Cool and clear again, although we had some threatening clouds in the afternoon yesterday. It was well into the 80s and sweaty to be working outside. Probably more of that today.
But I won’t be working outside. I’ll be inside trying mightily to keep my insides inside me… as the evil clean out stuff does its job cleaning me out in preparation for an up close and personal inspection.
It’s something we all must endure as we get older, and it’s truly a modern miracle that we even have something like this available to us. I’m sure countless lives have been saved, or prolonged, and the quality of life improved for many. Still doesn’t make it enjoyable.
I did get a couple of things done yesterday before drinking the devil’s spit cup. Got some more of the Halloween decor put away. Got a couple more things sorted for auction or BOL. And then spent hours sitting. Gah.
I’ve got more of that to do today. 6am, second dose. Followed by lots of fluid. Eventually I’ll head to the facility. General anesthetic and cameras inserted from both ends, some indignities perpetrated against me, and I should be home for dinner…
There is always that slight risk though. It’s been on my mind. No way through but through at this point. I’m convinced of the necessity to rule out any serious issues, especially when things in the world are so unstable and no one knows what the future will hold. Hopefully, after some short period of time, I’ll know what my personal future doesn’t hold. That’s the goal anyway.
Meanwhile, fix what you can. And stack.
nick
The point of the piece was probably to reiterate what the media views as the “hypocrisy” of Ron DeSantis in the ongoing feud with Disney.
The problem with publishing the pictures is that the images of the couple are the immigrant American Dream fulfilled. I think the “leak” has backfired spectacularly on the Dems.
DeSantis won Dade County for the Republicans for the first time in 20 years.
Plus, those are real service medals on the groom’s Navy uniform, earned in Falujah.
Unlike Beau’s, for instance.
BTW, DeSantis is winning the feud, but that doesn’t get much press.
Best wishes for a swift and painless procedure,followed by an all-clear, Nick.
Yeah, it’s a bit strange, because usually disks give fair warning beforehand. Actually, the disks are in external, individual boxes, so it’s also possible that the box failed and not the disk.
The logical drive is clear (/dev/sdc), but that’doesn’t help with the physical. Your idea is probably the simplest: force some disk activity and see which disk vibrates…
The former Crossroads site continues to sit vacant where construction on a new offramp for the Disney property in Orlando should have already been well underway.
If the rumors are true about the “South Park” creative duo looking to franchise Casa Bonita on a limited basis, the Crossroads site would offer plenty of space.
I’m up, took the “day of ” dose, and have started on the followup 16oz of fluid- black coffee in my case.
Don’t know if I’ll stand at the end of the street waiting for the bus with D2… seems like tempting fate.
n
On RAID:
I orginally rolled my own with OS software. It worked but was clunky. Then I tried some Mac specific software. It had more features and I even made a 4-flash drive RAID that worked. When our biz data started to accumulate, I bought a Drobo RAID. Drives failed in that box twice, but I got messages indicating which drive and which slot it was in. That Drobo eventually was discontinued and I was offered no discount on an upgrade, so I started researching a new RAID. I ended up with a Synology and am pleased with it. It has sat in a linen closet I use for network stuff for over a year and has only been off for OS upgrades. I use Backblaze for backup, and it is mirrored to our biz Dropbox. I have about 1T of personal junk and 1T of biz stuff.
*The Synology is currently being probed via SMB 3-4 times a day from overseas IPs (mostley shit-hole countries). I limit login attempts to 5 in 5 minutes for now, but will have to rework SMB or maybe change the name of my Synology access. There is a way to block outside-the-US IPs that I’m reading up on that has worked for others.
65F and sunny with little to no breeze.
I like that it’s not dark when I’m standing with D2 on the corner of the street waiting for the bus.
n
The flip side of that is that it’ll be getting dark by 5:30 this afternoon.
Doctor’s office called, wants to move my procedure up an hour. Joy. At least I’ll be able to eat sooner…
n
That’s…
(rhymes with bitty)
At this point, everythingin the room is shirty.
Sprayed everything down with leftover sanitizer. Lotsof sanitizer.
N.
I’ve messed up enough offspring. I don’t need to add more to the tally.
The worst thing that you can do to your offspring is to walk away from them. You did not do that so they are not truly messed up.
“The Girl Who Owned a City” by O. T. (Terry) Nelson
https://www.amazon.com/Girl-Who-Owned-City/dp/0761350861?tag=ttgnet-20/
A standalone juvenile apocalyptic science fiction book. I read the well printed and well bound trade paperback published by Carolrhoda Books in 2012 that I bought new on Amazon. The original book was published by Dell in 1975. The book is dedicated to Lisa and Todd. There is also a graphic novel edition published in 2012.
https://www.amazon.com/Girl-Who-Owned-City-Graphic/dp/0761356347?tag=ttgnet-20/
The book starts a short time after all of the adults on Earth above the age of twelve have passed away due to a deadly virus. Lisa Nelson is a ten year girl who is taking care of her of her younger brother Todd in their family home. She is raiding abandoned homes for food, matches, and other supplies. Many of the kids are joining gangs with the promise of food and safety in numbers. Things come to a head when Lisa is away and a gang breaks into their home, beats up Todd, and steals all of their food. Lisa must find a safer place for them and more food.
The book is kind of a mix of “Lord Of The Flies” and any number of deadly viral outbreak (pandemic) novels. In fact, the book could also be influenced by an early Star Trek episode, “Miri”.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0394905/
There is a much better review by James Nicoll at:
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/dreams-stay-big
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_Who_Owned_a_City
My rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars (783 reviews)
Lynn
Thanks for the recommendation on the Air Force Ordinance Museum. Nicely done facility and the non-existent entry fee was a bonus. It was interesting to see the number of different bombs, and weapons, that have been designed over the years to kill and destroy people and buildings. A little bit sobering.
Here is a link to some pictures I took. All with my iPhone 15 Pro. Lighting indoors was a challenge.
https://www.raymondthompsonphotography.com/Museum
I did go on base at Elgin AFB. That is one large base, the largest in the U.S. Speeds on some roads were 45 MPH which is fast for a military facility. Wife and I went to the base exchange and purchase a couple of items.
I did notice that most Apple products were the same price as the Apple stores. The only savings are tax, about 10% from TN. I get that discount using the Apple VA website so no real savings at the exchange. A few items were cheaper, but not many.
“The Nashville Mass Murderer Was a Bigot but That’s NOT the Biggest Story Being Revealed”
https://jdrucker.substack.com/p/the-nashville-mass-murderer-was-a
“Anyone who wants to hear or read the heinous vitriol written by Nashville mass murderer Audrey “Aiden” Hale can watch Steven Crowder reading it or read about it themselves at The Post Millennial. I’m not shy, especially when it comes to revealing the truth, but I’m not going to post any of the garbage here because the bigger story must be told.”
“The fact that Hale was a deranged and violent bigot is a big story, but the bigger story is the coverup. Now that we know she was loaded with hate, the measures undertaken by our own government, including multiple city, state, and federal agencies, to hide the manifesto should be considered criminal.”
“Here’s what the manifesto and Hale’s history demonstrate. Hale was mentally ill with gender dysphoria. She received “gender affirming care” to help her “transition.” Whether during this transition or after, she was indoctrinated into a radical leftist perspective of anti-White hatred that permeates across society today as a direct result of “wokeness” that drives both “white guilt” and anti-White actions.”
Wow. Just wow.
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
“New technology makes battery “power stations” more interesting”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2023/11/new-technology-makes-battery-power.html
“We’ve spoken in the past about emergency power generation, usually through gasoline or propane generators, and recently by using so-called “power stations”, effectively large batteries that deliver “clean” electrical power but tend to be more expensive than generators (sometimes much more). Popular brands in power stations include (but are not limited to) Bluetti, Ecoflow and Jackery. I own products from both of the latter companies, largely because I was able to catch a price break on them when I needed one.”
Audrey Hale was also getting testosterone treatments in aid of transitioning.
Known side effects of boosting testosterone include anger, bursts of violence, and suicidal thoughts.
Men have dealt with these effects for their whole lives and most have learned to control the urges.
“Transmen” have not.
Of course, anyone suffering from “gender dysphoria” is by definition crazy to begin with, so boosting testosterone can only make things worse.
(See also: testosterone replacement therapy for adult men, and the common behavior coming out of this. Greg can recite chapter and verse, I imagine.)
“Elon Musk’s xAI Officially Announces Grok, Its Answer to ChatGPT”
https://www.pcmag.com/news/elon-musks-xai-officially-announces-grok-its-answer-to-chatgpt
“After showing off a few screenshots of the chatbot on X late Saturday night, Elon Musk’s xAI has now officially announced Grok.”
“Grok is “AI modeled after Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” and is intended to both answer questions as well as make suggestions on what to ask, according to a blog post from xAI.”
Somebody has read Heinlein.
Ugh. Haven’t been able to log into my bank for a couple of days, for start of month bill pays, using my M2 Mac.
Tried the 2016 Windows 10 laptop just now … no problem.
Great.
I see your teen who bought a city, and raise you a teen who bought the entire Earth one evening:
http://www.cordwainer-smith.com/norstrilia.htm
If I go to the doc and get this, can I get by with a half dose? It’s not like I have have anyone around to have fun with. I just kinda miss my morning kickstand that made it hard to get out of bed for most of my life.
the Girl Who Owned a City is a gateway to prepping and post-apocalyptic fiction. It’s pretty good for what it is. Some gaping holes though. Like why not just turn all the domestic livestock loose?
There is a powerful scene where the heroine is at risk that bothered my little one so much she didn’t want to read the rest of the book. Have to be ready for that, and push on.
n
Which browser are you using? I have had issues with some of my financial institutions not working problem with Edge. Chrome works. Others Safari pukes and Edge and Chrome works.
The developers break standards using features a particular browser supports. Such idiot developers not realizing that not everyone uses the same browser. And they developers never test on other browsers.
The good thing about HTML standards, is there are so many from which to choose.
I see your teen who bought a city, and raise you a teen who bought the entire Earth one evening:
http://www.cordwainer-smith.com/norstrilia.htm
Lisa Nelson did not buy a city, she took the city.
Like why not just turn all the domestic livestock loose?
Sick people don’t get things done ?
Safari, but apparently I am one update behind, I guess one came out after Apple’s big nothing-show the other day.
Downloading now.
The old 2012 MacBook Pro laptop has an non-updateable version of Safari that stopped working for login early this year, but Safari for login worked on the M2 (and the 2018 Mac Mini) until this weekend.
If you still have problems send me your banking credentials so I can try from my M2 MacBook Air. I can try with Chrome and Safari.
Snicker, you can trust me. Snicker. Glad to help. Snicker.
Odd, “Ray Thompson” doesn’t sound Nigerian…
OK, my logon user name is *jenny” and password is “8675309”.
Code Brown! Code Brown!
The cr*ppiest place on Earth! Disney theme parks have been hit by so many people POOPING in lines for rides that cleaners now have special code to alert them to human feces
plugsy McSpongeBrain The Last doesn’t have this problem. He just dumps in his diaper.
The goobermint MyPay website for retired puke pay always tells me, “Safari isn’t supported”, but it works anyway. Apparently, the site only supports Chrome fully.
“If you still have problems send me your banking credentials so I can try from my M2 MacBook Air. I can try with Chrome and Safari.”
I’ll just send you the info on where to make the payments, and we’ll see if it works from your bank.
In many of those cases, it’s not the developers’ doing. It’s management diktat that only Browser X, Version N, will be supported and if the users don’t like it, screw them.
Never mind that in many of the cases that I saw it, it was a public-facing government website and the managers were in effect requiring that members of the public use an old version of MS Windows and an old version of Internet Explorer to use the taxpayer-funded sites which were the only way for the public to submit state-required paperwork. Also, the words used were not “screw them” but were instead words which are generally avoided on this site.
(Did I file formal “outsider” complaints about the sites? Yes, I did. Did the complaints have any impact at all? No, they didn’t. Was this in fact a violation of ADA and other laws? Yes, it was.)
Code Brown! Code Brown!
The cr*ppiest place on Earth! Disney theme parks have been hit by so many people POOPING in lines for rides that cleaners now have special code to alert them to human feces
plugsy McSpongeBrain The Last doesn’t have this problem. He just dumps in his diaper.
People are disgusting. That said, I remember that the bathrooms in Disneyworld were not plentiful.
WDW bathrooms are plentiful. Depending on the demo at the park, they may have a lot of people who p!ss on the floor into visible floor drains, but are otherwise usually clean, in my experience. There are some that are too small for the area they serve, that’s for sure.
And oddly, they aren’t aimed at kids. Legoland toilets have small stalls and low sinks for the kids.
WDW are all giant toilets with jet powered suction.
n
I survived.
Ate and fell asleep in the chair when I got home AFTER a thorough shower.
Everything they found, got removed, two ‘clips’ will be expelled in due time. Waiting for pathology in a couple of weeks, but doc said not to worry about it.
Woke up ok, a bit loopy for a short time. The Micheal Jackson sleep aid… competently applied in this case.
Thank you for the support and well wishes. It means a lot.
n
I’m not on T therapy, but we strongly suspect that management’s management at the tolling company was on a mega dose.
A quack medicine fad is for women to get on low doses of T therapy to help with sex drive. I’ve sometimes wondered if that is what was the catalyst for a friend’s divorce.
Cool pics.
Our last trip to Fort Walton Beach was July 2020, at the height of the pandemic kabuki, and the inside portion of the museum was not open.
When I left CGI in Feb. 2018, the software we installed was still Java applet based, requiring the last version of IE with NSAPI support. I doubt that has changed in five years since the product was legacy AMS.
BTW, new releases of Java 8 still have the NSAPI plug in dll, but your applet will need a signed certificate for the security policy.
@Nick: Glad to hear it went well!
Yes, glad everything came out all right.
Snicker.
Nick, check email when you get a chance. Not urgent.
Everything they found, got removed, two ‘clips’ will be expelled in due time. Waiting for pathology in a couple of weeks, but doc said not to worry about it.
My wife got one of the colon reinforcement metal rings last year after one of the thirteen polyps was extremely difficult to remove. She passed the ring after a few days. She also got an invitation to visit back in three years.
BTW, new releases of Java 8 still have the NSAPI plug in dll, but your applet will need a signed certificate for the security policy.
I lost all desire to use Java when Oracle sued Google over supposed copyright violations. That went way too far.
So, 10GB of updates, no change. Oh well.
Another house in my neighborhood just went up for sale for an oh my goodness amount.
https://www.har.com/homedetail/1219-mulberry-farm-ln-richmond-tx-77469/2401697?lid=8278124
Are these people crazy ? That house would have sold for way less than a million when I bought my house four years ago.
It could be an organic change, ie. some life event is prompting the sale, but it’s just as likely that the timing is because they heard about high demand and high valuations, and it took them time to act on the knowledge.
Meanwhile, interest rates went up, effectively lowering the price buyers can afford to pay.
Or it could be that they’ll get it because it still looks cheap to a Cali refugee or someone trying to move ill gotten gains out of an unstable country like india or china.
n
https://www.theblaze.com/news/police-arrive-to-find-suspected-thief-hoisted-in-getaway-vehicle-20-feet-above-junkyard
They had the sawzall–should have told him they were going to use it.
Just ate a sandwich for ‘second supper’. There is still a lot of rumbling and grumbling from my lower half. I imagine that takes a day or three to settle back into normal.
n
@lynn, the listing description certainly uses all the synonyms for “expensive” – timeless, spacious, meticulous, luxurious, gourmet… Realtor ™ knows their business.
And it has a turret!
n
“And it has a turret!”
Sniper tower.
“WATCH: Tucker Carlson: ‘What happens when you give Hillary the finger?'”
https://www.wnd.com/2023/11/watch-tucker-carlson-happens-give-hillary-finger/
“‘Ask Martin Shkreli. He did four and a half years in prison’”
“Ep. 36 What happens when you give Hillary Clinton the finger? Ask Martin Shkreli. He did four and a half years in prison. That may be why Sam Bankman-Fried just asked his advice on doing time.”
In Las Vegas, six and one half hours of driving time. Visiting a friend I haven’t seen since the mid ’90s. We tutored at NC State at the same time.
– not “worth” but “valued at” by some scheming pencil neck…
Some people must have made a lot of money off this trainwreck, the founder seems to have iirc. Which means some people lost an awful lot of money.
Every voluntary transaction has two sides that BOTH think they are right.
n
@bob, you’re making good time and progress.
n
>>The cr*ppiest place on Earth! Disney theme parks have been hit by so many people POOPING in lines for rides that cleaners now have special code to alert them to human feces
This is the experience that people pay thousands of dollars for? I’ve been there once, almost 30 years ago, and really don’t have the desire to go back. Is Disneyland just as bad?
The grandkids had a great time earlier this year at the county fair.
Is Disneyland just as bad?
– my understanding is the DL is FAR WORSE. It’s physically smaller, closer to a lot more humanity, and the number of local ‘youths’ with Annual Passes and no real love for the place is much higher. The urban element is concentrated outside of the core properties at WDW, but is right there in DLand.
n
My wife and I had an unreal experience this afternoon. Our dog thought it was great fun.
My wife and I were walking this afternoon on the country road in front of our house as we do most days. A woman came down the road towards going at least 45 mph on our 30 mph road with no shoulders and no sidewalks. The woman in the car would not move over to the middle of the road as people are supposed to do. I yelled at my wife to jump in the ditch. So my wife and dog and I had to jump in the ditch to avoid getting run over. We are not young and jumping in the five foot deep ditch for us can be dangerous. As she passed me in her car, the woman driver glared at me.
Man I just wrote 200 words on bad behavior by people from foreign lands that think they have money at WDW and other orlando parks, while having no idea what real money and class look like… and wordpress dropped it.
Not the old server issue, one unique to being logged in to wp when I start a comment, but being logged out after 24hours while I’m writing it, so that when I hit ‘submit’ I don’t have anything in the required fields, because when I’m logged in the required fields don’t matter and aren’t there. Gah. It catches me about once a week.
Anyway, my guess about who is dropping a dookie in the dark corner is – probably not the kid there on a band trip from Walter Mondale High School in Idaho…
n
the woman driver glared at me.
– you’re lucky she didn’t end up driving where she was looking. And lucky you weren’t hurt or killed.
n
Somewhat related: One of my neighbors got a good deal on a new Windows laptop. He figured he would replace his ancient Mac. I helped him get it set up, moved his data, etc.. That was some months ago.
Saw him again yesterday, and he’s given up. It’s just too different, so he’s sticking with his old Mac. The Apple “walled garden” in action.
Yes, well: the original VC investors made out just fine. The idea that this company would be a high flyer was always dopey. The “moonshots” all bank on being able to scale fast. That relies on the fact that the company is only managing electrons (Google, Microsoft, etc.).
When you actually own and manage real estate – a physical thing, instead of electrons – this cannot work. But suckers are born every minute, so…
In seriousness, what is likely to happen now: WeWork will dump their unprofitable bits, keep the parts that are profitable, and continue on as if they didn’t just destroy a lot of other people’s money. That’s what bankruptcy courts do.
Sorry to hear about that – hope y’all are ok. There aren’t actually that many jerks in the world, but they do make an outsized and lasting impression 🙁