A bit cooler, but still wet. Forecast is for more rain, possible storms… but still just on the edge of any serious weather. Like yesterday. Just wet enough to keep me inside most of the day.
Did my swapmeet/sale/non-prepping hobby meeting. Good turnout, maybe double our normal? And a couple of new club members from last month came back for more. It’s hard to grow a club. The ham magazine is full of advice, which tells me most clubs aren’t growing and don’t know what to do about it. Attrition is a factor in most of the clubs I’m interested in. Tempus fugit, momento mori, and all that. No one gets out alive. It’s nice to share an enthusiasm with other people. We are social creatures after all. It’s also important to mix with people outside your normal day to day groups, so you can get a wider picture of what is going on in the world.
After the meeting I mostly piddlefarted around the house. Domestic bliss- cleaning and laundry, cooking dinner, etc… and auction stuff. I did do a bit of tech. I found a ubiquiti Nanostation Loco M2 I’d removed from service and decided to see if it was recoverable to use at the BOL. It wasn’t. Deader than a dead parrot. I opened it up and looked at the board, but didn’t find any smoke releasing components. Lightning killed it, and left no trace. So I ordered a pair of new Nanostation M5s. We’ll see how they work.
Today is Mother’s Day, so I will be working on that all day. I think we’ll be cooking a beef ribeye roast, potatoes, asparagus, and homemade bread for dinner. I hope the one I had in the freezer is big enough. Dang kids are eating me out of house and home.
It used to be the case, don’t know if it still is, that Mother’s Day had the heaviest call volume of any day of the year. Don’t let it pass unused.
Stack something, use something from your stacks. Say Hi to Mom, if you still can.
nick
69 F and raining all night, sometimes hard rain, at the West side of Fort Bend County. Soggy, very soggy outside. The dog went outside. Did her business, and right back inside. The cat stood at the door and declared it too wet for him.
“Best available” leaves a lot of wiggle room for the EPA and the current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
And if the Old School Marm wants to administer a lesson, Boy Wonder Kavanaugh is going to go along.
Possibly Comey-Barrett too if, as I expect, she disappoints on the student loans and joins the Liberals.
5-4 on student loans. Reading between the lines regarding the impending resumption of student loan payments and interest accrual in September, Roberts has already passed along word to Biden that the forgiveness won’t be upheld as Constitutional … this time.
The problem is, the school marm knows that spending bills must originate in the House. And the student loan forgiveness is over half a trillion dollars. That is too much to let go by casually. That will start a war between Congress and the President if it is allowed to go forward.
The financial apocalypse of the USA is coming. I can hear the hoofbeats. And China is ready to slip the blade between the ribs of the USA.
And the school marm has a serious problem. I suspect he stopped in Thomas’s office the other day and yelled “get your paperwork in shape old man”. Who probably replied “screw you !”.
“Best available” leaves a lot of wiggle room for the EPA and the current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
BACT is legally defined to run for a year without major work. All the reports that I have read so far say that the amine solution gets salted out in three months or so. Then the amine vendor has to show up with several 18 wheelers of 55 gallon drums of new amine at $4,000 per drum. The amine vendors love it. The power plants go broke buying several million dollars of amine several times a years. And disposing of that used amine is expensive too.
SO2 forms a heat stable salt with all amines. If your SO2 scrubber burps (and they all burp), kiss off your amines.
The Court is much more collegial behind closed doors.
Thomas is effectively untouchable for that mess unless Garland goes after the wife to force a resignation.
Even indicted/tried/convicted on Federal charges, Thomas’ involuntary removal from The Court would require an Impeachment conviction vote in the Senate.
The ethics “reforms” for The Court being floated in the Senate aren’t going to happen. Eventually another wealthy Dem like Ginsberg will be confirmed for a chair even if the Payola seat is gone for this generation. Garland had money from private practice when he was nominated.
Also, Jackson has family money which is downplayed.
Hermione Granger and The Wise Latina were anomalies nominated by The Chosen One.
And, before I forget, a husband who can trace lineage back to a delegate to the Continental Congress.*
Asterisk because I can’t find the reference offhand. The husband is a doctor of some renown, which is well-documented.
It is a big club…
There are probably rackets involved with the anime disposal.
I Know A Guy, Incorporated.
I have a lot of business travel and gig work coming up. I won’t be posting much, but will lurk. I know, you are all crying.
Happy Mother’s day to Jenny and anyone else lurking!
It’s pouring down rain here and has been for a while. It was storming at 6am, paused briefly at 9am but it’s back on. It’s been coming down hard enough that the gutters are half full. That usually means a rate of 1″ per hour.
n
Oh, and someone, probably a teenager, left the honda’s door open all night. Only about an inch of rainwater in the van…
Found a random circuit board at goodwill. Looked like an expansion board, or a carrier board that lets a hobbyist solder to a surface mount chip, so I grabbed it.
Chip is marked “Sega” and a part number.
Internet says it’s a game cartridge rom, and even identifies the game.
It’s like living in the future or something.
Freaking cool, and a bit scary at the same time.
n
Check your apps carefully. Look for something, a folder, with just “Office” in the description. You may find your applications at that location. When I installed W11 from scratch, and then my applications which only went to Office 2016, I found Office 365 on my system. I had to remove Office 365 from my system. Microsoft is really pushing Office 365.
If that is not what happened and you indeed got Office 365, Stacksocial is fairly good about solving problems. They were for me when I had a problem with an activation key.
IDK how much fail you can fit in a single article or incident, but this one is pretty close to maxed out.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12081373/Wild-brawls-break-Democratic-endorsing-convention-Minnesota-supporters-clash-stage.html
–yep, that’s in Minneapolis, MN, USA
n
Astronomy Club outreach last night. A couple of new members showed up with scopes, and a decent number of the public, #91. Terrible seeing and skyglow, but that’s the breaks.
The 2019 Ram wouldn’t start after. Seems like the ignition key unit has failed. Had AAA tow it to a friends place and I will call the dealer tomorrow- I did get the extended warranty.
By the way, there is a mechanical tranny release latch hidden under a panel in the dash, allows the tow guy to winch the vehicle up onto his truck with wheels rolling.
Silver lining: I was supposed to be taking the back roads through Nevada (no cell service) up to Yerington this weekend, got pushed back to Memorial Day.
@EdH, sounds like you dodged a bullet. I haven’t even gotten my new 10″ dob out of the box, or assembled the stand to see if it would need any mods.
I’m looking forward to having some good viewing later this year, and maybe learning a thing or two…
It is frustrating to use the ‘scopes on the dock, as it moves a bit, and the high magnification makes that a bit ’unhelpful.’
But until I get some heavy equipment and start on the earthmoving, I don’t have a flat spot to set up on.
n
Minneapolis: Guess the race. Some of the women are wearing head coverings, so it’s a fair bet that some of this is imported diversity.
Minneapolis has a large group from Somalia, bring their lovely culture of peace and tolerance with them.
@Nick, Yes, lucky in a way.
It just occurred to me to try the other key, maybe it is a bad “smart key”…?
MrAtoz will be away so I’ll have to sweet summer child you.
Oh, my sweet Summer child! Haven’t you learned yet not to say “they’ve reached peak stupidity” or “they’ve maxed out the fail”? They take it as a challenge.
The city council member is Pakistani, but she is involved with domestic diversity – SEIU and Democratic Socialists of America. Plus whatever the Democratic Farmer Labor party really represents now — looked fairly thin on farmers and any real laborers in that video.
Might just need new batteries.
“California Facing $32 Billion Deficit as Leftists in the State Call for $800 Billion in Reparations”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/05/california-facing-32-billion-deficit-as-leftists-in-the-state-call-for-800-billion-in-reparations/
Go for it ! Just don’t expect any help from the rest of us states.
“Spare Rooms”
https://areaocho.com/spare-rooms/
“For now, the New York City mayor is asking citizens to house illegals in their “spare” property. Soon, he will force landlords to house them. Then he will force homeowners.”
“It’s the commie way. Go ahead New York, keep electing Democrats.”
“Spare Rooms”
Not going to happen in my house. I -will- burn it to the ground.
..after inviting the mayor for tea.
I wondered how they were going to violate the “can’t quarter foreign soldiers” amendment. They have figured out how to break all the rest.
Now we know.
n
“Biden says ‘white supremacy’ is ‘most dangerous terrorist threat’ in Howard University speech”
https://justthenews.com/government/white-house/biden-says-white-supremacy-most-dangerous-terrorist-threat-howard-university
“President Joe Biden said white supremacy is the “most dangerous terrorist threat” facing the United States while he gave a commencement address at Howard University, a historically black school.”
“Radio host Clay Travis tweeted: “Joe Biden says the most dangerous threat to America is white supremacy. I mean, this is completely bonkers. Did anyone talk like this in the 1980’s, 1990’s, 2000’s or even 2010’s? Of course not. Yet suddenly white supremacy is the BIGGEST THREAT in America? I don’t even think it’s one of the 50 biggest threats.””
“Across The Ages” by Sarah A. Hoyt
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2023/05/12/across-the-ages/
“Years ago, I came across someone a little older than my kids who refused to read Heinlein juveniles because “they’re dated.” Uh… note this was someone in his thirties. There might be some legitimate claim that the language, being dated, would be difficult for new readers, but even that, surely not with a mere fifty years difference. Meanwhile my kids grew up reading Heinlein juveniles, and Enid Blyton books most of them taking place just before or during WWII in an England that no longer exists, and it never occurred to them that it was wrong in some way.”
“The juveniles can now be read as alternate universe, but for kids just getting their feet into what reality is, they can be confusing. And yet, my kids reacted to them exactly the same way kids in the fifties did, and got interested in science anyway. 12 year old younger son insisted on writing lengthy explanations of how our understanding of the solar system has changed and also verifying all the calculations, but that’s because he’s broken in a very specific way.”
I still love the Heinlein Juveniles at age 62. Yes, they are dated but, so what.
@Ray Thompson
Check your apps carefully. Look for something, a folder, with just “Office” in the description. You may find your applications at that location. When I installed W11 from scratch, and then my applications which only went to Office 2016, I found Office 365 on my system. I had to remove Office 365 from my system. Microsoft is really pushing Office 365.
If that is not what happened and you indeed got Office 365, Stacksocial is fairly good about solving problems. They were for me when I had a problem with an activation key.
Got an email back from StackSocial.
Thanks, Ray. It was indeed MS pushing their redheaded stepchild.
The problem was caused by an obsolete (demo) installation of Office 365 and the usual high professionalism of MicroSuxt. My MS account showed Office 2021, but evidently when the installer detected the old 365 files, it installed 365 instead. I had to go back and uninstall, then reinstall Office 2021.
No warning or option during the install, just The MicroSuxt Way.
Add in pop-up windows with ambiguous “information” that would not have passed muster in 1989.
And again, there is not a damn thing in Office that has improved for 25 years–JEP was right and is still right about their damnable ribbon. The only reason I did this is that OpenOffice has a couple of maddening shortcomings that I got tired of dealing with.
I should just set up a ca. 1995 Mac Quadra as a writing machine and be done with this shiite.
More than twenty years ago I proposed using 3A as an objection to the key loggers and other spyware that the Clinton administration wanted to make mandatory on all computers. I doubt that I was the first to suggest it, as several lawyers were active in the Cypherpunks community. (Accuracy of details are not guaranteed; not only am I exhausted but allergies and allergy meds are eating my brain.)
I tried to read Doc Savage a few years ago, but couldn’t. It was so dated, and I couldn’t quite get past it, even thinking of it as an alternate world story. EVERY TIME they entered a room they turned on the electric light, using the power of the atom….
I might try again, several years have passed, but I just couldn’t get my head in the right place. I don’t want them to be updated though, leave them as period pieces, when electricity was new, and splitting the atom was fantasy.
n
I wouldn’t know. I had WordPerfect 6 and the rest of the package and it worked. Somewhen I couldn’t install WP on a new PC. XP, I think.
No big deal. Notepad works. If I want more than plain text formatting, WordPad does the job.
“Spare Rooms”
https://areaocho.com/spare-rooms/
“For now, the New York City mayor is asking citizens to house illegals in their “spare” property. Soon, he will force landlords to house them. Then he will force homeowners.”
“It’s the commie way. Go ahead New York, keep electing Democrats.”
I wonder if you have to feed and clothe the foreign soldiers also.
And provide day care for their kids, too. And do the cooking and laundry. Whilst they sit around and complain that I don’t have cable TV or super great cell service.
And yeah, nope nope nope. And nope.
The house has insurance. A crazy amount, they bump it up every year. Thing is though, I’m old enough that if a tornado came through, I’m not rebuilding this house. All of my stuff is gone. A nice single wide or better, a short double wide, works. Pretty much a place to sleep….
Excellent. I sort of figured it was MS being pushy.
Every new installation, or repair, of Windows involves removing all traces of Office 365 from the system. In a new install everything MSOffice gets removed. When I redid my Surface laptop I found Office 365 program stubs that would download Office 365. This was immediately after the install of W11. Pfftt, removed.
I have Office 2021 but cannot use it. It will not play nice with Visio 2016 or the other way around. Nothing in Office 2021 I am going to use, so I am happy with 2016. Office 365 does not provide anything I need, or want.
I do have Office 2021 on the MacBook Air because that is the only version I could buy from Stacksocial. The Apple apps, Pages, Numbers, and Keynote work and are free. But I am not going to learn a completely new interface for making documents. The only advantage is the Apple apps work on all their platforms.
“Entire Global Food Supply at Risk From Disastrous Response to So-Called ‘Nitrogen Crisis’”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/05/11/entire-global-food-supply-at-risk-from-disastrous-response-to-so-called-nitrogen-crisis/
“The full horror of the ‘nitrogen’ war on agriculture is becoming more apparent every day. Food supplies around the world face collapse if the use of nitrogen fertiliser is severely restricted under Net Zero requirements. It is claimed that the fertiliser is warming the Earth and causing the climate to break down, as the by-product nitrous oxide is released into the atmosphere. In fact the entire global food supply is in danger of being trashed for the sake of what recent scientific work notes is almost unmeasurable 0.064°C warming per century.”
“Policies to address this non-existent crisis have already done enormous harm in Sri Lanka, where a ban on nitrogen fertiliser caused a rapid collapse in food yields, and led to the President fleeing the country in a hurry. The Canadian Government is committed to a 30% reduction in N2O levels by 2030. In the Netherlands, the Government is following European Union instructions and trying to remove farmers from the land. Any compensation paid will be tied to a restriction not to start farming again anywhere in the EU. Political discontent is growing, and there are already fears for the supply of agricultural products since the Netherlands is the second largest food exporter in the world.”
Never, ever, ever, mess with the farmers.
@Nick
Doc is closer to Gernsback than Campbell flavorwise. Not a taste I could acquire either after Heinlein. The main attraction of the paperbacks for me was the Bama covers.
Special dinner is in the oven. Short break while stuff cooks. Ribeye roast, roasted new potatoes, steamed asparagus spears, sourdough loaf, with macadamia nut cookies for dessert.
Yum.
n
Microsoft Office “Ribbon”; There’s a tool available from ubit.ch called the Office Menu. It used to be free for private use, but I guess now it’s 10 euros per user. When installed, it adds a new “ribbon” called “Menu” which has most of the Office 2003 toolbars as part of the “ribbon”. If you MUST use Office 2007 thru 2016, the “Menu” ribbon makes it easy to continue to work the way you had been in 2003.
They don’t mention Office 2021, but I suspect that it would work for that version as well.
And I agree; Office 2003 was the epitome of M$ Office. There have been no improvements since; just changes for the sake of change.
I’ve never had a problem adjusting to the Word ‘ribbon’. It’s just a question of adjusting to new things. I’ve had no issues with it – or finding the appropriate command to do something.
The ‘search’ function (‘help’) has been useful for figuring out how to do something that is ‘new’ to me.
I currently use Office 2019 (standalone). Works well enough for me. Mostly Word, some Excel. The ‘365’ version gets removed from new systems here.
The ribbon sucks.
I have no issues with the ribbon. I have used MSWord since version 1.0. Lots of changes along the way. I used to know the menus and the location of items without thinking. The ribbon was a big adjustment. I now know the ribbon fairly well. What I can’t remember the help generally works. It’s just different. I could probably adjust to “Pages”. I just don’t want to because I don’t need to adjust. I had to move on from Office 2003 as I needed some features in the newer version so I had to adjust to the ribbon. I don’t like change unless I am forced.
@Ken Mitchell
Thanks for the reference. I looked at their website and did a general search and don’t see any indication that Office 2021 is supported. Free to try, though, and still free for private use.
I did find OfficeClassicMenu which has a 2021 version that came out in April:
https://www.officeclassicmenu.com/en/order.php
Free trial for 30 days. License is $19.90 and covers 10 users. Not cross-compatible with other versions of Office.
@Ray Thompson
I don’t like “improvements” that are not.
Exclusive Video Interview: Former VT Governor On His Challenge To Middlebury College’s De-Naming Iconic Mead Chapel
The Rutland, Vermont probate court judge had never re-opened an estate this old, but he was prepared to do so in this case and appointed Douglas as the estate’s administrator.
In their complaint , Douglas and his lawyers say that Middlebury is in breach of contract for removing the Mead family name from the chapel.
And here, Douglas explains, is where Middlebury College becomes a very different story from other campus de-naming cases:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/05/exclusive-video-interview-former-vt-governor-on-his-challenge-to-middlebury-colleges-de-naming-iconic-mead-chapel/
The Mead descendants have all the documentation, and the college claims they have nothing. Pretty clear breach of contract, IMO. Here’s hoping the jury finds for the plaintiffs and the remedy is that the Mead family takes the chapel back.
Dinner went ok. Roast was a bit overdone. Medium instead of rare. Still tender and tasty, just not quite my usual triumph.
Watched Alien 3 which was what my wife wanted to do. That’s the one with the prison planet. Still a great movie.
Quiet and still outside now, not a whisper of a breeze.
Time to start the bedtime routine. School night and all…
n
“Gov. Greg Abbott threatens to veto pared-down school choice bill, warns of special sessions”
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/05/14/texas-legislature-school-vouchers/
“Abbott says if a school voucher bill isn’t expanded to include more students, a special legislative session will be the result.”
Good. Make the school vouchers for all kids.
The ribbon sucks.
I could not have said it better.
>> The ribbon sucks.
I could not have said it better.
That was my opinion at the time, even used one of the aforementioned ‘classic menu’ programs. Then came the “no developers can have admin rights/no unapproved software witch-hunt” at work, so I had to start using the ribbon and since then have actually come to prefer it. Different strokes for different folks I guess.
Up too late again – good night all.