Hot, humid, hot, and yeah, humid. So it has been, so it shall be. With maybe a bit of rain depending on where in Houston you are. Probably none for me though. It got right up to the edge of 100F in the shade at my house yesterday. Well past that in the sun.
Spent the day doing paperwork and web stuff. Spent part of it doing budget comparisons for various deck surfaces for the BOL. I’m looking for a cheap, fast, temporary solution that gets me 80% of the way. I want to live with the size and shape for a while before committing to a more expensive solution. And it has to be removable for the hill stabilization. I think I’m going with rigid foam to level everything out, then housewrap to keep it dry, then 3/8″ plywood, to be painted. Even that isn’t “cheap” but it’s cheaper than anything else I can find, it’s easier, and there are fewer pieces to handle. Maybe I’ll even be able to reuse the materials in the shed when I replace it with a real deck.
That will be the next project, along with sprinklers.
Spent some time on the phone catching up with a good friend.
Spent some time going through bills and paperwork.
Today will be more of the same, bills, paperwork, and maybe a pickup or two, maybe shopping for the deck materials. Definitely housecleaning. Tons of stuff has built up over the last month or two and the house is getting crowded. Wife is getting frazzled. Not good. I’ve got to get some stuff out of the house, and some stuff put back where it belongs. The kids have pulled a bunch of stuff for resale or donation too, and that can leave the house. Ordinary stuff from an ordinary life, but needs doing.
There are stacks of food to restock too. Rats are no longer in evidence, so it’s time for stuff to go back on the shelves. And to be sorted for transfer to secondary or BOL. In any case, to be organized again, instead of just stored in milk crates.
This is not a good time to slack off, so I really need to get busy. Stack something, anything, and then stack some more.
nick
When is?
That serves not only as a subtle (as subtle as I ever am) reminder to slackers who’ve been slacking off to get off their butts, but as a subtle (ditto) note to Nick that it’s never a good time to slack off but everyone needs a break at some point.
Definitely this. I have one more week of vacation to go, and I’m starting to feel almost human again, as opposed to almost burnt out. I expect I’ll work a lot more efficiently, having had a break.
I spent some time today “hacking” our solar system. We have 8kw of solar on the roof, and the monitoring system is set up to tell the charging station how much excess energy is available. However, the charging only starts if there is at least 4kw of excess energy. In summer, no problem, but in winter the system won’t often have that much excess.
Brief aside: Part of the official charging standard states that charging stations should only charge with a minimum of 6 amps per phase. That’s where the 4kw comes from: 6 amps x 3 phases x 220v. Clearly, cars can charge on less (for example, you can plug your car into an ordinary wall outlet). So why this minimum? I’ve asked on a couple of specialist forums, but no one seems to know why the minimum exists.
Anyhow, I had already bypassed the validation on the monitoring system to enter a lower value. That didn’t work. Today, I eavesdropped on the network traffic. Sure enough, the lower value wasn’t actually being used – there’s another level of validation. So the next step was to falsify messages to the charging station. I sent it a message saying that it should charge with 3amps. Sadly, it has its own validation, and raised the value to 6amps before using it.
tl;dr: it ain’t gonna work. I can’t trick the system into charging with smaller amounts of excess power. Annoying…
How interesting!
Oh. How… interesting.
I thought that you were going to be moving the planets around or something impressive like that.
Now that SteveF has commented, I realize I made this mistake before: literal translation from German to English. The actual solar system with planets, moons and stuff in German would be the Sonnensystem (“sun system”). In English I guess “solar plant” would have been better?
Either that, or I need to start moving Mars and Jupiter around 😛
I found the name of the standard again: IEC 61851. I’d have a look inside, but I cannot find a free copy anywhere, including in the torrent sites. Paying $hundreds to satisfy curiosity seems dumb. Anyone have an idea where I could find a free copy online?
As of yesterday, the spousal unit and I have been married 48 years. Never once thought of divorce*, murder yes, divorce no.
*Well, that ain’t entirely true.
I knew exactly what you meant. I think it’s SteveF’s problem.
@Nick
“The harm they continue to inflict on others far outweighs the harm inflicted on them.”
It’s difficult to see any harm inflicted on them that is out-if-the-ordinary life. What is apparent is a breathtaking level of greed, self-entitlement, and a total lack of regard for the consequences . If it were simply other people in their circle of friends I would put the shame on their friends for continuing to be suckers.
As it is they have done irreparable damage to the country. If the Bidens were a disease they would be a solid top-ten.
@drwilliams – “the harm inflicted on them.” should have written “ANY” harm…
or “the notional harm” suggested by crawdaddy…
…whose reminder that there is a parent and a child hidden somewhere in this mess was appropriate, as was Rick’s some weeks ago when he commented about a parent losing a child- something that changes you profoundly.
While composing this during my breakfast I realized that I disliked when people psychoanalyzed Trump, so I’ll try to avoid it in the case of this crime family. And crime family it is. BOTH have made public statements admitting or even bragging about committing crimes, and the son documented his with photos and video.
Leaving out any discussion or speculation about root causes- these are profoundly F’d up individuals. They are serial liars. Perverts. Drug abusers. Influence peddlers. Philanderers. and worse. I might feel sympathy for a damaged child, but I don’t feel any for père or fils. They REVEL in their perversity, flaunt it, and are unrepentant for the damage they have caused and continue to cause.
The most disgusting thing to me is that he’ll get a state funeral, be lionized at the public expense, his crimes swept under the rug of history. He’ll have gotten away with it.
n
SteveF’s only problem is that when he mentions hacking the solar system, he means moving the planets around to better suit his mood. Just because you can’t, doesn’t mean you should be so jealous… 😉
NB- I read it that way too, just like last time. Perhaps an adjective in front of the phrase?? ROOFTOP solar system? BOL’s solar system?? Or maybe we are just accustomed to having loftier conversations around here?? and WTF? You own it but can’t configure it? Hmm.
——–
84F when I got up but has already risen to 87F. I’ve got about half a cup of coffee to go, but then I’ll start my day.
And you are right on both counts, there isn’t ever a good time to slack off, (some times are better than others) but there is still a need. I’m probably still rebounding from the big push to do all the earthmoving, followed by the electrical and sprinklers. My work history has always been “bursty” with intense work followed by time off, or periods of less intense work anyway.
n
@ray, that is an accomplishment to be proud of.
n
It would be easier to have sympathy for Biden regarding Beau and the crash which killed his wife and daughter if the stories didn’t change every time he opened his mouth.
The problem has been going on since long before the dementia started.
Is the “brain cancer from head injury in the crash” meme something new Corn Pop and his handlers been floating lately? I don’t keep up.
>> I thought that you were going to be moving the planets around or something impressive like that.
@SteveF, will UFOs do it for you?
https://apnews.com/article/ufos-uaps-congress-whistleblower-spy-aliens-ba8a8cfba353d7b9de29c3d906a69ba7
If there were actual aliens found, the US president would be informed. And the former president likes to leak confidential information, so wouldn’t he have told everyone about it?
You have me beat, I just watch.
Last night Mercury was about as high as it’s going to get in the evening sky, so I went out with the binoculars and the little telescope, and took a gander. Venus, Mercury, and even Mars, almost due west.
The little 80mm refractor was able to resolve the disk of Mercury, though it was dancing about and blurry in the sky after a hot desert day.
There was a nice waxing moon, with Copernicus dramatically half lit.
You know, astronomy is a fun hobby, there is always something new. But like sailing and flying, you find yourself spending a lot of time thinking about the weather!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12344585/PJM-biggest-electrical-grid-operator-warns-fail-heatwave.html
– for years, decades, we’ve been told to “save energy”. Conserve energy. Whole agencies were created/empowered to encourage and enforce that.
Earlier this week I woke up thinking “save energy for what?”
We don’t save it. We just use less in the moment. And “less” is relative as consumption has increased the whole time we’ve been conditioned to “save energy”.
If you recall, the whole movement started with the desire to NOT BUILD MORE GENERATING CAPACITY. In other words, to the benefit of the generators, we were told to scrimp, use less, buy appliances that don’t do their job as well, be less comfortable, lower our standard of living.
And for what? Usage grew because the population grew, as it usually does. Capacity was not added, or was not added in sufficient quantity as we were told to “save energy”. There were no “excess profits” to be invested in infrastructure as capital expenditures.
Arguing the semantics, it’s very hard and quite inefficient to “save” energy. Look at the impractical and Rube Goldburg-esque schemes to “save” the output of unreliable solar and wind producers for later use. You can reduce current usage. But “save”? Not as the word is defined. Yet since the 70s we are all busy “saving” energy.
As a result, our houses poison us with mold and poor “indoor air quality” which no one had even considered before buildings got so tight that indoor air was significantly different from outdoor air. Our appliances don’t do their jobs- our clothes aren’t cleaner, our dishes aren’t cleaner. We’ve replaced simple locally manufactured lighting with LEDs made with incredibly toxic and complex processes on the other side of the world, which are then SHIPPED to us by sea, on polluting boats powered by oil burning engines, and create a long lived toxic mess when disposed of. CFLs were even worse, introducing airborne and skin transferred toxins into our homes, while producing unnatural light that caused people health issues.
As far as I can tell, the only real way to ‘save’ energy is to use it to create something useful and durable. Count the energy in the ‘embodied cost’ of an object, and every time that object is used, the benefit of expending the energy to make it is “saved” vs making it again, or making something not durable for the same process.
Energy is like time. It can’t be “saved”. It can only be used.
n
And the former president likes to leak confidential information, so wouldn’t he have told everyone about it?
– one particular former president was never treated like a President by large parts of the government, and in fact had large parts of the government actively working against him, all the way to the top of the military… it’s not inconceivable that someone never ‘got around’ to telling him.
Or it could be that the reasons for keeping the secret are compelling enough that they all have kept the secret.
I think there might have been some issues in the world if someone had to admit that all powerful beings treat the earth as a feedlot, for example.
For that matter, a certain former SecState is a world champion leaker, even setting up an unsecured email server in a closet to facilitate it…
The current president has a somewhat disconcerting habit of occasionally speaking absolute unvarnished truth about subjects that most politicians gloss over. It’s like he forgets to tell the polite lie, or like he’s rebelling against controllers… what if for some people like him we have conquered cancer as he recently announced? * The recent spate of UFO news could be an effort to get out in front of the issue. Hoof in mouth Joe will say just about anything…
n
*not that I think this, it’s just Slow Joe lying. Steve Jobs was the correct political caste and he died horribly despite having the money for whatever treatments were available.
Steve Jobs lived in a reality bubble which proved fatal.
Jobs made real, visible progress with his cancer situation during the year he lived in Nashville waiting for the liver transplant, when he had to answer to the transplant program doctors there, obeying their rules, or else get booted from the list.
Well, shoot. My new 4 ton heatpump installation for the office has been delayed until next Wednesday. My a/c guy’s installers are totally backed up. Oh well.
Now that SteveF has commented, I realize I made this mistake before: literal translation from German to English. The actual solar system with planets, moons and stuff in German would be the Sonnensystem (“sun system”). In English I guess “solar plant” would have been better?
Either that, or I need to start moving Mars and Jupiter around
Nah, the latest Global Warming XXXXX XXXXXX Climate Disruption scheme is to move Earth further out. What could go wrong ?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-modest-proposal-lets-change-earths-orbit/
Questionable Content: No Trepanning Without The Proper Certs
https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5099
I wonder if anyone survived trepanning in the Bronze age ?
How about the Neolithic?
https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/7000-year-old-head-surgery-one-oldest-trepanned-skulls-discovered-sudan-020885
Though not *always*, as the article states.
There are places where people survived it. The skulls have evidence of growth and healing around the hole. Don’t recall where, could have been africa.
n
I think I lost several IQ points by reading that article.
Thought I’d move from version 1.3 to newer with Handbrake. Might gain something like better handling of series DVDs, or something. Newest, unsupported but will run on win8 version is 1.4 and it takes FOREVER to scan before ripping. And there doesn’t seem to be any additional functionality. SO back to 1.3 for me.
n
“Trucker Yellow Prepares to File for Bankruptcy as Customers Flee”
https://finance.yahoo.com/m/a9637008-0e26-3e2e-9f21-719c704bba93/trucker-yellow-prepares-to.html
Luckily, bankruptcy and liquidation can fix this problem. But if we get too many of them, the resulting mess will drag the economy down.
“Dancing COVID Nurses That Supported Draconian Mandates Switch To Climate Change”
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/dancing-covid-nurses-supported-draconian-mandates-switch-climate-change
“Not one draconian policy enforced by governments made any difference whatsoever in the transmission of the covid virus. The lockdowns were pointless. The masks were pointless. Social distancing was pointless. And the official median Infection Fatality Rate of covid is a mere 0.23%, which means that 99.8% of people were never under any threat from the disease anyway. These facts were well known by medical professionals by early 2021, yet many of them continued to push the mandates.”
“I fear he may be right”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2023/07/i-fear-he-may-be-right.html
“Michael Anton recently published an article titled “The Pessimistic Case for the Future“. It really is pessimistic, but it’s hard to argue with his analysis.”
“Red America resents Blue America for outsourcing its jobs and otherwise treating it with contempt. But Blue America hates Red with feverish intensity. We can speculate about the cause another time. The point here is that we have a ruling class that believes half the country, at least, is irredeemable: born evil and deserving of every fresh insult they can throw at it. A ruling class that, to boot, works tirelessly to further degrade social and economic conditions for tens of millions and then enjoys kicking them when they object. It’s a kind of sadism practiced by the worst Roman emperors but today spread across millions of credentialed mandarins.”
Hmm, the USA may have peaked in 1965. We have spent so much blood and treasure on wars since then that went straight onto the federal debt.
“Boeing has now lost $1.1 billion on Starliner, with no crew flight in sight”
https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/07/boeing-has-now-lost-1-1-billion-on-starliner-with-no-crew-flight-in-sight/
“We’re not really ready to talk about a launch opportunity yet.””
Please complain to me again that SpaceX is totally supported by government contracts when SpaceX just gets things done. And in a timely manner too.
And no, I do not want to get in a SpaceX spaceship just yet. Maybe on launch 500.
“Supreme Court eliminates latest legal barrier to Mountain Valley Pipeline”
https://www.ogj.com/general-interest/government/article/14296986/supreme-court-eliminates-latest-legal-barrier-to-mountain-valley-pipeline
“The US Supreme Court ordered July 27 that the appellate court stays blocking work on the Mountain Valley Pipeline be vacated.”
We need to do something about all of the Luddites in the USA. They are stopping us from making progress on needed infrastructure.
Hey, I read an article a while back on heatpumps stating that they were better than an alternative because “they run on electricity and not fossil fuels”.
Now I am having trouble walking and chewing gum at the same time.
Nah, the latest Global Warming XXXXX XXXXXX Climate Disruption scheme is to move Earth further out.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-modest-proposal-lets-change-earths-orbit/
I think I lost several IQ points by reading that article.
I still like Jerry Pournelle’s idea of putting Solar Power Satellites in orbit. Plus more satellites with opening umbrellas to block the sun if needful. Nothing permanent like moving Earth !
Most people don’t think about the electric bill because it is on autopay and either deducted from their checking account directly or — really dangerous — paid with a credit card.
Electricity is free! An EV will save me money on gas!
I bought a travel acoustic/electric guitar a month ago. I didn’t take it on the trips because it was one early morning, late night, day after day. Only about two weeks of practice and my fingers hurt and I suck. But I can strum a mean E minor chord. My nephew is a semi-professional guitar player and wants to teach me for free. He is planning on attending UNLV in the near future, so YAY!
Gotta keep the mind sharp with learning and the finger dexterity with strumming and picking.
>> Luckily, bankruptcy and liquidation can fix this problem. But if we get too many of them, the resulting mess will drag the economy down.
Repeat after Jay: “Soft landing…No recession.” Oh, and Kool-aid.
>> Gotta keep the mind sharp with learning and the finger dexterity with strumming and picking.
I knew there was a reason I kept my rotary dial phone…
Or just do what humans have done since the beginning, adapt to the environment we find ourselves in…
I prefer hotter to colder, on a humanitarian level, because it’s kinda hard to grow crops in winter.
n
Oral copulation with a child. 14yo boys apparently.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12345421/San-Diego-Teacher-Year-facing-new-charges-involving-second-underage-victim-months-victim-came-forward.html
Teacher of the Year.
n
Probably worth a free download…
n
Hunter Biden’s Hearing Transcript Shows How Defense, Prosecution Tried to Slip In ‘Blanket Immunity’
https://twitter.com/jenvanlaar/status/1684411560884862977
It’s hard to imagine anything more dirty, corrupt, unethical and illegal than this.
The DOJ needs a haircut–about an 80% reduction in budget and manpower. There are good arguments that it can be done by the next POTUS under the authority granted the executive in 1977.
The other little detail that needs immediate attention in January 2025 is stripping the pensions of everyone involved in this debacle which is in clear violation of their oaths of office. I have no doubt whatsoeve that conspiracy charges would be appropriate–certainly less fictional than the people running the DOJ persecution of Donald Trump.
And while we’re stripping pensions, there are probably so many thousands of others that it would make a difference in the national debt.
@Lynn
Last week several left-coast cities filed climate change lawsuits against the oil companies. Their immediate response should be to close all company stations in those cities citing “prevention of any future claims of harm”, and end all shipments to independent stations for the same reason., buying them out and closing them.
quoted today by Anthony Watts at WUWT:
When the weather liars talk about “hottest evah”, they like to use an average temperature consisting either of the arithmetic average of the high and low temperatures recorded on a day, or an average constructed from more frequent electronic measurement. Note that the latter method is only possible using automated electronic temperature recordings which have only been possible for a few years and are often done with temperature sensors that are biased high.
Yet they will admit the existence of the UHI (Urban Heat Island) effect, which adds further high bias to temperatures as population grows, and which is not accounted for in measuring “highs”. The UHI has some effect (depending on siting) on the daytime high, but has much more effect on nighttime temperatures–it’s hard to get relief from the days heat when you’re living in an urban area with millions of tons of stone and concrete that absorb heat during the day and release it slowly at night.
One of the favorite scare tactics of tv meteorologists is to flash the High Temperature map briefly, then spend most of their time talking over the Heat Index map. Thermometers measure temperature; Heat Index is calculated by an artificial algorithm that is supposed to produce a human body “feels like” temperature. The two are not interchangeable, and the folly of the “feels like” temperature is that the calculation is a single adjustment upward (it’s upward if they’re talking about it) based on conditions at the “official” weather station. If you look at temperature, wind, and relative humidity data it is seldom uniform over a metro area, and if you look at the rest of the factors the utility of the calculation is even more questionable. It’s also worth noting that the calculated heat index not only deviates from the original work, but varies according to the polynomial fit at a particular point.
*usually at the airport to enable pilots to check their lift capacity, not to tell civilians the tempes miles away, or pretend to be useful in measuring climate
and see:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/07/27/ryan-maue-embarrasses-wapo-once-again/
Ace quoted this today:
“When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, ‘I used everything you gave me”. Erma Bombeck
It is widely disseminated on the internet, but I have not found a source cited. On Reddit ten months ago a person asked for help finding the source, and did not get a reply.
Bombeck died in 1996, so her work is still under copyright. Refrigerator magnets sold on A-zon are probably not fair use. She wrote 15 books and her column was carried by 900 papers.
As part of cleaning up today I thru a small modern guitar amp on the bench. I grabbed it at the goodwill bins, and it doesn’t power on.
Some quick checks didn’t show anything obvious, but pulling the board, I did notice a little discoloration and haze. A swipe with my finger, and a sniff, and YEP angry pixies escaped here… Double check that the part is the power regulator and not the amplifier (two chips on one heat sink), yup, very standard 5v regulator. MicroCenter has the part in stock for $2. I can drive there, or buy online and spend about $20, either on minimum quantities, or shipping.
Next time I’m near Microcenter, I’ll pop in.
Nice to be able to troubleshoot. Will mention it again when the repair gets done.
n
An update on the VW fuse box saga – the 30 A fuse went back in a location where the various diagrams on the Interwebz show a 15 A fuse is supposed to go. Ruh roh.
Double ruh roh – the socket is supposed to protect seat controls, but I found that the fuse was tied to the rear door lock motors. The seat controls worked fine without the fuse in place.
I’m going to assume everything is correct now since the rear door lock motors function again.
I did manage to find the burned out 20 A fuse for the 12 V outlet and replace it. I’m done messing with the panel.
As long as it isn’t the seat heaters with an oversized fuse… that can make for some poor cabin air quality.
n
Shocked I am, just shocked…
https://www.autonews.com/mobility-report/how-tesla-tried-suppress-driving-range-complaints?adobe_mc=MCMID%3D50812608361090575880063274510404855131%7CMCORGID%3D138FFF2554E6E7220A4C98C6%2540AdobeOrg%7CTS%3D1690511940&CSAuthResp=1690512050207%3A0%3A1533434%3A20608%3A24%3Asuccess%3AAEA154B2A36BB5781EA2A2115740EC14
>> The Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR)
Another .gov agency I’d guess most people have never heard of (I haven’t.) Part of HHS. I can only imagine how many
dronesdedicated, hard-working staff they have?>> The Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR)
Another .gov agency I’d guess most people have never heard of (I haven’t.) Part of HHS. I can only imagine how many
dronesdedicated, hard-working staff they have?All working from home.