Mon. July 31, 2023 – worka while you can monkey boy…

Hot. Humid. Scorching hot in the sun. Like Sunday.

At one point yesterday afternoon, the outdoor thermometer said 114F, but it was in part sun. The inside one, with the sensor in shade, said 104F. Either way it was hot. My head was in part sun after all.

I spend Sunday afternoon working on the deck, after going to Lowe’s for more plywood and screws and paint in the color the boss ™ specified.

The Lowe’s trip ended up taking almost 3 hours between driving and waiting for staff to help. My wife finished the painting by work light. Stock continues to be spotty. This Lowes had the breakers I need, including the GFCI, but not the panel box. They only had one kind of rigid foam board, and it was the cheap nasty EPS white stuff. Not as dense or durable as the stuff I used for most of the deck. It’ll work though, for what I need. The plywood and screws were a little less than Houston, so that was nice.

This whole project should be less than $1000, which is pretty good for an almost 500 sqft deck. Even if it is “temporary”. Scare quotes because I expect it to be more than a year before we do something permanent. The staircase from Habitat adds another $800. Still pretty good for a stair made from metal and wood that is 13 ft long and has about 8 ft of rise. I think it looks like a lot more money than it cost.

I’ll be doing some remaining trim and steps to the doors today. And waiting for the appliance guy.

The appliance repair guy is supposed to fix the dishwasher. We described the symptoms, and error codes, but I’ll be shocked if he has the parts with him. I hope he does, but I’ll be shocked… I’ll be doing small jobs all day to fit in as much stuff as I can before heading home.

Then it’s time to pull stuff for the auction. Which is great. I might have mentioned that I have stuff. Lots of stuff.

All in all, a good weekend’s worth of work, even in the crazy heat, and with only the half day Saturday and Sunday.

It’s not stacking, but it is needful. If you can’t work on improving your situation, you can still stack.

nick

70 Comments and discussion on "Mon. July 31, 2023 – worka while you can monkey boy…"

  1. SteveF says:

    The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ranks air-conditioning as the No. 1 protective factor against heat-related illness.

    Too bad the Buythem (Cheap! Special rates for CCP!) administration (and the people who bought them) are doing everything they can to make air conditioning unaffordable for the plebians.

  2. Greg Norton says:

    Another ship burning due to a electric car?

    Another one, yes.

    At first, I thought they were analyzing one of the other ship fires, but the stories are available via Google or the Duck.

  3. Greg Norton says:

    @Greg, thanks.

    If nothing substantive comes from it, hey, that’s why Baskin Robbins didn’t stop after just two flavors…

    Disclaimer: I have Intel stock as a long term hold, but it isn’t about AI. I don’t hold my employer’s stock outside of any incentive grants which I may or may not receive in the future.

    You’ll see stories in the trades about the A800/H800. Those are the “China” versions of the Nvidia GPUs which make the AI monkey trick possible.

  4. SteveF says:

    The carbon footprint of building a cargo ship should be amortized across all electric vehicles. I don’t recall the last time I heard of a cargo ship transporting conventional cars catching fire or sinking.

  5. Greg Norton says:

    The carbon footprint of building a cargo ship should be amortized across all electric vehicles. I don’t recall the last time I heard of a cargo ship transporting conventional cars catching fire or sinking.

    Heat and a marine environment is hard on electronics. My guess is that the vehicles must be charged sufficiently to roll into the cargo hold of the carrier.

    It doesn’t matter. CAFE for 2032 just went to 58 MPG last week, ahead of Tony releasing the Jesus Truck. You’ll either buy an EV or take the bus unless things change radically.

  6. drwilliams says:

    What’s the FE for the taxpayer-funded motorcade to get Hunter and his crack legal team to the courthouse?

  7. drwilliams says:

    We need a GAAFE:

    Govt Agency Average Fuel Economy

  8. Ray Thompson says:

    Hunter and his crack legal team to the courthouse

    I see what you did there.

  9. drwilliams says:

    I’m even more subtle after the second pot of coffee kicks in. 

  10. drwilliams says:

    This tweet by Tony Heller describes how it was much hotter in 1936 than today, despite media gaslighting to the contrary, “The percentage of the US to reach 100F this year is currently at a record low 18%, down from 79% in 1936.”

  11. Greg Norton says:

    Too bad the Buythem (Cheap! Special rates for CCP!) administration (and the people who bought them) are doing everything they can to make air conditioning unaffordable for the plebians.

    More expensive and raising efficiency standards so that only variable speed systems with proprietary thermostats will be installed moving forward, with the temperature settings under centralized control at the grid operators.

    I just paid $9500 for builder grade Trane in March, up from a $7000 I received on the same system last September. I doubt that hardware will be available by the end of this year. Gas furnace. Single stage AC with R134. Four wire thermostat operation.

    The rap against the unit I bought used to be noise, but it is much quiter than my neighbor’s new Lenox which threw a bearing a few months ago.

    Fortunately, I had the money … from unloading Disney stock last year … but, hey, I recognize that “get woke go broke” and engaging in p*ssing matches with the Governor of Florda – which Iger is losing as of Friday, BTW – tanking the stock are selling opportunities which only happen once. I won’t get that lucky again unless I have to unload Apple should they decide to bail out The Mouse.

  12. Nick Flandrey says:

    Breakfast is in my belly, and coffee is in the cup.   Deck still looks good in the light of day 😉   so that’s a big plus.

    Only one slight beginning of a cramp while stretching this morning, so I must have stayed ahead of it yesterday.   I am getting more and more angry though when I think about how the medical advice has been perverted and skewed by political correctness- ie lying.     If it’s happening with something as relatively harmless as cramps, it’s surely happening with other maladies.   At the very least there are people who were cramping and in pain longer than necessary because of the weasel worded advice about ‘electrolyte replacement drinks.’ 

    The WHO and other orgs have info online about making the UN standard oral rehydration solution, which is fancy salt water.   D/L the recipe, and stock the ingredients.   I’ll be moving some of my stock to here on the next trip.   RBT wrote about it several times, keyword search here will get his advice and probably the recipe too, as we’ve both talked about it in the past.

    You might want ORS after working in the sun and heat.  You might want it for more traditional treatment after diarrhea brought on by food poisoning or other causes.   Water alone can cause other problems, so you need something more.   I’ve also got Gatoraid powder (in Houston), and a couple of gallons of Pedialyte pre-mixed (also in Houston.)   I’ve got Squinchers ™ electrolyte drink mix here, and that is what I’ve been drinking, I just didn’t drink enough, or it doesn’t quite have enough good stuff in it.

    Funny that I have it, but didn’t think to include some in the stuff I have already brought up.   That’s why we drill and test I guess… I’ll just call this week an extended test, yeah, that’s the ticket…

  13. JimB says:

    Fortunately, I had the money …

    Had is the operative term. Too bad most of the cheap loans are temporarily sold out. They will come back: everything financial is cyclical if we can wait long enough.

    Stated differently, the cost of financial liquidity is temporarily more expensive. Using OPM (Other People’s Money) lowers personal risk, but does come at an expense.

    Using OPM is best done early in life to build wealth. Later in life, that wealth can be spent on discretionary items, unless one feels the need to leave an inheritance. Make choices, act accordingly.

  14. SteveF says:

    I am getting more and more angry though when I think about how the medical advice has been perverted and skewed by political correctness- ie lying.     If it’s happening with something as relatively harmless as cramps, it’s surely happening with other maladies.

    I meant to ask yesterday, but forgot, why you’re bothering to go to the CDC site for much of anything. We know that they’ve lied on other matters – everything to do with the Chinese bioweapon, gun violence numbers (aside from the fact that gun violence isn’t a disease), HIV, more. Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus. I don’t claim that they lie about everything, but if they lie about one thing then I can’t trust that they aren’t lying about something I don’t know much about.

  15. Ray Thompson says:

    The percentage of the US to reach 100F this year is currently at a record low 18%, down from 79% in 1936.

    In my area we have not hit anything higher than 95. Usually by now there are a couple of days above 100. According to the weather liars the high on Thursday is supposed to 78. Low to mid 80’s the rest of the week. Quite cool, relatively speaking, for August.

  16. MrAtoz says:

    This tweet by Tony Heller describes how it was much hotter in 1936 than today, despite media gaslighting to the contrary, “The percentage of the US to reach 100F this year is currently at a record low 18%, down from 79% in 1936.”

    As the replies state, climate change is a religion. The only answer the acolytes have is “You are wrong, a liar, stupid”, etc. These nuts are probably still wearing face diapers. Thank God they are probably still social distancing. They probably smell like 60’s hippies.

  17. Greg Norton says:

    Had is the operative term. Too bad most of the cheap loans are temporarily sold out. They will come back: everything financial is cyclical if we can wait long enough.
     

    Mortgage rates aren’t going below 5% again unless the Fed decides to abandon any pretense that the currency needs to be protected.

    Texas will get a temporary reprieve for the housing market by essentially making the surplus into “helicopter” money with the tax reform boondoggle next year, but the effect won’t last.

    Dunno about the other high property tax states, but I assume it is similar.

  18. Nick Flandrey says:

    This got mentioned yesterday or the day before but bears repeating.   Whatever is really going on here, it’s probably worse than it looks.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ive-never-seen-anything-mysterious-chinese-bio-lab-discovered-remote-california-city

    @stevef,   I don’t go to the CDC, it was the first search result* and so patently ridiculous that I had to quote it…   F-ing useless doesn’t even begin to cover it.

    I used to recommend the ‘business continuity planning’ section of the site to preppers because it was really good, with a broad range of things to consider.   One of the things I remember was “what will your business do if 80% of your workers don’t come to work?”   Seemed extreme at the time.  Hah.  They were more worried about flu than ebola, and wuflu was still a gleam in a chinese researcher’s eye.

    Currently 90F in the shade.  No appliance guy yet.   No text either.   I think he’s gonna flake.    Head broiling hot in the sun.

    n

    *I searched after the fact, so I’d have some content for all y’all… I’m a giver.

  19. Nick Flandrey says:

    “other high property tax states.”    

    –is TX high?   I hear that all the time, but when I think “high” I think Mass, CT, NY…

    Given that all those other states have personal income tax too, I think (but haven’t done the research) that our tax burden is probably light, even with a higher property tax rate.   Especially if it’s taxing property that is valued at half what it would be in Mass or NY…

    n

  20. MrAtoz says:

    Speaking of electrolytes:

    I use this one, Daily Minerals, by KetoChow. I opted for something without sweetener or flavor and a range of salts (including iodine). It is very salty and bitter, but one tblsp in a liter of water makes it palatable. I drink it before my daily walk in the sun.

    I also have LMNT which has a sweetener and flavor when I’m out and about during the day.

    As a note, these are not ORS since there is no sugar.

    Humidity is around 51%, so OOF.

  21. EdH says:

    I like Gatorade, but I believe I read that it takes about 24 hours to intake the salts completely.  

    Seems more refreshing than that, though the salts also keep you thirsty and you likely drink more.

  22. Paul Hampson says:

    Scare quotes because I expect it to be more than a year before we do something permanent.

    Nearly thirty years after my father built a ‘temporary’ patio cover I repaired it for my mom; my step-dad had done some other repairs about ten years prior.

  23. SteveF says:

    NB: second time entering this comment. The first time got eaten, looks like. Probably PEBCAK but mentioning it in case anyone else had problems lately.

    I like Gatorade, but I believe I read that it takes about 24 hours to intake the salts completely.  

    Seems more refreshing than that, though the salts also keep you thirsty and you likely drink more.

    Does Gatorade work for you? If you’re working hard and sweating heavily and you know from experience that just water will leave you light-headed, does Gatorade let you keep going? Does it help to prevent nausea and cramps the next day? If so, who cares what “they” say?

  24. drwilliams says:

    @Nick

    One cause of cramps is buildup of lactic acid during exertion. Having milk in your diet helps. 

  25. MrAtoz says:

    RIP Paul “Pee-Wee Herman” Reubens. Cancer.

  26. lpdbw says:

    Paul Reubens has died.

    When my sister first moved to California, she used to hang out with the Groundlings. One of my high school classmates was a member, and they were friends.

  27. Alan says:

    Hmm…

    “…worka while you can monkey boy…”

    “Those are the “China” versions of the Nvidia GPUs which make the AI monkey trick possible…”

    https://www.amazon.com/Winning-Moves-Games-Classic-Monkeys/dp/B0B5FBQ7TH?tag=ttgnet-20/

  28. Lynn says:

    The carbon footprint of building a cargo ship should be amortized across all electric vehicles. I don’t recall the last time I heard of a cargo ship transporting conventional cars catching fire or sinking.

    Apparently this is the fifth cargo ship carrying electric cars to catch fire and probably sink.

    I suspect that Lloyds of London is getting ready to increases rates significantly.

  29. lpdbw says:

    re: electrolytes

    This link is to Cole Robinson’s youtube channel.  He’s the Snake Diet guy.

    His home-made electrolyte recipe, called Snake Juice, uses Baking soda, Himalayan salt, No-Salt for potassium, and Epsom Salts for magnesium in carefully measured proportions.  It’s primary use is for longer term fasting, where you’re in danger of electrolyte imbalance, but I think it might have value outside that.

    I’ll let you google the recipe. The best source is one of his videos, but:

    Under no circumstances is his youtube channel safe for work or children.  And his personality traits are unique.  He’s an acquired taste. I can only take him in small doses.

  30. Lynn says:

    Pearls Before Swine: Find Your Passion

       https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2023/07/31

    Yup, that is definitely one passion.

  31. Alan says:

    >> You’ll either buy an EV or take the bus unless things change radically.

    The buses, I presume, are exempt from the CAFE?

  32. Alan says:

    I expect this will gather more press…and more lawyers (it was just ‘Shark Week’ on the Discovery channel)…

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/outcry-against-ai-companies-grows-over-who-controls-internets-content-91d604c9

  33. Alan says:

    I can’t believe Jack Ryan season four was only six episodes. 

    This was touted as the final season. Wonder why? There’s plenty of material in Clancey’s books that could be used.

  34. Lynn says:

    This tweet by Tony Heller describes how it was much hotter in 1936 than today, despite media gaslighting to the contrary, “The percentage of the US to reach 100F this year is currently at a record low 18%, down from 79% in 1936.”

    The 1930s temperature extremes never happened according to the global warmists.  They smoothed those temperature extremes away in the name of science.

  35. Lynn says:

    “Watch SpaceX test new Starship water-deluge system for 1st time (video)”

        https://www.space.com/spacex-starship-water-deluge-system-first-test-video

    Not enough water.  SpaceX needs to launch from a ocean going ship because the FAA is shutting them down for environmental reasons.

  36. Greg Norton says:

    “other high property tax states.”    

    –is TX high?   I hear that all the time, but when I think “high” I think Mass, CT, NY…

    Yes, Texas is high compared to other states without an income tax. Plus, the homestead exemption is a joke, even expanded to $100k as it will be under the “reform” next year if the measure on the November ballot passes.

    Anyone who thinks Texas is still a Republican state needs to read their trim notice and proposed “reform” details closely.

  37. paul says:
    SpaceX needs to launch from a ocean going ship because the FAA is shutting them down for environmental reasons.

    They are in far south Texas.  I don’t think that is by accident.  SpaceX  can tell the FAA to eff off and move just across the river into Mexico. 

    What are the enviro-weenies gonna do?  Other than scream and stamp around in their Crocs? 

  38. paul says:

    I don’t know what a “trim notice” is.  I’ll get a copy in the mail?  The homestead thing, I don’t know.  The taxes have been locked down to within $5 up or down since the Over 65 stuff kicked in. 

    I know some folks that live off of 183, south of 620, and sorta halfway to the 183 toll road.  They have a nice house…. other than being in town (but that’s me) and their property taxes are pushing $1000 a month.

    Yeah, shopping and whatever are nice and near.  The bums living under the overpasses are “nice” and near.

    I’m fine out in the sticks with about $1400 a year prop taxes on 26 acres.  Which is too much because about a grand of that goes to the school district.  

  39. Greg Norton says:

    They are in far south Texas.  I don’t think that is by accident.  SpaceX  can tell the FAA to eff off and move just across the river into Mexico. 

    What are the enviro-weenies gonna do?  Other than scream and stamp around in their Crocs? 

    Boca Chica is really torn up. We went out and looked first hand at the beginning of the month.

    I don’t know where the next launch will take place, but the FAA would never sign off on that happening again from the SpaceX facility without serious concrete being poured.

    Even LC 39B at Kennedy, where the SLS boondoggle will launch, is rated for a third less power than the Starship rocket, and 39B was engineered and overbuilt by the Germans back in the day.

  40. Greg Norton says:

    I don’t know what a “trim notice” is.  I’ll get a copy in the mail?  The homestead thing, I don’t know.  The taxes have been locked down to within $5 up or down since the Over 65 stuff kicked in. 

    The county will mail the trim notice in the Fall telling you the proposed taxes for the next year and instructions about appealing your appraisal.

    This year, I’m sure they will also insert campaign literature disguised as an estimate with the post-“reform” number if the ballot measure passes in the Fall.

    I’m fine out in the sticks with about $1400 a year prop taxes on 26 acres.  Which is too much because about a grand of that goes to the school district.  

    The ISDs p*ss away money, but what really gets me is the technical insolvency of the city government in Houston with Dallas not far behind.

  41. Nightraker says:

    Well, I’ve gone and done it.  Put in my notice today to both job and landlord.  Was approved last week for a new apartment 1500 miles away in a town 90% smaller than where I am.  Reserved a Upack truck for next month.  

    Been awhile since I’ve moved house and it is not fun, just tedious.  Did that many times as a boy (Dad kept getting promoted at GE) and several times as an adult.  There is ~900 sq. ft. here, so the stacks aren’t too high but definitely voluminous.

    The new place, in Idaho, is still in the snow belt but I’ve never lived without Winter.  And the Texas reports of July here make me relieved that the Upper Midwest is relatively temperate, in comparison. 🙂

    16
  42. paul says:

    I have a pi-hole on my LAN for the DNS stuff for ad blocking.  It was easy enough to set up.  So… I have a couple of things, a pair of UniFi wi-fi flying saucers constantly hitting “unifi.burnet.fusioncore.net” for no apparent reason.  It’s the wISP’s unifi server.

    They were set up before I had Hyperfusion as my wISP.  Why they decided to ping that server every 30 seconds or so is unknown.   Why it doesn’t answer is unknown.  And really, the stuff works so I don’t’ need the software or firmware updated.  Ever. 

    Anyway.  I had a Great Idea and I did it.  Got into the router’s stuff and in Network Filtering blocked the mac addresses of my two UniFi units.    Clicky click and 69 seconds to re-boot. 

    “MAC Filtering ON and DENY computers listed to access the network”  does not mean what I wanted it to mean.  I wanted to block access past the router, but, hey.  That might be an option somewhere.  Pretty much killed my wi-fi stuff.  Grin.

    I have them blocked from the ‘net in pi-hole.   

  43. paul says:
    And the Texas reports of July 

    Bitching about the heat is a thing we do down here.  Kinda like yankees bitching about a foot of snow.   It averages out.

  44. Greg Norton says:

    Paul Reubens has died.

    When my sister first moved to California, she used to hang out with the Groundlings. One of my high school classmates was a member, and they were friends.

    IIRC, Paul Reubens and Cassandra Petersen (Elvira) were Groundlings members at the same time.

    I’m old enough to remember when “Pee Wee” has on the verge of being huge, on the level of Sponge Bob today, if not bigger.

    I also remember watching his triumphant return to TV on “Murphy Brown”.

    (Yeah, I know, but Dan Quayle ultimately won that war, and the show was quality TV.)

    Oh, and the point I made about SW Florida/Sarasota being home to some weird money, guess where Reubens was first arrested.

  45. Lynn says:

    “Intel CEO: ‘We’re going to build AI into every platform we build’

        https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/27/23810360/intel-pat-gelsinger-ai-every-platform-promise

    “Intel is about to launch Meteor Lake, its first chip with an onboard neural processor. It’s just the start.”

    I am so tired of buzzwords.

  46. Lynn says:

    “Intel adds fresh x86 and vector instructions for future chips”

        https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/26/intel_x86_vector_instructions/

    “Intel has revealed two sets of extensions coming to the x86 instruction set architecture, one to boost the performance of general purpose code and the second to provide a common vector instruction set for future chips.”

    “Some of the details were revealed on Intel’s developer website, showing the Advanced Performance Extensions (Intel APX) broadening the x86 instruction set with access to more registers and other features aimed at improving general-purpose performance. Advanced Vector Extensions 10 (Intel AVX10), meanwhile, is described as a “modern vector instruction set architecture” to be supported across future Intel processors.”

    “APX represents what Intel is pitching as a big move for the future of its architecture. Its chief feature is a doubling of the number of general purpose registers from 16 to 32. Having more registers means there is less need to juggle values around, and this is one way that Intel claims it will increase performance.”

    Huh.  I smell a rat.  I would understand extensions to the x64 instruction set but instructions like these for x86 are mystifying.

  47. Greg Norton says:

    Huh.  I smell a rat.  I would understand extensions to the x64 instruction set but instructions like these for x86 are mystifying.

    Linux has x32 which is 32 bit code with x86_64 registers. This ABI allows more code and data to fit into the cache for really performance sensitive code which only uses integer calculations.

    Someone big is using the ABI which probably explains Intel extending the X86 instruction set. 

    Over the last few years, anytime talk starts about deprecating x32 from the Kernel, the debate gets quickly squashed. I’m guessing NSA uses it for really high speed network packet analysis based 100% in the cache. We did something similar but with 64 bit code on Threadrippers at the last job.

    Donald Knuth originally asked for the mode when x86_64 first appeared in the Athlon 64 and Linux started down the road to supporting 64 bits. His argument was memory efficiency with the advantage of the register space of x86_64.

    I don’t think Windows supports x32 out of the box, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they have implemented it for the same large customer Intel seems to be chasing.

  48. drwilliams says:

    I have been remiss in not mentioning lately what a steaming pile of horsecrap Windows 10, and indeed all current releases of MicriSht products, have proven to be. 

    If your premiere product doesn’t reliably wake up from sleep, what’s the chance that mission critical features are free of security compromising defects?

    6
    1
  49. EdH says:

    Does Gatorade work for you? If you’re working hard and sweating heavily and you know from experience that just water will leave you light-headed, does Gatorade let you keep going? Does it help to prevent nausea and cramps the next day? If so, who cares what “they” say?

    I agree.  Something everyone should know about themselves.  Personally when really dehydrated I just want water, but people differ.

    On a scale of 0 to 10, with astrology being a 0 and, say, electromagnetics being  a 10,  I rate nutrition science as maybe 2. Perhaps  3 if I am feeling magnanimous..

  50. EdH says:

    Huh.  I smell a rat.  I would understand extensions to the x64 instruction set but instructions like these for x86 are mystifying.

    Weird. They can’t get their own AVX512 to work properly between their current e and p cores as it is.

  51. Ken Mitchell says:

    My San Antonio property tax is WAY higher than my Cacafornia, Prop13 property tax. Of course, in CA my property tax was based on when I bought the house for $83K in 1983.  However, the TX property tax is LESS than my CA property tax + CA state income tax. 

    When we sold the house in 2020, we sold it for $440K. The new owners are paying 6X what we paid in prop tax, because the property tax basis is adjusted at the time of the most recent sale. And they STILL have to pay state income tax. 

  52. RickH says:

    Win11 works just fine for me. And I use the computer about 10 hours a day. No issues.  

    Standard software – MS Office 2019 (standalone, not 365); mostly Word for writing. Browsing with Firefox and Chrome; up to 30 tabs at times. Rapid PHP for programing. WinSCP for SFTP.  Sophos Home for AV. Windows updates installed when they arrive. 

    All on an HP Envy 17″, with 16GB Ram and 1TB and 2TB SSD drives (upgraded from original 512MB and 1TB drives); bought 3 ½ years ago.

  53. Lynn says:

    I have been remiss in not mentioning lately what a steaming pile of horsecrap Windows 10, and indeed all current releases of MicriSht products, have proven to be. 

    If your premiere product doesn’t reliably wake up from sleep, what’s the chance that mission critical features are free of security compromising defects?

    I have found that most problems with Windows over the years are either hardware problems (JEP said that cables were the first and worst of the hardware issues) and bad device drivers.  Windows supports an incredible amount of hardware: motherboards, cpus, mice, keyboards, tablets, monitors of various sizes and orientation, USB this and that, etc, etc, etc.   I am amazed that Microsoft manages to keep this whole mess going along with their hundreds of third parties writing absolute crap.  Today’s Windows is so much more fault tolerant than the old Windows variants from 3.0 to 95 to NT to 2000 to XP to 7 to 10.

    I have been running a water damaged PC at home since 2016 or so.  It got about 2 gallons of water inside the case during a roof leak.  It still boots !  It has burned up the motherboard sound and two sound boards now plus a video board.  Any day XXX month XXXXX year now, I am going to replace it with that totally new set of parts that I have sitting in front of my tv for two years now.

  54. Lynn says:

    “US Trucking Giant Shuts Down After 99 Years, 30,000 Could Lose Their Jobs”

        https://resistthemainstream.com/us-trucking-giant-shuts-down-after-99-years-30000-could-lose-their-jobs/

    “After nearly 100 years in operation, U.S. trucking giant Yellow Corp is shutting down operations.”

    Thanks Teamsters who would not let them merge their operations centers.  You kicked them over the edge of the cliff.

  55. JimB says:

    Jay Leno, livin’ the dream: how to shop for a car of special interest:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=axgZJioVX34 5-17-21

    He is gracious to the interviewer. I have always liked Jay’s simple approach to cars and motorcycles. While he might go for some really expensive ones, he also likes the less expensive ones that pique his interest. Following him can teach us to enjoy and seek affordable cars that are a lot of fun. Cars are so much more than mere transportation.

    Don’t miss his parting line.

  56. Lynn says:

    I renewed the flood insurance on my house today.  We are in the non-flood zone.  $801 for $250K in house coverage plus $100K contents coverage.

    I am not going to look it up but I am sure that last years flood insurance cost $650.  A sign of things to come.

    I wasn’t going renew it but I was ordered to. SWMBO. She really likes insurance on stuff, lets her sleep at night. Shoot, she still has me insured.

  57. Nick Flandrey says:
    FAA is shutting them down 

    Not gonna happen, in my book.   Bet money on it.   The Generals want their COTS internet in the sky, along with their location and timing alternative to GPS.   He told the world’s astronomers to F-off when they complained about the albedo of his satellites.     Claimed they didn’t consider it, but they’d try to do something about it.   He’s got permission for tens of THOUSANDS of satellites.     Everyone on the grift will try to assert their authority and look for their gatekeeper’s fee, but he’ll keep launching.

    @paul, the unifi stuff all has to be adopted by a management console to be provisioned.    Your provider probably did that with a server at their location so that they could get all the nifty stats and health data from their deployment.  OR they are configured to hit that server for time,  OR they are looking for updates and it’s just poorly configured.  If they are managing those WAPs they can see a great deal of info about your traffic.  If I was at home I’d screenshot my clients console and share some, but minimum they have a list of all the sites you visit, and aggregated stats on times, frequency, and volume of your traffic.

    Neighbor made me a plate for dinner, chicken fried steak, french fries, salad, and sugar cookies.   Life is good.

    n

  58. Nick Flandrey says:

    Appliance guy came and went around noon-ish.   Said he needs to order the parts, a week or two and he’ll call about installing them.   We had a chat about some things.   He said the supply chain was better and they can get parts now, but couldn’t for a while.  Said he had to hit the chinese cr@p sellers on amazon and ebay for parts.   His  success rate was about half the parts wouldn’t work at all.  So he’d order 10 at a time.

    Also, rural high speed internet is shite everywhere.   He found a work around involving verizon and someone else’s address.   The box works fine for him so the region lock is entirely administrative, in other words, it’s almost as if someone didn’t want red America on broadband.

    I’m headed down to the dock, and a tiny little glowing coal of a fire.  It’s still 87F but that is almost chilly after the solid 107F we hit this afternoon.   Took my shower first tonight, I was covered with sand and mud from running the power washer on the driveway.      Bottom of the shower looked like a Mr Bill skit.

    “oh no Mr Hands, not the shower!”

    n

  59. Lynn says:
    FAA is shutting them down 

    Not gonna happen, in my book.   Bet money on it.   The Generals want their COTS internet in the sky, along with their location and timing alternative to GPS.   He told the world’s astronomers to F-off when they complained about the albedo of his satellites.     Claimed they didn’t consider it, but they’d try to do something about it.   He’s got permission for tens of THOUSANDS of satellites.     Everyone on the grift will try to assert their authority and look for their gatekeeper’s fee, but he’ll keep launching.

    Yup, true dat.  The rumor on the streets is that DOD gets the first ten production Starships.  Maybe more, way more.  DOD has dreams of dropping Starships in people’s backyards with 100+ Marines in 30 minutes or less anywhere on the planet.

    Never, ever forget the rule about he who controls the high ground controls the war. All of the generals know this rule. They are watching it being played out with ruthless abandon in Ukraine right now.

    The whole planet is at war. It is our nature. Most of the wars are just not declared. They will never stop until the Rapture.

  60. Lynn says:

    Also, rural high speed internet is shite everywhere.   He found a work around involving verizon and someone else’s address.   The box works fine for him so the region lock is entirely administrative, in other words, it’s almost as if someone didn’t want red America on broadband.

    Starlink.  It is usable now.  It is carrying about 40% of my office LAN traffic now.  I need to drop one of my AT&T DSL lines since they are redundant.

  61. Nick Flandrey says:

    I previously linked to the article about .mil announcing the RFP for a mesh network of COTS satellites with optical links.  Also the one where they describe wanting to rent networking from a COTS provider; and the interview where a smirking Elon talks about the Russkies shooting down satellites, so you’d want a whole bunch of them up there… if you were .mil …

    He’s pretty much admitted the real purpose of starlink at this point, and they’ve been beta testing it for the purpose with the Ukes.

    Remember when he threatened to pull the plug on them if someone didn’t come up with some money?   Someone did.

    n

  62. Lynn says:

    I saw 106 F in my truck at 3 pm this afternoon going to HEB and coming back.  Freaking hot.  I am really ready for that new heatpump in the office come Wednesday.  3.5 tons of 19 year old a/c is not cutting it for 5,344 ft2. It is 78 F in the hallway and 83 F in my office, the only occupied north side office.

    ERCOT set a new demand record today, 83,054 MW.  The wind and solar hung in there all day for 17,000 MW or more until the sun went down at 8pm, the wind is still making 10,000 MW right now.  The new coastal windmills along the coast of Texas are pumping out the MWs.

       https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards

  63. Lynn says:

    I helped out a customer today with a new 7,000 ton a/c system that he is getting ready to build.  It is an ammonia system “shudder”.

  64. Nick Flandrey says:

    Starlink has administrative limits on regions of availability too.   None for me here at the lake, despite the neighbor finally getting his after a year wait.  Can’t even sign up for here anymore.   Ditto at my client’s house in the country northwest of Houston.   Not available, no plans to make it available in the area.  That flat declaration was what finally spurred my client to pay att to pull the fiber.

    n

  65. Lynn says:

    COTS = Commercial Off The Shelf ???

    Yeah, the new Starlink 2 satellites are amazing.  10X the bandwidth each for 2X the weight.  Cool.

  66. Lynn says:

    Starlink has administrative limits on regions of availability too.   None for me here at the lake, despite the neighbor finally getting his after a year wait.  Can’t even sign up for here anymore.   Ditto at my client’s house in the country northwest of Houston.   Not available, no plans to make it available in the area.  That flat declaration was what finally spurred my client to pay att to pull the fiber.

    Most of Texas is reputedly available now for Starlink but there are hours of heavy traffic.  People are watching 2K and 4K movies over Starlink all the time now.

    Maybe your neighbor might be willing to let you stick a ethernet line in his house switch ?

  67. Lynn says:

    BTW, I am paying $130/month for Starlink at the office.   Congested areas are $130/month, uncongested areas are $110/month.

    You can get priority access anywhere for $250/month. I am not willing to pay so I am using the Standard rate. BTW2, Priority has a much bigger dish, and more expensive.
    https://starlink-enterprise-guide.readme.io/docs/compare-service-plans

  68. nick flandrey says:

    @lynn, originally the neighbor agreed to share the cost and the service, but once he got it he decided there wasn’t enough bandwidth to share.   He’s not even up here most of the time we are, and never during the week when my wife needs good connectivity to work from home…   I didn’t press him.

    Still 88F with enough cloud cover there aren’t any stars, just sky glow from the full moon.   Hint of a breeze, most of the time.  It was pretty pleasant on the dock, but there were times when it felt hot.

    Radio was a mixed bag tonight.  Canadian time stations loud and clear, some US stations in  6Mhz instead of all Cuban.  Not much on the ham bands.  Several stations in the 9Mhz band I don’t usually hear.   Didn’t go much higher than 10Mhz tonight, mostly listened to “the worlds best  hits” on WRMI 9.455Mhz.

    Trying to get a bit more salt in me before bed, and some more electrolyte replacement drink.  Smoked almonds and what’s essentially technical koolaid…

    Headed to bed.   All hail Mr Carrier.

    n

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