Cool and clear, again, and still. Nice in other words. This is winter in Houston. Some rain coming though, just not sure when. Long range forecast has us clear through Thursday or Friday at least.
Spent yesterday doing errands and work. Did my kid chauffeuring in the morning and afternoon. Got to my client’s and swapped some gear. The switch I picked doesn’t seem to work in the application. The goal is to get internet and internal net to the remote driveway gate. I used a pair of ubiquiti AC5’s in “cable replacement mode” for the wireless link between the house and the gate, but I need to provide PoE for the AC5 and I need a small rugged switch there to connect the AC5 and the gate company’s hardware, and provide a future upgrade port for a camera, also PoE. I was using a NanoSwitch, which is 4 ports of PoE passthru. The one I was using had a dead port from a lightning strike so I wanted to replace it.
Enter the Flex mini… a 5 port switch, powered by PoE and providing 4 ports of PoE… Seems perfect, and it is smaller and cheaper than the Nano, and part of the unified management system. (ubiquiti has two main management systems, UISP and UniFi, no idea why, but most of the deployed gear at this site is UniFi and it is automagic… and simplifies deployment and management – when it works.) So the Flex looks like a good fit. Except it isn’t. UniFi gear has to be “adopted” by the management console (another piece of gear running EdgeOS and uses a browser as a GUI) before it’s anything but a lump. In other words, the AC5 provides the connection back to the network, but the switch isn’t a switch until AFTER it sees and joins the network…
When I figured that out, I took the switch inside, connected it to the network, adopted it, made sure it was configured to have PoE on every port, took it back out to the gate, hooked it all up and >>>>> Nothing. AC5 still not powered. The f-ing switch is too dumb (by being too smart) to turn on the PoE and enabling the gear that provides its network backhaul. So I add a PoE injector to power the AC5, and connect it to the switch, and NOW everything is fine. But it feels kludge-y and the additional injector is another point of failure in the enclosure, and it’s an example of someone being too clever by half.
At some point, I’ll go back to a new NanoSwitch, even if I can’t manage it with the same tool. It’s a cleaner solution. It occurs to me that I might not have the issues if I actually was trained on the gear choices but as my career winds down, that is less and less likely.
Someone asked yesterday about extending their wifi a little bit, and this is clearly overkill for that. I am happy with a netgear wifi extender at home. It plugs into a wall outlet for power, and it works to extend my wifi into the back bedroom with a good signal. It needs to be rebooted every couple of months, but other than that, once configured it just keeps working. It also has an ethernet port to provide a wired connection to the wifi for older hardware. Using APs with mesh linking and backhaul is another more involved option.
—————————————
Today I’ll do a couple of auction pickups and some shopping for us and for my party duties. With collecting the kids from school, that will eat my day.
—————————————-
Btw, anyone else have an ulcer/cold sore/fever blister/painful crack on their lip that is unusual for them, along with cold or flu symptoms? My client’s wife has the same symptoms I’ve been having this week, right down to the sore lip. IDK if this is related, something new going around, or just coincidence, so I’m asking the group.
—————————————
Take this time as the gift it is, and keep preparing. Stacking is preparing…and it’s easy.
nick
RTWT: Mice And Minds: Part 2
(It’s not just about mice!)
Turbo Pascal led to Turbo C, which was a huge democratization of that language for $99.
Microsoft charged $499 for their big box C compiler. I did shrink wrap on that a couple of times at the Egghead Ponzi, but Microsoft did sell QuickBasic for $99 at the Ponzi, which was not as important as Turbo Pascal/C but had its place in automation history.
If you were mucking about with RS232 on a PC, QuickBasic was the way to go.
The people who “evaluated” Microsoft’s C compiler tended to be people from that company which rhymes with “funny well”, which had a huge Space/Defense-related plant in Clearwater a few miles south.
Gates and, thus, much of the rest of the industry viewed Philippe Khan as a poseur, but Khan had the last laugh, cashing royalty checks for the camera phone.
I wonder how many hookers and steaks were involved in the infamous lunch ~ 24 years ago, when Microsoft recruited Anders Hejlsberg by sending a limo to Borland’s parking lot right off the highway in Scotts Valley.
I went there. No security. I pulled up right to the front of the building in the rental car … just like the limo.
Notched another on my list of famous/infamous places in tech history.
I have mixed feelings about the benefit of IDEs. I hate when developers use Visual Studio Code on Linux and are helpless in the environment outside of that tool.
“How do I rename a file without ‘ren’?”
“What’s a ‘Nubian’?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHLJfxfXHBg
Which reminds me – vimdiff disappeared from the developer environment at work this week when the IDE favored by the Fancy Lads required VIM 9.0 which RHEL does not currently support. The admins yanked the VIM packages in favor of make/install, but they forgot vimdiff.
Yeah, Keivin Smith’s production design people always nail fake cons and panels in his movies.
The last interesting standoff I saw between a con panel speaker and the audience was at the small show in Round Rock last year where the Powerhouse Animation team responsible for killing He-Man in “Masters of the Universe: Revelation” appeared to talk up the show and (then) pending second season of that disaster.
No gun necessary that afternoon. The Girl Boss panel moderator from Powerhouse had dressed for the occasion – t-shirt with strategically ripped out arms and a black lace bra peeking out whenever she lifted her arm to brush back her hair following an uncomfortable question.
I couldn’t decide if Girl Boss really worked for Powerhouse or was a hired pro. Probably the latter.
Cons are always interesting people watching. In Texas, Furries are a given unless the weather is *really* hot/humid.
Just a free speech issue. Nothing to see here. Move along.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/desantis-board-accuses-disney-controlling-previous-one-with-gifts-2023-12-04/
The new owners will still face Super Mario’s arrival in a little more than a year with nothing in the pipeline to compete.
DeSantis may finally start construction on the old Crossroads property, however.
Granted, you should know how to use your operating system. In Linux, that means CLI. I do a lot of basic stuff: mv/rm/chown/rsync/etc.. Plus ssh/sftp because I manage a couple of little servers, also running Linux.
On the other hand, no one can know everything. I’ve never gotten into Bash programming for example. Sure, you can do neat stuff with Bash-scripts, but there are only so many hours in a day. No Emacs either – it is anything but intuitive, and just not worth the mental bandwidth for me.
!!!???
Burn the heretic!
All the non-dos keybindings made linux a painful thing for me. Learning a new text editor is like learning to type on a dvorak keyboard. Sure you get a benefit, eventually, but you’re always swimming upstream.
47F this morning, sunny and clear. Kids have early afternoon things, so I will be ending my day early after all.
————-
– in retrospect, not sure that those changes to TV were positive. Maybe in the time and specific cases, but it led to “The CW” and all the crep they put out.
n
I hated Emacs back in the late 90s when I worked at GTE. Developers would use lack of Emacs as an excuse to not get their work done, and then they would crush our systems trying to compile the environment from source.
People forget that, pre-Linux, Posix was an API standard which had a license fee involved and none of the vendors implemented very well since they had to work backwards from established APIs.
Config/make used to be a cr*p shoot on just about anything other than a Sun OS environment, and even then, it wasn’t foolproof.
Holy crap.
Juda sPriest:
Taylor Swift is named Time’s Person of the Year
“I made a lot of money so I’m better than you. Now look at my sexy poses and boobs.”
I couldn’t name or ID a Swifty song.
I was hoping Kim Chung Fatso would win.
This sort of cultural attack doesn’t “just happen” it’s being orchestrated and driven, if there was ANY doubt left in anyone’s mind…
n
If someone posted a picture of Swift and said it was AI generated, everyone would be talking about how the AI missed the mark and the pic doesn’t look like a real person…
There is something ‘uncanny valley’ about every picture of her face I’ve ever seen.
———-
She’s also talented and business savvy, or has some REALLY good advisors that she actually listens to. It’s very hard to
makekeep money in the music business.I was surprised yesterday to look at the radio and see that the country song on the radio was a Taylor Swift song. D2 then advised me that she started in country, and crossed over to pop, something that very few artists have ever done successfully.
n
The upside of the CW is that it went too far and made Hollywood comfortable pushing the agenda to the point that a writer could pen a line like “Ten is the new sixteen” on “Naomi” which would make air.
Norman Lear finally went too far with “A Year At The Top” and it pretty much ended his career.
Hollywood going to far has bankrupted Disney and left the entire industry in trouble.
Taylor Swift’s parents had serious careers at Merrill Lynch back when that name meant anything.
These days, whenever I see the name, I think of the freak show I used to see riding the elevator to work during my brief Seattle employment experience. The company I worked for shared a floor with the Bank of America “Private Wealth Management” which used to be part of Merrill, and the employees who worked in what I assumed to be some kind of back room office were … interesting.
Swift makes bank, but the real money is in games.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12830093/GTA-6-London-schoolboy-brothers-created-valuable-game.html
I stopped playing GTA after a day or so when I realized how much it affected my behaviour and mood. Shite made me aggro as heII.
n
One of my sibs worked in the same division, different city. Used to be on the bank’s Designated Survivor list and got locked in a business continuity vault for a week every couple of months.
Based on stories from family, the bankers have nothing on lawyers when it comes to weird…
n
Even though they have beclowned themselves, you are paying for this so you should know it’s there…
And I’ve noted before the shift in language around the chinkyflu, now it’s “seasonal” …
Monday, September 11, 2023
Their billboards urging the shot on people also use the word “seasonal”. Hooray, it’s like the common cold, or flu. The flu does kill people, so there is that, but very few people worry about the flu. I’m amazed that even though the billboards are in Texas and I’ve seen them with my own eyes, I can’t find an image online, even using the ducks.
n
Can they actually test and tell them apart now? “Flu” dropped to zero during the height of Covid as I recall.
No sane person would take any advice from Phizer at this point.
The local Faux News 10 PM broadcast now has Spikevax commercials every night. Checking quickly, it appears that the commercial version of the Moderna jab snuck through approval in September.
I continue to be part of the Control.
We’ll see who rusts first.
Bank of America needs to get over itself.
Private Wealth Management in Seattle employed a lot of transgendered individuals from what I saw.
Of course, you can rest assured that they dressed the part, but a woman wearing black knee boots with a three inch heel in Downtown Seattle is going to stick out even if “she” isn’t 6’5″ after adding the heels.
I’ve got actual genetic female cousins that would come pretty close to that height in those boots.
My daughter is complaining about growth pains in her feet again, she might make it to that height too. At 14 she’s 5′ 8 ½” already.
n
Do some active fathering and tell her that she probably won’t get much taller but she might well have Size 13 feet by the time she’s done growing. Like a circus clown.
There have been claims for more than two years that the quick nasal swab tests can distinguish between SARS-CoV-2 and colds, flus, and other coronaviruses. When I attempted to dig into these claims, I found nothing other than unsupported assurances, references to “sources” which also had nothing but unsupported claims, and ad hominem attacks.
It’s entirely possible that I missed something, either not seeing it at all or not paying for access or not recognizing the significance of what I read. It’s possible that I did find something and it’s dribbled out of my brain in the past couple years.
However, it’s also entirely possible that this has been nothing but bullshit from the start. And in particular that the “covid tests” other than full RNA analysis do nothing more than test for antibodies to “a” coronavirus.
Considering that I’m not a complete idiot, not lazy, and know how to do research (even if I’m hampered by not paying to get access to the allegedly good stuff) and that we have hard evidence of lies and manipulation since 2019, I know where I’d be placing my bets.
Yeah, bullsh*t. Trump tho.
I’ve always viewed it as kabuki. If it had been serious, from the start they would have applied the same public health practices to Covid that they do to TB, which is treatable.
A lot of people saw an opportunity to make a great deal of money on tests, jabs, masks, hand sanitizer, … the list goes on. And, of course, there is the segment of the population who will not be satisfied that they are “safe” until Donald J. Trump is hanging from a gallows constructed above the very same spot on the Capitol steps where he was inaugurated in 2017 – a dark day for humanity in their minds, akin to the rise of Hitler.
Of course, never forget that Trump let this happen because he lost his nerve even though he knew it was bullsh*t too.
@MrK: I would fail it if I took it today or anytime in the past. From day 1 in the university I was in the chemical engineering stream. I must have taken, and passed 1 physics class, but never studied in it to that depth. I did specialize in thermodynamics and the transfer subjects of heat, mass, momentum.
There it is, right in our faces:
Joe Biden raises the specter of American troops having to fight Russians in Europe if Congress stands by and allows Ukraine to fall
“Give me what I want, or I send your chillin’s to die in Ukraine.” That’s right up there with the moronic “you can’t fight the goobermint because it has nukes and F15s.”
Beau…Beau…Beau…
FJB! and JEB! and Pelosi and Schumer and …
tRump, tho.
Sarah expands on yesterday’s post.
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2023/12/05/keep-your-hair-on/
She has some interesting points, and questions today.
I like Sarah Hoyt, but I wish she would edit her blog entries. It’s just a stream of consciousness: she doesn’t know where she’s going as she writes it. I wish she would edit it, cut the length by 90% and make her points. Instead, she rambles…
So do I.
Btw, anyone else have an ulcer/cold sore/fever blister/painful crack on their lip that is unusual for them, along with cold or flu symptoms? My client’s wife has the same symptoms I’ve been having this week, right down to the sore lip. IDK if this is related, something new going around, or just coincidence, so I’m asking the group.
Stay away from people in these diseased times. Humans are just big bags of viruses and bacteria.
Please. The US already has “boots on the ground” in the Ukraine.
The Russians are not going to invade Poland.
An end to the Ukraine mess means that Corn Pop’s rackets may see the light of day before he assumes room temperature.
On a related note:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/kamala-harris-receives-golden-gavel-after-setting-record-for-tie-breaking-senate-votes/ar-AA1l5HVf
The Republicans would be stupid to schedule a floor vote for a new VP if Kamala moves up.
I have mixed feelings about the benefit of IDEs. I hate when developers use Visual Studio Code on Linux and are helpless in the environment outside of that tool.
I’ve got over 5,000 source code files across 70+ directories for my calculation engine and over 2,000 source code files across 12+ directories for my Windows user interface. Both are incredible messes with idiot developers scattering files all over our 20+ GB sandbox. I do not have a working IDE for my calculation engine YET but I have been using Visual Studio for the Windows user interface since Visual C++ 6. I now use Visual Studio 2015 for my Windows user interface.
You really think that sponge brain is making those decisions? Someone, somewhere, is planting this stuff in spongey’s brain. Spongey is too senile to be able to coordinate this stuff on his own.
When Trump was president, or even Obuttwad, there was something on the major video news networks everyday, even if just a small segment, of what the president was doing, or saying. With spongey there may be two or three days before he is shown on the news. The networks, and his handlers, know spongey is a problem. A problem they try to keep hidden.
I dislike Trump immensely. I think he is an egotistical person. I think he lies about a lot of things or adversely stretches the truth in his favor. I think he is vindictive to people that don’t hold his same views. I would never be his friend, on purpose.
At least he does not bow to anyone. Maybe that is something we have needed in the presidential office. Someone with no political baggage and kickbacks to be satisfy. Someone who speaks his mind and is not afraid to tell others to F off. Or maybe that is the worst thing we could have with geopolitical tensions in the world.
From one of my cousins:
“Dearest Mother and Father,
I hope this letter finds you in good health amidst the chaos of the modern age. I am writing to recount the harrowing experience I recently faced on the treacherous fields of the Carrollton Department of Motor Vehicles Mega Center.
Picture this: a line stretching longer than the Mississippi itself, with fellow comrades dressed in the most peculiar garments; a veritable menagerie of unwashed masses. We all stood arrayed against the plutocracy of the DMV, a place where time stands still. This inhumane challenge tested my resolve to the core as if I were facing General Lee himself at the Battle of Antietam.
The skirmish commenced with paperwork more intricate than decoding Confederate secrets. I navigated through forms as complex as deciphering a cryptic message from the enemy. My quill nearly ran dry and I longed for the simplicity of smoke signals.
As I approached the dreaded counter, the clerk seemed more stoic than a Union soldier facing Pickett’s Charge. Each question asked felt like cannon fire, and I, a mere foot soldier, struggled to provide the requisite information.
Alas, the photograph session was the pinnacle of absurdity. I stood before a device that captured my likeness but I was given little chance to form a likeable countenance. I fear the results may scare little children and pets alike.
In conclusion, the renewal of my driver’s license proved to be a quest of legendary proportions. I have ultimately emerged victorious, albeit with battle scars in the form of a grainy photograph that would make even the most seasoned war veteran cringe.
I send this missive with hopes that my tale will encourage others who need to endure this challenge with a strong heart and firm resolve. Until we meet again, may your cell reception remain plentiful and the cows return home from their grazing forthwith.
Your faithful son,”
Visual Studo is a fine tool for development on Windows. I don’t believe the IDE is appropriate for Linux.
Config/make used to be a cr*p shoot on just about anything other than a Sun OS environment, and even then, it wasn’t foolproof.
I use a script called makeall.bat to rebuild my calculation engine from scratch on my PC. I have not rebuilt on Unix boxen in decades but we never used make since we were supporting 13 platforms at one point.
Bahahaha. We just went through the Ken Burns series on Frank Lloyd Wright after our trip to Taliesin in early November so I know exactly what the writer was going for with the style.
All the Burns documentaries are essentially the same.
She’s also talented and business savvy, or has some REALLY good advisors that she actually listens to. It’s very hard to
makekeep money in the music business.I was surprised yesterday to look at the radio and see that the country song on the radio was a Taylor Swift song. D2 then advised me that she started in country, and crossed over to pop, something that very few artists have ever done successfully.
Dolly Parton crossed over to pop for a while. Maybe Loretta Lynn too.
Taylor Swift is reputedly a billionaire now. She has released over 20 albums. She is rereleasing her first seven albums, recording them again, and with extra content since she could not get control of the original albums.
Unfortunately, she burns hard for the LGBTQ… crowd.
The response from my 84 year old uncle:
“Yesterday, for the first time, I watched the movie “Red Badge of Courage” staring Audience Murphy. It was the story, told from a Yankee perspective, of a young man in his first battle against the Southern Confedracy. In his initial engagement, like many of his raw recruit friends, he fled from the battlefield. However, after a night of wandering and an encounter with a union soldier who hit him on his head and knocked him out, he met up with another soldier, played by Andy Devine, who helped him back to his company. In his next two battles, to counter his shame of having run, he picked up the flag from a fallen comrade and led the charge to take the hill from the Johnny Rebs.
As the movie ends, the company leaves the field of battle, unsure of why they fought that day.
So, keep up the good fight and watch out for those yankies.
Love
Dad”
BTW, my uncle’s grandfather was a Civil War veteran who fought in the Texas 5th Artillery unit. He passed away in 1950 at the age of 100.
She stayed politically quiet for some time. Then the PLT/Alphabet People bullied her into Dumbocratness. Too bad.
““You’re Not Doing the Work…You’re Hiding Behind the Skirts of the Attorney General!” – Ted Cruz UNLEASHES on Dirty Chris Wray Over Joe Biden’s Crimes (VIDEO)”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/12/youre-not-doing-work-youre-hiding-behind-skirts/
That’s my Junior Senator ! Our Senior Senator is just about worthless.
FIFY
But come to think of it…
Why would you need a justification?
I put over 27 gallons of regular unleaded in my truck yesterday at the bargain price of $2.559 / US gallon for a total of $70.00. Better enjoy it now, it won’t last.
Of course, The Greater Depression is coming and all bets are off for that coming nightmare.
“The energy storage space is heating up. Here are some of the technologies making a dent.”
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/energy-storage-long-duration-hydrogen-iron-air-zinc-gravity/698158/
“Utility Dive took a look at four technologies, and spoke to some of the companies spearheading them, to get a better picture of the emerging energy storage landscape”
I have to admit that hydrogen storage makes the most sense but, not in my backyard please. However, several of the power plant owners in Texas are installing huge battery systems already and right now. The battery storage systems in Texas can make 4,298 MW for at least two hours now.
Seems to me huge tanks of stored diesel on-site with a spare generator ready to go is better than blowing a lot of money on batteries. The fuel tanks will last years longer than the batteries.
But… I’m not getting my share of 10% for the Big Guy either.
I put over 27 gallons of regular unleaded in my truck yesterday at the bargain price of $2.559 / US gallon for a total of $70.00. Better enjoy it now, it won’t last.
I put in 19.99gal for $99.95 on Monday. Odd numbers, gas was under $5 at $4.99 so I remembered. I could do a little better if I went into town and got my gas at Costco, but I’m too lazy to spend the hour.
Rafael Edward is up for reelection next year. My guess used to be that he woud face Gregorio Eduardo, Greg Cazar, one of the local Congresscritters, but Cazar has not announced with time drawing short. Plus, Cazar is in a “safe” House seat which would be his as long as he wanted it.
“What was the code name for 64-bit Windows?” by Raymond Chen
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20231205-00/?p=109103
Heh.
More like Universal/BMG bullied Swift into supporting the agenda.
Comcast is 88% held by institutions with Vanguard, State Street, and Black Rock controlling ~ 20% of the shares.
In addition to holding the stock, the big fund companies also provide the entertainment companies with cheap loans to churn out product. Movies cost way more than they should to produce.
Go look at the trailer for the “Godzilla” flick which pounded the final nails into the Disney coffin this weekend, forcing The Mouse to give up on “The Marvels” and cutting 1000 screens. Toho made the movie for $15 million *in Japan*.
I never heard of Sundown. The jab at Sun is funny.
I quit paying attention about the time NT 5 came out but dumbed down with a lot of cruft from WinMe.
They called it Windows XP.
I had NT 5 Beta running on an old box. It never burped. It was missing parts that Win98 with the Plus pack had and that W98Se had but with all my poking around and everything, it never crashed.
Anyway.
Is that what Chromebooks run?
“Microsoft to offer consumers paid Windows 10 security updates for the first time”
https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/5/23988896/microsoft-windows-10-extended-security-updates-consumers-paid
“Microsoft will allow consumers to pay for Extended Security Updates (ESU) for Windows 10 when support ends for the operating system in 2025. The software giant usually only offers paid security updates for organizations that need to keep running older versions but now plans to offer them to individuals for the first time through an annual subscription service instead of extending the end of support date for Windows 10.”
Insert 25 cents to boot your computer today. (I stole that)
Is that what Chromebooks run?
Chromebooks run ChromeOS, a version of Linux. Android Phones run Android O/S, also a version of Linux.
https://www.google.com/chromebook/chrome-os/
Win95. duh.
So “the leading 64-bit operating system is Android” but it’s on phones. Not PCs. Just on phones and maybe running your TV or Roku?
Running servers? Of any kind. Like your bank’s on-line banking site?
I fail to see the part where “leading 64-bit operating system is Android” is meaningful or relevant. Pick the word of your choice. It’s like saying more folks use Android than use Windows or Apple’s OS. Or more folks drive a Chevy than a Ford or a Dodge.
Maybe I’m just grumpy.
Consider that we’re told 81 Million people voted for Joe Biden. Now, I doubt it’s true, but assume it is for sake of argument.
How many sane people does that leave?
“The Arthur C. Clarke Award Winners of the 21st Century” by Dan Livingston
https://best-sci-fi-books.com/the-arthur-c-clarke-award-winners-of-the-21st-century/
Pretty good list. I have read:
24. Distraction
16. Thirteen
10. Ancillary Justice
9. Station Eleven
I am considering purchasing 8. Children Of Time.
Dolly Parton crossed over to pop for a while. Maybe Loretta Lynn too.
–nah, they had SONGS that crossed over but they didn’t themselves. Swift is a pop star, not country.
It’s funny because most modern country could be pop if they just turned down the “twang” a little bit.
n
Taylor Swift has appeared at the Grand Ole Opry multiple times. She may be an honorary member.
Full members have to perform a certain number of times per year.
Elvis only got one appearance at the Opry.
“We know that the pillars of civilization are cheap energy, meritocracy, Law and Order, and free speech… ”
–Michael Shellenberger
https://slaynews.com/news/tucker-carlson-unloads-john-kerry-snarling-face-tyranny/
A good start, but I could add: Clean water, sufficient food, education, and the right to bear arms.
Not a fan of China Meiville, there is a lot of him, and like him, on that list.
n
Even Tex Ritter, “Big Al” in Country Bear Jamboree, wasn’t a full member of the Opry until the last few years of his life, after he moved to Nashville and proved his dedication to the organization.
Washington Post
Journalistsare Staging a Walkout. The Picketers are Anti-Semitic Communists and Liarshttps://stream.org/washington-post-journalists-are-staging-a-walkout-the-picketers-are-anti-semitic-communists-and-liars-who-owe-me-money/
I have $10 for a GoFund Me to drop them into Gaza to report document the solidarity of vicious anti-Semites with their cause.
Since that won’t happen, the best I can do is hope that one of these poseurs has some dirt to drop that will cost Bozos a boatload of money.
His pillars are nuts.
Civilization literally is living in cities.
you need rule of law, sanitation, a functional marketplace, division of labor, and a degree of tolerance for the “other”. His pillars are fluff.
n
Dolly Parton crossed over to pop for a while. Maybe Loretta Lynn too.
–nah, they had SONGS that crossed over but they didn’t themselves. Swift is a pop star, not country.
It’s funny because most modern country could be pop if they just turned down the “twang” a little bit.
Taylor Swift definitely started out country. Her first big hit was Tim McGraw.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkD20ajVxnY
Her first tour was backing up Brad Paisley with Kellie Pickler in 2008. They aren’t as much Country as David Allan Coe but they are Country.
My insurance agent just hit me with the renewal of the liability and property insurance for my office complex. The insurance is increasing from $10,520 to $16,519. They increased the replacement value of the buildings to $1.3 million. I am shocked.
I am suspecting that I am not going to be able to hold onto the office complex more than another couple of years with the amount of insurance and property tax increases. My main tenant cannot pay any more rent and in fact needs a rate decrease. My other two tenants are hurting too.
When it rains it pours. This is not the time to sell this property.
@Nick
In the U.S. the majority of people did not live in cities until about 1920. In 1790 the urban population was only about 5%. I believe the 95% of Americans outside the cities–including Washington and Jefferson– would have considered themselves civilized.
“We know that the pillars of civilization are cheap energy, meritocracy, Law and Order, and free speech… ”
–Michael Shellenberger
“rule of law” is not “Law and Order”?
“a degree of tolerance for the “other”.” is not free speech?
You have two of his four in common, and as I noted, there are more than four.
Your “sanitation” is arguably the flip side of my “clean water”, and both are essential.
None of us listed “orderly government”, which is a requirement for “law and order”.
Using either pillars or foundation is limiting to an architectural paradigm which is easily understood but unnecessary, and more importantly, inadequate.
Shellenburger would have been more accurate using “our civilization”. The puppeteers of the bag of impure water in the White House, the sweaty-face billionaires, and their Eurotrash counterparts in Davos believe that destroying these things will lead to a better civilization, for which they have a simpler definition: They in charge of everything.
@Lynn
“They increased the replacement value of the buildings…”
If the Democrats have their way you would immediately owe taxes on the appreciation.
Ah, I was playing just a little bit. The word actually did mean literally living in cities. We have expanded that to living with order inside a structured society. Cities could be hell holes without any of what we might consider ‘civilized’ behavior.
By rule of law, I include the rule of a king or equivalent but you need RULES. Free speech is not necessary. Plenty of civilization without being able to criticize the king, or the pope, or declare that church doctrine is crazy cakes…
The water doesn’t have to be what we’d consider clean, there are many places where they didn’t drink water, or only drank it with alcohol added, but some system needs to be in place to remove waste, a gutter in the road, or a night soil cart is sufficient.
By degree of tolerance, I mean that you can’t just kill the other on sight, at least without some repercussion from outside yourself. you can tell your kids that Serbians eat cats, but you have to be willing to have the cat eaters near you. You have to have tolerance for ideas and people that are not you or yours. Without that, you have a castle or a family compound, or just a yurt full of related humans.
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@Lynn
“They increased the replacement value of the buildings…”
If the Democrats have their way you would immediately owe taxes on the appreciation.
That would be insane. Just the paperwork involved would be immense and tracked for every year of ownership. Fauxcahontas would be be uniformly hated from the East coast to the West coast just for all the new paperwork.
Plus the appreciation on my house. Plus the appreciation on the wife’s house that she inherited from her dad and is finally thinking about selling.
Was there ever a tax collector who wanted fewer taxes?
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And don’t stock options and taxes on them work that way? You get taxed on the imaginary potential, not the actual, even if the actual is a loss? A friend had a bunch of options for LA Gear, and despite them going bankrupt and shutting down, he somehow owed the IRS a lot of money because of them… I forget the details, and don’t care that much because it doesn’t affect me, but it really screwed him.
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@Nick: Options should not work that way. You buy and sell them just like stocks. You pay tax on the profit you make, if you sell for a higher price than you bought. It gets a bit more complicated if you actually exercise an option, which basically no retail trader ever does. If a company goes out of business, meaning a stock value of 0, then any call options become worthless. Put options ought to have a value at that point, but I don’t know how you would access that value. Maybe that’s what happened to your friend.
Yeah, they were part of his compensation package, and I can’t remember the details. He ended up owing tax on money he never got.
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