Slightly cooler but sure to get hot later. Mainly because I’m going to need to work in the attic. National forecast has us in the clear so that sun will heat everything up. It stayed cool in the shade yesterday but it was moist and hot in the sunlight, even with a light overcast.
I did one pickup, mostly home goods, but included 2 kindle paperwhites. D1 cracked her screen a while ago. I made her pay half for the replacement kindle. I think I spent $30 each so it wasn’t a hardship, but bad decisions shouldn’t be rewarded. Got a UV flashlight too. Should come in handy. It was $3, so I expect it to be less than pro level.
Went by the bins since I was in that part of town, didn’t find much of interest. Some days it’s like that. Nice pair of like new Vans, if they fit D2 and she likes them, that will have made the stop worth while. Spent some time at my storage unit going through stuff and sorting for the eventual auction. That’s where the late afternoon sun was beating down on me, even through the overcast. Came home soaked in sweat.
Dinner was boxed Beef Stroganoff, one of the cheesy hamburger helper style meals. Beef was in the freezer for over a year, in a vac bag. Box meal was on the shelf for a year past its best by. Milk was UHT shelf stable opened last week. All was good. No leftovers.(and I use 1 1/3 pounds of meat, instead of just a pound.) Eat what you store, store what you eat.
Did some searching through surveillance video. Fish is there at dusk on Saturday but never seen again. That night a big tabby cat does come sniffing around, but walks off. The rain started soon after that, and went on for 12 hours, so I don’t have great video, and I can’t see any time when the pond was disturbed at all. Can’t figure out what got Mr Fish, but he’s gone daddy gone and has been for a week. That’s kinda the worst part, that we didn’t notice for a few days and didn’t investigate for a few more (we feed him daily.) I just figured he was hiding in the deep end. So much for my situational awareness.
Today I’m headed to my client’s house to do the rest of the install. The NVR came in, and I can get the rest of what I need on my way. That’ll be later in the morning though. I should still be able to waste time on the internet with my friends. You know, get the day started right.
And then I should be able to invoice and stack up the result. ‘Cuz sometimes the best stacks are greenbacks.
nick
Riiight. Because calling flu deaths “covid deaths” makes flu season go away.
And there was this little isolation thing going on for a year; might have had some slight effect on respiratory viruses.
Nonsense again. There’s just a bit of a difference between a respiratory virus and a surgical opening in a body.
That said, ISTR at least one study showing that if the surgeon doesn’t talk during an operation, masking him makes no difference.
Brad, you’re usually mostly sensible. Could it be that you’ve been awake for several days? Try getting some sleep and revisiting this topic.
Pretty dreary out this am, still overcast. I hope it clears up before too long.
Coffee is in the cup, but I’m in my office. Need to remedy that.
——————–
Please remember that “masks” means different things. Different masks, different goals for masking, different people with different levels of training and diligence. And remember that it got political and farcical when they had to double down instead of admitting they lied to benefit themselves.
Masks worn correctly and diligently, and chosen to match their purpose, do work FOR THAT PURPOSE.
Too much generalization and arm waving.
Also please remember that “covid” is dozens of variants of differing characteristics, that changed over time, and interacted with humans in their myriad and multitudinous glory, all with different health, different genetics, and different environments.
You can’t say “masks” or “covid” as anything more than a very inadequate shorthand for a whole cluster of things, some of which might be relevant, some not.
————————–
since we have it, use the record here. You might be surprised on re-reading that it isn’t what you remember, particularly in the details.
n
Mandatory masks at my local Lowes — with birds nesting in the rafters, flying in and out at their leisure, and dogs running around inside the building – has always been about the politics.
At least the Austin Police Department stopped their asinine mask enforcement drills, which continued into March of last year as I witnessed firsthand. Maybe they decided to finally do something about the record murder rates in 2021, 2022, and continuing into this year.
Well, I got a nasty surprise in the mail.
It seems that the TxTag program on the toll roads, where veterans with veteran tags or DV tags are not charged tolls, is not quite that simple. The program is only for Texas veterans with tags registered with the program. Jerks. Like most states it is convenient to nail out of state residents for any fees.
I got billed all the way back to March of 2022. There was a little note on the statement saying that due to system difficulties tags were not recognized and were being processed all the way back to May 2022. Why my March trip got included I don’t know as that was prior to May. Probably another screwup in their system.
It is difficult to even know what roads were traversed with the cryptic abbreviations used in the statement. Probably information only a local would know.
only a local would know.
– or not. It’s all kinda opaque to us too. It’s usually well worth it to pay the fees and avoid the traffic.
n
I used to work for the company providing the back end services on several of the roads in the region, and I can’t give a definitive answer where one authority stops and another begins around Austin. IIRC, there are four entities with rentier skim operations – the Europeans running SH130, TxDOT, CTRMA, and Missouri-Pacific Railroad.
MO-Pac.
Just keep all of the paper bills in a file and make sure they don’t bill twice. That isn’t unusual.
I don’t think it is possible to get out to some areas here, particularly tourist-interest spots, without using toll roads unless you are up for an adventure with Google Maps. The racetrack on the other side of the airport is really fiendish to reach without paying tolls, but that generally hasn’t been an issue for locals with the exception of last year’s Rolling Stones concert fiasco.
That was my experience in Orlando. I paid the toll on the Florida roads when I journeyed down to the Magic Kingdom. Going back I decided to avoid the toll roads. Bad idea. Lots of back roads, small towns, traffic lights, speed traps. The entire system was designed to entrap visitors.
The GPS helps as it knows how to avoid toll roads. But Florida has this little trick up their sleeves. The signs indicating a toll road is approaching are small. Difficult to see when a person is not familiar with the area. That right hand lane in which one is traveling suddenly exits, with barriers to prevent a last second lane change, and suddenly one is driving on a toll road. The next exit, 0.8 miles away, is a fee of $2.00. A clever, and deceitful design which I am certain has trapped many out of area drivers. The next further exit 4 miles away is only $2.10.
I would tend to agree based on my limited experience. If I lived in the area it would probably be much more driven home. I did notice on one section I know had tolls, going north from Pearland to Houston, 288 I believe, the road I was on was moving at 70+. The road that was not tolled, paralleling 288, was stop and go for miles. This was well past rush hour and there was still a lot of traffic.
I was also on The Hardy Toll Road when I got north of Houston. I could not see I-45 so I don’t know how bad was the traffic. When the toll road merged onto I-45 the traffic did not seem too bad.
People without toll tags are penalized as they pay more for the toll. Then a fee is added for being billed by mail. A double whammy. A toll tag can be purchased for $20.00 starting balance. According to the website when the balance gets below $5.00, funds are automatically added. Probably a good feature. When the tag is no longer needed, I could not find anywhere on the website where any remaining balance is refunded. Use it or lose. The tag account can be transferred to another vehicle. As an out of state residence to acquire a toll tag would cost me money that would never be returned. Another clever scam.
I just find it incredible that I am getting billed tolls from March 2022 and March 2023. The system should be able to do better. The March 2022 tolls should have been settled by May 2022 and the March 2023 tolls should be settled by May 2023. Over a year later for a toll bill indicates the system is really messed up.
I don’t know if in May 2024 I will receive toll bills for March 2023. I also don’t have any real way of knowing if the tolls are valid as the cryptic description of the toll road driven cannot be easily correlated on the map. The website is of little help.
I find it bad design when Texas veterans, especially those with DV tags can avoid the tolls. They have to register with the tolling authority. Veterans from out of state, “suck it up butterfly”.
The Florida Turnpike is nearly unavoidable when going to Disney from points north along I-75.
The alternative used to be I-75 to SR 50 to Apopka-Vineland Road then south to Lake Buena Vista, but, from what I understand, that’s been turned into a maze by the Expressway Authority in the last decade.
Flip the script for a minute… would you like out of towners wandering thru your neighborhoods 24/7 trying to figure out where they are and where to go, or would you prefer someone built a nice road that connects the airport and said out of towners to the areas they want to get to, without impacting your wallet, and your local traffic?
I’d be voting for someone to build a toll road. And since I don’t want to pay for it (I’m florida man, only 50% graduate high school, and I dont’ understand that the only reason there are jobs beyond roadside boiled peanut salesman and orange grove worker is said out of towners) I don’t mind the Saudis or a Spanish conglomerate owning the road and profiting from it.
Look at the toll road they built in Cali to get from LA south. People can’t throw enough money at the road fast enough to avoid traffic on 405 S.
Trading time for money is and always has been the choice.
n
the
AustinCali Lite Police Department– FIFY. Encapsulated, like a splinter in the body of Texas. Squeeze too hard and the rest of us will get sprayed by nasty pus but when the infection is removed, we will all be better off.
n
That’s how I get to my nephew’s house in San Clemente.
All of Travis County is infected. Hays and Williamson too.
City of Austin moved to adopt vaccine passports for restaurants in early 2021, but Abbott finally got a bit of a spinal column and made renewal of liquor licenses TABC contingent on not enforcing that kind of stupidity.
Just returned from a 6100 mile trip: WA to CA – UT (visited “Hole in the Rock” outside Moab UT) – then Katy TX to visit wife’s sister and mother. Did stop at the Bucees in Katy (got the T-shirt and some jerky). Weather in Katy was good – a bit humid and light rain and thunderstorms, which I enjoyed on the shady back porch – the weather wasn’t as bad as Nick suggests, but I wasn’t out working in the sun. Sort of like home (cloudy, rainy, light breeze) except for the extra humidity and higher temps, which was offset a bit by the breeze.
Home via Abilene and Lubbock, over to Roswell (to see the aliens), then I-40 (sometimes Route 66). Saw a few old Route 66 attractions that were visible from I-40, but those visible in the remote areas were abandoned, run-down, and covered with graffiti. Attractions inside most towns were well-maintained, with the obligatory tourist shops.
On the way back from TX, I stood on the corner in Winslow Arizona (got the hat and the T-shirt), Painted Desert/Petrified Forest, Grand Canyon, then up central CA to Sacramento, then home up I-5.
Was going to visit Yosemite, but wife ran out of her heavy-duty meds (prescription opioids). We had planned on refilling prescription during the trip (you only get 30 days worth), so had a written prescription. Found out that TX, NM, AZ, NV, and CA do not accept written prescriptions for opioids – they have to be electronic (and coordinating those with the home doctor is a hassle, which is why we had the written prescription). So had to shorten trip.
Turns out that OR does allow written opioids prescriptions (as does WA), so got that taken care of in Medford OR.
Didn’t see any toll roads. Avoided Austin. Roads mostly good in all spots. Light traffic in most places – especially the back roads). Touristy places were not too crowded. Except Grand Canyon; a ½ hour backlog to get through the entrance.
Wife has a free national park pass (disabled, life-time). At the Grand Canyon, if you have a disabled placard, you can get into the shuttle-bus only routes so took advantage of that. Road is right along the edge of the canyon, with pullouts for views, and only shuttle busses and a couple cars on that road. An advantage – wife is not very mobile, has to use the power chair. So got to see the canyon.
A long trip, but worthwhile. Wife got to visit with sister and mom, who she hadn’t seen for about 8 years. (Plane trips don’t work, as she is on full-time oxygen. We have a portable oxygen machine, but battery life for long airplane trips is an issue.) Got to see some nice scenery.
The toll roads in Florida are not driven by the interests you are imagining. The big land holders who have driven the road building include various paper companies, the Parlucci family (Jeno’s Pizza Rolls – I’m not kidding), and even the Mormons.
I don’t believe any foreign companies own the toll roads like they do in Texas and, most notably, Virginia, where the express lanes on 395 past the Pentagon fund Australian and Canadian pensions.
Texas has a real hardcore DEA on top of the Federal DEA. The state had a serious problem with “pill mills” for a while so the crackdown has been running extra tough in the last decade.
Texas DEA and clinic management goals regarding patient satisfaction often conflict, which makes private practice in the state interesting. Four years was about all my wife could handle before looking for an alternative.
Oregon makes sense. The state legalized crack, meth, and heroin possession in small quantities so whats a opioid prescription in an environment like that?
Florida Man fixed his Dem problem for at least a decade where Texas may yet go the California route politically with a state income tax.
Republicans in this state need to get over Ann Richards.
I’ve got a satellite communication device, SMS only, no voice.
Anybody want to borrow it?
My Starlink is totally man portable. All you need is a few kilowatt-hour battery and a backpack assembly to carry the 20 lb antenna, cable, and the wifi brick. The antenna is fairly bulky. Once the Starlink starts up and aligns the antenna at 200 watts, it drops to 80 watts. It does not work under or near trees though. And SpaceX does not like you to move the antenna around.
“NY State County’s Voters All Identified as Democrats on Voter IDs”
https://www.theepochtimes.com/all-voters-of-new-york-county-falsely-identified-as-democrats-in-voter-ids_5280910.html
“All voters in Nassau County, New York, were identified as Democrats on their voter ID cards irrespective of political affiliation because of an error by a printing company, triggering accusations about “sabotaging elections” ahead of the upcoming primaries.”
“The primaries are scheduled for June. Voters in the county, who number nearly a million, began to receive their voter ID cards last week, with voters supporting Republicans, independents, or another political party surprised to see themselves identified as Democrats on the cards, according to NBC.”
With all of the nonsense going on, I am going skip coincidence and call this enemy action.
“3 Houston-area counties among the top 10 most expensive to live in Texas, report says”
https://houston.culturemap.com/news/city-life/fort-bend-county-most-expensive/
“A new report explores just how pricey household bills are these days, and in Houston, it’s not a pretty picture. Three local counties — Fort Bend, Waller, and Galveston — land among the top 10 most expensive in Texas, and Fort Bend landed in the top five at No. 3.”
“According to the website,the average household in No. 3-ranked Fort Bend County pays $2,648 in monthly bills, which comes out to $31,771 a year. When compared to the national average, which is $24,552 a year, the Collin County household is paying $7,215 more per year, or 29 percent more. (Find the monthly bill breakdown here.)”
A bunch of pikers. My expenses in Fort Bend County are way more than that. This used to be a cheap place to live but housing and food costs are up 100% in the last ten years.
https://urbansurvivalsite.com/uses-for-bacon-grease/
Fun stuff to do with Bacon Grease
I just got a notice from my website of an unlicensed user of my software in Donetsk, Ukraine. Wild.
Too bad the software can’t poison catalysts.
I added “1 855” through “1 888” and I had a call today. That I didn’t answer. Oh. the + might count as a digit. I reckon I’ll find out in a few days.
While at my wife’s sister’s house in TX, noticed their TV had much better resolution and brightness than mine (Sony HD 1080p, about 12 years old). Mine still works, but the better resolution of their 4K TV is tempting.
So, ‘hive mind’, what should I look for in a 55-70″ TV? Probably 4K, UHD 10+, or what? I don’t watch sports, have DirecTV (with a free upgrade to 4K), and the viewing distance is about 10 feet.
Suggestions welcomed.
Collin, the most expensive, contains half of Plano, now home to Toyota and a load of Californians.
Williamson and Travis are the Austin Metro area, both also California dominated, but Subcontinent influence is strong in Williamson.
Williamson will climb as Apple adds to the new campus. My son’s friend rents a one bedroom apartment just inside the county line about 10 minutes from Apple, and he pays $2600/month.
I bought the 4k HiSense 65″ just before Christmas for around $300 – I was having trouble seeing the screen well enough to read text on my ancient 47″ 1080p unit at about 10′ distance.
Friends watched it for a bit, then bought the same model for their parent at 86yo, so that he can watch basketball and sports.
It seems fine to me, but I admit to being just a casual user, no sports or gaming or even DVD’s, just what is available for free on Amazon Prime.
It is basically spyware enabled, but I didn’t let it access wifi or even ethernet, it is just a screen for the Roku unit’s output.
Just about any TV currently available would suffice. Go to Costco and find something that looks good to you. 70” is big and needs a longer viewing distance. All current models have three or four HDMI ports. Some have optical output for sound. Some have network ports. Smart TVs will allow apps for streaming to be installed.
The field is wide open.
DirecTv didn’t give HD but on a few channels when I dropped them. My over the air antenna gives HD without DirecTv’s compressions.
I bought my 55″ Vizio in November of ’09. The picture from the antenna is still stunning.
Next TV is planned to be an 80″. Just waiting for the price to come down. Yes, I’m stalling. I like the Vizio but someone wants a bigger TV. What to do with the Vizio is a question.
“Tesla CEO Elon Musk: I’ll say what I want to say, and if we lose money, so be it”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sUwRiIncKU
Wow. Quoted the swordsman from “The Princess Bride” who upon finding the man who murdered his father told him, “Offer me Money, Offer me power, I don’t care”. Musk actually sat there and thought about his answer for 13 seconds before responding. That is a sign of a great thinker.
I want to watch the entire 1+ hour interview now but I am not willing to sign up for CNBC.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/16/elon-musk-cnbc-interview-with-david-faber.html
And I found it on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chLaPG8MH6k
While at my wife’s sister’s house in TX, noticed their TV had much better resolution and brightness than mine (Sony HD 1080p, about 12 years old). Mine still works, but the better resolution of their 4K TV is tempting.
So, ‘hive mind’, what should I look for in a 55-70″ TV? Probably 4K, UHD 10+, or what? I don’t watch sports, have DirecTV (with a free upgrade to 4K), and the viewing distance is about 10 feet.
I watch my 55″ 4K LG LED TV from 10 foot away in my bedroom from my computer desk. Works great. I always stream, I never watch live TV. The Astros on Fubo look great on it. So does Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, Amazon Prime, etc, etc, etc.
We have a 48″ Sony HD LCD in the den that wife watches from 20 feet away in a recliner or the sofa. It is a 300 watt heat generator. Or 30 feet away from the kitchen. I bought it in 2008, I want to replace it with a 60 inch but she does not. So, she wins for now.
I dropped DirecTV four years ago. I miss the programs being recorded on local hard drive with the awesome fast forward and rewind. But, streaming is cheaper even though Fubo just jumped to $90/month.
I just gave my old 47″ Vizio to a neighbor with a 40″, they were delighted.
The Hisense 65″ probably weighs ½ or ⅓ of the old Vizio.
Musk says the Tesla Autonomous Driving Software may be released this year. There are two new Tesla cars getting released this year for a base price of $25,000. He also puts a limit on using Tesla cars in any Robo Taxi servive that is not approved by Tesla. In other words, he is getting ready to start selling Teslas for use by multiple people where you and Tesla share in the revenue from the car rental service while you are not using the car. I would not invest in Avis or Hertz now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chLaPG8MH6k
He talks bluntly and mostly truthfully about Tesla, Twitter, China verses Taiwan (conjoined twins), SpaceX, OpenAI, etc. His manner is this is what I am, deal with with it.
Tesla has 128,000 employees with 20,000 or 30,000 openings that 3.6 million people have applied for. Musk says that it is easier to get into Harvard than Tesla or SpaceX.
Twitter has dropped from 7,800 people to 1,500 people. When he bought Twitter, there was $1 billion in the bank and $3 billion in obligations. He has tried to rehire some of the people that he fired since mistakes were made. The interviewer remarked that several CEOs have told him that they are in awe of the workforce reduction. I suspect that Wharton will be making a business case examination.
Musk said that working at the office is a moral imperative. He said that making people work at a factory while you work at home is messed up. He calls the work from home people “The Laptop Class”.
The whole hour plus interview is performed in a couple of cheap plastic chairs at the Gigafactory in Austin. He does not even have an office there, he just roams around.
Musk believes that Biden did win the 2020 election. In fact, he voted for Biden. However, he wants somebody who is competent to run the country to win next. A random person from the phone book instead of the faculty of Harvard.
Fun stuff to do with Bacon Grease
– you mean BESIDES eat it and cook with it…
A quick look says most of the 21 are as food, for you or animals, food related, or for burning.
Btw, never “pour it down the sink”.
There are a lot of storage solutions on amazon.
n
@RickH, I have this one. Very happy with it Only negative(?) is only two HDMI inputs. But we only need two (Roku and PC – VPN for IP blocked content.)
Not all that long ago a 55″ TV came with a four digit price tag (and lesser specs.)
There are crimes for which cruel and unusual punishment should be considered carefully before being rejected in favor of unusual and sadistic punishment…
https://twitter.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/1659484045745733635
The Sony’s are VERY NICE. Loaded up with spyware just like the others. All but commercial grade are subsidized by spyware. You can keep it off your network, if you like, or cut the mic out. (it will ask you for permission to use the mic, if you trust it.)
I have decided that even with the costco additional warranty, it’s a lot of hassle to deal with the cheapest tvs. They will not last as long as a better brand (sony, lg, samsung) ‘course you get a new one under the warranty if it doesn’t.
My client decided to go with sony as replacement for the TCL and Vizio as they die.
FWIW, the reason 4K looks so good is increased color rendering, and blacker blacks. The color is so intense it can be distracting.
For size, HEIGHT gives a much bigger impression of size than width. Couple inches wider don’t feel like much but 4″ of height feels big. If you like movies that end up letterboxed, you really want BIG. 70″ minimum.
n
Possibly that … creature did something heinous and that haircut is the unusual and sadistic punishment.
Just avoid those areas. I don’t go where that sort of thing happens.
– you’re kidding yourself.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12116765/Mass-brawl-breaks-baggage-claim-OHare-International-Airport.html
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/chicago-carnival-invaded-flash-mob-over-400-teenagers
Public spaces and the (used to be mostly white) suburbs, I have friends who lived in Tinley Park, including a sibling and my mom… for a while.
Used to be a safe and quiet place.
n
I guess he’d get in trouble for calling them the Work From Home Mommy Mafia.
We’ve been told that three days a week required in the office is coming.
Possibly that … creature did something heinous
#dogshaming
“I pooped in my momma’s slippers…” “I ate the couch…” “I humped the Reverend’s head…”
I’m sure it did SOMETHING bad to get a style like that…
n
@SteveF
The slipper incident occurred after the haircut… allegedly.
Cash Box Kings on Alligator Records
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73UxFu6MjPI
Good Chicago Blues, even if the band was started by a Cheesehead.
Possibly that … creature did something heinous
#dogshaming
“I pooped in my momma’s slippers…” “I ate the couch…” “I humped the Reverend’s head…”
I’m sure it did SOMETHING bad to get a style like that…
Momma sent husband out to get dog clipped during the game. Husband getting revenge…
There are crimes for which cruel and unusual punishment should be considered carefully before being rejected in favor of unusual and sadistic punishment…
https://twitter.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/1659484045745733635
Canine topiary?
>> @RickH, I have this one. Very happy with it Only negative(?) is only two HDMI inputs. But we only need two (Roku and PC – VPN for IP blocked content.)
Yeah, including the URL might help…
https://www.costco.com/.product.9755800.html
@brad
“Sorry, but that’s nonsense. You can commission a study to prove anything you want. There are also plenty of studies showing the efficacy of masks. Anyway, for the layman, the evidence is plain without any studies at all: when we were all wearing masks, the usual “flu season” completely failed to materialize:”
“Zero deaths. That is absolutely unheard of, and that alone saved a lot of lives. Of course, masks were not the only factor in play, but they were a big one.
The mask recommendations may have been poorly formulated and poorly communicated. That’s a different issue. But masks obviously help reduce the spread of disease. If you don’t believe that, just ask the surgeons to stop wearing masks when operating on their patients.”
In February 2020 I read a translation of a report from China. One of the bullet points was that masks were ineffective. In the context it was unclear what they meant by masks. In a hospital there are two common types: tie-on surgical masks and N95 respirators.
The former are sneeze guards with a secondary function of providing partial user protection from splatter. They provide no significant filtration because they have no perimeter seal and air bypasses the mask by going around it.
N95 respirators (in this case disposable filtering half facepiece respirators) have two key elements: a filtration media and a perimeter seal that is retained by two elastic bands. Effective use requires training to put them on and take them off (donning and doffing) and frequent checking and adjustment to make sure the seal is intact. The seal requires that facial hair be absent in that area, leading to fashion compromise when the user follows the protocols, or ineffective (nonexistent) filtering when a full bear is retained.
Non-disposable N95 respirators use combinations of mechanical and chemical filtering depending on the hazards. As noted previously, they also contain an exhalation valve that makes it easier for the user and prevents the change in air flow from compromising the seal. Industrial use requires training and certification. Failure to follow the rules–simply throwing a used disposable respirator on the floor–is enough to get a citation during an OSHA inspection.
“You can commission a study to prove anything you want. There are also plenty of studies showing the efficacy of masks. Anyway, for the layman, the evidence is plain without any studies at all: when we were all wearing masks, the usual “flu season” completely failed to materialize:”
I didn’t commission the study. I posted the link some time ago, so you can go back and find it and judge if the authors were biased. I think not. They concluded that even N95 respirators failed because of seal failure and airflow bypass, and they did not seem to enjoy that result.
Since we’re concerned about efficacy wrt COVID, any claims about the common flu are irrelevant.
The mask recommendations may have been poorly formulated and poorly communicated. That’s a different issue. But masks obviously help reduce the spread of disease. If you don’t believe that, just ask the surgeons to stop wearing masks when operating on their patients.”
No, not poorly formulated. Fauci lied and admitted that he lied. And then they browbeat people and shamed them and ostracized them for not wearing a bit of fabric that had not a chance in hell of doing any good, and had the opposite effect in many ways.
Operating room personnel use respirators, in combination with face shields, air filtration and other technologies. Tie-on masks used in other parts of the hospital contain sneezes to some extent, catching big droplets and redirecting others out the sides. If they’re not changed frequently they become reservoirs for infection.
But masks obviously help reduce the spread of disease.
Estimates are 100,000 excess hospital deaths in the U.S every year due to poor sanitation, so helping must be relative?
I didn’t look to see if the video of Jerome demonstrating folding a scarf to make a “mask’ was still up anywhere-I almost puked the first time I saw it, and don’t want to see it again. The Fauci videos are still up. It doesn’t take long to find the documentation of Fauci lying in multiple other ways, pulling stings to ruin people, closing off any alternative treatments, hiding his gain of function funding, etc. Likewise it doesn’t take long to find the documentation of the shifting definition of vaccine, the shifting claims about what benefit the mRNA ”vaccines” actually did, and a whole slew of other mendacious acts that had no significant effect on the course of the pandemic in the US., but killed some of our most vulnerable people, injured our children in body and mind, and destroyed the trust in our public health system built up over more than a century.
Abuse dogs at your own risk. The partnership of humans and canines is largely responsible for the development of civilization*, and the second-class nature of some cultures is due in part to their treatment of dogs.
*Didn’t really get going until the cats joined, of course.
Common Chemical Strongly Linked to Parkinson’s
A study of military veterans has shown the strongest evidence yet that the widespread chemical trichloroethylene (TCE)—used in spot removers, office products and dry-cleaning—is linked to Parkinson’s disease.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/common-chemical-strongly-linked-to-parkinsons-180982216
I find myself skeptical on two counts.
First is the acknowledged possibility of skewed data due to self-reporting. It would seem worthwhile to fund a study to eliminate that effect by using the records to identify a group of people who were stationed at each base for a period of years and then track them down.
Second is the response that I always have to such studies: If there is indeed a “link” for people exposed to ppm levels in water or otherwise, then there must be a much higher incidence in the groups of people that had much higher exposure, e.g., workers who used gallons of the stuff for metal degreasing.
IIRC, “trike” was phased out ca. 1995 and replaced with citrus-based solvents for many applications. Up until then it was ubiquitous in metal shops by he gallons in parts washers and laboratories in permanently labelled wash bottles. I didn’t save any of those wash bottles, although a few years earlier I did save a few brand-new Freon wash bottles for future novelty value.
Nothing else cleans quite like 1,1,1, trichloroethane. Used to have spray cans of it, direct from Edison (one of the electrical companies) marked as electrical cleaner. Grease, even axle grease, would just vanish and the part would be clean and dry.
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Alligator Records rocks the house.
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Shoot, that’s why I’m not a scientist…
Not the same thing!
https://ecolink.com/info/trichloroethylene-vs-trichloroethane/
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Safety
Though safer for the environment, TCE is not necessarily safer for humans. Trichloroethane was once favored over TCE because it is not as toxic as TCE, which is a known carcinogen and can cause permanent liver, kidney, or neurological damage.
— F’ing greenies. Ditch the one safer for humans. Wonder how many sick people resulted?
Martin Luther King Jr. Never Said Famous Quote Criticizing Malcolm X
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/martin-luther-king-jr-malcolm-x-alex-haley-quote-180982172
If Haley was inaccurate there is no evidence that Dr. King had an issue.
Why do I suspect that the purpose of these charges is related to the ongoing effort to legitimize Malcom X’s calls for violence:
It’s almost like there’s a move afoot to foment a race war. How long will it be before we start hearing about “taking our reparations”?
@Nick
I husbanded a spray can of Archer contact cleaner with 1,1,1, trichloroethane for years. No good replacement.
@drwilliams, I have the dregs of one can still on the shelf in my shop. There might come a day, like the old guys saving the bug killer in brown bottles, when I need it.
The bug killer? No, never needed it, that’s why so many garages at estate sales are like superfund sites. The labels have fallen off, but the brown bottles remain. And the stink can be eye watering. I walk into one of the chemical hoarder’s garages and I hold my breath and get out as fast as I can. Worst is when the wooden shelves are discolored or half dissolved under and around the bottles. You don’t know what it is, but you can tell it’s nasty!
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I take four days off and am punished with about a thousand emails. I have about a 100 left to read and review. I read and deleted about 300 of them on the road. The gmail app on my droid phone is simply awesome but still, too many freaking emails.
Nothing else cleans quite like 1,1,1, trichloroethane. Used to have spray cans of it, direct from Edison (one of the electrical companies) marked as electrical cleaner. Grease, even axle grease, would just vanish and the part would be clean and dry.
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I have been up to my armpits in the stuff, using a gallon of cleaner at a time. We ripped a 700,000 hp, 400+ ton steam turbine apart in the fall of 1983 and extended a three week overhaul to three months. As a junior engineer, I was involved in everything and the dirtiest parts. That 50 foot long, 28 stage, 15 year old steam turbine had to be spotlessly clean before we could put it all back together with several stages replaced or rebuilt. We actually brought in 20 bladers from Schenectady, New York to reblade the HP (one high pressure) and LP (four low pressure) turbines.
The next year, we threw out the 1,1,1, trichloroethane and replaced it with some other crap since it was reputed to be cancer causing. The new cleaner required serious elbow grease and was not near as volatile. No gloves of course so your fingers absorbed a bunch of it.
And six weeks after we got her back online to the glee of dispatch, I was told to run her wide open on fuel oil and melted the super heater on the steam boiler on a fine afternoon, running at 115% power level. We spent a week fixing the four blown tubes of two inch 410 stainless tube with ¾ inch wall thickness, 175 feet off the ground on a 20 foot wide sky climber. We had to retie the other 100+ tubes to their various places because they spaghettied on us. Senior maintenance engineer ordered a half mile of the two inch 410 stainless that we replaced the next fall (three million dollars if I remember correctly). And senior maintenance engineer never ever said a word to me. The Nuremberg defense worked for me.
>> Dinner was boxed Beef Stroganoff, one of the cheesy hamburger helper style meals. Beef was in the freezer for over a year, in a vac bag. Box meal was on the shelf for a year past its best by.
Any value to vac sealing the box meal contents? Or just excess use of the vac-seal bags? Ours are just stacked as-is in the pantry.
These are the things I think about sometimes sitting outside late into the night where it’s a balmy 80 F, RH 15 and a light 2 mph breeze.
>> I got billed all the way back to March of 2022. There was a little note on the statement saying that due to system difficulties tags were not recognized and were being processed all the way back to May 2022. Why my March trip got included I don’t know as that was prior to May. Probably another screwup in their system.
It is difficult to even know what roads were traversed with the cryptic abbreviations used in the statement. Probably information only a local would know.
If it were me I’d write them a letter, cc to the head of the agency (DMV?) and to Gov Abbott stating you don’t recall being in TX on these dates and requesting clear photo evidence showing your vehicle make, model, color and license plate number and only upon incontrovertible evidence will you entertain making any payments. Also, lacking any proof of receipt from the Post Office (certified mail) you will not be held laible for any late fees.
And tell ’em to stay off of your lawn.
>> Wow. Quoted the swordsman from “The Princess Bride” who upon finding the man who murdered his father told him, “Offer me Money, Offer me power, I don’t care”. Musk actually sat there and thought about his answer for 13 seconds before responding. That is a sign of a great thinker.
One of the MSM talking heads that was showing a few clips from the interview inferred that the pauses were unusual. Guess that’s one reason all he can manage is to be an MSM talking head. Soon easily replaced by this.
>> The seal requires that facial hair be absent in that area, leading to fashion compromise when the user follows the protocols, or ineffective (nonexistent) filtering when a full bear is retained.
Obligatory…
Two guys hiking in the forest come upon an angry bear who heads towards them.
First guy starts to run, second guy yells to first guy, “You can’t outrun a bear.”
First guy yells back, “Don’t have to…only need to outrun you!”
My son’s and my guide had a friend get mauled by a grizzly last year. He bear sprayed the bear on the trail in Montana which pissed off the bear even more. He got away from the bear and got back to his truck. But the grizzly followed him and mauled him again. He survived but is really messed up. Don’t mess with grizzlies.
We did not see any bears this trip thank goodness. Just a lot of rainbows, a few browns, and a five foot rattlesnake. Found out later the guide was carrying a 10mm pistol which made me feel a lot better as I left all my guns at home.
Keeps the bugs out. Seems to extend shelf life. I vac sealed flour and then in the freezer for a week about six years ago. Opened a bag a few weeks ago and it was like new.