Cold. Wet. Grey. That’s my prediction. ‘Course I’m not a certified weather liar, I’ve been right more often than wrong, but I blew it big time yesterday. It was 46F when I headed to bed, and had been for hours, so I took the safe bet. 45F and wet.
I did get a bunch of stuff done yesterday, even with the late start. Some of it just took longer than I hoped so I’m still behind where I wanted to be. Got a bunch of work done in the kitchen. Hopefully I can finish buttoning up the wall and finally install the dishwasher.
If I can do that, I can get some other cleaning and organizing stuff done before I leave. I’d like to be in north Houston by 2pm, unless I blow off that pickup and spend more time up here. I feel like I need to get home though. Presents to wrap, house to get ready for mom… etc. The pickup gives me a deadline.
I really need external deadlines. Something in my personality, but it made me good at project work. If left to set my own deadlines, I tend to slip the heII out of the schedule. 🙂
Since prepping is usually open ended, I often find myself with slipping deadlines. That and general laziness mixed with weariness can leave me with things that should be done going undone. Gotta fight it, but it’s tiring to keep up the pace all the time. I guess that’s why I believe in a general preparedness rather than preparing for one particular scenario. If that one scenario doesn’t have a date attached, or if the date comes and goes, the prepping can suffer. But if you are prepped to a basic level, then whatever happens you are likely covered – at least partially. And some is always better than none when it comes to preps.
Keep plugging away at it, maintain forward progress, and stack it up.
nick
@Jenny: Wow, it sounds like you’re having a real winter. It’s been crazy warm here most of the time. We had a week of snow and actual winter weather, now it’s in the mid-40s (F), and the snow is almost gone. Rain forecast for the rest of the week.
I *like* Winter. I *want* some snow.
@Lynn: Welcome to the crazy-neighbor club.
On our road, which the neighbors have heavily damaged with their construction, our lawyer is going for one last try, with a “firm” letter. After that, we’ll sue them for the road repairs.
Meanwhile, we’ve decided to stop being nice about the changes they’ve made to their land. It’s a small bit of land, about 1/4 acre, and they didn’t want to pay to haul anything off. So after digging out the foundations for their house and garage, they piled up the rock and dirt, turning the rest of the land into a massive pedastal, maybe 6 feet or so above the previous level. It looks totally stupid. More to the point, we can no longer gain any privacy with any sort of reasonable hedge or fence, because they will be looking over the top.
We were just going to ignore this, if they behaved. They haven’t behaved, so we have reported them to the building commission. Major landscape changes require a permit, which they haven’t got.
So that will be the round after the lawsuit…
@SteveF: Tempting, tempting…
I’ve found that with The Child. Even setting aside pure screwing around and not even starting the work she’s supposed, if she has an open schedule and a list of three things to do, she’ll either take forever to do each incremental step of progress, moaning every second, or she’ll “perfectionism” her way into having done half of one task after five hours of honest work.
By contrast, if I told her to complete a page of math drill-and-repeat – Yes, I know they’re boring because you already know it but you need to do them anyway* – in fifteen minutes starting Now!, she’d have them done in six minutes. Or give her one hour to write the character analysis of Pearl of The Scarlet Letter and she’d have something worth turning in.
I’ve used that technique on team members at work, with limited success. Perfectionism generally was not an issue with the people I managed. The limit was caused by them not giving a damn about getting anything done, because they were low-cost butt-in-seat contractors from societies which don’t have the traditional American work ethic and they were paid to have their butts in seats, not to accomplish anything.**
* The boring math worksheets were in 3rd or 4th grade, age 8 or 9. It wasn’t until she was 10 or 11 that I started the explicit training on distrusting authority and questioning orders and policies and “that’s just the way things are”.
** I commonly do at least as much as the entire rest of the team of programmers. Not bragging, or not much, just stating a fact. It’s one thing if I’m simply more experienced or a better programmer than the others. It’s another if they’re not even making an effort beyond reformatting a source file and committing the change so that the metrics show that they had 200 lines of code changes this week. That was a miserable back-to-back pair of contracts. One of the managers was very upset that I chose not to extend the contract because he knew that progress was going to stop on my last day. (The managers on the other contract wanted me gone because I’d reported their waste/fraud/abuse, but that project also pretty well halted.)
47F this fine day, but it’s not actively raining. Still light overcast.
@brad, are your neighbors culturally and ethnically swiss? That seems out of character. Much more like middle eastern or some other tribal low trust culture. If swiss, are they an anomaly or do I have a poor understanding of swiss culture?
@stevef, I used to believe that because my work was so chaotic and schedule driven that I didn’t want any part of that in my private life. It’s been long enough now to know that the work behavior was the “not me” behavior, and not the other way ’round. I can do it but it takes a mental toll.
——————–
my big debate this morning is how much of my plumbing stuff to take home with me for any potential issues in Houston with the coming freeze, and how much to leave here for my neighbor and myself, because I know it will be colder up here. Would not matter if the electricity and the heat stay up, but we’re headed for a level of prosperity that a Pakistani bricklayer would appreciate.
well, if I’m going to get anything done, I need to get started.
n
Russian Arms Manufacturer Developing Tech to Hunt Starlink Dishes
Anti-radiation homers. Easier than going after the satellites. Major change in how things are done though.
n
You can’t just turn the water off at the main and open the taps up there while you are gone?
The attending nurse at my procedure yesterday was Asian with the unique Berkeley/Californian accent the second generation who grow up in that state seem to have, and she was fretting about the freeze on Friday and the possibility of the pipes at her house bursting again.
No wonder my homeowners insurance back door cancelled our policy after eight years of on time payments and zero claims. Didn’t Texas learn anything?
Yes, they are. And it is very out of character. Swiss tend to be very averse to confrontation, and very open to compromise. FWIW their behavior is largely driven by the wife. Whatever her background (and one wonders), her adult persona is full-on aggressive. Most guys don’t like confrontation with women to begin with – Swiss guys even less so. She has likely spent most of her life getting her way.
As Gomer Pyle used to say: sooprise, sooprise…
More evidence that 90% of programmers…aren’t.
Got my 2nd shingles shot today. It was not comfortable. I am done, no more required. I have had the Covid booster, flu (over 65 version), pneumonia (Prevnar-19 and Prevnar-23). I have no idea if I need Prevnar-21.
I guess one goal of reformatting/refactoring is to “increase the velocity of code”.
I have no idea what the heck that means, but the Cornell grad who replaced me on the DC project at the tolling company touts that exact achievement on his Linkedin entry regarding his time on the job.
Chucklehead.
I missed out not having a “good” education.
Re deadlines: I once asked my wife about a contractor’s deadline, and she said he said it was ASAP. I remarked that meant lowest priority, because there was no deadline date. Most of my career involved project management, and I have heard most of the excuses.
The Twitter circus is Tony’s way of distracting attention from the cratering TSLA stock price, increasing prices for the vehicles, and continued lack of Jesus Truck.
With the exception of what’s going on at Boca Chica, SpaceX seems to be running well enough, but delays there will start to be of concern eventually. Forget the Jesus Truck, where is the big rocket launch?
Solicitation for thoughts from programmers and such, and from managers of programmers and such:
The Child is inclined toward a career in programming, data science, or similar. She’s currently in 10th grade, so it’s time to think about how she’s going to get from here to there.
What do you think about a 4-year degree in CS, a community-college or tech school degree or certificate, some form of self-study or online degree, or working on a significant project to use as a “portfolio” in place of a degree?
From my time as a manager of (and coworker with) programmers, I’ve found no correlation between possession of a CS degree and being a worthwhile member of a team in a business environment. The degree (can) give you background knowledge and organization to learning the fundamentals but that’s not nearly as important as attitude and intrinsic aptitude. From potential employee’s point of view, the time spent in college is time not spent working, plus you’re paying buckets for it.
I’d be inclined to tell her to work on a project (eg, she’s interested in robotics, so have her build sets of waldos and control gloves) supplemented by online education to get some of the basics, BUT I don’t know if that’s enough to get her foot in the door anymore. A decade or two ago, yes: a programmer with a body of work but no degree could get hired. Now? Five years from now? Who knows?
What do any of you think? What would you advise your teenager?
Hanukkah Ain’t Christmas or Dewali
@SteveF: definitely a degree, though a state school is fine. Here, a lot of students go part-time, and work part-time programming jobs at the same time.
What’s important is that she starts programming now. Find out if she actually likes it / is good at it.
What do any of you think? What would you advise your teenager?
No, no, a thousand times no!
Have her learn to program well as a good skill to have while pursuing another career, preferably one in STEM, assuming she has the necessary aptitude, and one that is unlikely to be overwhelmed by low-paid and under-skilled H-1Bs.
>> Forget the Jesus Truck, where is the big rocket launch?
Ohh, look over there, COWS!
Prepper fail. My car won’t start.
It is 0° F right next to the house, weather reports say its -11° F. Judging by how the chunks of ice I cracked free cling to my lip, it’s closer to -10° F than 0° F by the car. Plus my nostril hair was freezing. That means it was colder than 0.
This vehicle lacks a block heater. A block heater warms up the engine, typical usage is to plug into a timer and set to warm the engine a few hours before departure. They work great and save wear and tear.
Why doesn’t this car have one? Prepper fail.
I put a space heater in the engine compartment, threw a blanket over the hood, and will try again in a bit after the engine is warmer.
Engines and batteries don’t like cold.
Four year degree in CS, preferably from a school which still requires a class based on Sipser’s “Theory of Computation” text and involves some classic real liberal arts classwork.
Employers will let her learn the hands-on stuff at her own pace thanks to lack of Y chromosomes.
Really good state schools exist for CS, but you’ll have to work to find them.
For a white male, I recommend avoiding the field altogether, to the extent that even an EE degree should be given serious thought before committing the tuition money.
Jenny, I have a block heater you can have, but you’ll have to drive here to get it.
Everyone who commented on programming education and career, thanks for the thoughts.
@SteveF
What do you think about a 4-year degree in CS, a community-college or tech school degree or certificate, some form of self-study or online degree,
Have her work through the Nand to Tetris course from the original instructors.
https://www.nand2tetris.org
Set her up with R. Do a reality check on her mad math skills. I am not a programmer (though I could fake it when younger and can manage code someone else writes), however the word from programmers I know and respect say it’s a losers game these days. Good programmers get hosed propping up the bad ones, and are not valued by management. The guys I know who have mad math skills are doing well in IT Security, R data analysis, networking, etc.
Also consider the college I used. University of the People is fully online, $100 per class, pay as you go, fees due about week 3 of each course. Dealing with the loser students is annoying, being fully self motivated is a pain, and the fact that it is national accreditation instead of regional is very limiting. I did read they are pursuing obtaining regional accreditation through the western states. I hope they succeed.
However – for about $4,000 and a commitment of time she will earn a valid Bachelor’s of Science in Computer Science. She’s not going to learn anything cutting edge, it’s not sexy, and she won’t get much out of it unless she truly buckles down and busts her hiney. It will be harder to get value from it than traditional college.
If it turns out Computer Science isn’t her thing, she will have wasted time and $4,000. That’s not bad, frankly. If she works hard and supplements by shadowing computer folks in real life, she will have the piece of paper to get in the door, a solid foundation in the basics, and real skills from mentors you help her find.
We are encouraging our girl to think about trades and trade school. If she wants college we will steer her toward the most conservative ones that still exist in 10 years. And UoPeople if it’s still around.
If you want more info on UoPeople let me know. I think I hung onto the assignments. Also their full catalog is on their site.
@SteveF
Jenny, I have a block heater you can have, but you’ll have to drive here to get it.
Right after I get my sissy car started -laughter-
@SteveF
Also – as a female in IT, I’ve encountered poor treatment under only one manager when I got caught in the backsplash from a different problem. We’ve since proverbially kissed and made up and now have a good working relationship.
I never encountered problems finding good mentors. I’ve also worked hard to learn, and to consistently do more than expected or required. I genuinely love all things IT and can’t believe I get paid to do interesting and challenging things all day. I’ve done most of the IT things over three decades, from pulling cable to router monkey, stints in desktop, infrastructure and enterprise stuff, and now DBA. my flirtation with programming was brief and brutal. I liked it but didn’t have the correct brain process for it, I’m a bit better than mediocre and humble enough to recognize it’s not my strength.
I think humility goes a long way in the field. The smartest best IT folks I know are very giving with their skills, very humble about them, but never pushovers. That takes confidence and strength. They were joys as coworkers.
I attribute my good experience in the field to working as hard or harder than those around me, constant learning, and not being a sensitive ninny.
@SteveF
Last thought then I’ll hush.
See if she can teach the family pet a new trick using clicker training. The attributes that make a good animal trainer have considerable overlap (in my opinion) with those present in a good programmer.
Refresh your memory on operant conditioning, read up on clicker training, and you’ll see what I’m talking about.
Family pet may be any species capable of responding to stimuli and producing a behavior. One of my heroes trained spiders in the outhouse to crouch on cue for amusement.
Growing up in Rhinelander, Wi (Home of the Hodag, Snowmobile Capitol of the World), we installed block heaters in all of our cars. Our garage had no power, so we ran a line from the house just to plug the car in during the Winter.
Boca Chica is literally the last piece of coastline heading south before the border.
No cows, but a few dolphins hang out year ’round in the water near the launch site.
Jenny: You might consider an oil dipstick heater and/or an oil pan heater, available on Amazon.
https://smile.amazon.com/s?k=heated+dipstick&crid=1YAHJ5SVR7X3G&sprefix=heated+dipstick%2Caps%2C158&ref=nb_sb_noss_1&tag=ttgnet-20
Long ago, when I was stationed in Maine, I bought a new Dodge car, and a built-in engine-block heater was one of the options. I frequently used it, and rarely had a problem starting the car. Plus, it warmed up the engine to the point where the heater was blowing hot air pretty quickly.
. . . however the word from programmers I know and respect say it’s a losers game these days. Good programmers get hosed propping up the bad ones, and are not valued by management.
Quoted for truth.
I didn’t choose programming; programming chose me. In 1973, as a sophomore in college.
It was a simpler time then. A degree in Computer Science meant you had to know how to design discrete device TTL circuits. Not because it was expected of you, but because you needed to know what was going on under the hood. Then you also needed math, programming languages, algorithms, the whole deal. I graduated with FORTRAN, PL/1, Algol, and PDP-11 and 8080 Assemblers.
A career in CS these days looks to me like you’re constantly chasing buzzwords. Even worse than back in the 90’s, when we had 4GL’s “any time now” and programmers would be replaced with toolsets usable by business SMEs. And program generators would produce error-free code direct from formal requirements specifications.
I think we’re in that awkward stage where universities have completely removed all real value from bachelor’s degrees, but industry hasn’t come up with a universal standard replacement for the credential yet.
Sorry I’m no help, but if you go the degree route, I second the state school idea.
My EE/CS test engineer “stepson” just changed jobs, and says modern interviews rely heavily on project components, where you’re given an assignment to program, and you just turn it in after a set time. So it demonstrates your ability to do research and use tools and make a product, rather than rattling off the latest buzzwords in an interview. But he has an ECE degree from UT/Austin, so it’s a different baseline.
IIRC, your daughter has a racial component that works against her in school admissions, but would work in her favor in employment. I’d have to factor that in.
What do any of you think? What would you advise your teenager?
If she is not programming on her own now, that is not a good sign.
Have her get an engineering degree. If nothing else, she will meet lots of guys*.
*yes, they are nerds, so what ?
There was a pair of cute twins in my Mechanical Engineering class of 265+ at TAMU. They were smart and worked hard, both rocking 3.5 GPAs. They both got mad at me for blowing the ME Thermodynamics test curves. I always made a legit A on the tests, the next highest grade was 65 (them). When I got married, I did not tell them or anyone else, I figured it was my business. I took my wife to $1 campus scifi movie on a Friday night, Jamie came over and sat in my lap in the theater before the movie and asked who my girlfriend was. My wife showed her wedding ring and asked her to move off my lap. Jamie got real surprised and called her twin over to share her new knowledge. It was wild and I got the 20 questions later. Turned out the twins had me pegged as the not marrying type since I did not talk much back then.
Quoted for truth. Once I left DoD contracting, being a white male was a definite handicap. Add in being over 40, and it’s a miracle if you can even find work at all.
My chain of command at my last job:
I was the last WM hired, and during my time there, they fired or chased away all but one other WM. And of course, they fired me for not taking the clot shot.
My department had about 25 worker bees. Mostly Asian, many female, and mostly useless paper-pushers. The vast majority of the work was done by about a half-dozen. To be fair, that group had women and Asians in it too, along with all the white males.
Phew it’s cold.
Warming the engine and battery was insufficient. Took advantage of our USAA Roadside Assistance for a jump. I could have done it myself but at -10° F I just didn’t want to. Free service is there for a reason and I wasn’t in any hurry.
Car is running. Engine sounds rough. I’ll let it run for a good long while and take it for a drive later.
I firmly believe in that statement. A person has to have a knack for throwing computer code. Some are really good, some are average, many programmers suck. My brain was/is too literal to survive in management or creative fields. That is why I (in my own not so humble opinion) made (what I thought) me a good coder.
When I started, I used to try and use the shortest statements possible, cryptic. I thought it was cool. As I matured later in my career I migrated toward reasonable and readable and maintainable. By me and others. I no longer did in one statement what I could do in five statements. Add in a few comments and I was at ten lines of code with something that others could read and comprehend. Make changes if necessary.
I chose programming. When I was a junior in high school, I took a computer class at a local state university. I was hooked. There was this magical device that could make decisions, hundreds of them, in a few seconds. This was 1967 so the machines at local universities were not that powerful. I was using FORTRAN.
I took an advanced course when I was a senior in high school at the same university. I was still hooked.
I entered the USAF in 1969 as a clerk, a typist, a reports filer, an answering device. I took a test while in basic training to get into programming. I passed with excellent marks and went straight to my first duty assignment.
That first duty assignment was using IBM 1401 assembler. A big jump for someone only exposed to FORTRAN. I did well and was soon modifying the assembler program because I needed some additional functions.
After three months I was sent to advanced technical school at Shepard AFB in Texas. Twenty people in the class, 15 of them civilians. The civilians were worthless. The classes were in COBOL, something to which I had never been exposed. I ran circles around all of them when it came to assignments in class.
After six months in my first duty assignment, I was a better coder than 80% of the military folks and 100% of the civilian folks. The skills of the civilian set were fairly low on the totem pole.
After a year I was applying my own patches to the COBOL compiler machine code, not source code, to generate more efficient code using better instruction sets. Pissed Burroughs off in a couple of cases.
I just had a knack for computers. Or was it the long weekends in the computer facility because I had no girlfriend? Nerd nirvana!
On the ranch I had to start the diesel engine on a D2 dozer when it was about 5f. No electrical system. I had to get the helper motor started, two-cylinder gasoline first. That took a while as it was rope pull start. Wrap the cord around the flywheel and pull. Exhausting. After that engine started, I let that engine run for an hour as it shared the cooling system with diesel. It didn’t help much.
Kneel on the left track with starter engine running, move a transmission level, and pull up on the clutch to crank the diesel. That took about one hour of cranking on the diesel. Finally, starter fluid was used (not recommended) to get the diesel to fire. It finally did on a couple of cylinders. Another few minutes on just two cylinders and the other two cylinders started operating.
Because it was an extended cold, lot of snow and mud, the dozer was needed to move snow and get tractors unstuck from the mud, the D2 was left running for almost a week. Just let it run slightly above idle to increase coolant movement. Probably used a gallon of diesel for each day.
@ray
Sir, you had very difficult years in your youth. Harsh life with harsher people. I’m glad you are here today. I enjoy learning from you.
Because it was an extended cold, lot of snow and mud, the dozer was needed to move snow and get tractors unstuck from the mud, the D2 was left running for almost a week. Just let it run slightly above idle to increase coolant movement. Probably used a gallon of diesel for each day.
Let a diesel run for a week today and you will find your self in EPA / CARB jail now.
And I wish I had a D2 dozer. Better yet, any tracked excavator. I need my ditches cleaned out.
@Lynn: Welcome to the crazy-neighbor club.
On our road, which the neighbors have heavily damaged with their construction, our lawyer is going for one last try, with a “firm” letter. After that, we’ll sue them for the road repairs.
Meanwhile, we’ve decided to stop being nice about the changes they’ve made to their land. It’s a small bit of land, about 1/4 acre, and they didn’t want to pay to haul anything off. So after digging out the foundations for their house and garage, they piled up the rock and dirt, turning the rest of the land into a massive pedastal, maybe 6 feet or so above the previous level. It looks totally stupid. More to the point, we can no longer gain any privacy with any sort of reasonable hedge or fence, because they will be looking over the top.
We were just going to ignore this, if they behaved. They haven’t behaved, so we have reported them to the building commission. Major landscape changes require a permit, which they haven’t got.
So that will be the round after the lawsuit…
How do I get out of the club without losing my underwear ?
And this idiot wants to take over about four of my nine acres on this property so he can run utilities back to his place. Not my problem. And he already has utilities running from the old family ranch house. But his cousins own that and they are not on talking terms.
Yes, the idiot has an alternate path to his 35+ acres. He is trying to say that he cannot use that path but the electricity and phone line come down that path already. I had my lawyer add that to the three page letter we hand delivered to his UNLICENSED lawyer yesterday. My lawyer also removed the privileged section on the letter (this is the second letter) so we can introduce the letter in the negotiation.
BTW, representing yourself as a licensed lawyer in Texas is a Class A misdemeanor. It can jump up to a felony fairly quickly if you tell a judge that you are a member of the bar and are not.
My legal expenses on this matter are over $3,000 now.
“Texas freeze watch: Houston facing sub-zero wind chills Friday”
https://www.chron.com/weather/article/texas-freeze-houston-weather-17666744.php?IPID=Chron-HP-Latest-News
“Friday’s freeze is expected to push Texas energy demand beyond ERCOT’s previously predicted winter peak.”
“Bundle up, Houston. After weathering a cold and rainy Monday, this week’s incoming cold front is expected to push Houston windchill values near or below zero Friday, with raw temperatures hovering in the mid to upper teens, according to the National Weather Service’s Houston and Galveston Office.
The NWS’s forecast comes after the Texas power grid’s governing body predicted that the blast of Arctic cold sweeping through the Lone Star State will drive energy demand beyond its previously predicted winter peak on Friday. The cold front is not expected to be as severe as 2021’s deadly winter storm, and ERCOT projected last week that the Texas grid and energy suppliers are ready to withstand the cold and elevated demand.”
Note to self, put a fire in the generator Wednesday as preparation.
Just got and paid my office property and liability insurance. The annual bill jumped from $9,600 to $11,200. Three of the five insurance companies refused to bid to my agent. The replacement value of my buildings jumped from $850,000 to $1,200,000.
And I still do not have a single property tax notice on any of my properties. The dumbrocrat tax assessor in our county has reached a new level of incompetence. The old repuglican tax assessor used to get the property tax bills out by Nov 1. What is the problem here ?
The Starlink is still up and running. I plugged the two AT&T 12/1 DSL lines back into the Peplink 30 Mux box last night as they are faster than Starlink. Maybe twice as fast. The mux box will automatically use the fastest line so the DSL lines are mostly being used.
After a year I was applying my own patches to the COBOL compiler machine code, not source code, to generate more efficient code using better instruction sets. Pissed Burroughs off in a couple of cases.
The COBOL compiler was probably set to generate the machine language for the oldest Burroughs computer made. And then never updated nor compiler switches added.
I didn’t choose programming; programming chose me. In 1973, as a sophomore in college.
It was a simpler time then. A degree in Computer Science meant you had to know how to design discrete device TTL circuits. Not because it was expected of you, but because you needed to know what was going on under the hood. Then you also needed math, programming languages, algorithms, the whole deal. I graduated with FORTRAN, PL/1, Algol, and PDP-11 and 8080 Assemblers.
A career in CS these days looks to me like you’re constantly chasing buzzwords. Even worse than back in the 90’s, when we had 4GL’s “any time now” and programmers would be replaced with toolsets usable by business SMEs. And program generators would produce error-free code direct from formal requirements specifications.
I think we’re in that awkward stage where universities have completely removed all real value from bachelor’s degrees, but industry hasn’t come up with a universal standard replacement for the credential yet.
Sorry I’m no help, but if you go the degree route, I second the state school idea.
My entire CS experience is from being a programmer for my Dad from age 15 to 21 and then as needed in my career. I went back to Dad in 1989 when I was 29. I took over his engineering software business in 1995.
I did take a course in IBM 370 assembly language programming as a junior at TAMU. It helped me immensely when I taught myself C coding using the awesome Borland Turbo C IDE and compiler when I was 26. I am 62 now.
I would send somebody to a junior college for two years now and take all the prerequisites. And then to a regular state university. Much cheaper. And do not let them take out student loans.
The D2 we had was entirely manual. No hydraulics. Manual track clutches, manual track brakes, manual transmission. It was hard work operating for a day.
@Jenny: Yes, I did. Surprisingly I was better off there than in Southern California. My mother spent her free time chasing men leaving me and my brothers by ourselves. I would have been in prison had I stayed with my mother.
I have zero sympathy or empathy for those today who commit crimes or wind up on welfare claiming they had a bad childhood. I have been there, escaped, and created a decent life. My bullshirt (-r) needle pegs when people use their childhood as an excuse for their abhorrent behavior.
I also had the benefit of neighbors who knew something wasn’t right and helped where they could. Based on that experience I applaud your efforts with the girls Jenny. You will be rewarded. Your help is doing more than you can now discern. It will pay huge dividends in the future.
BTW, make your daughter take calculus in high school. If you can. It may be too late if she is not on the track.
BTW2, the progression of difficulty of the engineering degrees is Civil E → Mechanical E → Chemical E → Petroleum E → Nuclear E → Electrical E. I am not sure where Physics and Chemistry lie in that mix, probably in the middle.
You cannot make it through EE without being in the middle of the spectrum (IMHO).
Highlights of Slow Joe’s Presidential career after two years:
I’ve got nothing else.
“Sucker Punch (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter)” by Laurell K. Hamilton
https://www.amazon.com/Sucker-Punch-Anita-Vampire-Hunter/dp/1984804448?tag=ttgnet-20/
Book number twenty-seven of a twenty-nine book dark fantasy series. I read the well printed and well bound MMPB published by Jove (Penguin) in 2021. I have book number twenty-eight in my SBR (strategic book reserve). I suspect that there will be more books in the series. Plus the author has a new series about angels, demons, and angel speakers.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1984804472?tag=ttgnet-20/
U.S. Marshal Anita Blake has been called to Michigan by a fellow marshal that she helped to train. And that marshal has a execution warrant for a were leopard who supposedly killed his billionaire father. But all is not what it seems and the real facts are very complicated as it becomes obvious that the were leopard did not kill his father.
There is a wiki for the Anita Blake books at:
https://anitablake.fandom.com/wiki/Anita_Blake_Wiki
My rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars (6,497 reviews)
The lowlights would be dozens of lines long.
A career in CS these days looks to me like you’re constantly chasing buzzwords. Even worse than back in the 90’s, when we had 4GL’s “any time now” and programmers would be replaced with toolsets usable by business SMEs. And program generators would produce error-free code direct from formal requirements specifications.
People have been talking about program generators since 1985. They all look cute and functional on the top and then real life hits you upside the head three months into the project. Visual Basic is the closest that I have seen over the years and Microsoft hates it with a passion. Yes, Microsoft created Visual Basic and got a million programmers hooked, why do you ask ?
“FROMA HARROP: Time to regulate crypto? Why not Beanie Babies?”
https://www.bakersfield.com/opinion/froma-harrop-time-to-regulate-crypto-why-not-beanie-babies/article_60df8320-780f-11ed-958a-57c1661b30aa.html
“Cryptocurrencies were born out of the libertarian dream of a financial system free from government regulation. Bitcoin’s promoters peddle its ability to let us make transactions without dealing with regulated banks, which, they say, we are not supposed to trust.”
“What crypto players since stripped of their “investments” saw were some operators getting amazingly rich sitting in their shorts and running numbers on their laptops. The less savvy may not have quite understood how this thing worked, but they could bask in the flattery of being called “brave,” per the Super Bowl ads.”
“The crypto markets crashed amid a sobering string of scandals, crimes and the growing evidence that much of this wealth was basically made-up money. Amid so much suffering, calls have been growing in Washington to impose government oversight on the industry.”
“The idea is insane.”
She is not wrong.
Yes, I made MS VBA apps for our rocket prelaunch data documents. Their purpose was to eliminate all mistaken data sent to the teams at the launch sites. If the GPS in your handheld devices or cars work properly, then I made no fatal mistakes. I was the lead analysis propulsion engineer on the Delta II Expendable Launch Vehicle team.
Home. Took a roundabout way and made two pickups. That’ll save me a bunch of time later.
Kids seem to have missed me. Guess that’s a good thing.
WRT power outages, I’m betting that this time EVERYONE will be pulling out every stop to make sure the power stays up.
But I think I’ll double check that we’ve got heaters standing by, and fire up the gennie, just ‘cuz.
n
>> It’s another if they’re not even making an effort beyond reformatting a source file and committing the change so that the metrics show that they had 200 lines of code changes this week.
I had to answer to our MD if we had even one person on my team whose commit count was below the expected minimum. It went so far as having my BSA commit their Word documents. And the App Owners (like me) had to have our ED sign off that we were too busy to code. The aforementioned “reformatting” went on too. Just one more straw that eventually got me out.
Predictable and predicted.
–I guess the ‘shocking’ part is that anyone would say so bluntly.
n
>> Got my 2nd shingles shot today. It was not comfortable. I am done, no more required. I have had the Covid booster, flu (over 65 version), pneumonia (Prevnar-19 and Prevnar-23). I have no idea if I need Prevnar-21.
@Ray…our gooberment tax dollars at work for you…and yes, it takes four pages to figure it out11.
Hmm, wonder what the age range is for ‘children’ in this study. In the past it’s been as high as 25, iirc.
–hmm, what is it about young black <s> boys </s> males in the US that might lead to death by violence?
n
>> I guess one goal of reformatting/refactoring is to “increase the velocity of code”.
I have no idea what the heck that means, but the Cornell grad who replaced me on the DC project at the tolling company touts that exact achievement on his Linkedin entry regarding his time on the job.
@Greg, maybe the code ‘goes faster’ as the traffic goes faster past the tolls??
Hmm, about 6 stories on the DM about the FBI paying twitter to suppress the Hunter laptop story.
But I thought that was just right wing conspiracy nonsense? /sarc
how about this
#disbandtheFBI
n
Some states have very good prepaid university tuition plans. Note that these are different from the 529s or Coverdells.
I have Florida Prepaid for both of my kids.
Friends scolded me about the possible unconstitutional nature of the plans when I bought them, claiming that the courts would eventually find the program discriminate against poor people at the expense of the wealthy.
Meanwhile, they put their kids through Florida universities on Bright Futures, a state scholarship program funded by an increasingly ominous portion of the lottery income.
@Ray
I think we talked past each other there. We don’t disagree; we just said the same thing differently.
I was a EE student, and I took the only required programming course at the time, FORTRAN and PL/1, one semester. I immediately took the assembler class as an elective, and then I changed my major. I was hooked. So I say programming chose me; I really had no other options.
I’ve spent the remainder of my life wishing I knew the EE stuff in addition, but I don’t regret changing directions. That’s why I’m into Ham radio now. I’m always learning.
Speaking of which, SteveF, while your daughter is exploring options, you might consider Ham radio as a tech entry point. The hobby is broad; it’s not just old farts complaining to each other on the air. There’s a lot of electronics theory, opportunities to build things, computer technology including signal processing software, some of it open source written by a Nobel prize winner, space technology, competition and awards. My local club has launched balloons with telemetry that have circumnavigated the globe.
@lpdbw , I just bought two more of the cb stainless steel whips, but never heard from you…
n
Who knows. He figured out early that the way to get by on that job was to not be involved doing the actual … you know … job.
>> What do you think about a 4-year degree in CS, a community-college or tech school degree or certificate, some form of self-study or online degree, or working on a significant project to use as a “portfolio” in place of a degree?
At the IBs, someone with a decent technical knowledge and a BA/MA in the arts isn’t immediately cast aside. They can be taught the necessary Hot Skillz but the analytical mind is much harder to acquire.
Luckily I left the last job just as ‘no/low code’ tools got their foot in the door. Another “flavor of the week” I thought.
TBH, the track to go into right now is AI/ML, but it takes the right higher math capabilities to be really good at it. I was part of one ML project and the best data scientists I worked with all had PhDs and were regularly poached by other financial companies.
But nothing wrong with being an electrician. (Skip plumber though, I hear it’s a sh!tty job.)
>> I just bought two more of the cb stainless steel whips, but never heard from you…
If not, the bdsm club down by the docks might be interested.
Okay, okay, I’m getting off the lawn.
I’m not a programmer at all. A batch file using xcopy is my limit. Because I can’t think of where to go next.
I can doodle poorly. I have a tablet, Wacom or some such some where. It seemed like a good idea but I still can’t draw much better than a second grade kid.
I can do lots of other things. I built my so called barn by myself. Ok, just a third of it. The plan was to mirror what I have with about six feet between and extend both sides about twenty feet longer. Yep, about 30 x 60. Drew it out on graph paper. The emu stuff fizzled. But I have a decent 12 x 40 building and the roof doesn’t leak. The raccoons never got in to eat the chickens. My Dad seemed impressed. Good enough for me.
Shopping today. Misty wet weather so just three bags of cat food from Tractor Supply. Fold the back seats down in the truck and load up. Then Wally World. Coffee and a few other things. The grocery section has been totally rearranged and I got tired of waiting for Super Sized mexican Broads, pissing with their phones, to get out of the way. Jeez, the aisles look wider than they were and it doesn’t matter, 250# by 5 foot 3 inches take a lot of space. And they take their lane right in the middle, you can’t get around them. Thankfully the weather is cool so they are wearing long pants and I don’t have to see the dewlaps behind their knees.
Then the local HEB. Plenty of gaps and prices are up. Quart of half and half was about $2.80. It was 99¢ not all that long ago. Butter is up noticeably.
I need to kick my butt in gear and build a step into the feed shed. Something better than being lazy and doing a row of cinder blocks. It’s a tall step up now with a 40# bag of cat food on your shoulder. I need to work on the gate opener, it seems to be the limit switch, maybe I can fix it enough to get a couple more years of use.
Tomorrow’s fun is easy. Tote in a few bags of pellets for the stove. Find something, scrap sheet metal or plywood, to close up a couple of gaps in the skirting around the house. I don’t need perfect or pretty because no one is going to notice or care how crappy it looks except me. I just need to block the north wind from blowing under the house. The cats can get under the house from the other side of the house.
I removed the kick panel from the dishwasher last night. The floor is skimpy on insulation there . . . the fill valve froze a couple of years ago when it hit 1F here. I can live with the dishwasher being a little bit noisier if I don’t have to replace the fill valve again.
My back hurts. Right above and between my shoulder blades. It’s tension, driving to Marble Falls today was no fun at all. Whine whine whine.
Can’t draw, can’t program, can whine. 🙂
Time for the bedtime walking of the dogs.
From what I’ve heard the bad part is crawling under a house to fix a leak and all the mud….. the sewer lines don’t freeze.
Plumbing is pretty easy if you don’t count laying in a mud puddle under a house. Electric stuff is pretty easy too.
>> It’s another if they’re not even making an effort beyond reformatting a source file and committing the change so that the metrics show that they had 200 lines of code changes this week.
I had to answer to our MD if we had even one person on my team whose commit count was below the expected minimum. It went so far as having my BSA commit their Word documents. And the App Owners (like me) had to have our ED sign off that we were too busy to code. The aforementioned “reformatting” went on too. Just one more straw that eventually got me out.
MD = molecular disassembler ?
BSA = Boy Scouts of America ?
ED = Eruption Disaster ?
Almost, Lynn. You have to figure out the acronyms from context.
MD = Managing Dumbshinola
BSA = Brainless Shinola-y Assistant
ED = Erectile Disappointment
In the early ‘80s a veterinarian needed some software to analysis the results of his embryo transplants in cattle. He needed to determine success rates and other factors that contributed to the success. Rather than have me change the program each time I developed a set of statements he could input into a program. The result was the program would generate code that would run to give him the results.
The program was written in MS-Basic and produced a MS-Basic program, that would run without errors in the majority of cases. It was an interesting project.
Of course, the statements were not a high level of abstraction, and he could put in “run a report showing the best results using D5W. It was more along the lines of ”select tests using D5W producing results better than 50% success.” There were about 100 variables that could be tested, results sorted, results aggregated, some calculations, and some minor formatting capabilities.
It was not too difficult for me to accomplish as I had just left the USAF where I had been working on language compilers that abstracted the underlying details for the personnel people. I had been generating machine so the jump to MS-Basic was not too difficult.
Yikes! I still don’t know if I need Prevnar-21.
Until the magic smoke gets released. Or you shirt(-r) your pants because that last jolt was a good one. (Don’t ask!)
—some great music. Thought I liked reggae, found out I liked ska…
n
I got my settlement from the Equifax breach. A couple of my credit cards were compromised. Some low-life cretin in China got a nice Mac computer. The debit card took a couple of weeks to resolve as the CU was dragging their feet. I had to remind the CU of regulation E which basically states unless the CU can prove I did the transactions they have to restore the money. The CU does not like dealing with someone with a banking background.
Anyway, my settlement was $1.76. A person that was affected got less than $2.00. Meanwhile the lawyers got $77 million. Lawyers that were not affected. Scumbags. Both entities. Lawyers get new Mercedes’, I get a small drink at McDonalds. Did I mention they are scumbags?
Lawyers get new Mercedes’, I get a small drink at McDonalds.
The lawyers got new Rolls Royce’s.
@Lynn
from a recent post on another forum:
https://bigeconomics.org/the-14-hardest-and-easiest-engineering-majors-ranked/
which is closer to my college and early corporate experience 50 years ago.
The location of Biomedical Engrg on the list is a puzzler–I would put that up with Chemical, and add Polymer and make it a group. My primary argument for putting those three on top is two words: Organic Chemistry. I’d also note that Thermo often appeared twice on the requirements–once in the chemistry department, and once in engineering.
That list, while longer, is not comprehensive:
https://typesofengineeringdegrees.org/
An interesting list filled with a lot of touchy-feely green global warming b.s.
@Jenny
In addition to a block heater I would add a battery heater with a thermal jacket. A cold battery simply does not have the cold-cranking amps and once cold and depleted by a couple of starts is almost impossible to recharge.
Amazon sales must be down this year. For the past two days I’ve received around 10 emails a day advertising discounts.
Walmart has the tv blitz going on. I particularly like the ad that states something like “you can get what you need and a little more”. I think they are trying to tell us it’s bad out there…
I left you my email address, and I’m probably missing something obvious, but I don’t know how to reach you outside of posting here.
I was kinda waiting on you, and figured you’re busy. Since I have a window into your life, as it were. You do a lot of driving.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/12/sorry-about-those-jobs.php
as the line beyond which a government loses all semblance of legitimate authority receded ever more rapidly in the rear view
If a third-world country were operating with this government, not even Jimmy Carter could make a case that it was legitimate.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/12/sorry-about-those-jobs.php
Shadowstats knew that the unemployment numbers were faked:
http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts
>> And I wish I had a D2 dozer. Better yet, any tracked excavator. I need my ditches cleaned out.
D2, nah, that’s a Tonka Toy, you need at least a D4 or D5
Or go all out with a D11. 850 horsepower engine and weighs over 229,000 pounds.
>> BTW, representing yourself as a licensed lawyer in Texas is a Class A misdemeanor. It can jump up to a felony fairly quickly if you tell a judge that you are a member of the bar and are not.
As played out on Suits. Wasn’t a bad show, lasted nine seasons, plus some nice eye candy.
>> My legal expenses on this matter are over $3,000 now.
@lynn, will you be able to sue or otherwise recover you legal expenses when you “win?”
@lynn
BTW, make your daughter take calculus in high school.
+1,000
Single best class I took in high school was AP Calculus. First year my school offered it, maybe 6 or 8 of us enrolled. Took me from loathing math and stubborning my way through it, to sheer delight in numbers and their beautiful intricacies. I love math, due entirely to that experience.
@ray
Thank you sir.
@lpdbw
I’m at flandrey@ the three letter company that sent out millions of disks when dialup was still a thing. Should be on the contact page here too.
I thought I sent email from that address shortly after you mentioned it, but I could have got it wrong or just meant to do it. Happens to me sometimes…
n
I’ve been getting a ton of retail solicitations from major retailers this year, and from ebay. Oddly, they don’t have Christmas themes for the most part.
I do think things are slower. The mall near me used to have lines at the parking lots and intersections around it. Haven’t noticed any this year.
n
>> Almost, Lynn. You have to figure out the acronyms from context.
MD = Managing Dumbshinola
BSA = Brainless Shinola-y Assistant
ED = Erectile Disappointment
@SteveF was close…
MD = Managing Director
BSA = Business Systems Analyst
ED = Executive Director (sometimes aka SVP, Senior Vice President)
>> Amazon sales must be down this year. For the past two days I’ve received around 10 emails a day advertising discounts.
And more availability still today for normal two-day Prime delivery versus what I recall from previous years. Yeah, yeah, still shopping.
>> My legal expenses on this matter are over $3,000 now.
@lynn, will you be able to sue or otherwise recover you legal expenses when you “win?”
I have demanded that the crazy neighbor pay for my legal costs and give me $20,000 for my prior road improvements (I have spent $60K in contractors plus another $10K in misc over the last 11 years, he and his family members drive the road many times daily) before we start negotiating what the easement will be. He has also been running heavy trucks, class 7, 8, 9 up and down the road. He is not interested in doing that so we will be headed to the Judge’s negotiator probably in the spring. I am not the buyer nor am I the seller, I do not have a part in his transaction so he needs to pay my costs.
I have also demanded that the crazy neighbor pay 1/3rd of the future property taxes on the easement and that he pay 1/3rd of the future maintenance of the easement. And that these costs get folded into the title of the 35+ acre property, my lawyer calls it “running with the land”.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/running_with_the_land
BTW, make your daughter take calculus in high school.
+1,000
Single best class I took in high school was AP Calculus. First year my school offered it, maybe 6 or 8 of us enrolled. Took me from loathing math and stubborning my way through it, to sheer delight in numbers and their beautiful intricacies. I love math, due entirely to that experience.
I thought that I was going to take Calculus in high school. We moved before my senior year and my new high school offered it but I did not have trigonometry yet. So I went over to Rice University and took trigonometry in the summer. But I missed that I needed to have elementary analysis also so they would not let me take the Calculus course. I was pissed.
So I started TAMU in the summer of 1978, three days after I graduated from high school since I did not have a job and did not want to work for Dad. I took Engineering Calculus I from Dr. Hartfiel and made a B even though I had no clue what he was saying half the time since he had such a strong German accent. I was also taking Engineering Drafting I. Both in unairconditioned buildings built in the 1920s and 1930s in College Station, Texas. I would lean over my drafting board and say to myself “dont sweat, dont sweat”.
Last post of the night, first post of the morning, perhaps?
The sky outside promises some heavy imminent rain. The “I am on holidays” plan today: proofreading some academic stuff for the Mrs, putting up the inside and outside Christmas trees. Perhaps also a trip to the woods in search of delicious animals. If I still can make time for another “me” activity, trying out a new-to-me pre-charged pneumatic (PCP) air rifle, my first. I have a new high-pressure hand pump, filling probe and a replacement trigger for it, so a bit of tinkering to do. I also need to clear a lane the length of the garage for some testing…
About proofreading. If it must be correct, print it out. If it must be absolutely correct, print it out and proofread it from end to beginning, using a ruler to block one’s sight of the next sentence to be read.
nice, I tried along the years to learn programming, but I think program in machine language on a development kit (I didnt afford an assembler) 2000 lines on 6802 exhausted my will when I made my thesis as EE.
since it I never made any more attemp on software, only a codifier decodifier on VBA for Modbus to have my live simpler maintaning SCADA as field engineer, allowing not to drive km after km after that, all managerial thanks god (yes a truly PHB)
But IMHO, programming is a dead end career, if you are, stay, but nobody cares of what you do mainly. Our late host said do anything that cant be made in China as main advice to choose a career, and maybe now include no software at all.
my 2 cents