Still hot in Houston. Not ‘summer melt the car’ hot but still hot. Yesterday started nice and cool for me, but ended on the warmer side. It was down to 75F at midnight though. That’s a big change from last week. Fall is here.
Didn’t get much done yesterday. I’ll admit to throwing fake bait at fish for a short time in the morning, without success, but then I cleaned up and secured the house for the week. Headed home, made my pickups. Dumped my trash at my secondary. And came home to sick wife, unhappy kids, and a messed up garage…
So I ate dinner, messed around on the computer (all hail king bandwidth) reset the trap for the possum, and headed for bed. Some days that’s the best you can hope for.
Today I’ve got plans but I’m not going to tell the universe what they are. Maybe I’ll have a chance to stick to the plan if I don’t. Some are gonna depend on the wife and D1’s booger test first thing in the morning, some will depend on weather, and some might depend on other people. Prepping will be involved. Home maintenance might be involved, and gnu willing, possums might be involved.
If you don’t have traps and poisons for dealing with vermin, get some. And stack it high.
nick
@lynn, there are no restrictions on what I can put at the BOL, both travel trailers, and manufactured housing are present, as well as stick built houses. My lot has a nice RV pad with a roof over it. ‘course the septic arrangement for the RV pad is home made and illegal….
Modern pressurized aerobic drip system is about $20k, depending on site conditions. Trad system was about $12K, but not an option due to soil. Aerobic with sprinklers was between the two, but needs a chlorinator too. One more supply/ maintenance/ failure mode issue.
n
My father-in-law and a group of his friends bought into a retirement community on a lake in a rural section of Texas southeast of Dallas. We had to dispose of the property when he died, but the estate actually broke even. Of course, this was 15 years ago.
Most disturbing aspect of the transaction? One of the friend group was the defendant in one of Orlando’s most notorious child molestation cases in the 80s. He was banned from living in Orange County, FL as part of a settlement negotiated when his lawyers exhausted both his money and the State Attorney’s taste for mistrials on technicalities.
Old school AT&T exec. Lots of stock pre-divestiture.
If I can find the name of the development, I’ll pass it along.
66F and saturated. Sun coming up. Bus was 10 minutes late. They still haven’t worked out their issues.
Wife still sick, D1 negative for chinaflu but still sick. Both WFH today. Which means I’ll be looking to get out of the house.
UV light in the airduct is looking more attractive…
n
Currently at Dale Hollow Lake State Park in Kentucky, slot B6, if you want to look it up on Google Maps. Nice park, but strangely empty, perhaps 20% full. For the weekend there is almost no space available. Must be a fishing tournament or something going on.
Park is supposed to have WiFi. Doesn’t work. Can connect to the WiFi, but no internet. Talked with the chap at the check-in office. Internet has been unavailable since April due to some fiber installation. In the park, or to the park? I don’t know.
So I changed my Xfinity cell plan to unlimited, $30.00 each phone, no data cap. Will increase my bill from $30.00 a month to $60.00 a month. I never have to worry about data limits again. I can also tether my laptop which I am now doing.
Within the Apple infrastructure I can cannot my Apple devices without having to activate the hotspot on the phone. The devices just know each other and allow the connection without needing a password. To use my laptop I have to turn on the hotspot tethering and use a complicated password to connect.
The iphone hotspot capability has been a great feature for years. I first really used it extensively in 2014 on a trip to Orlando. Had my wife and son connected to my phone for the entire trip with no issues. It’s so good, I won’t consider wifi connectivity built-in to a car. Sort of like gps – why bother? Ironically, my car has both.
… The Shadow knows.
I have been testing a mobile hotspot for a company I cannot name. The only real advantage of the mobile hotspot is that 32 devices are allowed to connect. However, for the prices, $800.00, I cannot see why anyone would purchase such a device beyond the number of connections.
Well, perhaps for the speed. My mobile connection with Xfinity is limited to 600kbps for tethered devices. With a true mobile hotspot the limit is the connection to the cell network.
@Ray Thompson
Sounds like it is intended to run an entire house.
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/patrick-mccaughey-convicted-7-felonies-pinned-daniel-hodges-in-door-frame-january-6-capitol-riot/
“Peaceful”. Right.
If they had burned it down and killed a few people like Portland, Minneapolis, and Kenosha, it would have been considered “mostly peaceful” by the PLT criteria.
Except it is advertised as a mobile hotspot. Has a battery to support the function. A house unit would not have a battery. Except maybe for backup.
$800 vs $200 for a cable modem. The difference would amortize quickly if the monthly fee was less.
Battery would reduce the load on a ups during a power outage, and might keep you going indefinitely if you had a solar charger for the laptop.
I could see using one at a tradeshow.
??? Programming Language Theory? Professional Learning Team?
Could be Pissant Lesser Troll, but it’s not.
Yep, the people wandering around the Capitol with occasional (exceptional) violence, vandalism, or petty theft is EXACTLY like the BLM riots, anti-Trump riots, where whole neighborhoods were burned, federal buildings broken into and set on fire, and people shot and killed.
False equivalence. Another rhetorical technique from the playbook.
n
First:
It is not, because I’ve never called supposed BLM riots, etc, “peaceful”. Can you say the same about your remarks re: January 6?
Second:
https://apnews.com/article/records-rebut-claims-jan-6-rioters-55adf4d46aff57b91af2fdd3345dace8
Constant crying about always being the victim. Another rhetorical technique from the playbook.
“On the transition to electric waste collection trucks, SWANA recommends a wait-and-see approach”
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/swana-alternative-fuel-refuse-trucks-cng-electric-hydrogen-fuel-cell/631813/
“When comparing the costs of the trucks themselves, SWANA pegged a diesel refuse truck at $300,000 to $350,000. CNG trucks are estimated to cost about $35,000 more. The big leap is with electric, with each truck costing about $500,000 and chargers ranging from a few thousand dollars to over $35,000, the report states.”
“Once fuel and maintenance costs are factored in, these newer alternative fuel vehicles become more competitive. The report notes that diesel prices have “increased significantly” in 2022. Taking into account yearly cost savings of nearly $24,000 with electric, it would take an estimated 9.44 years to pay back the additional capital costs of an electric waste collection vehicle compared with diesel, it states.”
That $150,000 difference is a lot of diesel. I also wonder what the comparative cost of electricity was. Of course, the charging would be at night time so the electricity should be cheaper using using time of day rates.
Capitol Stasi murdering two unarmed white women on January 6th was, of course, All Trump’s Fault
And it’s entirely a coincidence that both murderers were undertrained, overpromoted minorities.
Lots of convictions from the Jan 6 whatever-it-was. Seems like they’ve put a lot more effort into this, than into more prosaic things like the BLM riots. Probably because it happened closer to the levers of power, and the people pulling said levers want to make an example of everyone involved. Mash a door onto someone, and that is nine felonies? They are really digging deep.
– – – – –
Summer is slowly but surely over here – high temperatures dropping into the teens (C – that’s 50s F for you barbarians). We’ve promised a neighbor a proper Texas BBQ in mid-October. Here’s hoping we have a bit of an Indian Summer then. Is one still allowed to call it that?
– – – – –
Meanwhile, school is starting. Today I was helping some students set up their laptops for programming. I guess the ones needing help are the ones least competent with computers, but…geez. This one girl with some strange tablet-thing (not a Surface) that runs Windows. After typing a few characters on the detachable keyboard, it would block everything with a prompt “would you like to change to tablet mode?”. I’m supposed a bad contact with the keyboard, but she’s going to have fun trying to use it for any serious work.
Macs, I discover, have starting telling the same lies as Windows computers. Your programs are stored in the Applications directory, but this is kindly translated into German and shown to you as “Programme”. However, if you actually want to use the path in a setting somewhere, you have to know to type “Applications”. Same for various other directories: the displayed name is different from the actual name. What idiot thought this was a good idea?
Context menus can’t be called up with the mouse? It still only has one button? So you have to turn on the touchpad, which still doesn’t know about left and right, but you can touch it with two fingers simultaneously to get what Windows or Linux will give you with a right-click.
If you’re in a subdirectory somewhere, and want to know the full path to get there? No, it’s not going to tell you. Apparently, you have to call up the context menu (see above) and while it’s open press “Option”. This magically changes the entries in the menu, one of which will – not show you the path – but at least copy it to the clipboard. Really self-evidently obvious to the casual observer. Is there a less abstruse way to do this?
Add in the various processor architectures, for which you sometimes have to download different software versions, but it seems to be a lottery. I had M1 machines that were happy with Intel-architecture software. Others…weren’t? Is there some horrible, hidden emulation switch that I don’t know about? By the end of the afternoon, with the minority of Macs causing almost all of the problems, I told the last student with a weird Mac problem – sorry, we’re way overtime – let’s look next week…
I’m (obviously) not a Mac user, but – geez – can they make this stuff any harder and less intuitive?
/rant
Wooosh. Once again:
Gee, what happened to “(blindly, blithely) back the blue”?
“Starlink Now Selling Pricey High-Performance Dish to Residential Users”
https://www.pcmag.com/news/starlink-now-selling-pricey-high-performance-dish-to-residential-users
“At $2,500, the high-performance Starlink dish costs far more than the standard $599 dish, but the internet service fee remains the same at $110 per month.”
Starlink is trying to not miss a beat, aren’t they. Not gonna bite here.
@brad:
Not for nothing did JEP (of blessed memory) say , “With a Mac, everything is either easy, or virtually impossible”. And I agree, having a MacBook Pro (2012) running Mojave.
G.
That is one of several reasons I haven’t made the plunge into ev land. Aside from the extra cost of the vehicle as the number one reason, our provider does not have different rates for peak and off-peak. Just a flat rate of $13.17 availability charge, $0.10929 per kWh for the first 1400 kWh, and 011765 per kWh for anything over 1400 kWh. I’m never below 1400kWh so I can’t even save there.
drwilliams says:
Michael Byrd, who shot Ashlii Babbitt, was previously guilty of (and let off the hook for) leaving his loaded service weapon in a public restroom in the Capitol visitors center. I would have fired him for that alone.
Gee, what happened to “(blindly, blithely) back the blue”?
–strawman
dozens of people charged have been convicted of serious crimes and sent to prison.
– wow. 20 or 30? less than 100 certainly, out of 10s of thousands. Compare and contrast with Fedgov using facial recognition, snitch lines, scouring social media, “most wanted” posts, in person investigations and even trying to pattern match CLOTHING for people that merely were present at the Jan 6 protest.
no comparison.
n
, our provider does not have different rates for peak and off-peak.
– and neither will anyone else’s if nighttime demand increases to match daytime demand.
n
FWIW I just did some searching for some of the Mac issues. Turns out that there are easier ways to get a full path, at least.
Regarding EV-charging: Germans are going to have fun for a while. Apparently, the current electricity rate is now around 0.42/kwh. Our rate is going up to around 0.23 (from 0.21). We’re fortunate to be in a region that generates a lot of hydro power, probably a net exporter. I’m omitting currencies, because US$/EUR/CHF are currently near enough to parity.
That is one of several reasons I haven’t made the plunge into ev land. Aside from the extra cost of the vehicle as the number one reason, our provider does not have different rates for peak and off-peak. Just a flat rate of $13.17 availability charge, $0.10929 per kWh for the first 1400 kWh, and 011765 per kWh for anything over 1400 kWh. I’m never below 1400kWh so I can’t even save there.
Those electric garbage trucks probably have at least 1,000 kwh of batteries on board. They will need a 480 volt three phase charger system to recharge nightly. Most utilities charges extra for three phase and extra for 480 volt. But they will probably get a discount for nighttime charging. For now.
66F and saturated. Sun coming up. Bus was 10 minutes late. They still haven’t worked out their issues.
Wife still sick, D1 negative for chinaflu but still sick. Both WFH today. Which means I’ll be looking to get out of the house.
UV light in the airduct is looking more attractive…
It was 72 F when I took the dog outside at 1 am last night.
We have UV lights in our both of the house a/c units in the attic. Both of the UV bulbs are burned out and the a/c guy could not find replacements. He said that he could get them before the Koof but they were expensive at almost $100 each.
“The SSD Edition: 2022 Drive Stats Mid-year Review”
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/ssd-drive-stats-mid-2022-review/
“At this point we can reasonably claim that SSDs are more reliable than HDDs, at least when used as boot drives in our environment. This supports the anecdotal stories and educated guesses made by our readers over the past year or so. Well done.”
Wow, I expected that SSD failure rates would be significantly less than hard drives (almost zero). They are not until year four.
Someone ‘swatted’ our Houston Independent School District school not far from my rent house yesterday.
https://abc13.com/heights-high-school-false-report-active-shooter-houston-goes-into-lockdown-shooting-hoax/12229559/
They called in false reports to several widely spread Texas school districts.
Someone else did the same in Cali but I haven’t found details for that.
n
@ Ray: Now my granddaughter is doing it, texting me from her cellphone while in a class at school. Oh well, junior at USC and on the dean’s list for great GPA.
Someone ‘swatted’ our Houston Independent School District school not far from my rent house yesterday.
https://abc13.com/heights-high-school-false-report-active-shooter-houston-goes-into-lockdown-shooting-hoax/12229559/
They called in false reports to several widely spread Texas school districts.
Someone else did the same in Cali but I haven’t found details for that.
n
We need to stop allowing anonymous (spoofed) phone calls in the USA. I get one or two faked phone number calls per day asking to buy my house, office, and son’s house for half price.
“From carmakers to refiners, industries brace for rail strike”
https://apnews.com/article/rail-strike-impact-5eb6747b3e4b4e39d764644d6377121d
“Car buyers might not get the vehicle they want on time, commuter rail lines could see service disrupted, and shipments from everything from oil to livestock feed could be snarled.”
“Those are just a few of the wide-ranging impacts a walkout by U.S. rail workers would have on the country’s industries and economy. A strike could happen if the railroads and unions can’t settle their differences before an early Friday walkout deadline.”
https://www.axios.com/2022/09/14/amtrak-cancels-long-distance-trains-labor-dispute
Hat tip to:
https://www.drudgereport.com/
Now the government gets to determine what is hate speech, penalize organizations that don’t remove, ie, censor, such speech. The government is getting close to that boundary where the government will start censoring news organizations.
If a comment board is privately owned, they should be able to determine what is, or is not allowed. If the board operators don’t like the comments, remove the comments. It is their right. Not the governments.
Big Tech must prove content moderation works or pay $15K daily fines in Calif. [Updated] | Ars Technica
I get several phone calls for various things every day. Numbers that I know are bogus. One time I got a call showing my number, the number that was being called. If I don’t recognize the number, I answer and immediately hang up. If I think I recognize the number, I answer but don’t say anything. I wait for the other party to respond.
“Men cannot have babies”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/men-cannot-have-babies
“A group of people who were once adamant about “trusting the science” seem to want to ignore it when it comes to human procreation. That’s the basis for the recent attacks on Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) after he said men could not have babies. This is true, of course, because men cannot have babies. It’s a fact, it’s science, and no amount of pretend, make-believe, radical, left-wing, social justice junk science is ever going to change that.”
“”Today, we are subjected to things like, there are such things as pregnant men,” Rubio stated while speaking at the Edmund Burke Foundation’s National Conservatism Conference. “As of almost 10 o’clock today, as far as I know, every single human being that’s ever been born was born of a biological woman.””
“Next, Rubio rightfully criticized the “scientists,” “health experts,” and medical agencies that refuse to admit that only women can get pregnant or advance the fiction that men can indeed have babies.”
“”And yet we have not just commentators, not just professors, we have the Centers for Disease Control, we have the most prominent public health agency in America, who insists on using the term ‘pregnant people,'” Rubio said.”
Any person in a federal job should be fired who continues pushing the nonsense that men can have babies.
Well, some of the “women” were so ugly they could be mistaken for men unless naked. Even then, who would want to look? But they still had female parts.
One girl I dated in high school turned to the other side. She decided she was gay, queer, dike, whatever, a couple of years after I dated her. My fault? I don’t know.
My mother did set me up with a date when I was on leave from the USAF. We went to the movies and saw Andromeda Strain. That, ahem, girl, was as queer as a three dollar bill. That date did not last any longer than the movie.
“NYC helping migrants who were bused from Texas relocate to other states”
https://www.fox5ny.com/news/nyc-helping-migrants-who-were-bused-from-texas-relocate-to-other-states
“NEW YORK – New York City officials claim that many of the migrants who are being bused from Texas did not want to go to New York so they are helping them get to other states. The New York City Commissioner of Immigration Affairs appeared on the FOX 5 NY morning show “Good Day New York” on Wednesday. Commissioner Manuel Castro says that a lot of the migrants are fleeing Venezuela and are. Castro says, “Many want to go to places like Florida where the largest community of Venezuelans live.””
Liar. The illegals want to go where they can get free stuff.
Since when did the preferences of alien invaders determine the spending of taxpayer dollars?
We need a simple change in the tax code: Flat rate for undocumented aliens of 90%. Doubles if not withheld.
Since when did the preferences of alien invaders determine the spending of taxpayer dollars?
We need a simple change in the tax code: Flat rate for undocumented aliens of 90%. Doubles if not withheld.
And no Earned Income Tax Credit.
Where in the law or article are you reading that? The article says:
So, the company (not any level of government) sets its policy however it wants, then the company enforces the policy it sets.
CBS News.
P.O. Box 34567
Next!
Go back about six week and heavy rains in Kentucky were in the headlines on a regular basis. That probably cut down on reservations.
Why is what a company allows, or does not allow, any of the government’s business? Policies stating such are none of the government’s business. It is only a short step for the government to object to any such policy and force a company to modify the policy.
If a company does not follow its policy the government can fine the company $15K a day. Why is the government forcing a company to follow its policies? Who determines that any post is not within the policies of the company? The government? Most likely as they will be the ones imposing the fine. That puts control of the content under the control of the government. That is an internal company issue and does not belong with the government.
When is the burden of proof on the company a “thing”. The law in the U.S. is that with people, and one would hope companies, the burden of proof is on the government. A company should not have to prove anything. Who determines what is valid proof?
Read the ARS post again. Slowly, without moving your lips if necessary. The government controlling any social media platform, forcing content holders to prove they are following policy which should remain internal to the company, is a very slippery slope.
Could the government determine that posts on this board are not following policy and fine the site holder? You have many times, or is that the under-bridge dweller, that posts violate policy. Is that any business of the government?
This park is so far above water than any flooding better include the sighting of an ark.
The weather has been outstanding. Middle seventies, slight breeze, partly cloudy skies. Night time in the middle to high 50’s. Currently have the A/C off in the RV, windows and doors open.
Speaking of doors open.
The upgrade to my cell service through Xfinity is working well. I have now have good data with good speeds. Wife is watching recorded Hallmark movies from our Xfinity TV account. In HD and the quality looks really good. I am also using the same hotspot to do this posting and looking at other web pages.
Ray: I read the article in its entirety. Nothing in the article supports your claim that
That is the claim I’m asking you to support. Go back and read my comment, slowly and without moving your lips, if necessary.
That is a very good question, but it’s not the one I asked. I asked where you see the government (any level of it) deciding what is or isn’t allowed on a site. You haven’t shown that. Whether a company is actively enforcing its own policy or not—which is what might trigger the fine—is different what what the policy itself is.
California’s elected representatives seem to think it is. If you don’t like it, vote. Or move. Sounds pretty similar to what folks are saying about abortion right now, right? In any event, this is also not the question I asked. To be clear: show me where in the law the government decides what a site’s policy must include, and I’ll say “thanks, Ray, you were right”
If the government determines something on a site does not follow the company policies, then that is the government deciding what goes on a site. If the government is not determining that policies are being followed, then why does the government even care about the policies?
A company could say we don’t allow sexual content. Who determines what is sexual content? OK, the company determines something does not follow it’s policies and it is removed. Or the company determines that content does follow policy and the content is not removed.
Who determines if content does not follow policy? If the company says OK, or not OK, then why is the government even concerned? Can the government come in and say policy was not followed? If not, then why does the government even care?
This “law” from the fruitcakes in California is a slippery slope. I can absolutely guarantee that if a site policy allows comments about overthrowing the government the policy will get rejected, the site shut down. This is a way for the government to “know” what is, or is not, allowed on a site. Something that is none of the government’s business.
Florida Democrats have a weak candidate going against Little Marco but a lot of money to spend and plenty of friendly media facing the probability of another four years of getting kicked out of DeSantis press conferences.
You will never say that to anyone. In your mind you are always right, everyone else is wrong. Even opposing opinions are wrong in your view.
You will never say that to anyone. In your mind you are always right, everyone else is wrong. Even opposing opinions are wrong in your view.
The Under Bridge Dweller and his mate are heavily unliked around here.
Florida Democrats have a weak candidate going against Little Marco but a lot of money to spend and plenty of friendly media facing the probability of another four years of getting kicked out of DeSantis press conferences.
And Crist is a scumbag too. Calls DeSantis Satan and says that he is the Christ. Probably more like the AntiChrist.
“WATCH: Crist calls Florida GOP gubernatorial opponent ‘DeSatan’ in surfaced video”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/watch-crist-calls-florida-gop-gubernatorial-opponent-desatan-surfaced-video
Little Marco’s opponent is Val Demings, former Chief of Police in Orlando, famed for losing her service weapon while in the office, and, currently, a Congresswoman from a district created by the courts in an attempt to settle the redistricting lawsuits from the 2010 effort, when Dems still held the FL Supreme Court majority.
Yeah, “DeSatan” is a FL Dem talking point. I’ve heard that from lefty friends.
>> Alternatively, as a world leader during a proper world war, one could rely on a single peeler with a revolver…
Probably no relation to another Thompson?
>> Summer is slowly but surely over here – high temperatures dropping into the teens (C – that’s 50s F for you barbarians). We’ve promised a neighbor a proper Texas BBQ in mid-October. Here’s hoping we have a bit of an Indian Summer then. Is one still allowed to call it that?
I guess, at least in Cleveland, it would be “Guardian Summer”??
>> I’m (obviously) not a Mac user, but – geez – can they make this stuff any harder and less intuitive?
The ‘disciples of Job’ try harder every day.
Ed, no one here is looking for a point counterpoint debate. If that’s what you want, take it to another blog. Plenty to choose from…
n
Had to brush hog the whole back yard before I could use the mower. Good thing I got the gas string trimmer running. Started on the first try too.
Some of the grass was more than 8 inches long. I don’t think it’s been three weeks, and I was pretty sure it was only two…
Even doing that I still had to cut only half a blade width in some places to keep from bogging down. That is one downside of the electric, it doesn’t have the spinning mass to power thru a tough spot.
Then I weeded the raised beds. Zukes and cukes didn’t survive. Peppers died. Collards are still going strong.
n
Work was in-person for our group today. After submitting my Wuxu Flu test, I learned that the company finally dropped the jab-or-weekly-test requirement which had been in place since before my hiring last year.
The campus was still a ghost town.
Ed, no one here is looking for a point counterpoint debate.
+1000
This blog is a place to exchange information, not a place for disputation.
“Ron DeSantis sends two planes of illegal immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard”
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ron-desantis-sends-two-planes-illegal-immigrants-marthas-vineyard
Ok, this is getting crazy.
Hat tip to:
https://www.drudgereport.com/
Since Apple moved focus to macOS 11, Cupertino seems to be moving towards a walled garden approach with the Mac.
Below the GUI, for now, thankfully, it is still a BSD flavored Unix environment which can be made tolerable with Homebrew.
I thought you taught Python as the intro language these days. Pop open a terminal window and go.
Maybe it depends on the compiler used to compile the application. The Rosetta 2 emulation skips some obscure Intel instructions which are supported by GCC but not Clang, which Apple owns.
I haven’t seen an issue taking Intel code for personal projects I compiled under Xcode 4.2 on Snow Leopard and running it on my M1, including a proof of concept virtual NIC which would have enabled a clean, portable NetClient VPN for Mac back in the day, really low level stuff.
Ray: I get what you’re saying, and thanks for elaborating. But this still requires making assumptions about things not yet established. For one thing, you ignore the possibility of discretion. What if the site owner prohibits sexual content and explains, in the policy, that the site owner determines what is “sexual content” using its own judgment/discretion? Then, the government couldn’t say the site owner isn’t following its own policy.
For another, what if the site owner uses some external standard to define what is or is no prohibited? The government couldn’t impose the fine because the site complied with the law: it made a policy, and it enforced the policy according to its terms (whether by using discretion or by measuring a post’s content against the external standard).
The point is that this law only requires making a policy and enforcing it, nothing more. And there are plenty of ways to avoid the possible issues you mention. Because, in the end, those issues are only possible, far from certain. That means there is no realistic basis for saying “Now the government gets to determine what is hate speech, penalize organizations that don’t remove, ie, censor, such speech”, as you said. A conclusion that requires assumption after assumption after assumption is not a conclusion, it is speculation.
>> “Starlink Now Selling Pricey High-Performance Dish to Residential Users”
https://www.pcmag.com/news/starlink-now-selling-pricey-high-performance-dish-to-residential-users
“At $2,500, the high-performance Starlink dish costs far more than the standard $599 dish, but the internet service fee remains the same at $110 per month.”
Starlink is trying to not miss a beat, aren’t they. Not gonna bite here.
@lynn, the question is, is this option available now at your office location?
A conclusion that requires assumption after assumption after assumption is not a conclusion, it is speculation.
– or it’s extrapolation based on historical knowledge, awareness of how government actually works, and the nature of mandates.
n
>> We need to stop allowing anonymous (spoofed) phone calls in the USA. I get one or two faked phone number calls per day asking to buy my house, office, and son’s house for half price.
“We?” When it financially benefits the phone companies to do something to stop it then something might change.
Which still requires a “value-add” (and I use that term very loosely) by reader/commenter. My original point stands—nothing in the law permits the government to dictate what can or can’t be said. Ray speculated about ways that could happen, but they require stacking assumption upon assumption.
I get that you want the law to say something it doesn’t do you can, once again, be the victim, but you’re simply grasping at straws here.
By the way, Nick: are you tacitly admitting it wasn’t “peaceful”? You didn’t respond to my comment above.
Re: spoofed calls – interesting info here https://www.fcc.gov/spoofed-robocalls .
(emphasis added)
Not perfect, but perhaps getting closer.
By the way, Nick: are you tacitly admitting it wasn’t “peaceful”? You didn’t respond to my comment above.
– no. I’m tired of you and your endless nitpicking so sometimes I just choose to disengage.
Do you think that it’s a tacit admission because YOU concede a point by ignoring my comments when they effectively rebut your point? As you have done many times?
n
added – plus, I have a family and a life to lead, that take priority to anything I do here, so if it doesn’t amuse me, or add to the discussion, I’m likely to just ignore it.
Such as when? I don’t think I have. To be honest, the constant freaking doom and gloom makes this site hard to visit, so I don’t track every reply. It’s just not like the old days, and I’m sorry if that’s hard to hear. It just is what it is, as I see it. Seems like if you don’t go along with the hive mind 100%, you either get attacked or decide to leave.
Who decides the policy was enforced? That is the problem. A site says no sexual content. Who defines sexual content? What is sexual content to one person is “who cares” to another person. If a site allows something that someone in the government thinks is sexual, could the site be accused of not following policy and be fined?
To get a policy down to the nitty gritty titty on sexual content would be very difficult and I would argue impossible.
The government, that issues the fines, determines if a policy was followed. That is censorship, the government controlling content. That is a very dangerous and slippery slope.
Modern pressurized aerobic drip system is about $20k, depending on site conditions. Trad system was about $12K, but not an option due to soil. Aerobic with sprinklers was between the two, but needs a chlorinator too. One more supply/ maintenance/ failure mode issue.
Wait, does your new aerobic septic pressurized leach system not use chlorine ?
The under bridge dweller is especially whiny today. Maybe it will whiny on out of here.
Since I believe in the doom and gloom, and I want people to be well positioned to survive it and indeed, thrive thru it, my focus on those things will not change either in my personal life, or here.
There are plenty of other topics that come up, notably around computer and OS issues, and health lately, that provide variety and interest. I’ve learned more about concrete in the last weeks than I ever thought I’d know.
Readers are encouraged to become commentors and raise whatever questions they have, or share their knowledge.
Where you get dogpiled is when you bring up politics. The majority of vocal commentors here are conservative, as am I. That is just the way it is.
I find your insistence on ‘challenging’ people tiresome. And arrogant. Your style is often abrasive and off putting.
If you want a debate, hair splitting, and insisting that you know how many angels can dance on that pin, look elsewhere.
Almost everyone here has seen the pointlessness of endlessly debating political issues when there are more important things to do.
n
Wait, does your new aerobic septic pressurized leach system not use chlorine ?
– that is correct. Since there aren’t sprinklers, the liquid doesn’t come in contact with people or pets, so doesn’t need to be chlorinated. Other than the noise of the aerator, and pump, and green grass over the drip field, there shouldn’t be any indication that there is even a system installed.
With East Texas humidity, there is dew on the grass most mornings outside of summer, sometimes until after 10am, so I definitely didn’t want the system water sitting on the yard for hours after we were up and active…
n
Ray>”This “law” from the fruitcakes in California is a slippery slope.”
True, and it is a long step down the slope. Why is the government requiring any sort of policy for people’s web sites? It is a classic technique: coerce a subject to make a statement, and then you can attack them based on that statement. Of course someone can assert that the government is not necessarily up to no good; the law is carefully constructed to provide for that. However, the history of authoritarian repressive government indicates that it will be otherwise. A key issue to keep in mind, is that a policy may be either a tool to communicate preferences, or a regulation that can be manipulated to do things that were not intended. No good will come this law.
Ray: In reply to this:
Did you even read what I wrote above? About discretion, external standards, etc?
Nick:
I believe it was Greg, potentially channelling Melania, who said, “I really don’t care”
You might consider sharing your thoughts with drwilliams, paul, Greg, and the guy who bought 22 SIM cards just to downvote my comments. Clearly, there are several people who don’t like having their echo chamber disrupted.
@Lynn
Mated, eh? I must have missed the coming out party.
Congratulations Naned. Did you register your pronouns at the Target Gift Boutique?
If it’s a gaggle of geese and a murder of crows, what’s a pair of trolls?
Did Tolkien cover this?
They are printing this house in a nearby neighborhood. I have been driving by for a month. Most of the time nothing is happening on the site. The weird angled walls look like a bad print, and I thought they were stopped to figure out what went wrong. Then I saw they had a tent and media presence the other day.
https://www.khou.com/article/news/local/houston-3d-printed-multi-story-home/285-8196130c-dd05-45c1-9f66-b6b91916b29b
There is a distinct lack of photos of the actual site. It will be interesting to see how it ends up.
n
JimM: My guess is because the wild, baseless, abhorrent rhetoric leading up to the January 6 attack, the attempt on the Governor of Michigan’s life, etc., led people (by and through their elected representatives) to cry that enough is enough.
Universal Website Forum Neutrality Test
post the following string : “Men cannot give birth.”
Any action by the website monitors against such a simple statement of biological fact is proof that the site is run by PLT’s.
Three headlines, all in a row….
Editor-in-chief of Russian state newspaper Pravda dies of ‘stroke’ during business trip – the latest Putin ally to expire in mysterious circumstances
President Zelensky survives Kyiv car crash: Ukrainian leader is checked by medics but ‘not seriously hurt’ as car smashes into his motorcade leaving the other driver hospitalized
Putin’s limousine is ‘hit by loud bang’ in possible attack – but Russian leader emerges unharmed
guess I called the increase in assassinations correctly. Be nice if my stock picking was as good.*
n
*joke, as I’m out of that casino
@Nick
I’d rather have Andrey Rudenko design mine:
https://3dprint.com/12933/3d-printed-castle-complete/
I’d rather have Andrey Rudenko design mine:
https://3dprint.com/12933/3d-printed-castle-complete/
– looks kinda… breezy 🙂
n
Rapunzel will keep you warm until the glazers are done.
I’m waiting for the transparent aluminum printer.
I posted at some point a link to a story about a development of 3D printed homes here in Austin.
I think the end result looks too weird for most people to consider buying.
Who sets those “external standards”? Just because a site states it allows sexual content, who defines sexual content? Read what I wrote.
Anytime, period, that the government gets involved with standards, policies, companies not following policy, the government has it hands in the decision process. In most cases the government wins because of political influences or it is simply too expensive to fight the government.
Since I don’t drink alcohol, but like beer, I’m always up for trying a new NA beer. The US brewers generally suck at it, while the European brewers do a pretty good job. Some are exceptional. Guinness’ Kaliber is absolute misery. Beck’s NA and Heineken’s zero are both very good.
The market for non-alcohol beers in the US must be expanding as there are more choices daily. I was excited to try this variety pack, that went on sale at our local Spec’s chain.
https://brooklynbrewery.com/brooklyn-beers/non-alcoholic/special-effects-variety-pack/
They pretty much all taste like what they purport to be, ie, the IPA tastes like an IPA. I prefer less hoppy, more malty, so I didn’t care for any of the flavors in the pack. They are all a bit “thin” but the amber and pils are especially thin and weak. They make decent michelada style drinks though, and they are cheaper than Becks. Recommended as an alternative to real beer, if you like hops.
If you like hops then Clausthaler is the best hoppy NA beer, in my opinion. And the Becks tastes the most like actual beer. Heineken comes second, with St Pauli Girl at third. If you love Guinness, avoid Kaliber like the pisswater it is.
The US major brewers’ products are generally awful, but Lebatts is ok. Many would say that is true of their full alcohol products too. 😉
n
NBC News makes accusation–without evidence–that videos posted of ultr-communist pedo lover John Fetterman were altered to exaggerate his cognitive deficiencies.
Twitter accepts the lie and takes the videos down.
hmmm…
Pinko leftist pseudo-journalistic organization gets a few phone calls, makes complaint to pinko leftist social media organization staffed by stone liars and having a history of collusion with FJB.
Sounds very truthy and straightforward. Not.
I don’t care.
If you are going to be a stickler for right and proper, you must get the quote correct.
@Nick
Best mainstream effort I’ve tried is Busch NA. Tastes like the regular version, which is faint praise, but what do you expect from a lawn-mowing beer? Did not try a michelada, but should be ok.
I have a NA Stout located and will report. The problem there is that a typical stout is 4-5% ABV, so you’ve already in low ABV territory as far as I’m concerned. Now take a nice Left Hand Double Milk Stout…
And, in doing so, missed out on truly incredible gains over the past decade (just in the S&P500, not individual stock picking). Nobody with a shred of intellectual honesty can deny that investing in the USA over the long term recently (past 10 years or longer) has been incredibly lucrative.
(past 10 years or longer) has been incredibly lucrative.
– down by about a third since January, iirc. Did you ‘take your profit’ or are you still in, riding it down?
I think the houses I own outright have outperformed the dow and the nasdaq over the last 10 years, and one throws off cash. I’m pretty happy with the choices I’ve made.
n
https://redstate.com/streiff/2022/09/14/the-usaf-closes-ranks-with-defense-contractors-to-prevent-a-fighter-pilots-widow-from-finding-out-why-her-husband-died-n627433
There’s more.
Bottom line:
1) A young pilot died because of equipment failure, potentially due to bad components.
2) We don’t know how many similar systems have bad components.
3) A 12-year-old handy with a soldering iron has enough experience to recognize crap components and not use them.
My .mil trade mags have been highlighting the issue of counterfeits in the supply chain for at least 5 years, maybe longer. A lot of those systems are so old the parts aren’t made, and NOS or other grey market stock has to be found. There are whole companies that salvage parts for re-use legitimately, and whole ecosystems of counterfeiters and scammers who re-mark or miss mark parts for sale knowing they are not genuine.
You’d think that anything flight rated would get extra scrutiny, but the contractors and services have the same problem getting competent help as private industry.
I worked on a system for training [some .mil people to operate some of their equipment]. The contract was awarded, then contested by the losing bidders, which delayed our start by a couple of years. Since the challenge had no merit, we proceeded. Of course, what was shipping product when designed was now nearing EOL, as it was consumer COTS gear (as part of the modernization and time and cost reduction plan on the part of the .mil) but we were only approved to put in the older gear, which had sat for a couple of years now. Contract specified we’d keep spares for 15 years? so we loaded a trailer with whole units when they went EOL and parked it in the back of the lot. I’m sure by now they have forgotten why there was a trailer of new product sitting there and sold it at auction… and it would be cheaper and better to refresh the gear at this point than to maintain it or USE the spares. But the process to refresh it takes longer than the development/sales/install cycle for the product.
It’s an ongoing issue, that everyone involved is aware of. The conscientious are doing the best they can, the ones who would sell tainted meat to the army are busy selling tainted meat…
n
Further, it’s not just .mil. If you buy a used car there is a non-zero chance the airbag has been stolen and replaced with a brick, or a coke can filled with sand. And if it was deployed, the best case in most instances, is that a used airbag from another vehicle was re-installed instead of a new one, and the worst is the brick…
n
Since I don’t drink alcohol, but like beer, I’m always up for trying a new NA beer. The US brewers generally suck at it, while the European brewers do a pretty good job. Some are exceptional. Guinness’ Kaliber is absolute misery. Beck’s NA and Heineken’s zero are both very good.
The market for non-alcohol beers in the US must be expanding as there are more choices daily. I was excited to try this variety pack, that went on sale at our local Spec’s chain.
https://brooklynbrewery.com/brooklyn-beers/non-alcoholic/special-effects-variety-pack/
They pretty much all taste like what they purport to be, ie, the IPA tastes like an IPA. I prefer less hoppy, more malty, so I didn’t care for any of the flavors in the pack. They are all a bit “thin” but the amber and pils are especially thin and weak. They make decent michelada style drinks though, and they are cheaper than Becks. Recommended as an alternative to real beer, if you like hops.
If you like hops then Clausthaler is the best hoppy NA beer, in my opinion. And the Becks tastes the most like actual beer. Heineken comes second, with St Pauli Girl at third. If you love Guinness, avoid Kaliber like the pisswater it is.
The US major brewers’ products are generally awful, but Lebatts is ok. Many would say that is true of their full alcohol products too.
n
I just drink a Bud Lite or three a year. I do love a Belgium Cherry beer but I cannot find them here in the USA. Somebody brought in a truckload a decade ago and I got a hold of a couple of them. I had a grapefruit beer in Oklahoma City back in April that was about as weird as I have ever had.
Further, it’s not just .mil. If you buy a used car there is a non-zero chance the airbag has been stolen and replaced with a brick, or a coke can filled with sand. And if it was deployed, the best case in most instances, is that a used airbag from another vehicle was re-installed instead of a new one, and the worst is the brick…
n
I hate airbags. They are explosive devices and can cause great harm. In fact, we had a young lady killed by a defective airbag that shrapneled her chest a couple of years ago here in Fort Bend County. I wear seat belts religiously and trust those much more.
>> Big Tech must prove content moderation works or pay $15K daily fines in Calif.
$15K a day is a rounding error for any of the Big Tech companies.
>> Michael Byrd, who shot Ashlii Babbitt, was previously guilty of (and let off the hook for) leaving his loaded service weapon in a public restroom in the Capitol visitors center. I would have fired him for that alone.
>> Little Marco’s opponent is Val Demings, former Chief of Police in Orlando, famed for losing her service weapon while in the office, and, currently, a Congresswoman from a district created by the courts in an attempt to settle the redistricting lawsuits from the 2010 effort, when Dems still held the FL Supreme Court majority.
Val, meet Michael.
This has just recently started up (again) here. Only, the nuisance is the reverse: people are spoofing real mobile numbers, which hasn’t happened before.
It’s traditional here, if you see a missed call, to call back. With this spoofing, this means that I get a call “You tried to call me?” “No, I didn’t.” “But I have a missed call from your number.” Many businesses – particularly tradespeople – now use a mobile number as their business number. They don’t want to miss out on potential customers, so they *can’t* just ignore missed calls.
I’m not sure why this has just now become a problem, but the phone companies are going to have to clamp down on it fast, or have a *lot* of pissed off customers.
Ray is right, and doesn’t go nearly far enough. Allowing the government to set and enforce broad, unclear standards opens the door to arbitrary enforcement by bureaucrats.
The government has no business requiring or enforcing any sort of moderation standards, beyond requiring the deletion of objectively illegal content. Anything else is not the government’s business.
Down 17.7% year to date, up 57.8% over 5 years, meaning there has been plenty of profit to be made. I’m glad you’re happy with your choices, but you’re neglecting the facts that (a) people can diversify (for example, buy real estate in addition to investing in the USA) and (b) people have been able to buy real estate with borrowed money and see significant real returns (that is, make major profits even after accounting for the cost of borrowing).
I started to suspect that it isn’t just a reading comprehension problem but, instead, intentional misinformation. Read the article and the law. The government does not set any standard, the website does. The only way the government would end up enforcing a ”broad, unclear standard” would be if the site sets a “broad, unclear standard”, which they can avoid in any of the ways I described above.
@Ed: The law is very nicely worded to put the entire burden on the websites. However, it clearly expects them to have policies for “(A) Hate speech or racism, (B) Extremism or radicalization, (C) Disinformation or misinformation, (D) Harassment, (E) Foreign political interference.”
So, I challenge you: give me an objective, enforceable definition of “hate speech” that any and every bureaucrat will agree with. How about “Disinformation”? Whatever a service writes down will be interpreted differently by any pointy-headed bureaucrat with an axe to grind.
No, it doesn’t. Read the law. It merely asks if there is a definition and, if so, what it is.
I don’t need to give you a definition of anything because the government doesn’t set the policy or define the terms, the website does. If you’re a site owner and you’re nervous about what someone might think is or isn’t hate speech, make your own definition and put it in the policy. Or even easier, answer the “whether” question by saying “no”.
But the government determines non-compliance. Regardless of what the site policy states, the government can determine the policy was violated and fine the site. That puts the government in control.
Argue all you want about the website and policies; the government still has their hand in determining content.
Down 17.7% year to date, up 57.8% over 5 years, meaning there has been plenty of profit to be made. I’m glad you’re happy with your choices, but you’re neglecting the facts that (a) people can diversify (for example, buy real estate in addition to investing in the USA) and (b) people have been able to buy real estate with borrowed money and see significant real returns (that is, make major profits even after accounting for the cost of borrowing).
– nice dodge. Did YOU take your profit? Or is it all paper gains? There is always “profit to be made”. Whether anyone makes it or not is an open question. LOTS of the “smartest guys in the room” have lost truly massive amounts of money for their clients and themselves in the last two years and shut their funds, or pulled way back.
And I didn’t “neglect” anything. You changed the subject.
n
Seriously, guys, just read the bill. It’s not that long. It has answers to your questions.
No, unless there’s something about this site Rick/Nick aren’t sharing. From the bill:
Next,
This is not correct because the bill doesn’t even seem to require a policy in the first place. Relevant portions:
The bold text shows that the site owner not only has flexibility to define the terms but that the site owner doesn’t even need to have a policy to address the questionable categories. ”Any existing policies” can include “none”.
By the way, none of this is point/counterpoint. That would be, “is this bill a good idea?” Instead, the entire discussion has been me showing that the bill simply does not say what others here think it says (or want it to say so that they can play the victim).
Nick, regarding your goading attempts: the most I’m willing to say on a public forum is that I’ve done well and am happy.
>> A company could say we don’t allow sexual content. Who determines what is sexual content? OK, the company determines something does not follow it’s policies and it is removed. Or the company determines that content does follow policy and the content is not removed.
Worked out well for Tumblr, right?