Warm and moist. Overcast with a chance of thunderstorms. That’s what they said for yesterday too, and we got only a few little sprinkles. The garden could use some rain, but I’ve got stuff to do outside. Hope it doesn’t pour down.
But if it does, I’ve still got stuff to do.
Spent yesterday piddling around. Back flared up a bit, so I didn’t want to aggravate that and lose any more time. Cleaned and organized while looking for stuff I needed. Put stuff away on shelves, cleared up some boxes of random stuff. Did do a little on the sprinklers, but didn’t get anything finished.
Got my little fire and radio time last night. It’s the part of being up here I love the most. Quiet. Fish splashing. Hard to reconcile having the radio on with the idea of quiet, but maybe “stillness” is a better word. I think we all need a bit of quiet in our lives right now. We need time with ourselves, still, quiet, contemplative time. I’ve seen the idea in several other places recently so the zeitgeist is saying the same thing. Stack up a little quiet and space for yourself in your day or your week.
Today, if it’s not raining, I’ll do more work on the sprinklers, something with the trees, and maybe something with the dock. Depends on how I feel, how hot it is, and how things go. If it’s raining, I’ll probably sleep in, and do some indoor stuff. Maybe play pool with my fisherman buddy. He grew up with a pool table in his bedroom, but hasn’t played in a long time, so I might have a chance… or I’ll get my butt kicked. Should still be fun.
Time feels short, but it’s hard to keep up the pace all the time. Stack while you can, but live too.
nick
Tomorrow is the annual math contest, where younger son and I take part. Usually, in our regional group, we take places 1 and 2 in our category. Used to be I was 1st and he was 2nd, but the last couple of years it has been the other way around.. We’ll see if I can beat him tomorrow…
On a serious note: I note that I make a lot more math errors that I used to. Just as an example: Add up a row of numbers in your head. Used to be, I could rely on my answer. Now I have to add them up again, and as often as not my first answer was wrong. I find that really disturbing…
Brain is approaching full.
Can I flush?
Weeeelllllllllll……… giant thunderstorm just spent a while rolling thru. 66F and overcast with distant thunder, and dripping drizzle.
IDK how much rain we got but it was and inch at least.
I’ve had a couple of cookies, and coffee is brewing. May just go back to sleep anyway.
n
>> On a serious note: I note that I make a lot more math errors that I used to. Just as an example: Add up a row of numbers in your head. Used to be, I could rely on my answer. Now I have to add them up again, and as often as not my first answer was wrong. I find that really disturbing…
As the old saying goes…. The mind is a terrible thing to waist… Or something like that…
>> Can I flush?
Uhh, I think that’s Ray’s department…
“Can I flush?”
sure. Search Amazon for “Water pik accessories—medulla flush extensions”.
Depends. Is your mind so dirty that it will kill the enzymes in your septic tank?
“Is There Something More Radical than MAGA? J.D. Vance Is Dreaming It.”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/03/15/mr-maga-goes-to-washington-00147054
““If you listen to the media, they will tell you the inflation crisis of Joe Biden is over,” Vance jawed to the crowd of three dozen Trump supporters, who sipped beer around tables made of wooden barrels on the Friday before the presidential primary in New Hampshire. “But I’ll tell you how bad the inflation crisis is: Hunter Biden told everybody that he couldn’t even afford crack cocaine.””
Sun came out. I did go back to bed. I was falling asleep at the table, so I crashed for another hour and a half. Had a good dream, so it was worth it.
Has dried out a bit, but still wet and sticky. 71F
n
Looks like we did get over an inch of rain. And we are getting little squalls blowing thru too.
n
>> Got my little fire and radio time last night. It’s the part of being up here I love the most. Quiet. Fish splashing. Hard to reconcile having the radio on with the idea of quiet, but maybe “stillness” is a better word. I think we all need a bit of quiet in our lives right now. We need time with ourselves, still, quiet, contemplative time. I’ve seen the idea in several other places recently so the zeitgeist is saying the same thing. Stack up a little quiet and space for yourself in your day or your week.
I look at it as quiet vs. silence. Most of the time, unless the wife has the TV on, I will have something playing via the Alexa for quiet background ‘noise,’ and mostly couldn’t tell you what they were talking about.
Looks like we did get over an inch of rain. And we are getting little squalls blowing thru too.
We ain’t got squat out here in the sticks but heat. 85 F and murky.
>> Depends. Is your mind so dirty that it will kill the enzymes in your septic tank?
Points for combining Depends and septic tank.
It’s a gift.
Sure, when you want your daughter to marry the Prince, just kidnap him and hold him in a cage in your dining room. After all, no one will challenge the most powerful witch in the kingdom who has a pet dragon.
https://sidequested.com/page/147/
“A tale of two dollar store chains”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2024/03/a-tale-of-two-dollar-store-chains.html
From what I have seen in Texas, most Dollar General stores are in rural locations in towns of 300 people or less. Whereas most Dollar Tree stores are in suburban locations. The Dollar General stores are right there whereas the Walmart is a 30 mile drive. Plus, no nasty gasoline to mess with.
Dollar General is also about tax breaks and other subsidies to provide essentials whereas Family Dollar/Dollar Tree is just a discounter.
During the pandemic, the a**hats who would raid Dollar General stores in remote areas for arbitrage goodies were, in effect, stealing from those communities.
“Is Buying a Loaner Car a Good Idea?”
https://www.carpro.com/blog/is-buying-a-loaner-car-a-good-decision
“One interesting side effect of loaners that was quickly discovered was it led to sales. Someone brings his or her car in for service or a recall, and a savvy dealer will give him or her a loaner similar to his or her own car, so the customer can experience the new technology, interior refinements, and increased fuel economy. Some dealers even leave sales numbers in the service customer’s car, which is easy to do since they have your trade-in in the shop.”
“Today, many automakers pay a flat fee to the dealerships to place vehicles in loaner status. On top of that, they reimburse the dealerships with a daily fee for every day a customer is in a loaner. Some dealers apply the factory reimbursement and the factory-to-dealer incentive to the car itself to lower their cost and make the loaner cars easier to sell.”
Huh, that just makes sense.
“Ford EV Owners Can Now Use Tesla Chargers”
https://www.carpro.com/blog/ford-ev-owners-can-now-use-tesla-chargers
“Right now, Ford EV owners need an adaptor to use the Tesla Superchargers. Ford says as a thank you to its EV customers, its making the Fast Charging Adapter available at no cost to new and existing customers enrolled in the BlueOval Charge Network through June 30, 2024. After that it will cost future EV owners $320 to purchase one (including estimated tax and shipping). Ford says its retail EV customers are the first in the industry to have the opportunity to order the Fast Charging Adapter.”
I would get that in a heartbeat if I owned one of them there EVs.
“Biden Administration Plans to Use Guantanamo Bay as Processing Center for Haitian Migrants”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/03/biden-administration-plan-use-guantanamo-bay-as-processing/
Ship them anywhere but the USA.
“FCC Officially Raises Minimum Broadband Metric From 25Mbps to 100Mbps”
https://www.pcmag.com/news/fcc-officially-raises-minimum-broadband-metric-from-25mbps-to-100mbps
“The commission also sets a long-term goal of raising the broadband metric to 1Gbps for downloads and 500Mbps for uploads.”
Just so everyone can watch Grey’s Anatomy and Law And Order at the same time.
The Pizza Box Dream will work this time. We promise.
What? Terrestrial broadcasting? That’s for old people with one foot in the grave.
“Biden Administration Plans to Use Guantanamo Bay as Processing Center for Haitian Migrants”
10-meters and down.
Fly them anywhere.
In a Boeing. With a hatch that will pop off. After they all get sucked out at 30,000 feet, land, get another loose hatch installed, and pick up another load of “migrants”.
So much hate. Why is Biden taking the cannibal’s food supply away?
The first hummingbird of the season buzzed the feeder a couple of hours ago.
There is now fresh juice in the feeder. Seems to be a couple of weeks early.
“Pluralistic: How I got scammed (05 Feb 2024)” by Cory Doctorow
https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/05/cyber-dunning-kruger/
“I wuz robbed.”
“More specifically, I was tricked by a phone-phisher pretending to be from my bank, and he convinced me to hand over my credit-card number, then did $8,000+ worth of fraud with it before I figured out what happened. And then he tried to do it again, a week later!”
Hat tip to:
https://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram/archives/2024/0315.html#cg4
BTW, if you have taking $50,000 in cash to somebody, you are being scammed.
“Burglars Using Wi-Fi Jammers to Disable Security Cameras”
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/03/burglars-using-wi-fi-jammers-to-disable-security-cameras.html
“The arms race continues, as burglars are learning how to use jammers to disable Wi-Fi security cameras.”
Yup, been telling people to not rely on wifi cameras and offsite video for a while now.
Probably quicker than wandering into the backyard to throw the main breaker to the house. And if you do that, there might be a UPS keeping the camera’s recorder powered.
Based on reports that I read here, I don’t have a lot of confidence in UPSes. UPS’s? UPS systems. Whatever.
I just had a power outage at the office for an hour and a half. All of the UPSes burned out at 15 to 25 minutes. What a pain.
The wife will not let me spend $40K to put a natural gas fired generator at the office.
A UPS is great for power blinks. If the batteries are actually good.
The UPS I just replaced was on replacement batteries. Sure, the software said I had 35 minutes or so of runtime but reality was almost 4 minutes. Just like a car battery that tests at 12v but drops to 10 or 8 volts with a load.
I replaced it because I figured the surge suppression parts might be getting old.
I have a brand new UPS. The software says 223 minutes runtime with a 34 watt load. That’s with the monitor turned on. I figure if I get half an hour to shut down my PC I’m good.
For what it’s worth, the UPS can shut down the PC. But, and you know there’s a catch, the PC has to be awake. The UPS can’t wake the PC and then shut it down. Not the brand of UPS I have. It’s ok, Windows doesn’t seem to have a fit anymore if the power fails while in Sleep…. it just boots, no chkdsk or Safemode or any of that.
Since the UPS can’t wake the PC and the PC is going to be asleep if I not home, I have the UPS connected with a USB hub that has a switch for each port. I turn it on when I want to look. It might be better to disable the software from running at start-up. But saving 69Mb memory when I have 32Gb, yeah.
My 34 watt load is the PC, the monitor, the Pi running Pi-hole, an 8 port Netgear switch, a Nanobeam 5Ac (?), and a Unifi.
The local dealer had an abundance of Mach-E “Mustangs” on the lot when we dropped the Exploder off on Monday.
It doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in Ford that the service department is so busy that the vehicle will still be in line for a tech evaluation through the weekend.
Monday. Maybe.
Oh, a thank you. My dyslexia had me reading it differently at first.
Of course, it works either way.
@Lynn
“The wife will not let me spend $40K to put a natural gas fired generator at the office.”
Reserve your small commercial MHD generator for $40B–that will show her.
Well, I got one thing done today. Had to make a trip to town for a part, but I got the irrigation pump reconnected to all the piping. I needed to install a union in the outflow side, and reconnect to the pump. It blew the previous plastic threaded pipe out under back pressure. I don’t think he had enough threads in the joint.
Picked up the screws I need to finish the door threshold install, since I was there anyway.
The local hardware store had lots of MrHeater product still on the floor. It’ll either be clearanced by the store, or returned to vendor/distributor to be sold in the secondary market. Either way, there should be some bargains soon.
Between the late start, and a distinct lack of motivation, I didn’t get much done. I did get some fishing time, and there was a beautiful sunset to watch. I’m going to try for a fire and radio tonight too. It’s only 65F so the fire will be nice.
n
There is some potentially really bad stuff in the bill.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/taibbi-why-tiktok-ban-so-dangerous
Although the author makes some basic mistakes- thinking that “youth” were actually going to vote for Slojoe, and that their “defection” will have any impact on the number of votes counted…
n
Global cancer phenomenon: It’s not just America… the UK, Japan, South Africa and Australia are among dozens of countries suffering mystery tumor spikes in young people
n
How global is it? How does it track to countries that didn’t swallow the “vaccine” hook, line, and sinker?
@Nick, please read email. I have auction questions.
Tomorrow is the annual math contest, where younger son and I take part. Usually, in our regional group, we take places 1 and 2 in our category. Used to be I was 1st and he was 2nd, but the last couple of years it has been the other way around.. We’ll see if I can beat him tomorrow…
On a serious note: I note that I make a lot more math errors that I used to. Just as an example: Add up a row of numbers in your head. Used to be, I could rely on my answer. Now I have to add them up again, and as often as not my first answer was wrong. I find that really disturbing…
Good luck ! Just wait until you are in your 60s, I am rapidly wilting.
This is the Fortran code that I screwed up three months ago and finally fixed yesterday:
C reset the composition back to as entered
if (is_no_water) then
composition (npsh2o) = water_save
end if
The problem was that npsh2o is occasionally zero as it is the position of water in the component arrays. But, people do not always model water in their simulations. Remember, array indexing in Fortran starts at one. So when I set composition (0), I changed the value of some other variable that happened to start eight bytes before the composition array. Nasty, nasty, nasty.
Here is the correct code:
C reset the composition back to as entered
if (is_no_water .and. npsh2o .gt. 0) then
composition (npsh2o) = water_save
end if
ouch
Hurts extra to remake an old mistake.
Don’t ask me how I know.
ouch
Hurts extra to remake an old mistake.
Don’t ask me how I know.
Just like one’s third childhood, I remake all my old mistakes constantly. When one is shepherding 780,000 lines of Fortran and 1,300,000 lines of C/C++, one does everything over and over again.
Off by one errors seem to be a very common class. I saw them all the time even with relatively simple GUI code to control devices.
———-
Had a very nice fire tonight. 65F is chilly with the damp, but not unpleasant.
Radio is funny. Listening to my oldies on 5.050mhz there was a lot of atmospheric noise, lightning most likely, and some fading. When they moved to 9.455mhz at 2400EDT, there was no noise, and solid signal. Same facility in Florida, same antenna farm.
Headed for bed shortly, the accumulated damage in my body really doesn’t like chilly and damp.
n
Ugg, had to use the edge browser to check my email. Gah. No sir, I don’t like it. The first question of dozens was “would you like to share with MS, including websites you visit.” paraphrased. NO I would not.
n
New Key: Send 50 volts to all the bit-grabbing mudders.
How global is it? How does it track to countries that didn’t swallow the “vaccine” hook, line, and sinker?
– the graph looks like a noisy horizontal line for most of the time prior to now, with ups and downs, but trending slightly up. What I found interesting, was the graphs showing “projected” sharp increases starting in 2020… with no mention of why that might possibly be…
n
NB- some researchers and drs are saying that because of the lockdowns people avoided or couldn’t get routine screening so now they are making initial diagnosis when the cancers are much further along than they would have if people stayed on top of their health. That doesn’t jibe with the assertion that these particular cancer patients are so young that their docs aren’t trained to look for cancer in them or that these aren’t cancers that normally affect younger people.
Also, if that was the cause, I’d expect a two year blip, then a return to normal trend lines.
————start whinge ————–
when you have to think about standing up, don’t want to because you are pretty sure it will hurt, or have a multi-step process to do so …. you might be getting a little tiny bit out of shape, or just plain old and beat up.
Cold and damp, with physical work, followed by sitting still is not a recipe for living pain free.
————end whinge————–
Time for some meds and bed.
n