
I was trying to get to bed early tonight but the dog was sick and I had to clean that up… and now I need a shower before bed too.
n
Fast forward to now! I recently “paid” $1200 each for our new Note 20 phones. Of course, that was before the trade-in for the “free” 4G LTE replacement phones, the sign-up bonus for a new “unlimited” plan, several other credits, some early replacement charges that were required to get.some obscure discounts, a few other credits and rebates, and a partridge in a pear tree. On top of that, AT&T messed up and gave us two additional lines, and failed to ship the phones we originally ordered. Instead, they shipped two phones we didn’t want. And that’s just the short version.
Each time I contacted customer “service,” it got more messed up. I finally went to the store and pleaded help. The store boss patiently looked at my printed history, and then went to work. About six hours over three sessions, and he had it straightened out. He had the patience of a Saint. Probably helped that I went in during slow times.
BTW, I considered changing carriers, but believe it or not, it would have cost substantially more for the same outcome. Golden handcuffs.
And THAT’S why I am reluctant to get the new Z Fold 4.
>>I still have mine…. <<
I still have mine, too.
We all ought to gang up and sell them on Etsy or eBay. Let’s call it…
Pickett Fences?
Touche
@alan:
Get software updates?
G.
I have an E6B and a slide rule and an abacus — and I haven’t used any of them in decades. Very high nostalgia value, though.
For “inquiring minds”, the video described plating process as 2 stages of highly basic cleaning, flash plating a copper base on the brass, a layer of nickel and finish of gold, chrome or rhodium.
Last time I looked, a rebuilt rhodium plated Gillette Adjustable Fat Boy razor was $250, originally$3.95.
Nothing to do with Chemistry, rather a contrarian Geopolitical Economic World view:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/08/alasdair-macleod/geopolitics-the-world-is-splitting-into-two/
https://newatlas.com/lifestyle/green-kinoko-nitrogen-outdoor-cooling/?
Outdoor cooling gizmo