Cool and damp. Clear later… or that’s the hope and prediction. Don’t know if it will be true. I HOPE so. Yesterday was variable, and different everywhere. Stiff breeze, spatter of rain, distant rain while the sun shone locally, all kinds of weather in Houston and all in the same day.
Did some errands. Placed some orders. Hit the bins… now today I need to take some full bins of my own to the auction. I’ve stacked a bunch of stuff ready to go, but I need clear weather to do it.
Today in addition to the (hopeful) dropoff, I’ve got two pickups. Almost all of it is household stuff, or stuff for the BOL. Everything ends up in the auctions, even the pimple cover dots that D1 uses, and hand cream that my wife uses, only in the auction, it’s cheaper.
I may even get to the grocery store later in the day.
It’s a full life, and fulfilling, but it sure takes a lot of time.
Stack something you haven’t been stacking. Gloves. Socks. Underwear. Glasses? Hearing aid batteries? There is something you haven’t even thought about because you buy it only very infrequently… stack some of that.
nick
Chilly and damp, but without the weather station, I can’t get more specific than that. I feel like a caveman… rock wet- raining, rock dry? See rock? – sunny. Rock cold? = cool. Rock warm – hot… rock bloody?- Thang running mouth one too many times…..
n
No, not getting soft. I was thinking of the mess involved with a woodchipper and it would be an awful waste of clothes unless the cretin was inserted naked. And who wants to see that? Using horse? Nope. Why introduce such trauma to innocent horses? If I had horses, I would not want them used for that purpose. I suspect there would be no shortage of volunteers to point the bangy end of a rifle of some low life thug. Bullets are cheap.
Yeah, the Amish were definitely in the wrong, but that property sounds like a Ghost House, a rising trend in the US where Asians buy houses in hot housing markets, particularly neighborhoods with good schools, and try to coast on appreciation alone.
It has been a West Coast thing, but Houston wouldn’t surprise me, expecially after witnessing the Fung’s Kitchen brunch crowd last weekend.
My in-laws have a Ghost House in Vantucky. With them, I don’t think it is an issue about paying for maintenance services — which they loathe — cleaning up after tenants as it is the You Ain’t Got No Ice Cream aspect of owning the proprty.
Google Maps current Street View image of Number One Son’s house shows the 90s Mazda B100 pickup which he still owns and occasionally rolls to the end of the driveway just to see what kind of offers he gets from dopey Americans who *need* a work truck. Imagine.
Chicago calls them “glass apartments” or “glass condos” because they are empty and you can see right thru them, in one window and out the other side.
Houston is growing so fast and throwing up multi-family housing at a truly astonishing pace. I’d be surprised if there is much sitting empty or idle (other than commercial office.)
Our local Realtor sends out mailings highlighting our area, and despite the national downturn, our neighborhood is up something like 20-70%. Inventory sits less, sells for more.
n
The Huntsville housing market is similar to Houston, though it’s reported that average days on market is now 28 days versus 12 for the same time last year. Oh no.
Houses and neighborhoods continue to go up at an amazing pace. Our area is almost completely built out, with only a handful of empty fields left in the local area. Past that, you run into a couple little incorporated towns, so even more growth will happen in other areas.
Even more impressive than housing is the amount of apartments going up. Adding up all the ones I’ve read about and seen, it’s at least 2000 units. Completely insane demand.
Just wait until the bills for AI start hitting hard.
Where I currently work, the company just started shipping the boxes with the necessary hardware, and I think we were first to market.
3000+ Watts idle, no operating system installed.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/mar/28/energy-hungry-tiktok-data-centre-ukraine-ammunition-production-nammo-norway
Hah. Pandering DM changed this headline in the last hour or so. It used to say “flaunts her figure” and I was going to mock it because it shows anything BUT that.
n
‘AI poses profound risk to society and humanity’: Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and 1,000 global tech leaders call for pause on ‘out-of-control’ development of artificial intelligence
This is not the first time tech leaders have called for a pause or halt to AI research or identified it as a profound risk.
n
No victims shown but the killer.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11911549/Cops-release-six-minutes-bodycam-footage-Nashville-school-shooting.html
Worth watching for the reality of a response. She had 15 minutes, 5 after they arrived on scene. Could have been a lot worse.
School did good, lady out front with a sitrep and the KEY. She was not “panicky” as the article says. There were other cops in the building before the two guys who shot got there. Not sure why they didn’t find and stop s/him. Note the cops passing victims in the hall, and that no one on scene seems to be rendering aid. First is doctrine, second is just dumb.
Cop with the rifle that took the first 4 shots made a pretty damn good snap shot. Second cop didn’t “finish her off while she lay on the ground.” That would be murder after all. Second cop shot the still moving active shooter who was still armed. I’m waiting for the trans activist community to call it an assassination based on the headline.
n
Good luck with that. Wendigos don’t easily hide among humans.
And I suspect that this attempt will be no more successful than previous calls.
I’m not much worried about ChatGPT and such. No matter how much their “emergent behavior” “frightens the operators”, I haven’t seen anything that indicates anything approaching true intelligence. If someone wants to walk around with an obvious “I Want To Believe” it doesn’t bother me, but don’t make decisions based on that religion.
Still, some measure of caution is warranted. As was said in the run-up to Y2K, “It’s not the odds. It’s the risk.”
Looking at the photos, I’d bet Barry could pull off a dress better than she could right now.
PR push for … something. Moochelle’s book is the front window display of the Barnes & Noble store I drove past less than two hours ago.
If Trump bullies his way into the nomination, the Dems will need a Jesus Candidate to not only bury the Orange Man but to try and pick up a fillibuster proof Senate.
AI or politicians?
Cancún gets lit! Australian, Canadian, and Euro revelers flock to Spring Break mecca for week of wild partying as US college students heed travel warning after kidnap death of two Americans
American Tourist Shot at Mexican Resort Near Cancun
–just because your friends jumped off a bridge, doesn’t mean you should too.
The cartel violence in Cancun isn’t TARGETING Americans, they are getting caught in the crossfire. For the Euros and Aussies to ignore that is pretty f’ing stupid. On the other hand, fewer amish than Miami, and fewer shooting deaths so far.
n
added — fewer, but still plenty. And that is NOT an attractive looking crowd.
Note to commenters: if you paste in text, and it looks bigger than normal text, you can quickly change it to normal size.
Just click anywhere in the large text, and then change the ‘style’ to ‘paragraph’ (the first dropdown box in the area above the comment text area). Two or three extra clicks or taps is all that is needed.
Having ‘paragraph’ style text on links that you paste into a comment makes them more readable, IMHO.
“Texas pig stuns online world with livestock show runway walk”
https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/viral-video-texas-pig-livestock-show-tiktok-hit-17862064.php
Look at that bacon strut !
I love living in Texas !
Funny, every time the pigs around here see me they start running away, no strutting.
When I walk like that everyone’s Gaydar activates.
Pearls Before Swine: Crocs Air Beebee Review Reply
https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2023/03/29
Yup, I agree with Zeeba, “Yum !” is not a review reply.
Not surprising considering that the population has tripled during the lifetime of most of us on this site.
re: copy/paste text
What seems to work for me is to make sure I paste as plain text. On Windows, Shift+Ctrl+V as indicated in the instructions for this “Add Your Comment” box…
Is this not working for some people/some text?
Yes, that is an alternative that will work. My instructions will work after the cut/paste, when you can see that the pasted text is not the regular paragraph size.
Very few commenter’s comments have that problem. My instructions were a ‘gentle nudge’ for that commenter. I suspect that person is posting via a phone/small screen device. Somewhat harder to ‘paste as plain text’ on those devices.
I have thought of disabling styles in the comment editor, forcing all entered/pasted text as ‘paragraph’ style. But I am spending most of my time this past two weeks in writing mode, working on a series in the ‘thriller’ genre.
“Microsoft plans major platform upgrades for “Windows 12” that will modernize the OS with AI, faster updates, and better security”
https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/windows-11/microsoft-windows-corepc-modern-platform-hudson-valley-2024
“Windows “CorePC” is the spiritual successor to Windows “Core OS.””
Sounds like Linux.
“I love how everyone pretends the bank crisis is over…” by Simon Black
https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/i-love-how-everyone-pretends-the-bank-crisis-is-over-146615/
“Senators were flummoxed that their thousands of pages of banking legislation had once again failed to provide adequate protection to the US financial system. And they were looking for someone to blame.”
“This, too, quite predictably, fell along partisan lines. The people on the left somehow found reason to blame everything on Orange Man, while describing bank regulators as “gutsy” and “courageous”. It was bewildering.”
More like Fedora Silverblue with a Windows kernel. Immutable OS and atomic updates.
Docker already runs Windows images. I wonder how long that will continue to be a separately installed piece of software before Redmond does the old “embrace and extend”.
Nope. I gave him the truck. Why he filled out the price as $250 I have no freaking clue. Jim is, ah, he does odd things. I dropped his check into the shredder. I can send a picture of my shred bin.
Yeah, I get it. Why do they get to charge sales tax every time the vehicle is sold? They didn’t get enough when the truck was brand new? Why are you required to fill out and have a form signed by both parties “saying what you paid” and then the license plate folks go “ha ha, our computer says market value is $X and not the $x you say you sold/paid”????
When mom went to the nursing home, NADA or Kelly’s or whatever on the web said the van was worth $400. Last I looked, last year the stupid thing was worth almost $5000. And that’s where the state is getting their valuation.
The posts with large fonts links don’t bother me. I’ve just figured it’s a pasted from phone thing. The links work and that’s all that matters.
The house in Edinburg closed today. For a little less than what the county tax folks say it’s worth. But close enough. And then take off around seven grand of commission and partial year taxes and tile insurance.
Meh. Right off the top, I’ll be saving about $65 a month to keep the electricity and water turned on. On an empty house. Plus the yearly property taxes.
I’m shed of it.
And suddenly, the wire transfer hit my savings account. 🙂 Says “pending” but, cool, it arrived.
Really? I was a lowly file clerk. Guess who xeroxed and pretty read /every thing/ while being copied? And bound into nice packages…. that would be me.
State banking regulators being described as gutsy and courageous is all pure bull dung. Yeah, they seemed more worried about having covered parking and hey, what’s for lunch?
They don’t even try anymore:
DHS Secretary Mayorkas says ‘assault weapons’ should be banned but can’t define the term
Along with woman, man, child…the ChiCom COVID COOTIES created the dumbest generation since the country was born (Generation ShitForBrains). That is who will inherit the FUSA. They believe whatever the goobermint tells them. If they don’t, “Gaslighting to the max. ENGAGE!” Just keep repeating the lies and they will give in and believe.
Game over, man, game over.
LOL. The comment “It sure is taking a long time to get his body double ready.” sums it up:
Sen. John Fetterman to return to the Senate the week of April 17
LSM Press to Festerman: Welcome back, sir! How are you doing?
Festerman: Fcuk Joe Biden!
LSM Press: I see all is well with you, Senator.
Since people like to know where they’re going, and because the headline is often informative or funny in some way that the bare link is not, and because it’s easier to get the text headline with the embedded link, I’ll copy the headline from a source and paste it in comments.
On my computer, those headline links are less than 10% bigger than normal text. Are they huge on someone else’s screen?
REVEALED: Group Behind Trans “Day of Vengeance” Raised Money for Firearms Training – Trans Activists Pose with Firearms Threatening Christians Ahead of Rally at US Supreme Court (PHOTOS)
PHOTOS ←—- is in paragraph. Funny that the comment form doesn’t allow heading 1 and paragraph in the same line. And it turns the left bracket followed by a dash into a cute little arrow! How very twee.
n
– in other words, when she thought there was an advantage to her career she was front and center, but now that it’s clearly gonna be a sh!tshow, she’s running away.
n
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/03/just-in-santa-fe-district-attorney-stepping-down-from-prosecuting-alec-baldwins-fatal-rust-shooting/
On my computer, those headline links are less than 10% bigger than normal text. Are they huge on someone else’s screen?
The normal text is like a 11 point Times Roman on my pc. The headline text / link is in blue and is like a 16 point Time Roman on my pc.
– well waddayaknow…
n
– well waddayaknow…
Now that I have found out that the flu vaccine is only 40% effective, I don’t plan to take it anymore either. Getting the flu vaccine always made me feel horrible for a day or two.
https://unwantedblog.com/strategic-partnership/
Interesting linked video.
Never heard of this Peter Z. guy before, but it was my pretty much my first thought on how a Russian / Chinese “partnership” would work out.
Hmmm. How do you say “Molotov-Ribbentrop” in Mandarin?
Just wait. NYT gonna be on this like a snake on… a
hot rockpopsicle stick.:https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/catherinesalgado/2023/03/29/james-okeefe-uncovers-possible-lucrative-money-laundering-scheme-for-dems-n1682689
Wanna see a shiite storm?
Just replace the top line of the poster in the pic here:
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/catherinesalgado/2023/03/29/james-okeefe-uncovers-possible-lucrative-money-laundering-scheme-for-dems-n1682689
with:
“Women’s Sports for Real Women”
>> Michelle Obama attempted to go incognito as she stepped out in Sydney on Wednesday during her visit Down Under with her husband, former US president Barack Obama.
Rules for thee, not for me…
https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/leaders/barack-and-michelle-obama-make-surprise-sydney-harbour-tour-climb-bridge-with-no-harness/news-story/1c1690ec77a7c837523a3c4eb71e4db7
>> ‘AI poses profound risk to society and humanity’: Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and 1,000 global tech leaders call for pause on ‘out-of-control’ development of artificial intelligence
Sure, not like Tony uses any AI for his FSD feature.
Yes, but not hardware which idles at 3000 Watts.
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=cooking+in+foil+on+engine+block+&ia=web
I have a Popular Mechanics from the 1930’s with a much earlier account.
Updating this for the modern day kilowatt compute chip would be very green.
April 1 is Saturday.
Board transferred all it’s power to Disney shortly before DeSantis’ appointees took over
https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2023/03/29/auto-draft-110-n540435
Be interesting to see if this comports with the statutory purpose and definition of the board.
My personal preference is for years of litigation draining the time, energy and money of both parties.
I lost all respect for Disney a long time ago, and all respect for the State of Florida went they capped the years of incessant tax increases targeted toward screwing tourists with the requirement that rental car users must rent the toll transponder from the car rental company at $15 per day, or about the cost of buying one.
>> I’m not much worried about ChatGPT and such. No matter how much their “emergent behavior” “frightens the operators”, I haven’t seen anything that indicates anything approaching true intelligence. If someone wants to walk around with an obvious “I Want To Believe” it doesn’t bother me, but don’t make decisions based on that religion.
Sorry Dave…
>>
AI or politicians?
Come on Ray, no need for rhetorical questions…
>> “Microsoft plans major platform upgrades for “Windows 12” that will modernize the OS with AI, faster updates, and better security”
Yeah, because M$ did such a great job integrating AI into Bing.
M$ is now too big to do a good job at anything. One of the founders/early employees wrote a book about it. He argues against ever hiring anyone who isn’t an A player. As soon as you hire a B player, everyone else wants to start hiring B and even C level guys, and they’ll argue that “Well, you hired Joe, and he’s a B guy, I need to fill this slot, even if this guy is a B…” And then the B guys hire C guys and the C’s hire Ds…
MS is so big there aren’t enough B players, let alone A players, and that’s before the destructive effects of quota hiring and DEI policies (and offshoring before DEI).
They’ll plod along, until the company isn’t even in the original business, with all the valuable parts sold off along the ways, like GE, which redefined themselves as a FINANCIAL company a couple of years ago. They may still end up making things, in niche markets, with divisions that are small enough to have A players dominate decision making, but they are done in the long run.
n
Oops, they forgot to change the HTML-Header – the original title still shows up in the tab. Anyway, she looks ok for her age, but you can’t see any “figure” under a baggy sweatshirt. How was that ever “flaunting”?
—–
Re the Nashville shooting: One would really like to hear an objective set of facts. This was a religious school, and the kid was trans, and an (ex?)-student. Here are two stories – which one is closer to reality?
– This is a religious school. Children with mental problems are often sent to private schools. In this case, the mental illness got worse, the school couldn’t help. At some point, she was completely confused and broken and lashed out.
– This is a religious school. Lots of sexual abuse happens in religious institutions. This kids was sexually abused, threatened never to reveal the truth, and thereby driven into mental illness. Which is the reason she identified as trans – to escape being an abused girl. Ultimately, she was broken and lashed out.
Personally, I’ll bet on the second scenario.
Redmond will continue to provide the OS for corporate drone laptops and they will make a ton of money from renting time on the AI hardware via Azure as long as that lasts. Plus, XBox and Activision.
There are rumors around Austin about what MSFT did to get Nvidia’s fancy AI hardware into their data centers, including some of the old school brutality which put Gates on the stand over 20 years ago.
Even without sexual abuse, a Pentecostal school in the US can be a serious mindf*ck. Sorry, but I have no other term which adequeately describes the situation.
Been there. Done that. Six years of Southern Baptist elementary education.
My parents yanked me from the school when, in 6th grade, the admins marched us into an auditorium for a screening of a drive-in quality 70s flick about the “end times” showing beheadings of nonbelievers with full effects and spurting blood.
Of course, as a budding movie geek, I was unimpressed with the effect of heads separating from bodies, but about half of my class was crying, including many Y chromosomes.
I’m sure the special effects in the propoganda films are better now.
I’m sure the special effects in the propoganda films are better now.
– we were at a campground in the mid 70s, got invited to a movie at the group camp area, and it was something like that… I remember the worms, not much else.
n
>> I’m sure the special effects in the propoganda films are better now.
Any recommendations for any good woodchipper flix? That should really get them crying.