Cool bordering on cold, with clear sky- hopefully. It warmed up and turned into a nice day yesterday, with a cool but pleasant afternoon.
I was out of the house most of the day, and then did kid chauffeur duties. Didn’t get much else done but that’s ok, because I was out in meatspace with people.
Today should be pickups, and maybe getting together with my local buddy. He’s moving out of town and has need of a table saw. I have several tablesaws, of varying size and quality, and states of repair. Perhaps a deal can be struck. His moving away kinda sucks as he is the best friend I have locally. His wife is great too, and his kids are about my kids ages, and we could get together and have a good time. He’s not much for prepping but shares my politics and worldview. He’s one of very few people that I have been putting aside extra preps to cover him and his family. It’s a good move for him, so I’m happy for him, but on a purely selfish level I lose a friend and co-conspirator AND access to his shop space where I currently have a very large powder sintering laser based 3D printer sitting idle. And a mid sized lathe. I’ll be finding space for those soon, or something…
Change is the only constant. Plans need re-evaluating and periodic adjustment. Supplies and capabilities need to be inventoried and re-distributed sometimes.
This preparedness thing is a journey, not a destination.
Keep walking the path, and stacking…
nick
He should be busy with three sections of freshman-level Comp II.
This is a weird week, however. No one seems to be working much.
Invoking Camelot plays well with the oldsters, particularly the ~75-80 age bracket who may have voted for “Bobby” back in the day and still believe in the dream.
The ad is a lot less pathetic than Robert Francis’ Kennedy-Addisons makeup he sported for both state-wide runs here in Texas as “The Mexican Bobby Kennedy”.
Chilly but clear this morning. D1 and W out the door early for D1’s sports thing. D2 out the door to the tender mercies of the school system.
Some coffee in my blood.
Not enough, not yet.
n
– uh, ya think?
n
I guess there was troll action yesterday. Hammered before I could even see it.
Thanks to the Hammers of BobTM.
If the world is getting ready for a broader conflict, what would it look like? One element would be increased spending on military preparations…
– when you look at the map, maybe it makes more sense WHICH countries are spending the money. Especially when you consider which has history with russia…
– some other things to look for
n
Reselling is the new house flipping…
n
The Senate sucks:
Senate PASSES $95 billion Ukraine and Israel aid bill WITHOUT border provisions after all-night session: Speaker Mike Johnson warns ‘insufficient’ package with $14 billion for Israel may not pass the House
I can only hope the House cancels Fúhrer Zelenskyy‘s retirement fund. I wonder how much he has already funneled away. If Putin rick-rolls Ukraine, Fúhrer Z will be on the first flight to the Bahamas to hang with Richard Branson.
>> Countries hitting 2% GDP defence spending target
Poland (3.9 %)
US (3.49 %)
What? We’re not number one? Who’s in charge here? Ohh, right…never mind…
The trillion dollar DoD budget is already insanity, with much of the benefit going into the wrong pockets, If anything, the US needs to spend less:
“Robert Kennedy, Jr. Runs Nostalgic Super Bowl Commercial (VIDEO)”
and the other Kennedy’s are furious that he revealed that he is a Kennedy.
Today’s edition of “Rules for Thee, Not for Me” is brought to you by SloJoe…
https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/12/politics/white-house-tiktok-policy-biden-campaign/index.html?utm_term=1707825029656a416a1a22440&utm_source=cnn_Five+Things+for+Tuesday%2C+February+13%2C+2024&utm_medium=email&bt_ee=3fdwxf3uJs8XKqn57Fx9qyQwodNIbhMFNSv9RjLkBDwJJHxI0fQiEiwPJjTanDaH&bt_ts=1707825029658
That was strange to watch, but memorable.
The only other that was mildly amusing to me was the “mullet” commercial.
Some data points.
I cracked open a couple of “pouch meat” packages for dinner last night. Oldest was best by 2016, newest was 2018.
Out of the first 5 bags I grabbed, one must have leaked as the contents were rock hard. None were puffy, and all had some ‘discoloration’ which is a normal side effect of being old, changes to consistency and appearance are normal.
One just looked nasty so I threw that out too.
We ate the other three. They tasted good, and were only slightly darker orange than new. (meat and beans, shredded pork ‘conchinita pibil’, and ‘chilorio’).
I’d been meaning to start rotating some of the pouches, and I was too tired to cook.
My storage conditions are abominable so you should have even better success storing them than I do.
n
I didn’t see any of it, despite being at my computer(s) most of the day.
Sometimes I look at the computers I normally use, and the RPi acting as a server and data storage point, and the phone (when I turn it on) and even the Kindle, and I think about how much computing power they possess compared to what teh entire species had available not that many decades ago.
And what do I do with all this computing power? During the day I watch for email and messages (sometimes worthwhile, sometimes not). I do the occasional video call (always a waste of time). I complain about people dropping bean sprouts into the fish tank. I use The GIMP to insert Joe Biden’s head into another picture, deliberately badly to increase the comedic effect.
The mathematicians and ur-computer engineers who were cracking Enigma and the Japanese naval cyphers would smack the crap out of me for wasting the power that I have literally at my fingertips.
Me too.
no op, no op, no op, no op, no op, no op, no op, no op, no op, no op, no op, …
I can only hope the House cancels Fúhrer Zelenskyy‘s retirement fund. I wonder how much he has already funneled away. If Putin rick-rolls Ukraine, Fúhrer Z will be on the first flight to the Bahamas to hang with Richard Branson.
The Fúhrer Zelenskyy has apparently bought an entire block in Paris of mansions. His wife, kids, and mother-in-law are all living there now.
Why do the despots all move to Paris when they are deposed ?
“Robert Kennedy, Jr. Runs Nostalgic Super Bowl Commercial (VIDEO)”
That was strange to watch, but memorable.
The only other that was mildly amusing to me was the “mullet” commercial.
Yes and yes. I forgot about the mullet commercial.
Re computing power, some years ago, I thought about what goes on just between keystrokes in a modern computer. Amazing.
Before I retired, I was peripherally involved in resurrecting production of an old system. The production line test equipment had been mothballed for some years, and there were almost no people who could maintain it. ISTR that a lot of the code was assembly language, so ancient, but it worked and was certified. The production folks proposed moving to Windows based test equipment, something they had done on similar product lines with good success. I was skeptical, and asked why not some real time OS. The answer was similar to assembly language: not enough people with the necessary skills. I dug deeper, and found out they had overcome Windows’ nasty habit of interrupting critical tests. I have forgotten exactly how this was done, but it did involve “help” from off-the-shelf digital test equipment. The choice was a success. I am still amazed.
Around that time, I read that Chrysler had moved to 32 bit engine controllers. Why would that be necessary, when the existing 8 bit machines were adequate? The software development talent pool was said to be the big reason. Oy.
My new Samsung TV runs Tizen, a Linux-based OS. At first, it seemed OK, but in the year we have had it, I have had to do about six hard restarts. Our old (emphasis: OLD) Panasonic TV never had any issues. Progress.
New! Improved! Not! Call me a skeptic.
I’m charging my Anker Solar Generator (the 767 PowerHouse 2048Wh) with two 200W panels. I’m getting about 160W out of a potential of 400W. It’s been sitting for about four months and dropped to 60% with its built-in battery management. I used it yesterday to power my ChefMaker Dreo air fryer steak cooker. The display says it will charge in full in 6 hours if I keep the panels in the Sun.
Thursday, I’ve got a dumpster coming to begin weeding stuff out for the potential move back to a Vegas “forever” home. Gotta be brutal.
A question, regarding the war in Ukraine. Back in the Cold War, the USSR was the big, bad guy. People supported pretty much anything that opposed the USSR. Especially people in the military, and generally people on the right. The left accused us of being war mongers, and we should make nice.
Putin is working to reestablish something like the USSR. In the early 2000s he took Chechnya. In 2008 he took Georgia and South Ossetia. In 2014 he took the Crimea. In 2022 he expected to take Ukraine, but had an oopsie. He is trying to funnel thousands of illegal immigrants into Finnland – the Finns are convinced that this more than just economic warfare; possibly an attempt at destabilization. Putin is desperately trying to create a legacy for himself before he croaks.
So my question is: why are folks on the right (in the US, anyway) opposed to supporting Ukraine?
Hating Zelensky and his corruption and his supporting of the corrupt democrats in the US is not the same as liking Putin and his imperialism.
Also, expanding NATO and threatening Russia is a bad thing.
Because Ukraine is objectively terrible, and they’re stealing our money. It’s possible for both sides there to be equally bad, and they are.
“Was the Lakewook Church Tranny an Illegal Alien Who Voted in 2020?”
https://rumble.com/v4d5r3f-was-the-lakewook-church-tranny-an-illegal-alien-who-voted-in-2020.html
If the illegals are voting in any quantity, we are sunk. We need to get the illegals out of the USA. I am beginning to think by any means necessary.
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
So my question is: why are folks on the right (in the US, anyway) opposed to supporting Ukraine?
Because, we were told to stay out of European Land Wars by Thomas Jefferson.
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/98-01-02-3559
Europe is just a continuous disaster and the USA should not rush in to fix it all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_Europe
Sooner or later everyone either comes to The Wisdom of Steve … or dies.
Yes, it is. That didn’t stop some Dumbo Senators and Lloyd Austin (pre ass cancer) to say “give us money or your children’s blood will be spilled over there…”. Send them and every turd Redumblican who voted “for” sending more $ billions to the The Führer to the frontlines.
That’s the easy way out.
“Windows 11 will soon no longer boot on PCs that are too old to boot it anyway”
https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/windows-11/windows-11-will-soon-no-longer-boot-on-pcs-that-are-too-old-to-boot-it-anyway
“The next version of Windows 11 will no longer boot on CPUs without the “POPCNT” instruction.”
SSE4. Geesh that is old.
Peter Zeihan’s well worthwhile Youtube presentations (any over an hour are pretty much a rehash of each other) suggest Russia’s overarching strategy is to plug the geographical “gaps” in Europe’s terrain against a future invasion. The previous conflicts Brad mentions have plugged a few. Ukraine is on the way to 2 more. The 2 more are in NATO member countries.
His demographic analysis suggests Russia needs to accomplish these goals pronto as they have run out of “yutes” 30 years ago. He concludes that stopping them in the Ukraine grinds up the folks that could be used to continue the strategy.
Peter’s thoughts on China’s geography and demography are similarly grim considering their +80% dependency on imported energy and food.
For example: https://youtu.be/DXtScb_IZdg
I don’t agree with him on everything but his presentations are cogent and compelling.
Thursday, I’ve got a dumpster coming to begin weeding stuff out for the potential move back to a Vegas “forever” home. Gotta be brutal.
Not just brutal, but RUTHLESS! 😀
Like the Supreme Court!!!
If you don’t dump it all in a dumpster, then your kids will after you’re gone. Either way, it ends up in a Goodwill or a landfill.
Windows 11 24H2 needs POPCNT. A little googling and it looks like POPCNT is part of SSE4.2 which has been on Intel processors since Nehalem which was introduced in late 2008. Anyone with a processor older than that trying to run the latest Windows is perhaps a bit delusional. 🙂
“The Wrong Unit: A Novel” by Rob Dircks
https://www.amazon.com/Wrong-Unit-Novel-Rob-Dircks/dp/0692720995?tag=ttgnet-20/
A standalone science fiction book. I read the well printed and well bound trade paperback published by Goldfinch Publishing in 2016.
413s98-itr8 is a agriculture robot running CORE version 3 in the year 2865. Also known as Heyoo (short for Hey You !), Heyoo has put itself into the robot maintenance shop since the humans keep on telling it to “screw yourself”, therefore causing a circular reference in its operating system. But, a group of humans have attacked the robot depot, seized Heyoo, and teleported it to an unknown location with a mysterious package on its back. The package is very noisy.
2865 is not a pleasant world for humans. The master CORE computer seized power on Earth over eight hundred years ago and for efficiency’s sake, cut the population on Earth to just thirty million humans. CORE ruthlessly runs the planet, deciding who will mate, which humans should live, what jobs humans should do, etc. CORE must be overthrown but, CORE has all the power.
Kind of a neat look at what is a human. And what is love ?
The author has a website at:
https://robdircks.com/
My rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars (392 reviews)
Lynn
I’m on a “clear clutter” tear.
Beyond the X-10 stuff there are books. I hate to toss books, it’s a sin. But the local library won’t take them, “We don’t have the space!” and yet all of the shelves I see are at most half full. Ok, lazy, then . The Library Thrift Shop is almost as bad. They take the books but they have a huge dumpster too. I suppose giving books to either is just transferring the sin.
I’m clearing a shelf so I can get the stacks of books on the floor off of the floor. National Geographic had and may still, a quarterly book. $10 to $13 or so each plus about $3 postage. I have a shelf full. I just counted and I have 98 books. At four a year, carry the mumble, and how did this happen? Almost 25 years of books?
I’ve read them all. A few have been flipped through by other people but no one was ever very interested. I might keep a handful but the rest are going away.
Next up? Roombas. I have a few. A couple work fine and the rest have wacky edge sensors so they think they are about to go off a cliff. I need to find the two good ones and decide if I want to buy yet more replacement battery packs.
Then computer monitors. All flat screens. I have four in just this room. Nothing wrong with them. It’s just upgrading monitor size over the years. They accumulate like PC power cords. I’ll keep one as a spare. Take the rest to the Library Thrift Shop or Goodwill.
And keep purging the file cabinets.
If you don’t dump it all in a dumpster, then your kids will after you’re gone. Either way, it ends up in a Goodwill or a landfill.
The wife just did that last Friday for all of her Dad’s stuff. We picked over everything and 3+ years later, here we go. Hopefully the townhome will be on the market by the end of the month. She now has a guy coming in to steam clean the carpet and touch up the paint, etc.
I have computer books to toss, too.
Yes, keep the Windows95 Resource Kit. Ditto for the WindowsNT and the useless Windows 2000 Professional Kit. There’s stuff in Win11 that’s been around since 3.11. The old books cover almost everything in the current OS.
The Windows 2000 Server Resource boxed set can go away. Man, that was pricey, too. I sure was pissed that UPS dropped a $170 package at the mailbox… a mile away… and not a house in sight.
The Internet Explorer Resource Kit can go bye-bye too. The DOS 6 book stays. The SCSI book can leave.
The Network Essentials resource kit stays. Forever. 🙂 I might decide to figure out sub masking someday.
A lot of the Biden family criminal enterprise is related to Ukraine, and a widely held theory is that the President keeps the war going to maintain a lid on the truth.
Mom’s house went into a dumpster. She was up here for a while and after a year someone went to check on the house. Oh. Cold water hose to the bathroom sink had a tiny tiny pinhole. After a year, well, Dad’s thresh holds at the doors of 2×6? That’s a lot of water. Everything on the wall of books was ruined. The humidity was so high the spines melted. Mom’s bed? Yeah, she didn’t make her bed and the blanket was close enough to the floor to wick up and soak the mattress and WTF, there’s mushrooms growing on her bed.
Everything went to the dump. In theory. The folks cleaning the place kept what they wanted, like dishes and such. Then they sprayed the walls with clorox water. Concrete walls…
There were a couple of pieces of furniture I would have liked to have. Yeah, and a couple of dozen books, too. Oh well. It’s all gone.
Because Ukraine is a few thousand miles away and I don’t give shi(r)t about their border with Russia when our government isn’t giving a shi(r)t about our border with Mexico. It’s that simple to me.
Let Russia have Ukraine. I don’t care. Ukraine was part of Russia way back when , Kiev was the capital before it was moved to Moscow a few hundred years ago.
If the Poles and Hungary and etc have a problem, let them be men and take care of the problem.
It’s a real bummer when Russia invades the country where Biden is laundering his money.
And has all the no show patronage jobs for the DC elite and their spawn…
n
Along with the fat weapons contracts for Raytheon and Boeing. both now headquartered in Arlington, near the Pentagon.
I got my tax refund. I filed last Thursday, in my account today. Five days, three if one only counts business days. That is really fast.
House Impeaches DHS Sec. Mayorkas by One Vote
https://legalinsurrection.com/2024/02/house-impeaches-dhs-sec-mayorkas-by-one-vote/
“At Least One Dead After a Car Drives Into an Emergency Room in Austin, Texas”
https://rumble.com/v4daf7h-at-least-one-dead-after-a-car-drives-into-an-emergency-room-in-austin-texas.html
No bollards at the ER ? All of our ERs around here have substantial bollards at the entrances to prevent this from happening.
Meaningless, because the Senate will NOT vote to convict, meaning that Mayorkas won’t be removed from office.
“Here’s Everything We Know About the Megachurch Shooter”
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/miacathell/2024/02/12/megachurch-shooter-identified-n2635126
“The now-deceased gunman who opened fire inside a famous Texas megachurch run by Joel Osteen on Sunday afternoon has been identified as an identity-switching Hispanic woman with pro-Palestine, antisemitic beliefs.”
“36-year-old Genesse Ivonne Moreno, a biological female who used multiple male aliases, was wearing a trench coat when she entered the Houston-based Lakewood Church with two rifles, a backpack, and a young child by her side around 2 p.m. Sunday.”
OK, so the Lakewood Church shooter was a biological woman masquerading as a man. She apparently is the biological mother of the seven year old child that she was carrying who was also accidentally shot by the police officers.
Apparently her mother is a member of the Lakewood Church.
Apparently she is divorcing her Jewish husband who is in a Florida jail.
This is totally freaking crazy.
Meaningless, because the Senate will NOT vote to convict, meaning that Mayorkas won’t be removed from office.
The House is refusing to consider the $95 billion dollar gift from our grandchildren to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan that my senior Senator John Cornyn, a senior RINO, voted for.
https://redstate.com/joesquire/2024/02/12/house-speaker-mike-johnson-kills-senate-supplemental-ukraine-aid-bill-n2170027
@lynn, it’s even crazier if some of the other articles are true. She hated the kid, wouldn’t call him by his name, etc.
—–
Think I’ll hit the hay.
n
“On Sunday evening, you may have experienced a brief interruption in service sometime between 9:30 pm and 10:45 pm Eastern (6:30 pm and 7:45 pm Pacific). We are aware that this was at an inconvenient time for many of our customers and apologize for the fumble.”
“This was caused by a reboot after your Starlink downloaded the latest software version. Starlink software updates normally occur overnight in order to minimize interruptions. Unfortunately, due to a software bug, this update was applied during evening hours.”
“We appreciate the trust you’ve placed in us to stay connected. The Starlink team is committed to providing you with the best possible internet service and will continuously work to improve our service quality and availability as our highest priority.”
“To report any issues or share feedback with us directly to help improve the system and overall experience, please contact our 24/7 Starlink customer support team.”
Interesting. Starlink can force a mass reboot of all of the ground stations.
Interesting. Starlink can force a mass reboot of all of the ground stations.
– I’d bet money that they can institute rate limits, or remotely brick the devices too. And if they can, there is probably a hardwired maintenance port that can do firmware updates and other recovery, like most networking devices. Wonder if anyone has explored that yet, or if they love the service too much to risk it.
n
This shooting took a turn to the weird…
n
Sigh. I have a engineering prospect company with multiple users asking me to compare my software and service to a freeware product. I don’t even know where to start. I have PhDs on staff. I have over 200 years of experience on staff. I have software that has stood the test of time. All that is dismissed over cost of 1/10th of the annual salary of one engineer for a group of engineers.
@Lynn, sounds like you’ve already written the key points. Either they see the value in your product pretty quickly or else wish them luck with the free product. They get what they pay for.
Or…there’s always the steaks, bourbon and “ladies” approach.
>> Kelsey Mikula, 26, from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, majored in zoology at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, and struggled to find a job after she graduated in May 2019. She started buying and reselling clothes to pay off her student loan debt while working shifts as a unit secretary in a hospital. ‘I have been able to pay off my $80,000 student debt, and I did that in just three years by reselling, and living with my parents,’ she said. ‘It was an amazing feeling. It felt like I was able to finally save the money I was making.’
FIFH
Thanks for the answers about Ukraine. I certainly get the bit about corruption, especially given the Biden ties to the country.
That said, one does have to give Selensky some credit. Way back at the start of the war, before it was obvious that the Ukraine would be able to put up a good fight, the US offered him a ticket out of the country. He refused.
Anyway, from a European perspective, I hope Ukraine keeps chewing up the Russian military. Putin’s dreams of a second USSR need to die on the ash heap of history.
Also: the US needs to kick some NATO butt, and demand that European countries invest their 2% (also retroactively) in their own defense. Funny how the countries closest to Russia are already doing that – indeed, exceeding it.