Cool and partly cloudy, with a chance of rain later, but who really knows? Yesterday started a bit warmer, got to be very nice, and stayed warm until about 1 am. Then the wind which was gusting and variable got a chill to it.
I started the day by finishing up the starlink install. I dressed the cable and ran it into the house. We put the base station on a little shelf in the main part of the house. I’ll move it to an equipment closet later, when I put the rest of the stuff in place. Works good enough where it is, and is out of the way. It’s all planes and angles, like the cybertruck, and each piece runs hot to the touch.
I spent the rest of the afternoon installing the door between the garage and the house. It was just 1/8 th inch too big, but that made the job a lot harder. While I was there anyway, I added a bunch of reinforcement to the jamb. Got it installed and tuned up, but need to get the threshold and trim back in place.
Had a nice dinner, played several games, and had a fire on the dock to end the day. Not much activity on the bands, and the sky was black but mostly cloudy, so we just enjoyed roasting some Peeps ™ over the fire.
Wife, kids, dog, and inlaws head home later today. I’ll be here for a while working the list. I’ll admit that I miss the quiet time when the house is full. Which is dumb, because the whole point of how I’ve organized my life is to be with the kids and family. Adding the inlaws changes the dynamic and it’s a lot more noisy and a lot less fun.
I’ll be finishing the door, and working on the list for the rest of today. Which things get addressed depends on my mood, and the weather.
Always be working to improve your situation, and stack. Whatever you need, stack it.
nick
My in-laws speak at a volume that I find painfully loud (l am blessed with acute hearing, despite decades of playing music and firing gubs). One would almost think they were Dutch.*
Three of the family are hard of hearing (surprise!), so must be forgiven, but whenever we spend time with them, my wife falls back to the volume levels of her childhood, and it takes me weeks to get her to resume speaking in a level that I can tolerate.
*The cliché is that US-Americans are loud, but the Dutch are by far the loudest people on the planet, but then they are rather tall…
Denis, you must never have been around Chinese …
I’ve never been to China, but do Singapore, Auckland and Sydney count as “around Chinese”? 🙂
thelayoff.com
Management where I currently work has been caught off guard by the number of people opting for “remote” when asked to officially state their working preference as “remote” or “hybrid” (in office three days a week).
The Layoff says that a WFR is planned for April after the selection period ends.
The oldsters yell. The younger Chinese relations goad the oldsters in to yelling and weaponize Americans’ unwritten rules about politeness both when a guest in a house and hosting family in their homes, counting the days until the Honored Elders croak and the rentier skims are inherited.
Say something a Number One Son doesn’t like, and suddenly old people start yelling.
I have this Wera 056490 Tool-Check Plus Bit Ratchet Set with Sockets – Metric set for portability. I got the metric and SAE because I’m a sucker for cool tools. I set up a messenger bag with both sets, swapping out some bits, and other small tools.
Is that a socket set in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?
Off to Washington state on Friday for 10 days. The spouse of our best friends of 28 years, husband is deceased, needs to visit her daughter to help after shoulder surgery. The spouse (well, widow) is afraid to fly by herself. The wife offered to go with her but we decided that we would both go. We decided to fly into Spokane, deliver the spouse friend, then head to Idaho to visit with my brother.
I suspect it will be the last time the brother and I see each other alive unless the younger brother drops dead first. We might attend the younger brother’s funeral. My older brother, by 11 months, has had multiple surgeries, heart issues, and other tissue issues. I expect him to expire first. If I die first, I will not see him again, if he dies first, I will not see him again. I don’t expect to be making another trip to Idaho, nor do I expect him to travel to TN.
Flying out of Atlanta as it is so much cheaper than Knoxville and better flights. We will park offsite, a spot is already reserved, as that is cheaper than the airport. The shuttle will pick us up, and drop us off, at our parking spot. We will spend Friday at a hotel in Atlanta as we need to be at the airport at 08:30.
We upgraded to comfort+ seats because based on my previous use, that upgrade is worth it. At least it was for an eight-hour return trip from Europe (we flew over in 1st class). We will see about the 4.5-hour trip to Spokane. It is a direct flight which influenced our choice of the Atlanta airport. But leave it to Delta to follow American Airlines and up the baggage fee to $35.00. Tack on another $70.00 for the trip.
Ray, would it work to pack essentials into carry-ons and then buy necessities at the destination? Instead of $140 for the round trip for a suitcase each, you can hit a Salvation Army and get a few outfits each, then drop them at a shelter before the return. And f the airlines.
I loved living in Spokane during the 1980s. I’ve been back a few times to settle my brother’s estate.
It’s not the same. Crime and homeless all over the place.
There’s a little mexican/Italian fast food place called Senor Froggy’s that I miss. They have this bean burrito that’s deep fried…
Up and moving. Overcast and dreary out, but 68F. I might even check a local forecast to see if I should re-order my day.
Coffee is brewing. There are “yard eggs” in the fridge. I may even have half an english muffin.
n
There is a NA casino just outside Spokane that I got the stink-eye from management several years ago. I just kept winning at slots. Even though it was only a couple of grand, I got my own personal watcher.
I spent a week working in Seattle some years ago, about 18-20 now that I think about it, maybe even a couple more. Weather was sunny and mild. You could see the mountain.
Walked back and forth across town a dozen times, did the tourist stuff. There wasn’t alot of “there” there other than Pikes Market and the Needle and Museum.
Place seemed like a ghost town to me.
I understand it’s like San Fran now, or Oakland…
n
Ray, you can never know. My college friend’s “Uncle Bob” looked like death warmed over, 35 years ago. He finally passed last summer, aged 94, having outlived all 5 of his siblings.
I credit chain smoking and a healthy deep-fried Ohio diet.
My brother says CoPilot appeared on his PC yesterday.
Then we had a windstorm (45mph, not that bad) the Frontier internet went down, (fiber & copper) and he couldn’t use it.
Today the icon is gone.
p.s. Oddly, Verizon cell service dropped to one bar of LTE as well.
Nope. Wife is packing a suitcase with which I will share.
We are just flying into Seattle. From there we go to Richland and drop off the friend, then on to Nampa ID.
True. Unless you are on death row and even then it is a crap shoot.
I received a one-time suggestion on my screen yesterday to try CoPilot which I ignored. Not sure where it was from but probably Windows. Just happened to read this this morning
https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/06/microsoft_copilots_images/?td=keepreading
Hah ha!… They’re surprised that an AI model trained on the content of THE INTERNET has sexy images of women, or extreme violence? The INTERNET??
It was created to surf pron, and every voice is given the same weight, because it was designed as a one to one network…. a URL is just a URL.
That an AI model has no conscience or moral guidance is not surprising either, as it wasn’t raised by a moral family, in a moral society. Anyone think an AI created by the muslims would look like one created by the plural marriage/fuzzy/molester/pron addicts/adderall abusing freak show of modern computer research?
It is to laugh…
n
Ugh. SeaTac. My condolences. PDX may have been the better choice for Richland/Nampa, but the tickets are generally pricier.
The Museum of Flight has many cool things to see/photograph if you need to kill time before the flight back out of SeaTac.
The Locust Class had drained Downtown by the time I worked in the Bank of America building in 2013.
Replacing the viaduct with the tunnel also dramatically changed the demographics of the city.
Somebody needs to tell whoever is in charge of June bugs that it is not June yet.
We got to use the whole house generator for a couple of hours this morning. The foot long glass fuse blew before the transformer that serves us and our east neighbor. Centerpoint came out and replaced the fuse without us calling about about it. The smart meter informed (or didnt inform) on us at the 5 minute polling.
I have really enjoyed the whole house generator. I dont have to start it or anything, it just works. Of course, we have have natural gas for it to run.
Ah, AI.
Zerohedge has a (paywalled) article on the Nvidia mania.
https://www.zerohedge.com/the-market-ear/options-mania-takes-center-stage
This would be the same AI that generated the 6 fingers on the right hand of the woman in the fireground, and the man in the background?
Ray, safe journey, and kudos to you both for your good deed. Hopefully, that puts your travel Karma on the correct footing.
I saw my first bumblebee yesterday, and a ladybird today, so spring might be sprung. The grass certainly thinks so. I had hoped to get away with a single manual cut before launching the robot, but the grass is growing at such a rate that I will need to get the mower out again, if the rain ever stops for a couple of days. Grr…
@Lynn
“Of course, we have have natural gas for it to run.”
Learn to love chickens.
Or ask for Dr Ray’s Diet Tips
I saw my first bumblebee yesterday, and a ladybird today, so spring might be sprung. The grass certainly thinks so. I had hoped to get away with a single manual cut before launching the robot, but the grass is growing at such a rate that I will need to get the mower out again, if the rain ever stops for a couple of days. Grr…
Dadgumit, are you getting our rain ? We got ten inches of rain in January and less than an inch since then.
I made a mistake. I meant to say we are flying into Spokane instead of Seattle. Seatac and that I5 junction is a mess to avoid.
@Lynn
“Of course, we have have natural gas for it to run.”
Learn to love chickens.
Or ask for Dr Ray’s Diet Tips
I see that I repeated the word have on my phone. Sigh.
Nope, no chicken poop methane gas here. Those systems are horribly difficult to start and then horribly difficult to keep running. The neighbors would complain mightily with the thousands of chickens screaming and squawking. Then the stink would overwhelm the entire subdivision.
Don’t forget, I’ve run lignite coal power plants with 5,000 btu/lb red coal. Not brown coal, red coal due to the 30% sand in it. We burned thousands of tons per hour of that nasty crap. The 750 MW triplets at Martin Lake were 2,000 tons/hour each. The 550 MW units were 1,500 tons/hour each. All brought to the plant from surface mines using 100 ton net Caterpillar custom built trucks running 24x7x365.
You can get methane from chicken droppings, but wouldn’t it be easier and more productive to keep Ray in a pen near the generator?
You need a big on site tank like Obama had installed at his Martha’s Vineyard estate.
He must have something similar at Robin’s Nest 2.0 in Hawaii.
Atmos cut gas to a fancy lad neighborhood in Leander during the Feb. 2021 freeze when the demand curve suddenly spiked in a way that the company had never seen before in cold weather events. Given the number of military retirees living up there, I’m thinking generators kicking on responding to one of the rolling power outages.
It isn’t possible to cut gas to an individual household without rolling a truck so the whole neighborhood got cut off for several hours until Atmos crews could isolate the problems.
Make the drive from Nashville to Metropolis, IL on a warm night in early fall. You’ll know when you are in Kentucky as soon as you cross over the river at Clarksville.
Atmos cut gas to a fancy lad neighborhood in Leander during the Feb. 2021 freeze when the demand curve suddenly spiked in a way that the company had never seen before in cold weather events. Given the number of military retirees living up there, I’m thinking generators kicking on responding to one of the rolling power outages.
It isn’t possible to cut gas to an individual household without rolling a truck so the whole neighborhood got cut off for several hours until Atmos crews could isolate the problems.
Our natural gas supply line to our neighborhood is already at the state maximum, 50 psig. Just about half of the 500+ houses have whole house generators. Mostly the noisy ones, the air cooled motorcycle engines running on mostly natural gas. There are a few propane units like my west neighbor but he is thinking about switching to natural gas with the price of propane.
“Boeing’s legal woes are becoming a problem for the entire airline industry”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/boeings-legal-woes-are-becoming-a-problem-for-the-entire-airline-industry-132444776.html
“Alaska Airlines (ALK) said Tuesday its 2024 capacity estimates are “in flux” due to federal scrutiny of Boeing. United Airlines (UAL) said it asked Boeing to stop building planes not yet certified by the FAA. Southwest Airlines (LUV) said it cut its capacity forecast, citing fewer Boeing deliveries than expected.”
“”Boeing needs to become a better company,” Southwest Airlines CEO Bob Jordan said Tuesday as his company’s stock dropped nearly 15%.”
Ruh roh.
“Epic Games says Apple violated App Store injunction, seeks contempt order”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/epic-games-accuses-apple-violating-163521897.html
“(Reuters) -Epic Games, which makes the popular video game “Fortnite,” on Wednesday accused Apple of violating an injunction governing its lucrative App Store, and asked a U.S. judge to hold Apple in contempt and end its “sham” compliance.”
“The companies have been battling in court since 2020, when Epic accused Apple of violating antitrust law by requiring consumers to obtain apps through its App Store, where it charges app developers up to 30% commissions on in-app purchases.”
I am shocked, shocked I tell you.
@SteveF
“You can get methane from chicken droppings, but wouldn’t it be easier and more productive to keep Ray in a pen near the generator?”
We could get a grant to study production of pen-Ray vs free-ranging-Ray. Have to optimize bean/cabbage/bratwurst ratios.
@RickH,
The URL for Monday-March-11-2024 has the day of the week as Sunday – not sure if this matters or not…
https://www.ttgnet.com/journal/2024/03/11/sun-mar-11-2024-live-via-satellite-not-just-for-sports-anymore/#comment-278382
“Aaaaaaand here they come…”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2024/03/aaaaaaand-here-they-come.html
“Border agents in Miami have been told to prepare for a wave of migration from Haiti following the takeover of the country by bloodthirsty gangs, The Post has learned.”
“An internal agency email leaked to The Post pointed out it is unlikely Haitians who take to the sea and enter Florida illegally will be repatriated back to their home country, given its instability.”
“The message also warned that one vessel of migrants landing would overwhelm agency capabilities in the area.”
“If you import the Third World, you will become the Third World.”
Just what we need.
“Are solid-state batteries finally ready to live up to the hype?”
https://www.energymonitor.ai/tech/energy-storage/are-solid-state-batteries-finally-ready-to-live-up-to-the-hype/?cf-view
“Harvard researchers have made a solid-state battery that charges in ten minutes and lasts for 30 years, but the much-hyped technology remains a long-horizon solution for the energy transition.”
“The SEAS researchers developed a postage stamp-sized battery using a “pouch cell” design, rather than the typical “coin cell” variant. The battery retained 80% capacity after 6,000 charging cycles and performed well at low temperatures. It outperformed other solid-state batteries as the researchers found a way to make it with a lithium-metal anode, which has ten times the capacity of the typical graphite anode.”
6,000 cycles is starting to get there but the ultra high purity on the materials may XXX will be the killer.
The message is that there is always the Airbus alternative … as Delta learned.
Delta used to be an all Boeing shop.
Boeing’s snit fit to get the tanker deal reopened and awarded to them a decade ago means that Airbus was left with an idle facility in Mobile which is now cranking out … 12 A220s a month … ?
The big A220 is just the right size for Southwest.
How? Haiti isn’t 90 miles off Key West like Cuba.
Of course, we may not like the answer to that question.
Epic is the stalking horse. Facecrack and Google want root level access to iOS.
You do not want Facecrack and Google with root level access to your Unix operating system
Apple could always pull the plug on compiled third party binaries. Steve Jobs didn’t want to do the SDK in 2008 but relented to pressure for performance reasons.
WordPress creates the URL from the title of the post when it was first saved (lower-casing all letters, and replacing any space characters with a dash). Since Nick got confused and forgot that it was Monday, the URL had ‘sunday’ in it – that was the initial title of the post.
Nick changed the title of the post, but he didn’t change the URL (which you can, if you want, without causing issues). I could change the URL, but it probably doesn’t matter.
At least to me. Might matter to any OCD folks around here.
“Harvard researchers have made a solid-state battery that charges in ten minutes and lasts for 30 years“
Get back to me when you’ve bet your pension on that.
How?
You mean, how many Soros-funded NGO’s will be billing the U. S. Government for their assistance in transportation?
Quicker to count the ones that won’t: 0.
How?
You mean, how many Soros-funded NGO’s will be billing the U. S. Government for their assistance in transportation?
Quicker to count the ones that won’t: 0.
Catholic Charities is apparently the largest NGO bringing illegals to the USA via commercial plane service.
“Biden’s ‘climate crisis’ rhetoric isn’t supported by data”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/2915324/bidens-climate-crisis-rhetoric-isnt-supported-by-data/
“In his State of the Union address last week, President Joe Biden ditched the term “climate change.””
“Apparently, the phrase isn’t scary enough. Instead, as the New York Times noted, Biden employed a different alliterative phrase: climate crisis.”
“That the Earth’s climate is changing and human activity influences these changes to some degree or another is something that few today deny. But the claim that these changes represent a crisis to humanity deserves scrutiny.”
“It’s an undisputed fact that climate-related deaths have plummeted over the last century.”
It is an undisputed fact that Biden has dementia too.
A climate crisis would be where one or two percent of the world population were dying each year due to climate issues. That would be 80 to 160 million people dying per year due to climate issues. I am fairly sure than less than a million people die each year due to climate issues.
As long as I can get paid for the study, sign me and my colon up.
The generator needs clean gas.
I’ve seen Catholic Charities van service at work first hand.
Less obvious is the mystery white school bus service I saw running between Austin and McAllen last year. I still don’t know what that was about.
281 is a much less obvious way to transport migrants from the border than I-69 and doesn’t have a Border Patrol checkpoint like the Interstate does.
Shoot at the bus and then see what the news reports have to say about it. “Bus full of dreamers shot at by suspected white supremacists!”, most likely.
Don’t feel bad that you didn’t think of this solution. Genius like mine comes around only once in a generation.
Thanks. The couple were our best friends for 28 years. My son grew up with their kids and their daughter thought of us as second parents. The husband died about 7 years ago of a massive heart attack. That is what triggered my decision to retire. The wife and I are still good friends with the wife. If we weren’t both making the trip, the wife would have traveled with her. We try and help the wife as much as she needs, or rather asks. She is not comfortable driving to Knoxville so when she needs something in Knoxville we drive her car to the places she needs to go.
Around here white buses are the prison buses.
For which we can all be thankful.
Ah. So something Henry VIII and Elizabeth I and onward can get behind. …. Drawing and Quartering Catholics.
I saw two pull out of what was possibly a mustering area at the local Altex store and followed them for a while through Downtown, all the way to Buc-ee’s in New Braunfels. They didn’t have the usual metal grates on the windows.
I lost those two, but, for the rest of the trip, I kept seeing the white buses on I-35 and US 281. Six total, empty, all headed in the same direction – south.
We started the trip early Saturday morning.
Pretty darn sure there is a Border Patrol checkpoint around Falfurrias. Sure was 30 plus years ago and it was still there the last time I went to Edinburg.
PSA:
“Pi Day” is tomorrow.
Blaze Pizza will sell you a pie for $3.14.
House is quiet again. I’ve still got plenty to do.
Sun came out and it’s a gorgeous day, while it lasts. It’s supposed to pour down tomorrow.
Few things I can do before I lose the light, I should probably get busy.
n
@EdH:
Not in UK it isn’t. Or, indeed, anywhere that uses a sane date format, i.e. most of the non-Merkin world.
If I celebrated Pi Day, it would be on July 22nd.
G.
Check the prospectus on your 401(k) funds. You may have more money in unicorn farts and pixie dust than you imagine.
What? You thought something like VTSMX held a diverse portfolio reflecting the broader market.
As SteveF is fond of saying, Sweet Summer Child.
BTW, the Vanguard CEO retired to “spend more time with his family” this week.
He’s a little younger than I am.
We made the trip in March of last year. I didn’t see a checkpoint on 281.
On I-69E, Border Patrol has a huge checkpoint spanning the road Northbound.
Southbound, they have setup what I recognize as RF reader antennas, probably for the Real ID drivers licenses, and vehicle occupancy counting camera arrays.
The latter are boondoggles but probably someone’s soup bowl.
The RF readers might be as well.
More precisely, I say “Oh, my sweet Summer child, your naivete is so cute!”
Some take it in good spirits, some hand it right back to me, some get bent out of shape.
There were several articles on DM that I was going to link, but you can see them yourselves.
The most important one was Putin saying nuclear weapons were made to be used and that he doesn’t want US boots on the ground in the Uke. Neither do we Putin, neither do we.
I don’t think our current military leadership has the balls, literally in some cases, to lead a real insurrection, but that would be one choice if ordered to the Uke…
————-
— one was someone noticing that not only is SloJoe a demented old man, he’s a liar as well. No kidding. Someone is surprised to realize that.
—————
Meanwhile, up here, someone moved my concrete screws during one of the many unnecessary “clean ups” that periodically happen, and I couldn’t finish my door install. Moving stuff from one place to another isn’t “cleaning up”. It’s just moving stuff. That I then can’t find it when I need it.
———————
So I shifted to another project. Cest la vie.
n
Random repositioning destroys information and hastens the heat death if the universe.
Money talks, I think the people selling pizza for $3.14 have the right to define the day.
If the Royals put in their aprons & start selling pizza at Buckingham Palace then they have a say, if not: they don’t.
“If I celebrated Pi Day, it would be on July 22nd.”
We call that “Shepherd’s Pi Day”, a special holiday for ex-pat Brits to thank them for forcing our shift to coffee, the drink that powers the civilized world.
“House passes bill that could lead to a TikTok ban; fight shifts to the Senate”
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/13/house-passes-bill-that-could-lead-to-a-tiktok-ban-fight-shifts-to-the-senate.html
Am I the only one who thinks that this is a mistake by the Republicans ?
I suspect that this will make the young folks go to the voting booths. They are already stirred up by SCOTUS reversing Roe v. Wade.
>> I saw two pull out of what was possibly a mustering area at the local Altex store and followed them for a while through Downtown, all the way to Buc-ee’s in New Braunfels. They didn’t have the usual metal grates on the windows.
I lost those two, but, for the rest of the trip, I kept seeing the white buses on I-35 and US 281. Six total, empty, all headed in the same direction – south.
For your next surveillance gig… https://www.strobesnmore.com/Federal-Signal-XStream-Dual-Dash-Light.html
“Young People” don’t actually vote, iirc. People court them to fill out the local offices, identify potential, and increase the dating pool…
Fell asleep sitting on the couch after my dinner.
Going to bed now.
‘Morning Brad!
n
Well, here, the local equivalent are known as Maikäfer, so “May beetles”. Still, it’s only March. On the other hand, look where you live…I mean, anything short of Cthulu isn’t really a surprise.
Paris in the
the Spring
There’s a long diatribe on Reddit, written by a Boeing insider using a throw-away account. You can summarize the whole thing by saying “short-term management thinking, because bonuses are based on the stock price”. Apparently, as Boeing’s sales have fallen, the company has invested a lot of cash into stock buybacks. That supports the share price, but the money is missing from internal investments.
As part of the internal cost cutting, they have cut some really dumb supplier contracts. “Give us a rock-bottom price on X now, and we guarantee we will never buy from another supplier for the life of the 737 production”. Likely the whole Spirit contract falls in that category. Afterwards, be surprised when the supplier provides rock-bottom service and quality, because…why wouldn’t they?
Meanwhile, they are having lots of internal quality meetings, where management flatters a department with its presence, takes feedback, and ignores it. But be sure to show up in nice clothes, because it’s a photo op. Management cares ™.
This is a weakness of current investment philosophy: How do you get shareholders to care about the long term health of a company, rather than next quarter’s numbers? There’s too much day-trading and too little interest in long-term investments. The professionals running funds and such really ought to know better, but obviously don’t, and the big investment funds are the ones driving companies like Boeing.
As numerous tech sites have pointed out, this is just political pandering. A US-based TikTok would still collect data, which it would still sell to data brokers, who would still sell it to China.
The real answer would be to create a US version of the GDPR: prohibit the collection and sale of user data without explicit opt-in. But no, that would affect American sites like Facebook and Google, whose data collection is at least as egregious as TikTok.