Cool but not cold, forecast says mid 60s F. And clear. Warming later. Sometimes we’d call this nearly perfect weather. Yesterday was certainly nice. More driving around with the windows down…
And I did drive around. Pickups all over the south side of town, and beyond. Got some good stuff though, so even with mileage and tolls it still saves money. Went to Lowes for the plumbing parts I need and came up empty. I’ll have to hit HomeDepot today.
Doing another pickup today, a chest freezer. It’s the season for them again I guess. The retail prices have come down from the wuflu peak, and so they are even better in the auctions, if you don’t mind a dent or a scratch. I’ve mentioned before that I prefer several smaller freezers to one big one. Better chance of not losing everything if you have a failure. Plus they fit into the space better, being only 24″ deep.
After the pickup, I should be doing a drop off too. More stuff to the auctioneer.
I’ll be loading the truck for a run to the BOL too. Wife and kids are doing Girl Scouts, so I’ll head out for the weekend. I’ll have the dog with me, and I’m sure I’ll find stuff to do beyond just dropping off a load of stuff. I’m bringing the huge ladder, the meat saw, a 40 gallon water tank on wheels, a patio heater, and whatever else I can fit in the truck. Maybe I’ll be taking a freezer up with me too. Just brought one home, but then bought another. It’d be a sickness if it wasn’t so useful. Dunno when I’ll leave, probably Friday, but maybe Saturday. Depends on if I have to do any pickups on the way. I’m bidding on more solar panels and another generator. Don’t really expect to get the gennie, but the panel would be a nice addition.
Time to start cobbling something together with the solar, so I can find out what I don’t have and don’t know.
There’s always something that needs doing. I don’t understand how someone retired can have “free time”…
Stack up some more stuff. It’s getting sporty out there.
nick
An expired registration shouldn’t result in points in Texas.
HEB will handle the renewal if the tag isn’t expired.
Get a new-ish BluRay drive and use MakeMKV on the movie discs. You will have to pass the output of MakeMKV through HandBrake to get the files to a reasonable size.
Registration for MakeMKV is free, but you will need to get a new number monthly from the forum section of their website. The “beta” period has been running for as long as I remember
If a CD won’t rip, try cdparanoia under Linux with the maximum error correction setting.
Rhythmbox uses cdparanoia. Look on the Linux Mint system to see if Rhythmbox was installed by default, and use that box for really stubborn music CDs.
DVDs which won’t rip in MakeMKV may have the main movie accessible on an individual track basis through mplayer dumping the raw track MP2.
Hillary’s body double.
Poor guy.
Say, whatever happened to Pajama Boy? Maybe it is him.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2013/12/opinion-rich-lowry-obamacare-affordable-care-act-pajama-boy-an-insufferable-man-child-101304/
Scalies.
Some years ago a coworker and I were joking about furries and the conversation drifted. We figured on scalies for the lizard wanna-bes, then he looked it up and found that was what others were already calling it. We tried to think of how to distinguish between lizards and fish (“gillies”? No, that already means something else.) and also tried to think of what to call amphibian wanna-bes. Skinnies? No, that’s fat-phobic. A number of our coworkers were disturbed by how much fun we were having with that conversation but I suspect that was because a couple of straight men were enjoying themselves without women being involved and without referring to women at all.
Wine Moms.
These days, they would be Edibles Moms.
Low dose testosterone injections and weed edibles.
Of course, if you are in a high IQ work environment, never underestimate the weirdness of the kinks in the room. You might have been hitting close to home.
Ok. I can talk about this on a limited basis now.
AMD has been busy chasing AI gold. They announced the MI300X to compete with Nvidia’s H100 in December.
It definitely is, and it’s a safe bet that the TLAs were involved in its development.
When I was referring to fruitcakes, I meant UFOs, flat earth, moon landings were fake, vaccines contain microchips, and that sort of thing.
When it comes to flat-out privacy violations, the US and UK governments have validated pretty much every conspiracy theory out there.
Ditto. And it’s not entirely an echo chamber. However, when there are disagreements, we manage to continue the discussion, or at least “live and let live”. Something pretty rare in Internet forums.
I just recently learned about the dwarf planets Eris and Makemake, both of which are out in the Kuiper belt. Eris is pretty big!
– – – – –
Finally, for your politically incorrect amusement, Google’s image-generating AI is apparently incapable of generating anything but black faces. Germans? Australians? The “founding fathers? The Pope? All black.
An excellent argument for using the open-source models. Google and other close-source companies have their secret prompts that “guide” their AIs.
On the positive side, the woke are making themselves laughing stocks. Fewer and fewer people take them seriously any more.
Unfortunately, in the US and Western Europe, they are in charge of academia, entertainment, and many large companies through ownership of stock by institutions with ESG agendas.
Western civilization is headed down to the suicide booth with a quarter in its hand.
Start small to charge all of your mobile devices. If you have a solar “generator”, charge that too:
panel
cables
charge controller
battery
inverter with USB out
I got the cheapest of the above I could find at Harbor Freight, just to figure stuff out. There are plenty of YT channels and sources to scale up.
SO I have to wonder how common alopecia is in black women. Because I can name TWO that have it, now that there is a new drug to treat it, and I can’t name ONE other person that has it…
Or maybe it’s because of media whoring…
Hmm.
n
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13111981/Rust-Hannah-Gutierrez-Reed-court-jury-trial-Alec-Baldwin.html
case is proceeding.
n
Is everything going through one switch? I just swapped out a switch that has twice locked up and had a problem yesterday.
We had a 5 minutes or so power outage. Since I’ve been lazy, while the UPS software says I have 30+ minutes runtime, the batteries think differently. Closer to 5 minutes and “click!”. When the power came back I had no internet. I could talk connect to the router and that also tells me the NanoBeams are working. I could connect to Moa and to the printer. But no mail or internet. Could not connect to the Pi-hole. Which means “did the Pi-hole puke because of the power failure?” or what? The lights on the switch looked like they were blinking normally.
All have fixed addresses. DHCP is for things connecting on wi-fi.
I swapped the switch. A Netgear 5 port with the twin spare. Easy, just move the wires. I think, with out playing that a port failed. Not bad for a $20 switch I bought almost 7 years ago.
I didn’t notice which port the Pi-hole was using. Dope. I’ll be more of a dope if I the keep the replaced switch as a spare instead of tossing it out right now.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/googles-gemini-ai-blasted-eliminating-white-people-image-searches
You are the carbon they want to eliminate.
n
Like all Mac computer systems, something is generally easy to accomplish, some things are impossible to figure out by mere mortals. My M2 Air was/is no exception.
I had a problem with my photo library not syncing between my iPhone, iPad and Mac. The photos app said it could not open the library because the library was in the trash. The library I needed was indeed in the trash. Emptying the trash and the library would show up again. Why?
I cannot drag the library from the trash to the photos app, which is what one error message told me to do, because of an “unexpected error”. No indication of the cause of the error in this case.
I opened the photos app again and the app said I needed to turn on iCloud sharing. I go to settings to turn on the setting. That brings up a warning dialog that I need to create a library in the photos app. Creating a library in the photos app says I need to turn on iCloud sharing in the settings, which I am unable to accomplish.
After much research and “duck-duck-go going” there is a setting located in an obscure location that must be turned on. Then I can turn on the photo sharing in the settings app. I can now also remove the old library from the trash. I now have the photos from my iPhone on my Mac.
I most certainly did not turn off iCloud photo sharing. I did not move the photos library to the trash. I did not turn off the obscure setting.
That involves loud belching, loud enough to scare the dog, long enough to recite the first 13 characters of the alphabet. Better out than in as Shrek would state.
I am traveling in March. I need to stock up so I can infiltrate the gateway during boarding to make the process unpleasant for those that follow me on the boarding tunnel. I have comfort+, second in boarding order, so I should be able to irritate several people.
There is nothing preventing anyone (large corporation or nation-state level) from looking at it: mill off the chip surface and take a look at its physical layout, ALU and registers and even its firmware storage in memory. The software is widely believed to a MINIX variant.
They could then build an simulation or emulator, load the copied firmware and start investigating.
I have a Lenovo T440p laptop, second-hand, which was installed with LibreBoot firmware and Debian with KDE Plasma, and which I bought from MiniFree with 16GB of memory, and 960GB of SSD installed. It also is shipped with the Intel ME disabled/removed, to the extent possible, using me_cleaner.
MiniFree will ship internationally, from Canvey Island, Essex, UK, and will not charge UK tax (20% VAT) on such shipments.
Very nice machine – mine has a 1920×1080 screen – which I now have to learn about, before I retire the Dell I’m typing this on.
G.
@Ray
”obscure setting”
please elucidate
Photos > Settings > General > Use As System Photo Library
Not in settings for the system which is where I thought I would find the setting. I have no idea why the setting got changed as my photos used to sync with my Mac. Something borked it. And why that setting being turned off caused the library to be in the trash, removed, then put back in the trash is strange. Apparently the library would be recreated when deleted, then because the above option was off, immediately put back in the trash, where it could not be used.
Fortunately, the web is sometimes a treasure trove of knowledge.
And some of it’s accurate!
It took me three times to fine tune my search to get an answer to my issue. One of the solutions proposed was incorrect. At least it wasn’t a Linux problem. My first question was how to get access to the manual to which the response was to RTFM otherwise I was too stupid to be running Linux. That was 20 years ago and things have probably improved but it left a very bad taste in my mouth.
Bits n’ pieces…
The APC Back-UPS 950 that I use to prevent tiny power fluctuations from prematurely triggering the fail-safe solenoid valve which shuts of the propane to our house went bananas. A new lead-acid battery seems to be required, as the current one dates from 2016 (I marked the date on the box). Hmm, APC says no user-replaceable battery, and when I found the APC-branded battery I would need, they wanted 60 bucks for it. YouTube provided the how-to for disassembly of the UPS box, and someone reliable-looking on Big River is selling compatible batteries for under 30 bucks. No-brainer: I ordered one.
Thinking of OFD today. One of my pals got a diagnosis of Guillain–Barré syndrome this morning. He had the flu recently, and put his limb weakness down to that. Fortunately, his GP was paying attention when he went for a checkup, and he is going into hospital tomorrow morning for neurological care. Perhaps those of you with whom the Almighty is on speaking terms would be so kind as to have a word…?
Severe weather warnings received by email and SMS. We are apparently in for a blow, but at the moment, it’s just raining. I hope the weather won’t get too nasty, as I want to go to the BOL this evening.
I suppose it makes sense that WW (Weight Watchers) would still be offering their “legacy” services. They have a faithful clientele for those services. They acquired Sequence, a telehealth provider, so they could become an Ozempic/Mounjaro prescribing service. I think they’ve seen the writing on the wall that when you can take a weekly shot to lose weight, then the days of points, weigh-ins, and meetings are limited. The pharmaceutical solutions are only going to get better and more popular. I suppose it makes business sense for them to be looking at how to survive in a post-dieting world.
We have a family friend whose daughter’s alopecia kicked in around age 12. She’s mixed race. It was heartbreaking to hear about how she was coming home from school, going to her room, and crying for hours. What a horribly thing for an adolescent girl to have to go through. Vanity aside, we all know how shitty one’s peers can be at that age.
I’m skipping WW as my BMI is 20. As you probably know, there is an obesity epidemic underway. However, I am failing to participate.
The moon landing by Intuitive Machines is scheduled for 5:30pm, EST, today.
A stream should be here:
https://plus.nasa.gov/scheduled-video/intuitive-machines-1-lunar-landing/
A year or two ago I pointed out to The Child and the girl who was living with us that the average height for an American woman is 5’4″ and the average weight is 174lb. (That’s for women over 20, I think, but that’s not important.) I checked the height of the girls and confirmed that The Child was average height and the friend was a couple inches taller. Then checked their weight and found that they were 110 and 118 pounds. Unacceptable! You’re both below average! Now get over to the chest freezer and eat all of the ice cream sandwiches!
As for me, I’m still about 20 pounds over the “obese” line, per BMI. Even if I lose the pudge I’ve put on in the past year or two, I’ll still be obese. I’m not concerned. Despite being older than I ever have been before (tautology alert!), I’m still rather solid, not jiggly.
Don’t blame you.
I had a similar experience when starting with OSX questions years ago, on Apple’s own forums, switched to SO and never went back.
My brother, a professional C++ programmer regularly encountered that stuff on forums and was pretty merciless with them.
Basically there are just a lot of broken people out there desperately seeking some sort of personal joy by being sh*theads on line.
Re: diet. I’m 6’2″ and a large frame, decent muscle mass. Still, in late 2012 I was approaching 300 lbs (not sure of the exact number as I was too disgusted to weigh myself. In January 2023 I started low card. I was ruthless, and by July 2023 I was down to around 230 lbs. A few more months later, and ever since, I hover around 210 +/- 5 pound or so.
For 11 years, I’ve maintained the low carb lifestyle. I do have occasional indulgences (more in the last couple of years), but no more than 3 or 4 times a year. I’ll have a couple slices of pizza at a local joint back where I grew up, a dessert at our anniversary dinner, or something similar. I actually consciously went “off plan” on vacation last year, and I adapted without problem. Slipping back into low carb is easy, as it is now my default.
Low carb isn’t for everyone, but if you can do it, it’s great. For me, what makes it easy is the fact that I like to have the same thing for lunch for weeks on end. Since low carb narrows your food choices, this is crucial for me.
The other key is to prepare your own food. Eating out is possible, but you waste money, your choices are limited, and it’s generally not as healthy either.
The last big key is finding a low carb snack you love. Atkins crap or something else processed doesn’t count. For me, it’s almonds. Second alternate is cheese. Both of those have some amount of carbs, but it’s low, especially if you are conscious of the intake amount.
My mom did the points and meals thing. She was visiting a few years ago. I heard a noise in the middle of the night, and got up to check it out. Mom was sitting at the kitchen table eating COOKIES. “What?” she says. “I’ve got points left.”
I don’t care who you are, you aren’t losing weight eating cookies in the middle of the night.
I think any system that is supposed to help you lose body fat that allows eating cookies in the middle of the night is fundamentally flawed.
——————
I lost 45 pounds on Adkins in a few months and kept 30-35 of it off for a decade, without undue hardship. I let my weight creep up over a couple years lately, but lost 30 again in a year or two without any explanation besides exercising more and eating less.
It’s simple but also hard. Eat less of what makes you gain fat. Increase your activity level. (I’m not talking about organized exercise, just moving and walking.)
Everyone’s body is different but similar as we are all humans. Some people respond to different inputs with different outcomes. Try different things and find what works for you. START with lifestyle changes, as it’s likely your lifestyle got you to that point.
n
Will they be using the same section of desert that NASA used in faking the moon landings? /conspiracy-theory
Nah, the UFOs will transport them to the moon, which is flat, after injecting the scientists with microchips.
Oooh, don’t forget the anal probing… It’s not a real abduction without the anal probing.
n
Sets? That’s so 20th century.
My guess is that they have contracts with Sora and Google Gemini.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13113999/Rust-armorer-Hannah-Gutierrez-Reed-trial-begins.html
The defense contends the rounds came on set from the rental company, and they might have. The live rounds found at the supplier didn’t match the rounds found on set, iirc, but given the ammo, it wouldn’t be uncommon for someone shooting live rounds to have ammo from several different sources.
Regardless of where the rounds came from, if she’d done her job the way she was supposed to do it, the live rounds would have been identified and removed. Absent the live round in the gun, no one gets killed or hurt no matter what a meat puppet does with the prop.
n
As long as the AIs continue to be woke, it should be possible to identify and discard their output, just as one does with purely woke crap from the organic intelligences.
n
It doesn’t help that Apple keeps changing the settings app on there devices every major upgrade.
I take that back!
Elysium! Elysium! Elysium!
Vaxxed or part of the Control?
Yeh, well, any anal probe I get will be “blown” right back at the invader. I haven’t developed my skill for nothing. I am prepared for any alien invasion.
The worst was when they tried to make MacOS look more like iPad OS. I had just gotten used to the Settings app when Apple moved all the stuff around to different locations.
I reserved my parking close to the Atlanta Airport. Covered parking for $8.75 a day. Parking for 10 days was cheaper than getting an UBER to and from the airport. The shuttle will pick us up at our parked vehicle so that will minimize the walking.
Delta will charge the spousal unit and I $50.00 each way for two checked bags. That adds another $100.00 to the trip. Unless Delta goes the way of another airline and increases the baggage fees to $35.00 each way.
Yet that 400 pound mass of sweating, rancid, blubber in a short skirt taking up two seats pays the same as everyone else.
Dilbert: Airplane Screws
https://www.reddit.com/r/dilbert/comments/1ax8hzl/dilbert_reborn_february_22nd_2024_posted_for_free/
Oh no, the problem can get worse.
Unfortunately, in the US and Western Europe, they are in charge of academia, entertainment, and many large companies through ownership of stock by institutions with ESG agendas.
Western civilization is headed down to the suicide booth with a quarter in its hand.
Now wait just a minute Skippy. I ain’t taking a quarter to our suicide boot, I am taking a shotgun. That sucker won’t last a day around here.
My sinuses are draining like crazy. I figure that I have allergies, a cold, or the Koof. I’ll bet that I have gone through half a box of tissues. I spent 30 minutes in a hot shower at noon trying to get everything drained out.
So many jokes…🙊
“Grant Cardone to Team: “Immediately Discontinue All Underwriting on New York City Real Estate””
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/grant-cardone-team-immediately-discontinue-173431156.html
“Grant Cardone is less than pleased with the ruling against former President Donald Trump, in which Trump has been ordered to pay $355 million in penalties plus interest. If Trump were to pay the full amount of the penalty today, it would cost him roughly $450 million.”
“In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Grant Cardone said, “Dear Cardone Capital team, Immediately discontinue ALL underwriting on New York City real estate. The risk outweigh the opportunities at this time. Recent political decisions will continue to deteriorate price and benefit states that don’t have these challenges. Focus on Texas & Florida.””
Sooner or later, NY city is going to notice that people are worried about doing business there.
A year or two ago I pointed out to The Child and the girl who was living with us that the average height for an American woman is 5’4″ and the average weight is 174lb. (That’s for women over 20, I think, but that’s not important.) I checked the height of the girls and confirmed that The Child was average height and the friend was a couple inches taller. Then checked their weight and found that they were 110 and 118 pounds. Unacceptable! You’re both below average! Now get over to the chest freezer and eat all of the ice cream sandwiches!
My wife is 5’4″ (was, she is shrinking). At 46 she was 130 lbs and hawt, even after three kids. Then she got breast cancer, stage 2b, and they blew her thyroid out during chemo. Now she has to take thyroid medicine every day and is hungry all the time. She has put on at least a hundred lbs at 65, we had a big fight about weight a couple of months ago and I am not doing that again.
I am 6’1″ and huge framed. I wear a 17.5 (inches neck) / 37 (inches arm length) shirt. I was 21 and 210 lbs when we got married in 1982. I could bench press 330 lbs and squat 540 lbs. She was 23 and 130 lbs.
We did the dexatrim thing back in the early 1990s, I dropped from 260 to 230 and she dropped 150 to 130. We did the low carb thing in 2004, I dropped from 272 to 232 and she dropped 150 to 130. I am now 259 lbs at 63 and she is 200+ at 65. I guess we need to do the low carb thing again. No sugar, sugar is so bad for you !
Unfortunately, in the US and Western Europe, they are in charge of academia, entertainment, and many large companies through ownership of stock by institutions with ESG agendas.
Western civilization is headed down to the suicide booth with a quarter in its hand.
If the suicide booth does not work, do you get your quarter back ? Asking for a friend.
SteveF:
I recommend cheeseburgers; specifically, In-n-Out “3 by 3, protein style” burgers, with NO FRIES. Their “Protein style” burgers are wrapped in lettuce, without a bun. You need to eat them in the restaurant, because they’re DELICIOUS, and very messy. But SO good! They do not travel well. I’ve lost 40 pounds or so in the last year, and that’s been the major change I’ve made in my diet.
“I spent 30 minutes in a hot shower at noon trying to get everything drained out.”
Endurance.
I get their “Flying Dutchman” off the secret menu. A patty with cheese. I get 5 in a box and eat them with a fork. I’ve had the protein style, but, yeah, messy. Just get FD in a box.
Mcdonalds has an ala carte menu and you can get quarter pound patties. I usually order 2 or 3 at a time, sometimes with cheese. It’s how I break my weekly 40 hour fast.
Yes, McDonalds, but they’re 100% beef patties, and they usually cook them fresh when you order them that way.
There’s one In-n-out near me, and I’m familiar with protein style, but not flying dutchman. I’ll have to try that.
Well home depot had the plumbing parts, i just had to keep looking until I found them. Theyeven had the transition to lead fitting.. I was sure I would have to kludge that.
Sitting at my car repair shop trying to pass the inspection. Still need to do my drop-off after picking up the kid.
Busy day.
N
@Ray Thompson … I’m glad I put my coffee down before I read your comment on probe ‘blow back’! Vive la Resistance!
I’ve heard that the quarter-pound patties at McDonalds are of higher quality and never frozen. Now, the standard hamburger patties are a different story. I think they’re a little over-seasoned if you eat just the patty, but when “diluted” by the bun it’s an appropriate level of seasoning.
We have a couple of regional fast food chains that I prefer over McDonalds. Namely, Runza and Culver’s. Both have better burgers, IMO.
MrAtoz; I actually like the lettuce, tomato, pickles and onions that come with the protein style 3×3. It’s sort of like having a “side salad” on the burger. But I’ll have to try the Flying Dutchman.
Here’s a web site I found that has info on hidden menus for several fast food places.
https://hackthemenu.com/
I concur.
I’ve taken a hiatus or two over the years (the years being 2002 until now) and in the early years I probably spent more time on RBT’s PC hardware forum than on his daynotes, but I’ve always enjoyed my time here.
I enjoy reddit, but you have to know what type of subreddits to avoid. It leans pretty hard to the left, so I stay the hell out of any political debates. Being outnumbered 1000:1 in every argument is just exhausting and pointless and skimming their enthusiastically upvoted prog rants is just too enraging. There’s a subreddit for my state and one for my city, but they too are mostly the far left crowd screaming about local politics. I stick to the interest and hobby subreddits and enjoy them. Though, you’re correct. There’s no camaraderie there.
Thanks, but I’m not actually obese. I’m solid, stronger than hell and dense enough to have trouble floating even with the recent accumulation of pudge. My comment was intended to point out the uselessness of BMI in evaluating individuals. BMI was only ever intended as a population measure, a quick, cheap, and easy way to determine whether a population was adequately fed.
There’s a discussion on reddit that would lead one to believe many of those secret menues you find on the internet are completely made up. They say most of the items could actually be made at the stores, just that they aren’t trained in them and don’t know them by those names. Like Scooby snack or tomato style.
In-n-Out has their “not so secret” menu on their website.
It does not contain the Flying Dutchman.
OTOH, McD’s doesn’t list their ala carte menu anywhere, but I’ve never had big trouble ordering like this:
“Off your ala carte menu, 2 quarter pound patties, patties only, add cheese”.
Yeah I’m just big boned.
I noticed a sign in the McD window for double BM, four patties.
And In-n-Out will build what you want. Many years ago my nephew and a friend went and got 16×16 I think, maybe it was 20. Made in a box, one bun at each end and tomato and lettuce then 16 burgers and 16 cheese layered in between, maybe onion. They had pics of them and the receipts. To top it all off this was on Thanksgiving in the evening after dinner. Teenagers, big teen boys.
The Netgear switch in the house is 5 ports, all full. The same model in the EDC is using 4 ports.
Big River has NETGEAR 8-Port Gigabit Ethernet Unmanaged Switch (GS308) for $20. Each. Free shipping, too. So I’ll have 10/100/1000 speeds. Which does nothing for internet speed, just internal LAN speed. The 5 port version is $18. Duh, what’s $2 more?
And honest injun, I’ll run Ethernet to the back bedroom now that I have an extra port. Just as soon as I find the wall plate with the jack.
The UPS, a CyberPower 900VA/560W is the same price at Big River or at Provantage.com. Since it’s sort of heavy, Big River will ship UPS or FedEx (instead of Prime) and both just dump stuff off at the gate. Same for Provantage so I might as well spread my money around.
I’m interested to see if the Gigabit switches make a difference. All of the PC do gigabit. The router does gigabit. Internet speed is around 95 to 60 mb depending so that won’t get faster. The NanoBeams run between 480 to 650 Mbps. My current switches are 10/100. I think things will get snappier.
I’ll find out in a week or so.
I’m interested to see if the Gigabit switches make a difference. All of the PC do gigabit. The router does gigabit. Internet speed is around 95 to 60 mb depending so that won’t get faster. The NanoBeams run between 480 to 650 Mbps. My current switches are 10/100. I think things will get snappier.
A gigabit switch gets you a faster cpu. So yes, it is faster. Noticeably faster, not sure about that.
I’m not at all fat. I’m on the skinny side. The only way I’m going to float without paddling a bit is to be dead and bloated. I can exhale and sink.
I’m going to test a bit before I swap switches.
Reboot the PCs and existing switches. Give Moa time to have Squeeze Server up and playing. Normal load.
Then toss about 10 GB of music across the LAN from Emu to Moa. And then different files from Moa to Emu. Different files to eliminate any caching.
Mp3 files are compressed, right? See what Windows says the speed is each way and (gasp) write it down.
Then swap in the new switches and re-boot the PCs and toss a different 10 GB of music files each way again. And again see what Windows says.
Shrug. There’s probably “better and more professional” ways. I reckon someone here will tell me. 🙂
I do not expect any speed faster than about 640 Mbps because that’s what the NanoBeams run. As it is, I’m capped at 100 Mbps.
Standing by for moon lander to phone home … +3m, nothing yet. Might be comms.
Sheesh. It was actually warm today. Made it to 83f and sunny. Not quite shirtless weather because the wind has a bit of ice in it.
All of a sudden I’ve a chill. Oh. The humidity is down to 20% from the 80 or so % this morning. Still 78f.
They say tomorrow’s high is 71f. Sunny. Low 54f. So the game is on. Open the house when it gets warm and close it when cools off. If I’m doing good, the central heat won’t need to run.
Pretty nice weather for February.
RE wieght: I’m 78, 5’ 10”, 140 pounds.
If I eat until my stomach is full, I’ll be on the throne with diarrhea within thirty minutes. Then I’m hungry again.
I have to stop eating before I’m full. This has been going on since 2017. I would like to weigh 150-155 pounds.
I have no idea what a low carb diet means or what fiber means. I look these terms up and they don’t stick to my memory; it’s like I’m reading Greek. (I just looked then up again and it think maybe it’s Chinese not Greek.
I didn’t learn to cook until I my wife couldn’t (2017) and I can only cook a few things. Every time I use a frying pan, I burn the food. I grill my meat or use the microwave. I grill hamburgers, steak, pork chops, and brauts. I love fried or hash brown potatoes, but they burn in the frying pan. I haven’t been able to figure out how to use the oven, so I microwave potatoes a couple of times a month, but they never seem to be cooked right, either very hard or dry and hard.
A typical day’s meals are:
Breakfast: some cantaloupe (about 5 ounces) or a banana or small can of tomato juice, 3 strips of microwave bacon, three cake or two raised donuts and a glass of water.
Lunch: A Lunchables package and some popcorn or potatoes chips and a 14 ounce glass of Moutian Dew (note this is my only sugar drink all day; I drink water the rest of the time to reduce the chance of having another kidney stone).
Dinner: about 4 ounces of the above grilled meats or a couple of hot dogs, salad mix I get I Walmart with ranch dressing, potato salad from Walmart, microwaved corn or broccoli, dinner roll, and a glass of water.
Again I can’t tell you if this low carb or high fiber or insane.
I bought a couple of cook books but they assume too much (What does lightly oil the pan mean; to me that is 1/8 inch of oil in the bottom but that didn’t work out well, smoked a lot, the pancakes where greasy and I threw them away.)
I want to disagree with some advice that was given to Nick earlier about his solar setup.
Yes, starting out small is a good idea, but you don’t have to go so small that all you can do is charge handheld devices. In fact, I’m not sure how much of that will transfer to his end goals. And he has multiple hundredsd of watts of panels available, which is overkill for that application.
I’d suggest doing what a friend did. Rig up panels, chargers, and batteries to support a handfull of LED lights and one small chest freezer. It’s not industrial, or even household sized, but it’s the bottom end of a complete system, and throws enough challenges your way to think through.
Like how to set up multiple panels, and where, and what batteries to use, and what voltage to run. 12V is for noobs. Even the van life folk are moving to higher voltage. You can use smaller wire from the panels to the charger. Do your chargers handle your batteries, can they handle to power, can they run on varying input voltages and avoid overcharging? Do your invertors actually power the devices you need, and is the current clean enough, and are they durable?
And if you use lithium batteries, I’d seriously think about a separate small outbuilding for them. With a firebreak between that and anything you’d like to keep. Of course, that means it needs to be ventilated,, climate-controlled, and automatically shut down in adverse conditions.
If the WAN speed caps out at 95 Mbps, you will notice a little difference surfing the web but not much.
Well that sux. By the time I got to my drop off everyone was gone. So I had to drive home and unload the bins I’d loaded. I’ll do it again tomorrow, which they like a lot less since they are doing fulfillment for this week’s auction- ie taking money and giving out lots.
Time to figure some dinner out.
n
Low carb = no sugar, no bread/rice/pasta
High fiber – sh!tting a lot
If you are burning stuff in the frying pan, it might be too thin. The cheap ones are. Thicker holds heat better, so it smooths out the temps, but if you have the flame too big, or the element set too high, it’s gonna burn no matter what pan you use. WIth gas, I heat on high until I get the pan the temp I want, then turn down the flame a lot. With electric, I set the temp I want to end up at and wait. Unless you are boiling water, you shouldn’t need to be more than medium high.
The Joy of Cooking has sections to get you started by explaining what all the other books take for granted.
I find cooking to be very rewarding, even if the food I’m making isn’t difficult, like french chef stuff.
n
Bob Sprowl, what do you think about a cooking class from the community college’s Continuing Education catalog? Our local CC has all sorts of practical skills courses, usually taught in the evening and usually costing about $30, though something like cooking might cost more for the materials. And learning something new is a good way to keep your brain healthy.
@bob, you probably know what “lightly oil the piston before inserting into the cylinder” means, or “when done cleaning, lightly oil the barrel of the rifle”… cooking is the same.
For pancakes, I put a little oil on a paper towel and just wipe the pan or skillet. It’s the right temperature when a drop of water dropped on the pan just dances and skitters around a bit. If it flashes off or reacts violently, it’s too hot. Even knowing that, I usually do a couple of ‘test’ pancakes, the size of quarters or half dollars, in a couple areas of the pan to check the temp.
There are lots of little hacks and tricks, and you are absolutely right that most books assume you already know them.
I’ve recommended the book that kept me fed during college, “The simple fools handbook to cooking.” or here. “A man, a can, and a Plan” has been on my shelf for a long time and looks very ‘entry level’ too.
n
Gah, I meant to say ,”don’t sell yourself short. If you can work on cars, you can learn to cook,”
n
RE cooking: all electric house. My wife had some cast iron pans but I threw them away becasue I couldn’t get them clean, don’t how she could use them that way. I got some aluminum ones that are thin.
A cooking class would probably work but I don’t drive at night. My cataract surgery gave me halos that cause my periphery vision to be confusing at night. My interest is low also. While I would like better meals I can’t eat much (volume), I don’t want to spend much time to really cook a meal. My mother said many times that she wished she could take a couple of pills and be done with eating and I agree completely.
Re networking switch I took the router out of the circuit in the office just have the Wi-Fi box with 5 ports by the TV.
And if you use lithium batteries, I’d seriously think about a separate small outbuilding for them. With a firebreak between that and anything you’d like to keep. Of course, that means it needs to be ventilated,, climate-controlled, and automatically shut down in adverse conditions.
Lithium liquid batteries need to be kept from 59 F to 85 F. Any lower than 59 F, they need heat. Any higher than 85 F, they need air conditioning. Either case is fundamentally damaging to the batteries. At 140 F ???, the batteries can spontaneously combust.
Many groups are working on lithium solid batteries that will not have any temperature problems supposedly. Nobody is demonstrating a working commercial solution at this time. There have been demos of black boxes supposedly containing solid lithium batteries but, black boxes.
We have been having problems with lithium batteries spontaneously combusting for quite a while now. On my son’s first trip to Iraq in 2006, a mail truck (humvee) with a lithium battery flashlight spontaneously combusted while being driven to my son’s Marine base on a 130 F day. The mail truck burned to the ground, the Marine driver walked many miles into camp. At first they thought he was smoking as many Marines do and flipped a cigarette into the mail boxes. Then they found the melted lithium battery flashlight.
The Boeing 787 initially used lithium batteries for emergency power. The weight savings was noticeable. The subsequent fires from the unventilated spaces were apparently amazing. For some reason, people really get excited about fires on planes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Boeing_787_Dreamliner_grounding
You know, Boeing has had a tough ten years. Lack of testing will do that to you.
So will devaluing engineering and engineers.
n
@bob, when I was single I ate a lot of ‘heat and eat’ frozen meals. They are in the “meals for one” freezer section at the grocery store. That is pretty easy, most of them taste good (as long as you avoid any with claims to being “heart healthy” or “cholesterol reducing” and it provides some variety in your diet.
Hate to say it, but as people age, eating too little can be a real problem. My dad got really tired of cooking, mainly because he was trying to set an example for my mom and her need to lose fat, and he started wasting away. Don’t let that happen.
When our pets lose interest in food we know there is a problem. You don’t want the next step!
n
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!
Look into “meal replacement shakes”. Soylent provides complete nutrition and is not, despite the name, made of people. Nor do most of their shakes have soy, which many men avoid. They have several mixes with different flavors and compositions. There are other brands but I got Soylent for my wife when she was having trouble some years ago because, at least at the time, it had the most complete macronutrients, vitamins, and minerals.
Yeah, avoid slim-fast and ensure. They are mostly salt, sugar, and oil.
n
More like 25 years, ever since they moved HQ out of Seattle.
I doubt that moving HQ to DC, right across the freeway from the Pentagon, will improve their quality problems.
“Stand with Trump; Fund the $355M Unjust Judgment”
https://www.gofundme.com/f/stand-with-trump-raise-the-settlement
“My name is Elena Cardone and I am a wife of Grant Cardone, mother and an ardent supporter of American values and an advocate for justice, I stand unwaveringly with President Donald Trump in the face of what I see as unprecedented and unfair treatment by certain judicial elements in New York.”
Currently sitting at $1,045,292. The goal is $355,000,000. I am very tempted to contribute.
Hat tip to:
https://resistthemainstream.com/gofundme-stands-its-ground-as-boycott-calls-mount-over-trump-fundraiser-to-help-his-legal-battle/
@Bob
Lack of interest is the main issue here.
Learning about macronutrients (protein, fat, carbohydrate) and some nuances (starch vs. sugar vs. fiber) isn’t hard if you care about it, but nothing comes easy if you find it boring or irrelevant.
Other nuances are starchy vegetables vs. non-startchy vegetables, and the makeup of the fats and oils you eat. (Short form: Animal fats good, vegetable fats bad).
You’ve been lied to your whole adult life about nutrition. Saturated fat is not bad for you, dietary cholesterol does not raise your blood cholesterol, fruits are bad for you, low-fat grains are unhealthy. Eggs and meat and butter are good for you.
Learning to cook simple dishes is a matter of getting some guidance and careful, attentive practice. Again, lack of interest is an issue.
If you’re underweight, or losing weight without trying to, that’s a danger sign for us older types.
I eat mostly beef, pork, and eggs, with some chicken and fish and cheese. I make burgers, sausage, and chili. I cook bacon 2 packages at a time in the oven, although I’ve been playing with a new method. I also eat some veggies, like cabbage, caulilfower, broccoli, and salad. With butter where appropriate, or sugar-free dressing like oil and vinegar. No bread, potatoes, rice, oatmeal, or sugar.
I bet you could get a small ceramic frypan and learn to make eggs over, and eggs scrambled, and omelots. It’s a start, your mistakes can be thrown away and don’t cost much, and you can gain confidence. The well-seasoned cast iron would have been good for that too.
Chili can be made in a big pot using chunks of chuck or hamburger, and you can freeze it in convenient portions. Texas style is no beans, and I won’t criticize if you want to use chili power instead of making your own chili sauce from dried peppers. It can take hours to do it right, but most of that is simmering time, not working time.
You can throw a beef roast or brisket into a crockpot with minimal other ingredients, and 8 hours later you’ve go tender beef to eat.
There are lots of step-by-step resources for instant pots and air fryers. The lady who coined the term “lion diet” eats nothing but beef and salt and water, and she uses an air fryer to cook steaks every day.
I highly recommend the single serving Marie Callendar’s Chicken Pot Pies.
Sam’s Club has them, and they go on sale every couple of months. Take one out of the freezer, tear off the top of the package (bottom retains any gravy overflow, and microwave for 6-7 minutes.
LET IT REST AND COOL OFF FOR 5 MINUTES SO YOU DON’T BURN THE SHIITE OUT OF YOUR MOUTH.
Do not ask me how I know.
I had one today as part of my lunch.
as part of my education on rat infestation, I’ve been watching the Mink guy, who uses dogs and mink to attack rats.
If you want to see dogs chomping rats and having the time of t heir lives doing it…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnUiiyiDxsw
n
Sigh. I’m 68, 130 lb. and 5′ 10″.
Love my cast iron. They are meant to be kept lightly oiled, like you would for a gub. Flax seed oil originally, burnt on for an hour in a 350F oven. Then whatever you use to cook with. The oil is to keep them from rusting when not cooking and to give ’em non-stick properties when in use. Wipe with cooking oil after rinsing off any food bits when done cooking.
Cleaning, particularly with any kind of soap, is not recommended. To keep welded on chunks of last meal off: 1)Salt scrub, 2)overnight soak or a 3)bit of chain mail and elbow grease. That last is found as cast iron cleaner on Amazon.
With my current Electric range, I heat the pan at max for a minute-ish and turn it down a lot when I add the eggs and bacon. Come to think of it, did pretty much the same on my old gas range, too.
Nuking, microwaving a potato for 5 minutes makes an edible item. Poke with a fork a couple times BEFORE putting in oven. For better taste, texture, wipe with oil and bake at 350 for 20 minutes after it comes out of the nuker. Or just bake it for 90 minutes.
The “Cowboy Kent Rollins” Youtube channel gives illustrated instructions for easy enough dishes that might make you hungry.
Nice Falcon Starlink launch tonight.
It was a good launch, we could see the clouds glowing to the west even before the rocket cleared the horizon, due west, then tracked it through separation, the jellyfish, then down below the house to the SE.
Moments later we saw the orange flame of what was probably the first stage braking, almost exactly due south. A good view with only a few light clouds around.
“I bet you could get a small ceramic frypan and learn to make eggs over, and eggs scrambled, and omelots.”
Find a pan with a glass lid and dedicate it for eggs. Grease it with butter. Heat no more than medium. For fried eggs crack them in and put the lid on–it reflects the heat back and increases the air temp. Flip when the eggs just set and replace the lid. You may turn the heat off then or let it go for another thirty seconds.
For scrambled eggs turn the heat down a bit and stir continuously. Turn the heat off and cover when they still look a bit wet. If they are a bit underdone on the plate 30 seconds in the microwave will fix them. You cannot fix rubber eggs.
Omelettes need to be flipped. Easiest way is to turn it over into a second preheated pan. Double the butter so they don’t stick. Bacon grease adds taste but the butter releases better, so use 50:50.
I use egg rings to contain fried eggs for breakfast sandwiches, but there’s always toad in the whole.
I cook bacon 2-3 pounds at a time. Cook it until the fat renders out, then pull it off and drain on paper towels. Freeze the excess. The last batch (or the bacon out of the freezer, gets crispy when you re-fry it.
Eat sandwiches and breakfast burritos can be made ahead and frozen, so you only take one of two out when you want.
I’d recommend the Ninja Foodie Air Fryer for cooking for one person.
Once you figure out the controls (I used to unplug the sob and restart before I finally figured them out) you set time and temp. A little experimentation and you can cook single serve pizza (Red Baron from Sam’s ), eggrolls, the above-mentioned DIY breakfast dishes, frozen fried, onion rings, etc. the same way every time.When you buy frozen, clip the front of the box off and note the right time-temp on the back with a Sharpie, then file it in a drawer.
Sam’s and Costco both have aluminum foil sheets in a dispenser–perfect for lining the air fryer tray and making cleanup easy.
“Eat sandwiches”
EGG sandwiches
“ Cleaning, particularly with any kind of soap, is not recommended. To keep welded on chunks of last meal off: 1)Salt scrub, 2)overnight soak or a 3)bit of chain mail and elbow grease. That last is found as cast iron cleaner on Amazon.”
Most deposits can be loosened by reheating and deglazing (aka throwing a ¼-½ cup of water or wine on the hot pan). Chain mail is good. Griddle blocks work, too. Do not use wire brushes without inspecting VERY carefully after.
I’ve been told that most sticking problems are when the pan is hot, and the meat is cold. The less the temperature difference, the less sticking is a problem. Seems to be accurate, as far as I can tell.
I just use more bacon fat to counter any sticking.
For cleanup, I do put a little water in the hot greasy pan, and I’ll scrape with the side of a fork or with a spoon. Pour that out. Then I wipe with a wet paper towel until I get the remaining residue and the paper stays white. Wipe with a little oil on a paper towel. Don’t forget the handle and outside of the pan. Put on the warm burner and let cool over time. Wipe with dry paper towel before putting away.
n
Added, if the oil is sticky there is too much on the pan, put in the oven, upside down, for an hour at 450F and then recondition after the old is gone. I’ve linked to a youtube of the method I use which is easy and works. I’ll try to find it for tomorrow.
n