Fri. Aug. 26, 2022 – loading in, busy all day

By on August 26th, 2022 in open thread, personal, Random Stuff

Hot and humid, again.   Hopefully no rain though.  I’ve got a bunch of people that will be unloading at the hotel ballroom, and rain will bork that right up.

Speaking of which, I spent most of yesterday getting stuff together and loaded.  I still haven’t found some things I’m looking for.  No idea where they may be.

Today I’ll be heading out shortly after getting the kids out the door.   I’ve got a few things left to load, and a couple of coolers of ice water and gatoraid to get together.  Then it’s off to work.

It’ll be hot until we get the loading door closed.   But many hands should make light work.

Meatspace.   Get you some.

nick

 

(and stack something, like friends)

68 Comments and discussion on "Fri. Aug. 26, 2022 – loading in, busy all day"

  1. Greg Norton says:

    Genuine Elcotel!

    What’s interesting is that this auction shows the main board with all of the through-hole parts, which is probably why so much of the hardware survives.

    I don’t think that they ever found their software “enforcer”. The company ended up going to private equity in 2002, which means anything of value was stripped by the new owners.

    https://www.ebay.com/itm/223025857594

  2. Nick Flandrey says:

    Still only 78F this morning.   Getting ready to head out.

    I think with several days under 80F at night, Summer might be headed into Fall.

    —–

    That audio cable article caused my IQ to drop just reading it.   SO MANY wrong things.   The most egregious was the conflation of issues with digital and analog.

    And for most people, their hearing loss is the limiting factor, exacerbated by lossy compression techniques applied to the music.     In live production, the amount of cocaine to pass through the mix engineer’s nose has more effect on the sound than almost anything else, with room acoustics being the biggest issue.  Speaking as someone who did pro audio for a living, as long as it passes signal, the cable is the LAST place to look to improve the sound.

    Lamp cord for speakers works just fine.

    n

    (now, gotta stop with the internets for  a while…)

  3. JimB says:

    Lamp cord for speakers works just fine.

    Never use speaker wire for lamps. 😉

  4. Greg Norton says:

    That audio cable article caused my IQ to drop just reading it.   SO MANY wrong things.   The most egregious was the conflation of issues with digital and analog.

    People automagically associate “digital” with better.

    When the old AMPS 10 kHZ FM channels were subdivided three ways for TDMA “digital” cellular service in the 90s, it was a never ending debate with my father-in-law about the service actually being worse, with audible quality differences, to the point that many of his phone calls sounded like he was using the Rebel Alliance comms in the original “Star Wars” movie – bandwidth limiting to 3000 Hz was probably how the audio guys achieved the effect.

    “It is digital. It is better. The company says so.”

    AT&T lifer. Whatever came out of Labs was gospel. The crazy thing is that with a BS in Physics the guy actually knew better.

    And, no, I didn’t get my job at the Death Star via nepotism. My father-in-law and his friends actually saw me as a threat to their careers and never gave me any help.

  5. drwilliams says:

    “There simply is no constitutional or precedential argument for restricting enumerated civil rights for adults on the basis of age, no matter how hard policymakers and activists try to dream them up.”

    https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2022/08/26/federal-judge-on-2nd-amendment-age-limits-civil-rights-apply-to-all-american-adults-n492417

  6. Denis says:

    I expect we’ll start mining old landfills for metals in my lifetime too.

    I seem to recall reading somewhere that the proportion of gold, silver, lead and other useful metals is higher in most landfill than in the naturally occurring ores thereof. It would be logical to expect someone to start “mining” them when and if “clean” ores become scarce.

    Didn’t Jerry Pournelle propose using cheap electricity from solar power satellites to reduce waste to a plasma, which could then be sorted into pure elements by electromagnetic separation?

  7. Ray Thompson says:

    picked up something on the front of the car in TN which looks like tar

    Might be meth residue. The brewing and subsequent consumption a big problem in this area. And moonshine. If you had run into any of that there would be no paint on the vehicle. At least the stuff they brew up the holler around here.

  8. Greg Norton says:

    Might be meth residue. The brewing and subsequent consumption a big problem in this area. And moonshine. If you had run into any of that there would be no paint on the vehicle. At least the stuff they brew up the holler around here.

    It was really disturbing to see how many moonshine distillery t-shirts kids were wearing in Memphis and Nashville. IIRC, by the time we got out there, the only other business left open in the old factory building with the “American Pickers” store was a distillery — the landlords need to work on that.

    I guess it could be worse. The Apple Store in Nashville let the low-grade weed people set up tables on the sidewalk in front of their building. At first, I thought the progressive girls were shilling Scientology.

    Not that much different, really.

    We get the Exploder back from the water pump repair — essentially an engine rebuild — today. Hopefully, our next trip isn’t abbreviated due to car issues.

  9. Brad says:

    the proportion of gold, silver, lead and other useful metals is higher in most landfill than in the naturally occurring ores

    Since moving to Switzerland, I’ve become a huge fan of incineration. You can recover most metals, you get “free” energy, and you don’t have landfills waiting as time bombs for future generations.

    There are still a few old landfills here. They are being excavated and incinerated, one by one.

  10. lynn says:

    You know, I keep on hearing this under bridge dweller spouting gibberish.  Since it has zero credibility, I ignore it of course.

  11. lynn says:

    There are still a few old landfills here. They are being excavated and incinerated, one by one.

    You are making CO2 !  You are killing us all !  Desist immediately !

  12. lynn says:

    There are still a few old landfills here. They are being excavated and incinerated, one by one.

    How do they recover the non magnetic metals ?  That and the required 1,800 F incernation temperatures killed incinerators here in the USA. The leftover slag is toxic and the exhaust usually has SO2 in it. Just like a coal power plant.

  13. Greg Norton says:

    Since moving to Switzerland, I’ve become a huge fan of incineration. You can recover most metals, you get “free” energy, and you don’t have landfills waiting as time bombs for future generations.

    Pinellas County, FL has a “resource recovery” plant. The county had no choice once the old lanfill was full and just about every other piece of real estate was occupied.

    I don’t recall another county in Florida undertaking anything similar. I’m sure other incinerators exist around the country. Many Caribbean islands have similar facilities.

  14. Greg Norton says:

    How do they recover the non magnetic metals ?  That and the required 1,800

    If it is like the incinerator in Pinellas County, the leftover bits of garbage are ground into small bits and blown across a sorting field, with heavier materials like metals traveling shorter distances than lighter pieces. More recovery work is done on the ash output of the incinerator.

    The process is still very labor intensive IIRC, and running the plant isn’t cheap, even after the generated electricity is sold to Duke Energy and TECO.

    It is still cheaper than hauling to a landfill elsewhere. Building a new landfill within the county boundaries was out 30 years ago as the county population density then was similar to the Ginza in Tokyo.

  15. CowboyStu says:

    From Lynn:

    You are making CO2 !  You are killing us all !  Desist immediately !

    I, also, am exhausting CO2 with breath and I can’t stop it.  But that cannot be resolved in Californication as they refuse to implement the death penalty.

    Any solution?  Ed?

  16. Lynn says:

    “If it is like the incinerator in Pinellas County, the leftover bits of garbage are ground into small bits and blown across a sorting field, with heavier materials like metals traveling shorter distances than lighter pieces. More recovery work is done on the ash output of the incinerator.

    The process is still very labor intensive IIRC, and running the plant isn’t cheap, even after the generated electricity is sold to Duke Energy and TECO.

    If the incinerator is a steam boiler, that gets even more exciting as the missed metals and silicon dioxide (sand) plate out on the walls of the steam boiler.   We burned 400,000 barrels of our fuel oil storage one summer due to a Texas PUC order.  The sand in the fuel oil #6 melted and formed a pool of glass in the bottom of the boiler and the interior walls.  We had to a hire a sandblasting team to get all that crap of the walls.  The metals too (metal ores like iron have an affinity for coal and crude oil).  Our coal units had huge magnets for pyrites in the feeders / grinders.

  17. Lynn says:

    “Star Parker: Are we headed for a civil war?”

        https://www.reflector.com/opinion/editorial_columnists/star-parker-are-we-headed-for-a-civil-war/article_41078bde-0e43-597a-87fe-e8561a76a68a.html

    “There were presidential candidates in 1860 running on four different party tickets — the newly formed Republican Party, the Constitutional Union Party, and Northern and Southern parts of a split Democratic Party.

    Abraham Lincoln, the Republican candidate, emerged victorious with just 39.82% of the popular vote. Immediately upon the Lincoln’s declared victory, seven Southern states seceded from the Union.

    Soon there would be a bloody civil war.”

    Two days, two civil war articles in the USA.  Amazing.  Is something going on out there ?

  18. Lynn says:

    “California sets road map to complete ban on gasoline-powered vehicle sales by 2035”

         https://www.utilitydive.com/news/california-ban-gasoline-vehicles-EV-2035/630642/

    Oh, those crazy Californians !  

    One wonders about the sales of new gasoline vehicles to Arizona and the other less crazy states surrounding California.

    Lets see, ban guns, gasoline, natural gas, coal, nuclear, etc. When are they going to ban people ?

    I guess that California will end up looking like Cuba with a bunch of really old cars and trucks driving around the place.

  19. Alan says:

    >> Pinellas County, FL has a “resource recovery” plant. The county had no choice once the old lanfill was full and just about every other piece of real estate was occupied.

    I don’t recall another county in Florida undertaking anything similar. I’m sure other incinerators exist around the country. Many Caribbean islands have similar facilities.

    @Greg, there’s the Waste to Energy plant in Hillsborough County (Tampa).

  20. drwilliams says:

    Lot’s of garbage burners out there last I checked. 

  21. Greg Norton says:

    One wonders about the sales of new gasoline vehicles to Arizona and the other less crazy states surrounding California.

    Lets see, ban guns, gasoline, natural gas, coal, nuclear, etc. When are they going to ban people ?

    I guess that California will end up looking like Cuba with a bunch of really old cars and trucks driving around the place.

    So goes California, so goes the rest of the US vehicle market.

    Private vehicle ownership is about to go away for the vast majority of the population.

    Even if you can afford the vehicle, you won’t be able to afford the “on demand” tolling of the surface streets to pull out of your driveway except very late at night.

    Oh, and the gasoline … or is it guzzzoline (think “Mad Max”). You won’t be able to afford it either.

  22. Lynn says:

    Freefall: Food On The Space Station

         http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff3800/fc03791.htm

    “Labels: Mythical Meats: Flavored Mycoprotein 
    Labels: Get Kraken! Phoenix hot wings! Yeti in spaghetti! Behemoth burgers! 
    Long pig no longer being served 
    Al: One dragon burger, one kraken basket and a leviathan meal. 
    Al: Anything else? 
    Tess: I’m good. One leviathan and I’m done for the day.”

    It’s all flavored soy protein !  It just has provocative labels to fool you !

    And I am glad they dropped the Long Pig label.

  23. Lynn says:

    “Electronics Arts stock surges on false report of Amazon deal”

         https://finance.yahoo.com/video/electronics-arts-stock-surges-false-195115648.html

    Sigh.  The FTC would never allow that.

  24. Lynn says:

    “Global Times: Western Countries are Retreating from Climate Change Promises”

        https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/08/26/global-times-western-countries-retreating-from-climate-change-promises/

    “In the latest case, the city of Copenhagen has given up on a long-term goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2025. “As things look now, we cannot achieve our ambitious climate target,” the head of the city municipality’s elected technical and environmental committee, Line Barfoed, said to Danish media on Monday.”

    “The Denmark city’s decision was made after several European countries, including Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands already or are planning to return to coal to generate electricity, after they felt the pinch from energy crisis followed by the Russia-Ukraine crisis, and adding insult to injury, Europe’s worst drought in 500 years.”

    Get woke, go broke.

  25. Greg Norton says:

    Sigh.  The FTC would never allow that.

    But they will allow Microsoft to buy Activision-Blizzard, which involves more IP and a manufacturer of one of the big consoles.

    And Microsoft has a history of not playing nice via acquisitions. Arguably, the Game Cube was stillborn after Gates moved on Rare, developer of the better Nintendo titles in the N64 era.

    “Perfect Dark Zero” was widely expected to be the “killer app” for the Game Cube. Instead, it became a medicore XBox release after a three year delay.

  26. Lynn says:

    “Dominion threatens to abandon 2.6-GW offshore wind farm over performance guarantee”

        https://www.utilitydive.com/news/dominion-offshore-wind-performance-standard/630397/

    “The Virginia State Corporation Commission’s decision that Dominion’s customers must be held harmless for any shortfall in energy production below the project’s expected 42% average annual capacity factor, measured on a three-year rolling average, is “untenable,” the utility said in a Monday filing with the agency.”

    Dominion ain’t stupid.  There is not a wind farm on the planet that approaches a 42% annual capacity factor. 

  27. Lynn says:

    “Why do arrays start at 0?”

        https://buttondown.email/hillelwayne/archive/why-do-arrays-start-at-0/

    “It’s not the reason you think. No, it’s not that reason either.”

    My Fortran starts at one.  My C++ starts at zero.  This has made my life hell.

  28. Lynn says:

    “Clay and Buck Break Down the Mar-a-Lago Affidavit”

        https://www.clayandbuck.com/clay-and-buck-break-down-the-mar-a-lago-affidavit/

    “CLAY: Yeah. 38 pages. I went through all 38 pages rapidly, just scanning. About half, I would say, maybe 60% of this overall document is redacted, and as I was reading the unredacted aspects of this, I think the most significant fact is much of this has already been reported because of Department of Justice leaks to the New York Times and the Washington Post. So I would say here, this is, based on what we can see — again, there could be redacted elements here — almost exclusively an investigation into documents that ended up at Mar-a-Lago that the federal government believes should be in possession of the National Archives.”

    “And let me just say this, Buck. CNN had a story yesterday. I don’t know if you saw it, but they actually specifically referenced the Kim Jong-un letters that the National Archives was requesting. And they said, “Can you please FedEx these to us?” This from the National Archives. You are an expert in documents, classified, Top Secret, all these things. Does it feel like this is extremely important if the National Archives would allow Donald Trump to FedEx these documents?”

    People at the head of the DOJ think that they can charge and imprison Donald Trump over this.  The trial alone will not go well.

  29. paul says:

    From the folks at the Social Security Administration I have an e-mail titled “Pay Less for Internet Access”.

    Well, let’s take a look.  Because I’m bored. 

    “If your household income is 200% or less than the Federal Poverty Guidelines” means adjusted gross on the 1040, we qualify.   Heck, SS doesn’t count so we really qualify.  They say a household of two can make $36,620. 

    Man, $23 grand or so extra a year would be nice.  Hey, maybe that’s how the folks buying groceries with an EBT card and no speak English can afford an Escalade?  

    Onward. 

    “$30 per month toward internet service for eligible households.”  This sounds good.  $360 a year is a pretty nice sum for the beer budget.

    “$75 per month for households on qualifying Tribal lands.”  This doesn’t apply but sounds like a scam.  There’s actually much of any internet service in the middle of the desert?  

    Click on through and enter the zip code.  Or a city.  Not both because of reasons.  Yeah, a wISP in Corsicana providing service here?  Or the wISP up in the Panhandle?  There is Rise Broadband but, no, been there, eff those people with a red hot poker. 

    Verizon is on the list.  Do I want to deal with the adventure of somehow connecting their mobile hot spot to my LAN?  Only as a last resort.

    My current wISP is not on the list.  Not a surprise.  Not  expected.

    Anyway.  Another scam from the .gov folks.  If I qualified for the $30 a month, how is that paid?  Money to me or to the ISP? 

    That’s all I have.   Pretty day outside.  The humidity would be lower if it actually rained.  🙂 

  30. Lynn says:

    Sigh.  The FTC would never allow that.

    But they will allow Microsoft to buy Activision-Blizzard, which involves more IP and a manufacturer of one of the big consoles.

    And Microsoft has a history of not playing nice via acquisitions. Arguably, the Game Cube was stillborn after Gates moved on Rare, developer of the better Nintendo titles in the N64 era.

    “Perfect Dark Zero” was widely expected to be the “killer app” for the Game Cube. Instead, it became a medicore XBox release after a three year delay.

    That deal has not closed yet.  And the EU and UK are looking at it too.

        https://frontofficesports.com/ftc-could-approve-microsofts-activision-blizzard-acquisition-soon/

  31. Greg Norton says:

    “Why do arrays start at 0?”

    “It’s not the reason you think. No, it’s not that reason either.”

    The pseudo language in “CLRS”, the widely adopted standard text for an “Algorithms” cirriculum, has arrays that start at 1. At least, they did in the Third Edition. Things may have changed in the Fourth Edition.

    I used to think there was an academic point for the authors to hold out, but after watching Charles Leiserson’s lectures on YouTube and having a big wheel in sales at RSA attempt to get me fired from the Death Star – the ‘R’ in RSA is the same as the ‘R’ in “CLRS” – I’m convinced that the people behind the text are simply jerks.

    (Watch Leiserson screech about prerequisites in his first “Algorithms” lecture for MIT OpenCourseware. Why would anyone pay to sit there and listen to that a**hat for an entire semester?)

    “CLRS” does make the undergrad think about translating between the two conventions, but I think it was an accident.

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  32. ~jim says:

    I’m not given to sharing my medical problems, but this is an instance with a funny ending which might save someone, someday, a tiny bit of grief. As you may recall, I had to undergo a colostomy for diverticulitis of the sigmoid colon on May 13th with reversal at a later date. In the interim,

    For the last few weeks I’ve been farting a lot and having increasing episodes of rectal pain/tenesmus. Nurses and the colorectal doc/surgeon (only yesterday) have brushed it off. I couldn’t figure out why I’d be farting so much because it’s just a closed off tube, right?

    So I gave myself an enema this morning, and would you believe….

    There’s been this big old shit hiding out up there for the last 105 days!

    So *THAT’S* what the problem was! Lol.

  33. Greg Norton says:

    When I worked at the Egghead Discount Ponzi, I was the best in my district at rewrapping the software to make it look new. Thank God I was out of there before this monster came along. 

    I doubt Egghead ever legitimately sold a copy of Microsoft C/C++ in Tampa Bay while I worked there. Sure, legitimate copies of Turbo C and Pascal, but never Microsoft’s languages.

    We even had Fortran! I never saw one of those go out the door, even on “evaluation”, however.

    https://www.pcmag.com/news/microsofts-largest-piece-of-software-weighed-more-than-40-pounds

  34. paul says:

    Supper the other night ended up as buttered egg noodles with a wisp of lemon pepper and a good shake of black pepper with a can of Costco chicken mixed in.  I drained the chicken, the dogs each had a few tablespoons of juice on their food.

    “Best food ever!” seemed to be their opinion.  

    I sipped on the rest of the juice while cooking.  Burped it all night, too.  It was worth it. 

    Tonight is Chili Mac.  Easy.  Brown about a pound of hamburger.  Dump in a can of diced tomatoes.  Add chili powder and cumin along with a sprinkle of dried onions. About a table spoon of each. Stir and taste it. Add more chili powder. Maybe a pinch of salt.  Might wave the garlic powder over the pan.  Might add a can of tomato sauce.  Let it get happy for a bit (that’s a little longer than getting a fresh beer from the fridge but not by much) then add a couple of handfuls of macaroni.  Simmer on low for half an hour or so.  Stir during the commercials while watching Wheel of Fortune. 

    Beats the hell outta Hamburger Helper.  Might not be as “creamy”.  But it doesn’t have the plastic after taste from the preservatives, either.   You don’t have a box with the directions…. but….  come on. 

  35. Lynn says:

    When I worked at the Egghead Discount Ponzi, I was the best in my district at rewrapping the software to make it look new. Thank God I was out of there before this monster came along. 

    I doubt Egghead ever legitimately sold a copy of Microsoft C/C++ in Tampa Bay while I worked there. Sure, legitimate copies of Turbo C and Pascal, but never Microsoft’s languages.

    We even had Fortran! I never saw one of those go out the door, even on “evaluation”, however.

    https://www.pcmag.com/news/microsofts-largest-piece-of-software-weighed-more-than-40-pounds

    I’ve got one of those huge boxes in my file cabinet in my office. It has about 5,000 (slight exaggeration) diskettes in it.

    Nope, it is gone, I must have thrown it away. But the diskettes are there.

  36. paul says:

    I have the Windows 2000 Server set of books.  It wasn’t cheap and UPS dropping it off at the mailbox really pissed me off.

  37. drwilliams says:

    @Lynn

    Whoever wrote that newsletter needs to go a bit before actually becoming semi-articulate.

    ““It’s not the reason you think. No, it’s not that reason either.””

    I’m reminded of the quote from the inventor of the Phillips screw:

    “F*ck ‘em if they can’t take a joke”

    Which was the guiding principle of the Honeywell digital thermostat interface design team.

  38. drwilliams says:

    ~jim

    “105 days”

    Probly two late for nedno’s caprolyte collection?

  39. CowboyStu says:

    I’ve got one of those huge boxes in my file cabinet in my office.

    Floppy discs or 80 column punched cards?

    Hey Lynn:  About 1973 we bought a Fortran a steam tables program from a company Southwest Research (IIRC) in Phoenix, came in box of punched cards.  Worked great, I used to to predict performance of the solar energy plant to be built on Daggett, Ca.

  40. drwilliams says:

    @Lynn

    “But the diskettes are there.”

    There was a fities science fiction short about aliens that camoflaged themselves as wire coat hangers.

    In the 80’s it could have been diskettes.

  41. ~jim says:

    >>Probly two late for nedno’s caprolyte collection?<<

    Perhaps you mean fecalith and not corprolite?

    Who’s nedno?

    Stercoraceously yours,

    ~jim

  42. drwilliams says:

    aka nan-o-ed

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  43. Nightraker says:

    Some household tricks:

    Repel ants

    Spray countertops, cupboards, and any other area where you see ants with a very weak solution of Blue Dawn and water—one spray bottle of water plus 3 drops Blue Dawn. Wipe dry. The slight residue of Dawn that remains will not be a problem at all for kids or pets, but ants hate it. Should you see a trail of ants, go ahead and hit them with the Blue Dawn spray. You’ll see. It will kill them.

    Kill wasps

    Add 1 tablespoon Blue Dawn to a quart of hot water. Pour into a spray bottle and let those wasps have it. Instant annihilation!

    Keep Bugs Away

    Water bottle with only one drop of Blue Dawn will act as a natural bug repellent for your plants both indoors and outdoors. A light coating will keep those pesky insects away.

    Poison Ivy

    If you have an unfortunate encounter with poison ivy, wash the affected area with Blue Dawn. It helps to quickly dry the blisters and keep it from spreading.

    https://www.everydaycheapskate.com/20-remarkable-ways-use-blue-dawn-outside-kitchen/

  44. drwilliams says:

    “Yeah. I live rent-free in “dr“ williams’ head. ”

    Actually, in my back yard subbing for a high-capacity septic tank. 

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  45. Nick Flandrey says:

    Hola, quetal?  Me llamo Nick.

    Home from the first day of  the show.   Sold some stuff, but not  the stuff I most want to sell.   Paid for my tables easily.    Def set the price too low on a couple of things as they were gleefully snatched up before official opening.

    Feet are sore but back is KILLING me.  Standing all day on concrete, even with a thin carpet on it, hurts.

    Early start tomorrow, and a long day.    I’m wearing different shoes.   Pro tip from someone who did trade shows for other companies for years…   Pay extra for the carpet pad in the booth.   Wear comfortable shoes.   Bring extra pairs and change your shoes every day.  Oh, and talk to people.   Greet people walking by.  You are THERE  TO SEE PEOPLE.   Never sleep in your booth.  Thus endeth the lesson.

    n

  46. Nick Flandrey says:

    The Foodsaver I picked up at goodwill works fine.   Took a bit of effort and time to clean it, but now I’ve got a good spare on the shelf again. 

    The dog seems to be fully recovered from his stomach and GI tract issues.

    It’s still hot in Houston, but I didn’t see any rain today.   Last night, it was raining all over town, but only in limited patches.

    Popo made a bunch of street racer arrests last night.

    It’s great to be a gathering with fellow enthusiasts and not feel like it’s a bit weird.

    Drank gatoraid all day, didn’t pee.   Finally catching up.   Did I mention that it’s still hot in Houston?  Even in a ballroom, if the loading door is open.

    n

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  47. drwilliams says:

    @Nick

    “Pro tip from someone who did trade shows for other companies for years…   Pay extra for the carpet pad in the booth.   Wear comfortable shoes.   Bring extra pairs and change your shoes every day.  Oh, and talk to people.   Greet people walking by.  You are THERE  TO SEE PEOPLE.   Never sleep in your booth.  Thus endeth the lesson.

    When I go to trade shows I step into a booth and make a show of testing for carpet pad: “Just checking to see if they sent the A-team and got the pad.”

    Having been on the receiving end, too:

    Don’t eat lunch in the booth–discrete drink is okay.

    Dress for the customer, not for your own slob self.

    Buy comfortable shoes. If they don’t have viscoelastic inserts, change them.

    What’s happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas, but the guy who went to Spain came home with the trifecta and his nose rotted off. (skip the photos, it’s gross)

  48. Greg Norton says:

    It’s great to be a gathering with fellow enthusiasts and not feel like it’s a bit weird.

    The big anime event in San Antonio is putting the agenda first next weekend. Masks indoors at all times, and tests required for the unvaccinated.

  49. Lynn says:

    OK, trying an experiment on my office Windows 10 Pro x64 pc.  I have installed Hyper-V and grabbing the Window 7 Pro x64 from a Microsoft Windows 7 Pro x64 DVD right now.  I am going to try to create a Windows 7 Pro x64 Virtual Machine on my office pc.

  50. Nick Flandrey says:

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11149817/Horrific-moment-elderly-woman-74-sucker-punched-head-walking-Manhattan-street.html 

    Horrific moment elderly woman, 74, is sucker-punched while walking down a NYC street in broad daylight – as unprovoked attacks become in the norm in the Big Apple

    • An elderly woman, 74, was punched in the head on Manhattan on Wednesday but a woman in an unprovoked attacked 
    • Surveillance shows the attacker rooting through her bag as the victim approaches before she hits her and sends her tumbling to the ground 
    • The victim was transported to NYU Langone Hospital in Manhattan in stable condition and was released. So far, no arrests has been made 
    • The attack comes after a series of sucker-punch attacks throughout NYC as crime remains rampant at 35 percent higher than the same time last year 

    Female attacker.

    n

  51. Nick Flandrey says:

    we were wrong, but because people believed our lies and liked them, we’ll just let the lies stand….

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11149331/University-Seattle-Childrens-Hospital-refused-correct-misleading-report-puberty-blockers.html

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  52. Lynn says:

    “’It just makes me SICK’: Paid-up borrowers slam Biden’s $600B student loan write-off as an un-American boon to irresponsible debtors – while theyslogged through school, worked round the clock and repaid their dues”

        https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11150091/Ex-students-slam-Bidens-600-billion-debt-write-reward-irresponsible-borrowers.html

    So the cost of Biden’s Executive Order is now $600 billion.   I maintain that Congress has not ok’d this very unusual expense.

  53. Greg Norton says:

    OK, trying an experiment on my office Windows 10 Pro x64 pc.  I have installed Hyper-V and grabbing the Window 7 Pro x64 from a Microsoft Windows 7 Pro x64 DVD right now.  I am going to try to create a Windows 7 Pro x64 Virtual Machine on my office pc.

    At the last job we had monster 128 core 128 GB machines running vSphere which could be chopped up into virtual machines of varying memory/CPU configurations for performance profiling of the intrusion detection system to give us minimum usable configuration numbers.

    Linux, but the system could run Windows VMs if desired, accessed via RDP orVNC.

    Really interesting things are possible with big PC iron … like we sell at the current job. A big hot skillz is using Hashicorp toys to automagically provision VMs and virtual networks.

  54. drwilliams says:

    “So the cost of Biden’s Executive Order is now $600 billion.   I maintain that Congress has not ok’d this very unusual expense.”

    It’s time to go after their children.

    God knows that Nancy, Chuckie, and the rest of them have been after the children for a long time. Effing groomers. 

    Cui Bono.

    Nancy’s grandchildren. Chuck grandchildren. Harry effing Reid’s grandchildren. Every freaking one of them. Every person on their staffs. Every person working in the White House. Every person who has ever sent an email to the White House with an attachment larger than 50k or contained the pharse “CO2”. Every blue shiite-hole politician at any level, their children, and their grandchildren. 

    Every effing worthless degree in polly-sigh, comparitive rectum rubbing, and every other God-damned useless excuse for sucking the hard wages from the body politic.

    Cui Bono.

    Make the list, publish it, and show what a self-serving cherry on years of self serving crapola this is. 

    And if the RINO’s get purged or forceably fitted with a spine-substitute, the first 100-days agenda should include a revision to the student loan program, making the university’s endowments the first backup for defaulted student loans.

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  55. drwilliams says:

    anyone watch “Midnight Diner”? 

  56. Greg Norton says:

    So the cost of Biden’s Executive Order is now $600 billion.   I maintain that Congress has not ok’d this very unusual expense.

    I’ve seen numbers over $1 Trillion.

    Despair is a sin. Nothing has been put on paper and won’t be until after the midterms … if ever.

    It is a really strange political ploy until something goes on paper. 

  57. Denis says:

    Pro tip from someone who did trade shows for other companies for years…   Pay extra for the carpet pad in the booth.   Wear comfortable shoes.   Bring extra pairs and change your shoes every day.  Oh, and talk to people.   Greet people walking by.  You are THERE  TO SEE PEOPLE.   Never sleep in your booth.  Thus endeth the lesson.

    +1 on the speak to people bit- I can find out about your product on your website. I am at the show because I want to know more about your relationship to your goods and potentially to me as a user/buyer of them.

    Get the exhibitors’ business cards, but be niggardly about giving out your own.

    Get yourself an invitation to the exhibitors’ after-hours party, and use it to network, socialise and have fun. Tell exhibitors you are looking forward to seeing them at it. From their point of view,  this makes you an industry insider, as opposed to a tire-kicker just visiting the show.

    Exhibitors who are visibly drinking beverages from their own cooler ought to be prepared to share with visitors – I have made several deals and excellent contacts this way.

    Avoid shaking hands, and if you must, sanitise afterwards. Don’t touch your hands to your face. Not following this rule scrupulously brought me the swine flu from a trade show. Today it would be COVID.

  58. Greg Norton says:

    And if the RINO’s get purged or forceably fitted with a spine-substitute, the first 100-days agenda should include a revision to the student loan program, making the university’s endowments the first backup for defaulted student loans.

    An Executive Order expanding the aggressiveness of the Borrower Defense mechanism of the Student Loan program with regard to the worthless degrees out of the Ivy League and premiere “Public Ivys”.

    Lets see how far they will go to get that loan forgiveness.

  59. Lynn says:

    OK, trying an experiment on my office Windows 10 Pro x64 pc.  I have installed Hyper-V and grabbing the Window 7 Pro x64 from a Microsoft Windows 7 Pro x64 DVD right now.  I am going to try to create a Windows 7 Pro x64 Virtual Machine on my office pc.

    OK, I am not smart enough to run Hyper-V as it keeps on giving me “Run IPX on IPV4” message.  I am trying the free version of VMware Workstation now and Windows 7 is installing.

    And I am up and running.  Wow, that burned 45.7 GB of my 60 GB virtual hard drive.  Looks like I should have used 100 Gb as my sandbox uses over 20 GB.

  60. Jenny says:

    @~jim

    Oh my gosh. I’m so sorry, I laughed long and hard then read your distress to my husband.  Glad you got rid of it. 105 days. That sucker was ready for slaughter. 
    The relief must have been enormous. 

  61. Jenny says:

    My life altering car crash was eight years ago this month. Brain is mostly better. Enormous joy from working as a DBA, something I sincerely believed out of reach post-crash. 
    TBI‘s suck.

    It has taken will-full effort to get through the anger. Crash was caused by someone in a hurry at 70-80 mph making a series of bad life choices. Looking at the pics taken of the vehicles at the junkyard truly hard to believe I came out of that mess without a body bag. I remember the realization of the crash, the impact, the grit from the airbag, the concussion of being flung across the field, the noise and smells, ten the shock of nothing as I realized I wasn’t dead. Then the pain and fear. Texting my husband that I was in a crash, because I didn’t want him to hear the fear in my voice. Then hurriedly shutting off the phone in a an irrational fear that folks would think I was texting and caused the crash. 
     

    It was the middle of nowhere. Nearest hospital was a long ways away. 
     

    I received a lot of help, for months, that I didn’t deserve and never earned. Folks remain patient with me today (I’m half a bubble off but can pass in polite company)(definitely a weird sensation to be aware of how you’ve changed but be unable to change back). 
     

    Wouldn’t wish the experience on my worst enemy. Glad to be on this side of recovery. Honestly grateful for the changes in who I am that developed because of the crash. Miss the old me, too. I was smart and a much better tech, much better dog trainer. Pretty sure i was a jerk pre-crash, too.

    We are stupid in the states, maybe everywhere, with how we deal with mental illness. My brain and emotions were broken after the crash. I knew the stigma of getting mental help or mental drugs, so I toughed it out until I couldn’t. My first cognitive therapist kept telling me I tested normal, she didn’t understand what I’d lost and I couldn’t articulate what a train wreck my previously intelligent well ordered brain had become. I had a chance session with a different cognitive therapist who understood what I couldn’t articulate and was able to help me develop coping mechanisms and compensatory techniques that allowed me to stay in the IT field with my broken brain. And she gave me studies to read about research being done on repairing brain injuries. 
     

    Being human is so very hard. As I rub the belly of my dog it is hard not to envy their brief but uncomplicated life. 
     

    The lady who nearly ruined my life and marriage had consequences- the most serious of which was a felony conviction for assault with a deadly weapon. I suspect her life didn’t alter much. I’m still kind of angry at her which is pointless and not Christian of me. We are told the consequences she suffered were because we wrote letters and showed up for all the court events. Squeaky wheel. 
     

    Stay healthy. Stack some things. Drive a five star vehicle. 

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  62. Alan says:

    @Jenny, amazing story, thanks for sharing.

    My wife had a serious concussion several years ago so I can relate to a sliver of what you’ve gone through. Finding a doctor that was a concussion specialist helped a lot. 

    Keep on keeping on, life is shorter than we’d like. 

  63. Alan says:

    >> In the 80’s it could have been diskettes.

    And in the 90s, AOL install CDs.

  64. Lynn says:

    Stay healthy. Stack some things. Drive a five star vehicle. 

    You are one of the reasons I forced my wife into a 2019 Toyota Highlander from her 2005 Honda Civic. Double the size. 

  65. Alan says:

    I still get the chills when I see someone driving a Smart For 2 on the highway at 80 mph. 

  66. Alan says:

    >> People at the head of the DOJ think that they can charge and imprison Donald Trump over this.  The trial alone will not go well.

    Not that I can envision it ever happening, but I haven’t seen anything that would stop Trump 47 from running the country while in prison. 

  67. Alan says:

    >> So the cost of Biden’s Executive Order is now $600 billion.   I maintain that Congress has not ok’d this very unusual expense. 

    Remember, Joe just reads what they put on those cards they give him. 

  68. Greg Norton says:

    Remember, Joe just reads what they put on those cards they give him. 

    You could tell he wandered off script during the speech shilling the loan forgiveness. He’s still trying to peddle the concept that he’s “Scranton Joe” whose father struggled to put food on the table … and that Corvette in Joe’s garage for his law school (?) graduation

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