Cool. Cold even. Front has arrived. Yesterday was hot, mid to high 80s with humid stagnant air. Nothing was moving and sweat was dripping off me as I worked on my decorations. Then the wind picked up, and the temps dropped. Mid 60s after dark, with gusting winds. Today should be cooler all day.
Yup, I finally got some decor set up. First I had to get a couple of pickups done. One pick up was some stuff to sell at my next non-prepping hobby swapmeet day, the next was for the BOL. The BOL’s was a couple of hundred feet of barbed wire. I’m not sure where I’ll use it, or if I’ll sell it to someone up there, but I’d rather have it than not. It’s used, but rolled neatly. I’ve been trying to buy some for a year but it goes for too much money. Finally got some.
Came home and started on decor in earnest. Felt a couple of drops of rain, but nothing real. Kept at it until dusk. Started lighting stuff, then the power went out. 3200 affected, mostly our neighborhood. Again. Freaking third world. One of the symptoms of a collapse is civic systems break down, and with increasing severity and frequency. We went years without a blink, and now we have lost power for more than an hour several times in the last few months. They are doing a ton of infrastructure, pulling high tension lines everywhere and building out and up… but we’ve never had issues like this before.
Since their estimate was for a 3 hour outage, I decided to fire up a generator. The whole house gennie is still not installed. My trusty generac was fueled and ready, so of course the pull cord broke. The Honda 3000 started on the second crank, once I’d connected the propane bottle. Didn’t use it, because I can’t feed the house with it– no 220v output. Power came back on shortly after that anyway. We used a Jetboil backpacking cook system to make some hot water for the Mountain House chili mac… we could have made just about anything in the house or pantry, but that stuff was sitting in the kitchen from my wife’s aborted GS camping trip and neither of us wanted to cook.
Wife fired up candles because she wanted to, and because her streamlight lantern is DOA due to leaking batteries. Mine is fine, and the big coleman LED lanterns worked well too. I got out a little oil lamp, and proceeded to fight with the wick. I don’t have any small wicks here… took them to the lake. I didn’t feel like trying a propane coleman, or one of the bigger kerosene lamps. I’ll be bringing a wick home as backup…
Not a bad little dry run, and I’m moving gennie maintenance up the list, along with trying to find an electrician for the whole house install. Maybe they’ll be a bit slower this time of year, and more willing to do the work without selling me anything.
Today I’ve got more pickups, and some more decor to do. If it isn’t raining. It’s showing 50% chance of light rain, with the cold snap continuing. We’ll see…
So it’s time to check your critical systems. Batteries in the smoke detectors, and in the gun safes. Fresh fuel in the stuff that uses fuel… Spares close at hand.
And stacks.
nick
The “South Park” guys didn’t go too far into any one Disney IP, and they spared Bob Iger.
It wasn’t as brutal as it could have been.
And “South Park” has its ‘off limits’ topics in the culture wars. Cough … Bud Light … cough.
A lot of people fired up the heating systems for the first time this season yesterday afternoon. Any new construction will have heat pumps.
Soy Boy’s gotta keep their little buddies (dogs) warm.
Another utility first yesterday — I saw all of the Tesla charging slots at our local Costco in use with people waiting their turn. A huge number of EVs got delivered this Summer if my co-workers are any indication, and this is the first time many of the owners have seen the range issues associated with cold weather.
Plus, the Jesus Truck comeh.
Ah, 2024 will be a glorious Summer.
The message from ERCOT/Oncor: Vote for Prop. 7 … or else.
That reminds me – gotta go early vote.
My wife said that supporters of Prop. A, the local school board’s nonsense slush fund, had a table set up on Saturday in a questionably close location to the local early voting site. On the table was a Kermit the Frog doll and pro-proposition materials, implying that Kermit gives his endorsement.
If Kermit is still there today, I’m sending Disney lawyers a picture.
Just a few pennies … until rate compression ends.
“60 Minutes” was back on duty as a propaganda arm of the regime last night.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vocqewXZKL0
Have your allegiance symbols ready, ja. Ze old days will be back soon, and this time we will hand out the gold stars to the Skippy before we load him into the boxcar heading to ze camp.
Replace those alkaline batteries with Lithium batteries. They don’t leak and have a really long shelf life.
Do not use rechargeable batteries as they will be close to discharged when you need them most.
47F and gusty wind this fine morning… with spits of water hitting my face while waiting for the bus.
Cold water from the tap was cold this morning. We’ve entered the “cold tap water” season. 🙂
n
colonized. and ‘colon’ -ized.
n
NOt the only ones coming across either. And as previously mentioned, hiding in the larger pool of invaders.
– slowly, then all at once.
n
and NYFC is complaining about a couple thousand.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/texas/article-12663663/Venezuelas-worst-gangsters-criminals-cross-border-carrying-orders-dictator-Maduro.html
A commonly held misconception held by both Dems and Republicans is that Venezuelans will integrate into the US like the Cubans who fled the revolution there.
Even the elite Venezuelan expats and many of the professional class are content to wait for the US to restore order in Caracas so they can return to what they view as their “rightful” place at top of that society.
Asylum. Clever.
If Subcontinent knows one thing it is how to work a bureaucracy and exploit American characteristic politeness, something viewed as a weakness by many around the world.
What I’ve been wondering about with regard to the local colonists as of late is how they manage to build their new houses up in Georgetown but enroll their kids in Round Rock ISD schools, particularly Round Rock High school, which is very desirable among that community.
That is one big arsed high school. Almost 4K enrollment, swimming pools, a dozen or more buildings, a huge football stadium. That school would make some of the local colleges look small. Almost 25% Hispanic, Asian following close behind. Annual dropout rate is about 0.1% which is actually quite low for a school that size, about 47 students. Based on 25 students per class that school has more teachers than Oliver Springs Academy has students.
I stand corrected, it WAS a mass shooting. Initial reports suggested that the additional injuries occurred when people fled. Suspect in custody.
n
A 14 year-old has no business being on 7th Avenue in Ybor at 3 AM.
They were predicting 29F last night, here in the California high desert. I dithered about bringing in the small seedlings and saplings from the potting table since it is up against the house and stays relatively warm.
In the end I did – and it hit 25F. Birdbath was frozen over, even.
So, time to drain & winterize the swamp cooler & ducts, and to take down the patio awning, suns screening off the windows, and get the old pellet stove ready.
We’ve been getting a very light misty drizzle for most of the morning. No work on the decor outside today..
n
Regarding seasonal exterior house decorations: I’ve been seeing a lot of ads from this company in my Facebook feed: https://www.luxedo.com/
Some impressive displays that are ‘built’ for the outside of your house and displayed via a projector. A bit expensive, but impressive.
You can design on your tablet or computer, then the whole thing is projected onto your house. Full motion, not just lights. Impressive stuff. And easy to change the display – no ladders, no boxes of stuff to pack and store, no tangled strings of lights.
Drizzling all day today here, too, on top of all day yesterday. I have a number of outdoor chores that need doing but either I can’t do them or I’d really rather not. (eg, I could boost up my wife’s car in the rain and crawl around on the driveway, in the rain, to see if the tie rods ends are cracked, as the Firestone people told her, but I’d rather not given that they’ve flat-out lied to her the last couple times she went there and I strongly suspect that this is another lie. It’ll wait until tomorrow.)
Chickens were complaining, so to speak, last night about the heat lamp being put in their coop but they probably appreciated it when it kicked on a couple times over the night and it didn’t stop them from laying eggs this morning. It’ll be colder tonight and forecast to be below freezing the next couple nights, so I want to fiddle with positioning a bit and so on. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it more as it gets colder, though they won’t say anything because they’re ungrateful jerks.
paul, that’s a good idea about the dimmer. I’ll continue to use the thermostat, but with the lower power the lamp will stay on for longer periods and not be stressed as hard. I’ll need to look into comparison of a dimmer and a 250W lamp against a 150W lamp.
I also need to insulate the coop better before the real cold settles in. It’s solid with only a few thin cracks between pieces but the walls are thin. Once the coop is under the deck and protected from the wet, at the least I’ll put a layer of cardboard and bubble wrap around the box.
Most Sunday mornings I do some STEM or practical stuff with The Child. We’d planned to do a couple hours of welding yesterday but someone-who-isn’t-me put another load of crap into the garage, there wasn’t room for us to safely weld, and it was raining so we couldn’t put the stuff in the driveway for a couple hours. The fallback plan of doing a chemistry lab or two didn’t get off the ground because I loaned my scales to her school for their chemistry classes; they’re short of equipment because they’re on a shoestring budget. So we just settled on going over the math that was covered so far this year. The precalc and calculus classes are basically self-study this year. I’m not very happy about that, but to be fair, the school administration isn’t very happy about not having been able to get someone who could teach them.
>>And easy to change the display – no ladders, no boxes of stuff to pack and store, no tangled strings of lights.
Nah, untangling the lights is half of the fun.
@SteveF
“Scales” as in Ohaus 2610 triple beam, or electronic balance?
@Nick
Immigration—the legal kind—should be reduced by 150% of the number caught entering illegally, with reduction of H1B visas in proportion.
Even better, do away with H1B entirely.
In the above comment I omitted the qualifying phrase: “by country
Electronic. 0-20g, precision .001g; 0-100g, precision .01g; 0-500g, precision .01g. I have a small set of calibration weights and the scales seem to be close enough. (Where “close enough” means that any imprecision or other experimental error is human error, not scale error.)
I bought the chemicals-n-stuff kit from the guy who took over Bob and Barbara’s business and I got most of the other equipment and ordinary chemicals needed for the first half of the Home Chemistry Experiments book. And when daughter and I (and sometimes one of her friends) went through the first dozen labs, the results were nowhere near what we expected. So we ran through most of them again, again getting totally wrong results. Some of the problems were from sloppy results logging by the girls (eg, terrible handwriting so that we couldn’t figure out what the starting mass was) but other than that I don’t know what’s going wrong. I know that my lab technique is sloppy at best, from lack of experience, but something simple like heating the water off of epsom salts in a crucible should’t be beyond me.
Sometime I should try doing a lab by myself, not working with or coaching one or more teen or preteen girls, and see how it comes out. It’s possible that I’m not the problem but instead it’s my daughter who’s screwing up everything in my life…
And the really annoying thing: Elder son is a chemical engineer. When he comes for a visit I ask him to watch as we do a lab or two and tell us where we’re going wrong, but in the past half dozen visits he never seems to find the time to do it. Tell ya, if I expected to ever die and need a will, I’d be writing him out of it. Bratty kid.
Not happening.
Try to find a major US tech company outside of the DoD contractor cabal who isn’t dependent on H1B labor.
@SteveF
If I had to make a guess it would be that your problems are scale-related. That’s a common factor in most of the experiments, and use of a lab scale is a skill that takes practice.
I’m out the door right now, but will have more later.
paul, that’s a good idea about the dimmer. I’ll continue to use the thermostat, but with the lower power the lamp will stay on for longer periods and not be stressed as hard. I’ll need to look into comparison of a dimmer and a 250W lamp against a 150W lamp.
I also need to insulate the coop better before the real cold settles in. It’s solid with only a few thin cracks between pieces but the walls are thin. Once the coop is under the deck and protected from the wet, at the least I’ll put a layer of cardboard and bubble wrap around the box.
I have had a 250W or 300W heat lamp in the well house (a 10 foot by 10 foot uninsulated building) with my uninsulated 120 gallon well tank in it. But since it went through the Winter Storm Uri (12 F) in Feb 2021 just fine, I do not feel the need to buy a new bulb. The heat lamp bulbs usually last 2 to 4 months running 24×7.
And the really annoying thing: Elder son is a chemical engineer. When he comes for a visit I ask him to watch as we do a lab or two and tell us where we’re going wrong, but in the past half dozen visits he never seems to find the time to do it. Tell ya, if I expected to ever die and need a will, I’d be writing him out of it. Bratty kid.
Here is a secret, chemical engineers hate chemistry. And they really hate chemistry labs.
I am trying to decide if the wife was serious this morning when she told me no more book orders from Big River this year. Her teeth were not clenched and she was not yelling. We are a little short on cash to pay our $30,000 in property taxes next month. I don’t think that she was serious.
I hate Mondays. Somebody in the Czech Republic is trying to crack the security in my software. They made it through the primary layer.
Hmm. Seems like that would be on par with an electrical engineer really hating computations involving complex numbers.
Based on my experience with wives, mothers, sisters, and so on, it means that you’re not allowed to buy anything for yourself but she can continue shopping for herself.
There’s a short video going around, of a couple in the grocery store. She takes his six-pack out of the cart, saying that they’re short on money this week and they can’t afford it. She then put in makeup and a loofah and what-not, costing much more than the beer. When he protests that she just said that they need to save money, she says that she needs them. I suspect that it was a skit – men generally don’t record themselves and their girlfriend or wife going about ordinary tasks – but it rings true.
xkcd: Dendrochronology
https://xkcd.com/2847/
Um, I am fairly sure that there was not a period of carnivorous trees in 1635. At least, I hope not.
Explained at:
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2847:_Dendrochronology
“Try to find a major US tech company outside of the DoD contractor cabal who isn’t dependent on H1B labor.”
Sounds like an argument that the pasty-faced billionaire club has to hire scabs from overseas.
The H1B program has depressed salaries, inflated graduate school costs, crowded U.S. students out of graduate schools, and imposed sub-standard t.a. English skills on generations of undergraduates.
It’s also been a pipelines for U.S. technology theft by China and other countries.
And it’s provided “minority’ hires that have no benefit for U.S. citizens, but simply provide another excuse for neglecting STEM education in our cities.
@lynn
If you have to agree to that limitation, I’d appreciate an exemption for my “RV Vigilante” book series. Please buy many copies of same. Then add a five-star review for each book.
Thanks.
From Lynn:
Well with a BS Chem Eng degree, I didn’t really hate chemistry; however, I would never agree to work in a chemistry lab. In these labs, one with only a BS degree could never get promoted to the level of those with Master’s Degrees, and those with Master’s could never get promoted to level of those with Doctor’s degrees.
Home from my pickup loop. Got a much more modern Panasonic toughbook for $80 (CF 54) that I need to pop the password on- more modern than the CF 30 I use for work and at the BOL anyway. If there isn’t an equivalent of the win7 ‘change a file and use the handicap option to get a command line’ for win10, I’ll just image the hard drive.
Got some stuff for the kinder. Got some stuff for the BOL. And I’m buying an EZ Go golf cart like Johnny Cash bought his cadillac, one piece at a time. I’ve got the steering assembly and the clutch so far… missed out on the back seat. I don’t own one, but it’s on ‘the list’. So far I’m about $5 into the parts…
Someone (Cmdr Zero?) suggested putting some weighted plates in your plate carrier and practice wearing it, as it will throw off your balance. What came up in the auctions last week? Yep, weighted (non-armor) plates. Got one of those against the time that I get some armor ;-), if I was going to get some armor… which isn’t something I’d admit in print at this point, although I recommend that if you don’t have some, you should. It’s cheaper than another rifle or handgun and might save your life.
I’ve been trying to buy a mini-split AC unit, so far I’ve got the pad. The hoses come up frequently, and the inside or outside unit comes up fairly regularly. Rare to see the whole thing at once, but I have faith.
It’s still drizzling off and on, so I’m inside for the rest of the day. Chicken has been in the crock pot for 4 hours and is smelling REALLY good.
Maybe a snack is in order…
n
That’s about the size of my pump house. I trickle the hall bath faucets so I don’t worry about the tank and plumbing. I do have a enclosure around my water softener made of scraps of R-5 or R-7 foil covered foamboard. And a beach towel to cover the cracks where the sides meet the lid.
I used light bulbs for a long time. It got to be a bulb a month or less instead of a bulb a winter.
I bought some stuff.
This for a heater: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00I4UVGHO?tag=ttgnet-20 It was $18. There are similar out there.
This to control it, from eBay: Honeywell T41 Electric Heat Thermostat – White (T410A1013) for another $15.
I hacked up a PC power cord to feed an electric box with a split outlet. T-stat controls one outlet and the other is always on. I have an LED nightlight as a pilot light so I know the power is on. The heater is set on low. T-stat is set around, I forget, 50f? Much lower is Off.
So… a scrap of plywood. A scrap of 2×4. A single gang electric box on each side of the 2×4, one with t-stat, the other with the outlet. Sitting on a bucket that was handy inside of my trashy foam board enclosure.
Looks kind of like redneck engineering but it works. During the big freeze when it was Zero, the pumphouse stayed above 34f. I call that winning.
I just spent an hour with Calibre and Kindle and my PC and I accomplished nothing. I want to organize my e-books so I can find books I haven’t read, sperate those that I have read from those I haven’t, etc. I have not been able to place any book into the Calibre library.
I go to the Kindle folder on my PC, move into an obscure name suck as B0012G6RJM_EBOK, copy the name of each file into the regular Calibre’s expression and the File name of the Test box and nada. The name is removed from file name box so I try the next file name in the Kindle folder, nada; repeat for every file name in the B0012G6RJM_EBOK folder nothing.
Several of you like Calibre but I can’t get it do anything. I tried the Quick start Guide by John Schember but it assumes you have books in the Calibre library.
HELP please.
Bob, I can’t directly help you because I run Calibre on Linux, but try this general approach:
At this point, you might want to edit the .json file to change the library’s location, you might want to open the normal library location (as suggested by the Getting Started videos) with a file browser, you might want to ask for more help.
Most of the ChemE grads I’ve met were not hands on within a few years of graduation. They were either management or working in a job that didn’t necessarily touch the skillset.
The exceptions were the ChemE grads from my undergraduate alma matter who went to work for either Anheuser Busch or Pabst back in the Tampa brewing heydays.
I have an old school second gen Kindle and organize the books with Calibre on Linux.
Most of my e-books are either free as in beer or converted torrent EPUBs, imported into Calibre’s library from the download directory.
The few commercial, protected books I’ve imported were first loaded onto the Kindle using either the 3G service while it was still available or the official download/install procedure of an encrypted file. I’ll admit I haven’t done it in a while, however, so I don’t know if the second gen Kindle is still supported by Amazon.
My grad program had to teach the visa students remedial C. The problem was that the grad students were supposed to teach the undergraduates the same material as TA in lab sections for the intro to programming course. Learn it in the morning, teach it in the afternoon.
I just checked recently, and “Programming Practicum” is still on the schedule every semester in the grad course schedule, including the current Fall term and upcoming Spring.
I’ve never believed that the popularity of H1B in the C-suites is about cost as much as the indentured servitude.
I’ll read anything you write on this topic, but the simple knowledge that there’s something I should look into might be enough. It hadn’t occurred to me that there was more to it than putting the paper on the scale, making sure it was touching only the plate, setting tare, and then tapping the material onto it and getting the reading. I did weigh them several times on each and measure the items on multiple scales where I could, but didn’t know there was any more to it. I’ll look for a WikiHow or a YT tutorial or something. Thanks for the pointer.
Agreed, that was the initial incentive. However, the restrictions were greatly eased some time ago, maybe during the Bush43 administration, and H1Bs could be transferred between employers without the hassle and expense of getting a new one. So long as it wasn’t a down market and there were jobs for the taking, H1B people were no longer locked in the way they had been.
Mr. Bob, I assume you are using Calibre on Windows? I use a Mac, but the Windows GUI should be the same. I’ve never had a problem dragging and dropping an epub, mobi, azw file right on the window and it is imported.
If you are trying you drag books out of the Kindle for Windows/Mac/Linus app folder, I don’t think that will work. You will need to “download and transfer to PC” from your Amazon Kindle account. You will have the book in, usually, azw format. You should be able to drag and drop then.
At this point, I would completely nuke Calibre and all of it’s files and start with a fresh install. Create an empty library where every you want it. Get an azw downloaded from you Amazon account or any epub file you can get somewhere. Drag and drop it onto the Calibre interface and see if it is imported.
Have you connected a Kindle to Calibre to see if it reads its memory?
looks like the “freak accident” wasn’t…
stay tuned…
https://twitchy.com/grateful-calvin/2023/10/30/hockey-news-calls-increase-on-social-media-for-matt-petgraves-arrest-after-death-of-adam-johnson-n2389207
Also, you need the DRM plugin if your books have DRM on them.
Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider responds to Israeli forces playing ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’
“I’m blessed that I get to live my dream because we have people who volunteer to protect our country, protect their countries, and when I hear that they’ve used my song, the song they’ve allowed me to write, because they defended our freedom, I say, louder and prouder. Sing it out, boys,”
–Dee Snider, Twisted Sister
https://www.nme.com/news/music/twisted-sisters-dee-snider-responds-to-israeli-forces-playing-were-not-gonna-take-it-3520620
Some old rockers have their heads screwed on straight.
Have you connected a Kindle to Calibre to see if it reads its memory?
Also, also, you have to have a physical Kindle, linked to your Amazon account, to download for “transfer by USB.” Without the device, the download option is not there.
They visa employees are still locked down since the employers are generally reluctant to pay the lawyer fees for the typical H1B skill set. The candidate has to be very good.
CGI did not hire student visa holders with the two year grace period to find sponsorship, but I don’t know how much that had to do with my location being an “onshore delivery center” which was profitable due to the tax breaks and incentives from various levels of government as long as the company played by their rules.
Most of the MS CS foreign students I graduated with were bozos.
“Daylight Saving Time is Ending. Here’s How to Adjust to the Dark.”
https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/daylight-saving-time-is-ending/
Here is an idea, lets stop adjusting after this last time change.
“Preparing for emergencies: The devil’s in the details…”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2023/10/preparing-for-emergencies-devils-in.html
“Things are pretty quiet right now on the homefront but if we get into a shooting war, as seems likely, watch for store shelves to empty out in a hurry. You should be sitting pretty already but if you aren’t, time is a wastin’ to get ready.”
Another few words of wisdom. If you need it now or in the next few months, get it today.
And keep your gas tanks full !
Three things are certain about DST in the US:
*Note: Arizona (and some other minor areas) excluded.
“Standing Your Ground Is A Constitutional Right” By: John Velleco
https://thefederalist.com/2023/04/25/standing-your-ground-is-a-constitutional-right/
“There’s a problem in our society when people face prosecution for defending themselves in public, and when a major network props up an anti-gun activist on Sunday morning television to ridicule the basic right to self-defense with lies and rhetoric, the underlying issue and our rights at large as Americans face even greater peril.”
@SteveF
“I’ll read anything you write on this topic, but the simple knowledge that there’s something I should look into might be enough. It hadn’t occurred to me that there was more to it than putting the paper on the scale, making sure it was touching only the plate, setting tare, and then tapping the material onto it and getting the reading. I did weigh them several times on each and measure the items on multiple scales where I could, but didn’t know there was any more to it. I’ll look for a WikiHow or a YT tutorial or something. Thanks for the pointer.”
earlier you said:
“Electronic. 0-20g, precision .001g; 0-100g, precision .01g; 0-500g, precision .01g. I have a small set of calibration weights and the scales seem to be close enough. (Where “close enough” means that any imprecision or other experimental error is human error, not scale error.)”
Electronic scales have a wide variety of characteristics and abilities.
The cheap ones claim precision and accuracy that they don’t have.
They are all sensitive to the local environment, with moving air being the biggest problem and static electricity being a close second when the humidity is low. Some scales demand the loads be well-centered. Some stabilize quickly, others take longer and require patience. (I recommend starting with a good triple beam balance simply to learn good practices and an appreciation for the marvelous speed of electronic scales.) Some demand a perfectly flat surface. Some drift for a few minutes during warmup, others drift for longer. Scales with auto shut-off may never stabilize.
Most scales have auto zero and tare functions, Some scales have auto calibration functions. Calibration weights of several sizes bracketing the actual use range are a good start in tracking scale performance. To do so they need to be used weekly at a minimum, or every time the scale is moved. Record the results with the time and date–it’s good laboratory practice (log sheet and lab notebook). If scale problems are suspected start the lab with calibration, and end it, too. Adding intermediate checks doesn’t hurt. (Mettler had a series of lab scales in the 1980/90’s that would lose stability after a few years. They would drift, the measurements would become unreliable, and they could not be calibrated. Having the data to show to the tech sped up the process of retirement and getting them replaced.) Calibration weights are considered precision instruments and should be handled carefully using tweezers or lint-free wipers to move them between storage and use.
Minimize the wear and tear and contamination on the scale pan. Do not weigh metal objects or anything that sheds dirt or material directly–use weighing paper or a weigh boat. You can buy disposable weigh boats but a good alternative is the single portion condiment cups that come in several sizes. When using disposable boats it’s a good idea to get in the habit of weighing and recording the weight on each one before starting any lab.
I’d recommend a couple of labs to learn to use the scale and to weigh materials. Here’s the first one:
Penny Weighing Lab.
Set up a data recording sheet with lines numbered 1-50, 5 columns to record data, and three more columns. At the top should be a separate line to record the aggregate weight of the pennies, a line below for the tare weight of the container, and a line for the newt weight.
U.S. pennies have a target weight range coming from the mint, and that range changed in 1982 with the change from copper-based to zinc-based cents (Don’t discuss this–it’s good for discovery). Get a roll of pennies . Wash them with dish soap and thoroughly air dry them on a lint-free towel. Use a Sharpie pen to number them sequentially on the back. Transfer them to a clean container that has been tared. Tare another container for the weighed pennies.
NOTE:
Each penny is removed from the supply container using tweezers and placed on the scale with the numbered side up. Allow five seconds for the scale to stabilize, then record the weight. Transfer the weighed penny to the second container. Repeat for the rest of the pennies. Note the scale reading should return to zero after each weighing.
When all 50 pennies have been weighed, hide the first set of readings by taping a strip of paper over them.
Check the weight on the empty container to make sure it agrees with the recorded weight.
Repeat the above for data columns 2-5.
Remove the paper strips hiding measurements in columns 1-4.
Label the last three columns High, Low, and Range. Determine the High and Low measurements for each penny, and calculate the range.
Use the Mark I Eyeball to look at the data. Is the range the same for each penny? Are all the pennies the same weight (add a line for Lowest and Highest reading)? Look at each line of data–are there patterns or does the variation look random?
If the scale is good and sited properly, the above experiment is a rough measure of technique and good results should be a requirement for advancing to the next lab.
I wrote this on the fly from memory. If anything does not make sense, ask.
Death Of Shani Louk Confirmed, Was Kidnapped And Driven Through Gaza Streets Mostly Naked To Jeering Crowds
https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/10/death-of-shani-luk-confirmed-was-kidnapped-and-driven-through-gaza-streets-mostly-naked-to-jeering-crowds/
The same MSM that regurgitated the Hamas lies about hospital bombing will doubtless be casting doubt on this report.
Calibre library problem, answers to suggestions:
Never have connected any of my three Kindles via USB, just wireless. All have different content but only because books just disappear. Never heard of .awz file type until I tried to use Calibre. Heard of .DRM but no idea what it is or why I should worry about it. I guess I find out but I prefer .doc or if forced .pdf. THE book folders also contain .awz.res, .awz.md, .voucher, ,mbpv2 and .phl. Why??? I’ll look these up after I send this.
I got some files to move but I have over 500 hundred books. Every time I buy a book I send to everything , three kindles my phone and three PCs. No Kindle has more than twenty books. No PC has more than a two dozen books (22 on one 12 on the second, the third is in the shop; I’ll check tomorrow. They seem to time out. Nothing is older than a year.
I’m old school; I never drag and drop, copy and paste. I, too often, drop it where I don’t want it. If it’s cut and drop I may never find it.
I looked those file suffixes up: .awz is not defined. .phl is not defined. .md is not defined. .voucher is not defined. mbpV2 is not defined. .res is a Microsoft C++ resource file.
I opened my Amazon contents link and sent a hundred books to my three PCs. A dozen or so have arrived on this one.
azw is Amazon’s proprietary file format that Kindle uses. If you specifically didn’t use the “download and transfer by USB’ option but just resent books to your PCs, you will still have trouble getting them into Calibre.
The easiest way would be to send all your books to one of your Kindles. Then connect that Kindle to your PC via USB. Calibre will connect to it and you can import all the books.
Any books with DRM (Digital Rights Management) are encrypted. Calibre has a plugin that removes DRM using a Kindle’s unique S/N. Not all books have DRM. Once DRM is removed, you can covert ebooks to other formats.
Processed the third sheep tonight from the three we brought home on the 21st. He hung out in the rabbit pen eating hay for the last umpteen days. We are in the middle of Anchorage but he was a quiet fellow and only baa’d if we were late with dinner.
I think this is cool but some folks may find it gross. A video of me blowing up his lungs tonight.
https://youtu.be/hjHkPE3OPB0?si=ttRLNw5pkZeGQN9h
25 years ago today my husband and I had our first date. Lots of ups and downs over the years. It’s incredible to me we’ve been together for nearly half our lives. We count ourselves fortunate.