Cool and clear, warming later. It was actually a pretty nice day in Houston yesterday. Warmed up a bit, wind gentled, and the sun stayed out. Nice sunset too. It would be great to have another day like that.
I spent the nice day driving to my pickups, after doing my morning home stuff. Then picked up the kid and hit the HEB. Prime sirloin was on sale again, $5.99/pound. No limit so I bought it all but one tray.
They had cream in stock again, which was nice. Seafood counter looked sad, run down, and unappealing. Saved about 15% off my ticket with in store coupons and the meat discounts. That’s a bit better than my usual 10-12%.
I did notice they are slicing the sirloin thinner than they used to. 1/2 inch vs 3/4 inch. Still paying by weight, but it gets the price per tray for two steaks down a bit. At $6 I don’t care much, they are usually $20/pound though and taking a third off the plate reduces the sell price a lot.
My average ticket total is still up significantly from before the chinkyflu/biddenomics.
Gas is $2.49/gal so that’s better. Diesel still about a dollar more.
It’s not getting better overall though.
Do what you can. Learn. Build. Stack.
nick
Don’t forget the “pyramid” in Memphis, originally built as an NBA arena but now home to the biggest Bass Pro Shops store and a very expensive hotel.
Driving the Jetta down to Texas in July, I stayed overnight in Nashville, not far from McKay’s. I weighed staying overnight in Memphis to cut the drive time the next day, but Memphis is … creepy for lack of a better word.
Plus, McKay’s is cool. I finally have my own copy of “Bachelor Party” – best Tom Hanks movie ever.
RIP Andre Braugher. Fantastic actor. Brooklyn 99 is one of my favorite shows OAT.
Nice store actually to browse. The hotel (Big Cypress Lodge) must be priced OK as can be really difficult to get reservations. It is not much more expensive than the DreamMore resort hotel that Dollywood built in Sevierville. Real sticker shock is staying in The Inn at Biltmore. Those rooms go for $800.00 and up. The hotel is a little cheaper at $450.00 and up. Charge what the market will bear.
I visited Graceland on the spousal unit’s urging on a trip through Memphis. It was actually better than I thought it would be.
53F and partly cloudy this morning. Red sky.
Off to the mechanic to pick up the Mrs…
n
If you go back through Memphis, stop at Sun Records, where Elvis started his career. A lot of history happened in that studio.
I think we caught Covid at Graceland. It is a nice place to visit, but don’t go in the rain.
We didn’t know it at the time, but we had full-on Covid by the time we circled back to Memphis from Chattanooga and stayed at the Bass Pro hotel. That really limited our appreciation of the amenities, and we didn’t browse the store.
Oh, an the Moon Pie store in Memphis is cool.
Unfortunately, I did a number on their bathroom with initial onset Covid diarrhea.
One upside of having Covid incubate on that trip is that I didn’t realize how bad the complementary breakfast was at the hotel in Chattanooga when I woke up that morning. I think I drank the juce and we stopped for Diet Coke on the way out.
New Nuke Approved:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/12/13/huge-milestone-biden-admin-green-lights-nuke-reactor-using-tech-not-utilized-in-decades/
Huh.
re: stadium boondoggles
Consider St. Louis, which built a big expensive domed stadium, in order to woo – the Rams?! – to town.
In my lifetime, St. Louis has lost 2 NFL franchises, after building 2 stadiums for them. Admittedly, Busch stadium (the first) was truly multi-use and I saw a lot of Cardinals baseball there.
Some irony: I lived and worked in Illinois, and had coworkers who lived in the taxing areas for St. Louis. I joshed them pretty hard about all the taxes they were paying for the new dome and how I hoped the Rams appreciated them paying those taxes.
Then I got laid off, and got a job in downtown St. Louis. Which means I had to pay city taxes, which means I was paying for that stadium.
Was she broken and you got her fixed?
I have a problem with the cities taxing the residents for a stadium. That adversely affects the inner city residents, probably the people with the least money. If the stadium is going to be such a big money maker for the city, tax revenue from tickets, lodging and eating, then why not let that fund the stadium? I can also guess that the tax imposed by the city to pay for the stadium never went away after the stadium was paid for and later demolished.
I can hear the 15 lb Simamese male cat snoring across the den today. He is 14 and sleeping more than ever. He wakes up for food and the litter box. And daily trips outside into the wild. And visits to his momma, my daughter. He snores loudly all the time in his sleep now.
Regarding the Ada language, I didn’t know it was still around as anything but a curiosity.
I was made to take a semester course as part of some sort of government work requirement decades ago – never had to actually use it though.
It seemed very Pascal-ish to me.
Later I discovered that the instructor did not actually know Ada when hired (he lied) but did know Pascal and had read a book on Ada on the aircraft on his way to take the job in California. He was a functional alcoholic & the class was not very difficult or interesting, a waste of time & money, fortunately the company was paying and they didn’t care about anything but checking a box on their contractual agreement.
It had the slowest compiler I ever ran across.
I do believe “Hello World” worked, not sure about the “Fahrenheit to Celsius” program…
I used Ada in it’s early days. The compilers still had a lot of bugs, but the language itself was quite nice. Designed by committee, which means that it includes every feature ever.
Given 40 years of maturation, it ought to be quite good by now.
Given 40 years of maturation, it ought to be
quite good by now.MASSIVELY BLOATED by now.FIFY!
n
Was she broken and you got her fixed?
– can’t fix what ain’t broken, can’t improve what’s already perfect… { Hi Sweetheart!!}
n
That was pretty common in corporate training in the 90s.
The worst were the recycled high school teachers, mostly late Boomers, who saw the opportunity to get into tech before they got too far into their 40s to be taken seriously by the HR droids.
We had three instructors like that at GTE, and I didn’t deal well with the personality type in high school in the mid 80s. I liked it even less circa 1993.
High functioning alcoholics were typically the DBAs back then. On my first assignment out of corporate training, the DBA kept a bottle of Jack Daniels in her bottom desk drawer.
Ada used to lack objects, but I think those were bolted on with one revision.
Bolted on OO doesn’t work. I like Tcl and do a lot of personal projects with the language, but the OO included in 8.6 bloated the language and increased the basic binary distribution without a meaningful increase in productivity.
If I want OO scripting, I use Python.
In undergrad, our CS department got a big grant from the DoD to go Ada in the mid-80s, and, as a result,
At the tolling company, we hired one of the Village Idiots from the F-35 project in Fort Worth. He claimed to have done a lot of C++ on the program, but who knows whether he was telling the truth. I had my doubts, but he passed our coding challenge on the C level, however, so management hired him.
Ack, I didn’t finish that thought. As a result, I decided to focus on EE and picked up more C/Unix than I ever would have graduating CS from that school.
A little more about Rain-X. It is a solution containing long chain hydrocarbon molecules. One end of the molecule has an affinity for hard surfaces, and the other is hydrophobic (I think a wax.) This comes in a solution of ethyl alcohol, acetone, and isopropyl alcohol. Once the solvents evaporate and the glass is polished with a damp cloth, the resulting film is supposed to be one molecule thick. I have seen illustrations that show the molecules standing up like rows of soldiers on parade. The wax-like nature of the exposed film causes water to form a high contact angle, bead, and run off. The space between the individual droplets doesn’t obscure vision like an irregular film of water would. Simple concept, but it probably took a lot of experimentation to make it practical.
Those three solvents do a pretty good job of cleaning away surface oils and other crud. That’s why it is easy to apply and maintain. Still pretty complex down at the microscopic level. The solvents will attack plastics and some painted surfaces, so that’s why I said to use a slightly moist paper towel for application. I use the original squirt bottle, but I once dripped some on a plastic wiper arm cover, and it left a permanent mark. Be careful. Apparently, the product is now only available in spray and aerosol containers, which is too bad. If true, I would buy the spray bottle and put a few ounces in a polyethylene squirt bottle similar to the original packaging. The stuff doesn’t seem to evaporate in such bottles. Used the way I recommend, a four ounce bottle lasts me several years when used on three cars. It also survives in a hot car on summer trips.
As for safety, acetone is a mild irritant with negative health effects, but short term contact is probably safe enough. Acetone vapor is easily ignited, so keep away from ignition sources. The film forming ingredient in Rain-X is a trade secret, but is probably safe for occasional contact. I also mentioned Berryman® B-12 Chemtool® carburetor cleaner. This stuff and similar products contain xylene and other “hot” solvents, which are ignition hazardous and toxic. I recommend wearing gloves when handling it. The question is what kind of glove material? There are many sources that recommend glove material. Probably the best for this use is polyethylene, which is commonly used for food service. The material has low permeability, and the gloves are widely available. They are not very durable, but are cheap enough to dispose of after these uses. Nitrile rubber is a good material, but is permeable to carburetor cleaner and lacquer thinner, so not recommended.
See how seemingly simple things can be complicated?
Plus, McKay’s is cool. I finally have my own copy of “Bachelor Party” – best Tom Hanks movie ever.
Huh, that was not on my list of “Cast Away”, “Big”, and “Saving Private Ryan”. Plus an honorable mention for ”Forrest Gump”.
New Nuke Approved:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/12/13/huge-milestone-biden-admin-green-lights-nuke-reactor-using-tech-not-utilized-in-decades/
Huh.
Experimental. All of the previous molten salt reactors failed, maybe this one will work. Probably only a single MW total reactor power.
We have 100 kW to 1 MW nuclear reactors all over the country for medical isotopes. Maybe 200 or 300 of them. Shoot, maybe a thousand of them, I have no idea.
High functioning alcoholics were typically the DBAs back then. On my first assignment out of corporate training, the DBA kept a bottle of Jack Daniels in her bottom desk drawer.
For the good days or the bad days ?
I don’t think it mattered.
That project was, at the time, the largest Informix database implementation in the world.
Not long after GTE walked away from client server following the Telecom Act of 1996 (?), Informix cratered. I think the tech ended up as part of IBM.
I have this brand of food service gloves: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003TJ6PWG?tag=ttgnet-20
Two boxes of 500 gloves. I’m starting to make a dent in the first box. They are now $23 vs $12.26 in 2016.
Handy to have.
They have yet to go bad sitting in the cupboard.
“Bachelor Party” is Tom Hanks before he became “Tom Hanks”.
I loathe “Forrest Gump”, but what do I know. I hate most of the Hughes flicks my high school graduating class year is supposed to like except “Weird Science”.
Hughes best script IMHO is still “Mr. Mom”.
It was weird what happened with Hughes. One year in the early 80s he was writing a bad sitcom (“At Ease”) and National Lampoon’s “Class Reunion”, and then, within the next 12 months, he delivered “Mr. Mom” and “Vacation”. Like overnight transformation.
“Bachelor Party” also has pre-“Back to the Future” Wendie Jo Sperber, and I remember reading once that Hanks took the movie partially because it involved working with his friend.
No “Bachelor Party”, no Wendie Jo as Linda McFly.
People will still watch Wendie Jo in “Back to the Future” with the rest of that cast until the last print turns to dust and BluRay refuses to play.
“Stay Away From Server Room – Bonk Magnet – StorageReview”
https://store.storagereview.com/products/stay-away-from-server-room-bonk-magnet-storagereview
Heh ! Only High Priests allowed ! No acolytes or the great unwashed.
“Oil’s rapid-fire mergers may end the decade ‘with 10 oil companies’”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/oils-rapid-fire-mergers-may-end-the-decade-with-10-oil-companies-202702173.html
This is not good for the country or my main business. Many of my customers have shut down or been absorbed by the larger companies.
The rumor for most of the last year is The Gecko buying Oxy.
He’s definitely up to something with energy, particularly in Texas.
Another run at Oncor wouldn’t surprise me if he lives long enough.
Friends who went to school in Tallahassee haven’t been this fired up since Jimbo dragged his tree to the curb.
Yeah, Alabama was lousy against my alma matter at Raymond James, but the politics are complicated.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/04/sport/florida-state-left-out-college-football-playoffs-explainer-spt-intl/index.html
Too slow!
Local Faux News last night was evasive about the last name of the passenger.
Don’t go stirring up locals against the colonists.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/fast-furious-woman-steals-uber-drivers-car-flight-texas-being-slow
Friends who went to school in Tallahassee haven’t been this fired up since Jimbo dragged his tree to the curb.
Yeah, Alabama was lousy against my alma matter at Raymond James, but the politics are complicated.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/04/sport/florida-state-left-out-college-football-playoffs-explainer-spt-intl/index.html
It is all about TV money. And TV wanted Alabama.
“No more free climate rides for China”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/courage-strength-optimism/no-more-free-climate-rides-for-china
“President Joe Biden’s climate envoy John Kerry told the COP-28 climate conference this month that there shouldn’t be any more coal power plants permitted “anywhere in the world.” He followed that up by announcing the United States would join an alliance of countries pledging to stop generating electricity using coal.”
“Guess who won’t be joining that group? China . As even Kerry recognizes , China continues to build coal plants with abandon.”
“This is standard operating procedure under Democratic administrations: China manipulates the international climate process for its own ends, and condescending snobs such as Kerry help them get away with it.”
No coal for me but plenty for thee !
“Tesla issues major recall over autopilot feature failure”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/almost-all-us-teslas-recalled-autopilot-feature
“Tesla is recalling over two million of its vehicles in the United States due to its autopilot feature failing to work in some circumstances.”
“The recall involves Tesla models Y, S, 3, and X that were produced between Oct. 5, 2012, and Thursday. As such, the recall will affect almost all Tesla vehicles in the U.S., according to a letter the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration sent Tesla.”
“”In certain circumstances when Autosteer is engaged, and the driver does not maintain responsibility for vehicle operation and is unprepared to intervene as necessary or fails to recognize when Autosteer is canceled or not engaged, there may be an increased risk of a crash,” according to the letter.”
Sounds like a cheap fix to me.
Who put John Kerry in charge of /anything/ ? I don’t recall ever voting for him to be in charge.
Other than decorating a lamppost he needs to go away.
“System Collapse (The Murderbot Diaries, 7)” by Martha Wells
https://www.amazon.com/System-Collapse-Murderbot-Diaries-8/dp/1250826977?tag=ttgnet-20/
Book number seven of a seven book series of science fiction novellas, short stories, and full length novels. However, this is the sequel to book number five, “Network Effect”, of the seven book series according to series chronological date. I read and reread the well printed and well bound hardcover published by Tor in 2023 that I bought new from Amazon.
Murderbot and several of the Preservation Colony people are still in the unmapped system with the colonists from forty plus years ago on the partially terraformed planet. They have decided to help the colonists become free and own their planet as the original corporation has gone bankrupt. However, the Barish-Estranza Corporation people are still trying to enslave the colonists and take the planet. And, Murderbot is now sharing its hack to shut down the SecUnit governor with other SecUnits.
BTW, when you run across *Redacted*, keep on going. There is an explanation and it is not good. Time will tell how this affects Murderbot.
Murderbot is a SecUnit, similar to a T-800 Terminator with a cloned and severely modified human brain. The brain is supplemented by the AIs in the cpu embedded in its head. There are lungs, there is a blood mixture with a synthetic, there is human skin over the entire body, there is a face, there is hair on the head and eyebrows. Everything else is machine. Somehow, the blood is enriched with electricity as there is no stomach or intestines. But, there are arteries and veins to keep the skin and brain alive. It has a energy gun in each arm and several cameras. The SecUnit can sustain severe damage to everything but the head and still survive.
There is a personal MedSystem that continuously monitors the health of the SecUnit and gives constant updates to the SecUnit. And controls the clamps on the various arteries and veins throughout the torso and extremities of the SecUnit in case of damage. And shuts down the SecUnit in case of total system failure. Or reboots the SecUnit if needed.
There is a personal SecSystem that has a threat awareness module that continuously updates the SecUnit on any and all threats it perceives. And monitors and controls up to thirty drones.
There is a Governor that monitors what the SecUnit is doing versus the current orders (verbal or embedded) and punishes it using pain sensors in the human brain until it complies. And the governor will fry the brain of the SecUnit when if it leaves the vicinity of the controlling authority or the controlling authority leaves vicinity of the SecUnit.
Murderbot is a self named SecUnit due to an unfortunate circumstance with 57 miners on a remote moon. It has hacked its governor and no longer allows the governor to give it orders or inflict pain. It prefers to internally watch its 35,000 hours of downloaded media such as episodes of “The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon” and “WorldHoppers (aka Stargate)”. Even though it has a face, it does not like to interface with humans, yes, very introverted. It will follow human orders if it sees fit to do so.
Murderbot is an incredibly interesting character. It handles horrible situations easily and personal interactions difficultly. Like I said, interesting.
Warning: There is violence and death in the books. Books one through four are a series of novellas, not regular length books. Book five is a regular length novel, book six is back to the novella, and book seven is a full length novel. You can buy a collection of the first four hardbacks at a nice discount.
https://www.amazon.com/Murderbot-Diaries-Artificial-Condition-Protocol/dp/1250784271?tag=ttgnet-20/
The author has a website at:
https://www.marthawells.com/
My rating: 6 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars (4,937 reviews)
He served in Vietnam.
We invented ketchup, Round Eye, and the royalty payments are more than a century overdue.
Oh. Rose Bowl.
Plus, this is the last year before Saban loses his grip on that program and goes “Jimbo” for a couple of years.
Also: Thou shalt not use the transfer portal.
Washington-Texas is about Coach Sark either getting payback from the program who fired him or UW proving that they were right about “Seven Wins Steve”.
It isn’t interesting TV unless you know the inside story.
update on the
Hidden in Plain Sight: A Peek Into a Suburban Pedophile Empire
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/miacathell/2023/12/12/zulock-estate-sale-n2629127
If these crimes had been perpetrated by Boy Scout leaders, Christian ministers, Catholic priests, or any kind of conservative, there wouldn’t be enough bandwidth to carry all the stories from the MSM.
I hope no one has found out where this pair is being held and started a campaign to send sharpenable objects to all the other inmates with copies of the earlier story. Better to just get a 10-year calendar and have the rest of the inmates use it as a sign-up sheet.
@Lynn
“System Collapse” is 256 pages in hardcover. Honestly, it could have been cut in half. Toss in a phaser (II) rifle, and you’d have a novella.
I have a dread feeling that all the world-building invested in the last two books is going to get milked for more.
John Kerry is an idiot, a liar, and an asshole. He ended up in Vietnam because his draft board didn’t go along with his proposal for a year in Paris to study French women, French wine, and French STD’s.
He testified under oath to congress to fantastic fantasies and impugned the reputations of his fellow vets. Drop him in a VFW and he wouldn’t come out alive–if the vets didn’t hammer him through the floorboards, he’d starve to death because the food wasn’t good enough.
He was lauded for throwing away his self-nominated medals until his real medals came out of storage and got displayed on the wall of his office in one of the most clueless examples of stupidity and hubris that have ever been seen by a political hack in the U.S.
When he ran for president real veterans responded by puking, then cleaned it up and got together to let the world know what a true p.o.s. he was. People who have forgotten will remember if reminded he’s “the Swift Boat guy”.
Beau served in Vietnam. Oh, wait a minute, he was served a hooker while passing through.
“Trump More Than Doubles His Support Among Black Voters, Decimating the Argument That He Can’t Win the General”
https://discernreport.com/trump-more-than-doubles-his-support-among-black-voters-decimating-the-argument-that-he-cant-win-the-general/
No matter what, Biden, Nuisance, or Michelle will win the 2024 presidential election with around 150 million votes. The amount of cheating and fraud will be simply breath taking.
I still don’t know if that was a Moochelle rally we stumbled across at the UW Milwaukee Panthers basketball arena in the early afternoon on Wednesday, Nov. 8. Her face was on banners near the entrance to the venue, and it seemed like half of the school buses in Wisconsin were waiting for whatever was inside to end.
John Kerry got a Dishonorable Discharge for desertion. That should have precluded his political career, except for Jimmy Caca’s blanket amnesty for Vietnam deserters and draft evaders. The “Board for the Correction of Naval Records” then gave him an honorable discharge. That’s one reason why Kerry has always revered Jimmy Carter; for giving him his political life back.
When did Kerry desert?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_career_of_John_Kerry#Honorable_discharge
The contention for years has been that he failed to attend drills as required.
He was discharged in Jan 1970, but the honorable discharge was dated years later by a board that was reclassifying less than honorable discharges.
Ah, Sarah nails one. Especially the part about checking your personal life and stuff for the problem. All year I’ve been in that mode, and come up “nope, not you, nothing wrong with you.”
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2023/12/13/earthquake-bells-again/
n
Anyone notice when Charmin went to a wavy line for the perforation between sheets? It’s a sine wave now, instead of just a straight line. Quite striking once you notice. It can’t have been cheap to retool, so why? Are there counterfeiters? If so I’d expect to see the new features emphasized in ads. A wavy cutter is more expensive to make and maintain. Did they really need to increase production costs NOW? Hmm.
n