Cool and damp, possibly overcast. Maybe rain? We’re right on the edge of the national forecast, so probably not, but no one really knows. It stayed overcast most of yesterday, and got kinda warm in the afternoon. I was a bit sweaty working outside.
And I did eventually work. I had to clean up and move some stuff in the garage to make room for the hamfest stuff that was going back in there. I pulled out some stuff I wanted for the BOL, and I threw out almost all the boxes I was keeping for ebay shipping. I wasn’t using them and they take a lot of room. A full pickup bed worth of room, as it turned out. Re-stacking and moving some stuff to close up gaps got me some more space too. All the hamfest stuff, and a couple of black and yellow bins went back in the garage.
One of the things I wanted to dig out is my drain camera. Years ago I bought a drain camera to look under my concrete patio, and under my slab. Still have the camera. There is the mystery drain for the RV pad at the BOL that I want to snake and see where it goes… and the cam should do that no problem. I have to find the display (or add a connector for an analog video display- like one of the portable flat TVs I have stacked.) The display was some kind of Creative labs recorder with a built in screen, but all I really need is a way to see the composite video output. There is a lesson in there. The camera and snake were fine, but the proprietary display/recorder wasn’t made in enough quantity so when it went EOL, the drain cam did too. IF the maker had provided a composite video connection, and let people use any old analog tv device, it would have had a longer life. Standards people, use them. And preppers, if you want the gear to last, make sure you can get stuff to work with it for a long time, especially standard stuff that is widely available.
It’s worth repeating, custom connectors and breakout cables are a point of failure. Even if the companies are still around, the cable probably won’t be. Remember all the custom and unique cables that pcmcia card devices used? Those modem cards are landfill without the cable, but the ones with the x jack built in are still in service. Ditto for the Dell dual head video card that needed a special Y cable. You can still get a DVI cable. Very hard to get that high density plug to 2 DVI cable splitter. I get it that the manufacturer doesn’t care if you still want to use the device, but YOU should care. Power cords are an issue for everything. Don’t buy devices with uncommon plugs or jacks.
I mentioned recently that I was able to find a new cutter for my manual meat grinder. Widely used, simple design, durable, and industry standard. 100 years later, you can order a new part to fit. Ditto for Mokapot coffee makers, the filter and sealing rings are easily available. There is a good reason to buy what everyone else uses and not the thing with a unique aspect, that might not last.
Today I’ve got a steel cabinet to pick up, so I’ll combine trips and do other pickups too. I’ll dump my pickup load of cardboard and trash. I might even use the cardboard recycle dumpster at the school if I have time. Then it’s off to the auction houses. Besides my pickups, I’ve got an item for consignment at a house I haven’t used before. They’ve been getting great money for it in past auctions, so since I’m going there anyway, I’ll try consigning it with them. Hope it does well…
All the rest of you, stack it up, but stack things you can get parts for…
nick
Probably has a patented component with the royalty checks going to Los Gatos/Los Altos mailing addresses.
We had a huge cubic yard-ish box full of those at the university when I left.
Sadly, places like The Weird Stuff Warehouse are no longer around.
Weird Stuff’s owners gave up within the last decade after Google kicked them out of their warehouse near the old Atari HQ where the surplus store had been since the 90s.
70F and saturated.
Dam dog woke me at 4:00am barking at something in the yard. Do not like to get up and chase a dog around because his girl didn’t put him to bed properly.
Back is NOT pain free today, although not too bad.
Tired.
n
HP, Dell, Lenovo, etc. haven’t engineered things like that in house for 20 years.
I went to grad school with the guy who designed the last Compaq laptops before HP bought them and lowered the boom. Don’t let the door hit you in the a** on the way out.
Fell asleep in chair, didn’t wake anyone, kids missed the bus. Wife ended up taking kids to school.
Some other stuff that shouldn’t have been obsoleted by non-standard plugs..
GPS and chart recorders for marine use.
external hard drives
cisco gigabit ‘desk side’ switches
some classic electronic keyboards
n
External hard drives have been mostly USB for 20 years. The only rival plug after ~2001 was FireWire, IEEE-1394.
Apple championed FireWire until their deal with Intel, but the standard has several niche audiences, including video production and forensic analysis.
PCI cards and adapters to USB are available.
The parallel port used for external drives was useless even when new. That was a sick joke perpetrated by iOmega, who also gave us the lovely “click of death” which has rendered most Zip drives inoperative by this point.
“There is a definite biological mismatch between the average male and female sex drive. Of course, there are alternatives.”
Huxley called them freemartins .
External hard drives have been mostly USB for 20 years.
Not on the power side, and not for full sized drives.
n
wrt zip drives, someone must still be using them, maybe an industrial user? Search ebay for zip drives and you’ll find both the drives and media sell well.
n
My wife still services industrial lighting control systems that require FLOPPY drives. She keeps an external drive, blank media, and an old lappy in the office just for those old systems.
They are being replaced, but it’s a big deal and not something building managers want to spend money, time, and risk doing.
n
After watching some of the J6 video, it is obvious the wrong people went to prison. Unfortunately, the spineless, unorganized, Redumblican Party means nothing will be done. Innocents are in solitary confinement for a year, long prison sentences for others, I can’t believe the injustice. Maybe tRump should be re-elected and pardon and reimburse all of them.
re Firewire: I remember using Firewire for something, back in the day. Only time in my life that I have had a DATA CABLE get too hot to touch.
At least 30% of the establishment Republicans despised Trump and used the “insurrection” to send a signal to the plebians who elected him in 2016 (and 2020). They aren’t going to allow anything to knock their snouts out of the trough.
The Linux kernel had been moving towards deprecating the floppy interface, but someone realized that was a bad idea so it is still there. I have a USB floppy drive around somewhere.
When we went in for passports a few years ago, the office had Mavica floppy cameras.
The two big TV studios on the Universal Orlando property which used to belong to Nickelodeon utilize floppy systems to control the lighting. Not much has changed inside the production facilities in 30 years.
iOmega fixed the “click of death” problems near the end of large scale production. IIRC the format was popular in CNC circles thanks to the less popular but more sustainable SCSI interface, but the vast majority of the drives sold to consumers are paper weights at this point.
The media has to be nearing “end of life”.
My friends 90’s-era Mac Performa 6300 had a scsi port and Zip drive. Unfortunately ALL the ports were dead, SCSI, parallel, serial….
It could’ve been the motherboard, or possibly a failing power supply, but it just wasn’t worth the money to try and repair it.
Instead we just bought a drive adapter, IDE to USB, for $20 off of Amazon and copied the HD data to another Mac.
This one worked, another I tried did not:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EHDTRJ6?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details
“At least 30% of the establishment Republicans despised Trump and used the “insurrection” to send a signal to the plebians who elected him in 2016 (and 2020). They aren’t going to allow anything to knock their snouts out of the trough.”
Biodiesel in waiting.
Trump lost his nerve in March 2020 and has no business being anywhere near the nomination in 2024 absent a serious “mea culpa” address which is not in his nature to be capable of delivering.
@Greg, so is it now
“Yeah, Trump. DeSantis tho.”
but but but… I thought inflation was under control and rates were going to come back down! /sarc
Federal Reserve could raise interest rates HIGHER and faster than expected to try and combat inflation, chair Jerome Powell warns Senators
n
If it were anywhere else, I’d be in awe of the understatement… but at Daily Mail, I have to assume the author never saw Dilbert before last week.
BTW, “racist tirade” suggests something much more than his actual statements and is a great example of editorial spin.
n
DeSantis needs to be vetted lest the party repeat the Shrub mistake from 2000, handing the “Compassionate Conservative” the nomination on election night 1998.
However, the Governor has a strong argument for a spot on the ticket beyond just the electoral calculus.
Trump was elected to protect the country from dweebs like Fauci. He dropped the ball … hugely.
Or is it bigly?
I’m old enough to remember the Fed target rate being 19%, and the economic situation wasn’t nearly as bad as it is now.
True, but the puppeteers have much more sophisticated financial tools than were available in the 1970s. Everything will be fiiiiine.
>> “A Twitter engineer says at least 2 bodyguards accompany Elon Musk around Twitter HQ — even to the restroom”
https://www.businessinsider.com/bodyguards-accompany-elon-musk-twitter-headquarters-restroom-engineer-report-2023-3
Question is…do they also shake it for him? Asking for a friend…
As much money as he has, he can afford it.
@nick, should have brought some of these to the HamFest, could have doubled your profits…
https://nypost.com/2023/03/03/this-girl-scout-cookie-flavor-is-reselling-for-100-online-due-to-massive-demand/
Years ago I used to work in downtown Brooklyn and there was a Toys R Us down the block. During Xmas shopping season, a colleague and I would run over most mornings to see if they had received any of the latest Power Ranger toys. We got to know a few of the stock clerks and they would on occasion put aside a few prime items for us. We bought primarily for ourselves, only once or twice for resale.
>> but but but… I thought inflation was under control and rates were going to come back down! /sarc
But, but, but … Plugs said it’s transient, right??
Next increase will somehow be tied to train derailments.
Remember folks…just a heartbeat away…
https://nypost.com/2023/03/07/kamala-harris-ripped-for-dubious-story-bashing-conservatives/
“Watch: Vast Expanse Of US Military Hardware Positioned At Polish Port”
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/watch-vast-expanse-us-military-hardware-positioned-polish-port
“A Baltic monitoring media outlet has published footage of an enormous amount of American military equipment being prepared to move from the Port of Gdynia in Poland.”
“The expanse of military hardware is being described as equipment belonging to the US Army’s 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division. Some Eastern European media reports are claiming that at least a portion of the equipment, which looks multiple football fields in length, are bound for Kiev.”
That is a lot of equipment. Be a shame if somebody shipped it back to the USA and then shipped it to the Ukraine.
@nick, should have brought some of these to the HamFest, could have doubled your profits…
https://nypost.com/2023/03/03/this-girl-scout-cookie-flavor-is-reselling-for-100-online-due-to-massive-demand/
The wife had a box of Thin Mints waiting for me when I got home Sunday. Killed my plans of dieting this week. I’ve already eaten more than half of the box.
Cookie season ended in Austin more than a week ago. I don’t know about Houston.
Plus different parts of the city are assigned troop territories. Sell outside your territory and your troop will pay serious consequences.
If it’s Tuesday, you got the box on Sunday, you are a slacker. I can run a line of thin mints in 30 minutes along with a glass of cold milk. The next line gets processed the next day.
https://www.cnn.com/americas/live-news/americans-kidnapped-in-mexico-03-07-23/index.html
Another reason to avoid Mexico, a turd world country.
@Lynn
“The wife had a box of Thin Mints waiting for me when I got home Sunday. Killed my plans of dieting this week. I’ve already eaten more than half of the box.”
@Ray has some hints, but if you want the pro class I charge $20*
*Cost of materials.
Matamoros is across from Brownsville, not far from Boca Chica, home of the Starship.
Anyone who thinks that Boca Chica is just a few years away from being an international travel hub on the scale of Atlanta’s airport hasn’t spent any time in the area.
I would welcome Heelsup becoming *resident after Gropey Joe goes to the big Romper Room in the sky. It would reveal that the patina of First Woman President is nothing but an algal growth ring. Plus, she’s so repugnant even to a number of devoted
DemocratsProgressivesCommie Scum that running the fraud yet again would be even more difficult.Cookie season ended in Austin more than a week ago. I don’t know about Houston.
Plus different parts of the city are assigned troop territories. Sell outside your territory and your troop will pay serious consequences.
“The Warriors • In The City • Joe Walsh”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1NeFpMrtvc
“Storms keep hammering California and this could soon become a problem”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/storms-keep-hammering-california-and-this-could-soon-become-a-problem/ar-AA18i3iN
“A staggering 48.33 feet of snow has fallen so far this winter at the Central Sierra Snow Lab near Donner Pass in California. Through the end of February, the recorded snowfall was unprecedented. The Sierra Nevada now has a snowpack that is 186 to 269 percent of normal.”
Yet, they will be out of hydroelectric power by June.
If it’s Tuesday, you got the box on Sunday, you are a slacker. I can run a line of thin mints in 30 minutes along with a glass of cold milk. The next line gets processed the next day.
No milk so I can’t run a line. I’ve been horribly allergic to milk since I was 45. What is horrible ? Throwing up 12 times after drinking two ounces of milk in my coffee. I had to repeat it twice before I got a clue. Mom’s Mom was allergic to milk and I got the gene.
Our goobermint masters:
Mitch McConnell says it’s a ‘mistake’ for Tucker Carlson to air January 6 footage
The Turtle should be turned into soup ASAP. The footage clearly shows the J6 commission cherry picked shots. They should all be in prison. FJB and The Turtle. One in the same.
Another FJB stooge:
Nervous, CHUCKLES?! Chuck Schumer begs Fox News to stop Tucker from releasing more #J6footage
Yawn. Nobody will do anything.
I finally taped up the last of the recessed light fixtures. Aluminum tape. Is heat a problem? No, the fixtures are rated for (I think) a 250 watt incandescent flood light and that’s covered with insulation. That’s crazy, EzBake Ovens used a 100 watt bulb to cook. I have 75 watt equivalent LED floods, maybe 10 or 11 watts of heat.
Other than air leakage, the damn scorpions are coming from somewhere. They are not coming through the windows. I’ve never seen a scorpion in the attic but when it seems everything else is sealed, well, has to be light fixtures. There’s a couple of dead scorpions in the kitchen ceiling light, they moved around for maybe three weeks before they died.
Next project is to double check the sealing around the pipes under the hall bath sink. Toss out 70% of the stuff under the sink, too. After that, then some how southern engineer an easily removable cover slash seal for the whole house attic fan and make it look somewhat decent. You know you have the house pretty tight when you run the clothes dryer and smell attic. Opening the back door window a notch, well, it’s right by the dryer. Easy.
Just because I can, I put rear-view mirrors on the side by side last week. It didn’t cost much and I’ve always been bugged by the lack of a rear-view mirror. They are supposed to be “breakaway” and fold in if you brush a tree branch. The passenger side folds in easily when I walked by today and whacked my head.
I’m sure to test the driver’s side in a few days.
“Worker asks Elon Musk on Twitter: Have I been fired?”
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-64871183
Elon screwed up here. The guy is articulate.
Here is the twitter exchange:
https://twitter.com/iamharaldur/status/1633082707835080705
Your dryer vents into the attic? Not safe, I believe. Possible fire hazard, mold due to moisture in the dryer air output, accumulation of dryer ‘fluff’ (very flammable – you can use it as a fire starter with a 9v batter or flame), framing rot (excess moisture).
Not recommended.
Hey, Mom’s house? After a year, got an offer. Did a counter and they accepted the next day. Maybe too low, whatever. Yeah, it’s not going for the realtor’s original number or his second number. It’s about five grand less than what the county says the place is worth but… I’ll be shed of it and the property taxes and the monthly electric and water bills.
Zero usage on the utilities but they run about $60 a month combined. Why not turn them off? Oh, on the possibly mistaken idea that to get them turned back on would require an inspection…. and while Dad and Mom did all the work to code, they had the books, that was back in ’79.
They hired the slab and floating of the concrete. They dug the foundation and set the rebar. And the rest of the house, they built. 1×4 tongue and groove boards to make the ceiling. Crazy cool.
So anyway. If this all happens, how do I handle the IRS? The house is in Mom’s name and my name. She signed a paper saying (pretty much) that it’s my house but she can do whatever she wants before she dies. More stuff to learn.
No. Dryer vents outside through all of two feet of flexable metallic dryer duct. The dryer is drawing air through the attic fan louvers if all of the windows are closed..
Perhaps a bit through the bathroom exhaust fans, but I don’t smell attic in either bathroom.
No family law attorney involved with the estate? Tax lawyer?
Spend some money to talk to one. You may be liable for capital gains on the estate going back to when you put your name on the title.
No lawyers. She left it all to me. Senior Financials did the “add me to the deed and it’s my house now but she can still sell it if she wants” and Mom was cool with that.
Capital gains? Can we figure that with the property tax bills? So, maybe $5000 at most. More like $3000.
Got any floppy disks around the house? They may be worth something. Mostly stopped manufacturing around 2010, but still in use. See Wired article (open in new private window to get around the paywall) here.
You used to get them for about a nickel ($0.05) each, but now they cost about $2.00 each. There’s a guy that sells them (at floppydisk dot com) plus drives. Amazon also lists them for sale, but many items show as ‘discontinued by manufacturer’.
Another thing for Nick to look for when he’s out scrounging stuff?
Weaklings! Turn in your man card!!
First you eat the cookies, then the box, then the plastic wrap. Ten minutes, fifteen tops.
Better to face Kamala than Moochelle in 2024.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/michelle-obama-potus-2024
Another thing for Nick to look for when he’s out scrounging stuff?
– so the way my life works, when I hit the goodwill outlet today on my way home from my pickup, I grabbed a 10 pack of Verbatim 5 ¼ floppies….
And yesterday I grabbed a half dozen zip disks.
🙂
I always buy old media if it’s shrink wrapped, and usually buy it if it’s abandoned formats even used. Cassettes, miniDV, Hi8, CVHS, diskettes, reel to reel, all good. And even better, the cleaning products for same.
I did leave the vietnamese laser disc karaoke disks at the regular goodwill though.
n
BTW, you can read the link, when the popup lets you choose “return to home page” do so, then turn off scripting, and hit back… and Bob’s your uncle.
n
“Dell Precision 7865 Review”
https://www.storagereview.com/review/dell-precision-7865-review
“The Dell Precision 7865 is a monolith AMD workstation using Threadripper Pro processors. Its basic spec sheet is impressive, supporting 64 CPU cores on a single chip, two high-end GPUs, 1TB of RAM, and 56TB of total storage.”
Good night !
>> However, the Governor has a strong argument for a spot on the ticket beyond just the electoral calculus.
“A” spot, not necessarily the “top” spot. Still need to see how his messaging plays outside of The Villages and the like.
There’s been a bit of snow up in the Sierra Nevada mountains in CA. Check out these pictures from the Lake Tahoe area:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/california-snow
Forecast is for another atmospheric river hitting CA again this week. Might be a bit warmer, with snow levels around Donner Summit level (about 7200 feet). That will cause some problems: wet rain on powdery snow makes the snow heavier. And lots of heavy snow is not good for building roofs. Not to mention all that water if the rain melts the snow. A lot of the storm drains are covered with snow.
…and ridgetop winds are going to peak around 100mph. See more info here: https://twitter.com/TahoeWeather
Whooohoooo, sounds like some folks are getting winter good and hard this year. I am planning my garden.
And it’s 73F here. We seem to have skipped Spring this year.
n
Minimum specs for Windows 14.
The real magic on Threadripper happens with Linux and the Zen 4 flags passed to the compiler.
https://redstate.com/scotthounsell/2023/03/07/new-lancet-letter-says-theres-no-direct-evidence-covid-19-originated-naturally-n712961
You know what this means files: Food CONSUMPTION may add 1° of warming by 2100
https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2023/03/07/you-know-what-this-means-files-food-consumption-may-add-1-of-warming-by-2100-n535346
A burrito and a side of frijoles from a pot that has simmered at least 24 hours and maybe since Christmas.
So here’s the question: Driving down the highway, is it better to crack the window and let the air circulate, or light the farts before they can greenhouse? How about we apply for a grant to model that question, and we can crowdsource the code for beer money?
I’ll get to work on the code acronym right now,,,
Might get a bit ‘windy’ in there…
n