Slightly cooler, with a chance of rain. Or more realistically, rain for sure in some part of Houston, but not necessarily all of Houston. Yesterday’s rain followed me all over town. Sunny here, pouring down t-storm there… The streets flood, then the bayous flood, then it’s all gone.
I did my pickups, and only got a little bit wet. Truck is pulling slightly to the right so I’ll have to take it back in. The shady auctioneer was open, and handing out winning lots, but had paused live auctions (essentially skipped one) to give the warehouse a chance to catch up with pulling orders. That’s their story anyway. One disappointment was a lot that was supposed to be a 250w solar panel, but turned out to be a tiny, charge=your=phone sized panel. Got that refunded. Did my kid driving duty. Made crock pot carnitas for dinner. Great way to use cheap pork shoulder.
Today will be focused on stuff here at the house. I’ve still got sale stuff to put away, and the pile that is going to the BOL needs to be gone through and re-stacked. There are other tasks I’ve been putting off too, but we’ll see what the weather turns out to be.
I’ll either be working inside or out, but I’m sure to be working.
Always be working to improve your position. And stack while you can.
n
@Brad
Private Hearing Aid dispensing here in the UK (we can get them ‘free’ on the NHS) is circa £3.5K for top of the range units. I would recommend my private audiologist here in Manchester (also operates in London) if you want to make a trip.
Driving from FL to the Midwest, Chattanooga is really hard to avoid.
The Kennedy family sold the infamous “Compound” decades ago.
Gotta wonder how many improperly stored classified documents rolled out of that place on moving day. And not just paper from 1961-63.
Mar A Lago was originally deeded to the US Government by the Post matriarch when she passed for use as a Presidential retreat, but the Secret Service fretted about being able to secure the property with Palm Beach International approaches going over the location.
The Kellogg family was on the West Coast of Florida, but their mansion went under the wrecking ball a few years ago.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/demolished-a-last-look-at-TRUI-100-year-old-kellogg-s-mansion/ss-AA1nShLw#image=7
@PaulTheManc: Thanks for the offer. I may well want to go outside the country, due to the cost. I just check in Germany, for example, and the cost of the same beasties I’m trying out is less than half.
It’s annoying, how many products in Switzerland have massively higher prices, “just because” the sellers can get away with it. Just as a minor example: Nivea products (lotions, soaps, etc) are about double what they sell for in Germany or France. Same product, special price for Switzerland. Sometimes the retail prices in other countries are cheaper than the wholesale prices here.
When we were talking about carnitas, I thought I’d let you know what we did Sunday.
We fired up the propane smoker in the back yard and smoked a brisket, a pork shoulder, and two meatloaves.
I made homemade mayo, and used that to make coleslaw dressing.
It was 16 hours of work, or at least waiting, but we’ll have a freezer full of tasty cooked meat, after we finish gorging ourselves.
The cleanup was a challenge. There was a prodigous amount of rendered fat to deal with.
Make ice cream! Rendered pork fat is a major ingredient of the cheaper sorts of commercial ice cream. It is much cheaper fat content than proper dairy cream.
I am just back from a fancy (not my) birthday lunch. I had home-made ice cream and fresh raspberries for dessert. Heavenly!
“Junkyard Cats” by Faith Hunter
https://www.amazon.com/Junkyard-Cats-Faith-Hunter/dp/1622681754?tag=ttgnet-20/
Book number one of a four book novella science fiction series. I read the well printed and well bound POD (print on demand) trade paperback published by Lore Seekers Press in 2023 that I bought on Amazon. I have ordered the other three books in the series.
The book is set in the not so distant future, probably 2060 or so. In 2043, thousands of Chinese Mama bots advanced into Seattle in 2043, creating and deploying Warbots to kill the population. The Mama bots self replicate and spread across the USA, killing off most of the population with their warbots, starting “The Final War”.
Shining Smith has just bought an old scrapped Tesla warplane for her West Virgina junkyard but she finds an old friend dead in the cockpit when she broke the military seals. And, the plane is infected with bicolor ants, a nanobot enhanced ant that a crazy person introduced to the USA to eat all of the dead bodies. Shining is one of the few known survivors of a bicolor ant swarm, who infected her with their nanobots. And she is a survivor of The Final War that started when she was 12. But her old friend is a warning that danger is coming.
The author has a website at:
https://www.faithhunter.net
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars (4,587 reviews)
Lynn
@nick said The “Junkyard Cats” book is WEIRD. I think I like it but I’m not sure yet. Are all romance writers working off the same basic plot? I guess that’s sort of the definition of “genre” writing. They have to go to pretty extreme lengths to make their story stick out…. it kept me up an extra hour last night anyway…
Yes, “Junkyard Cats” is weird. I did not mention the dark matter WIMP engines for the space ships. Or the Bug aliens that forced The Final War to stop. Or the fact that Russia used WIMP bombs on Germany and tore a hole in the stratosphere, losing much of the water from Earth to outer space. Or that Shining has a crashed Bug space ship.
BTW, the nanobots are freaking me out. The fact that Shining Smith is infected and shedding nanobots all over the place is a horrifying concept. And she has infected her junkyard cats who use the nanobots to communicate to each other and her. So, Shining can never touch another person without infecting them.
So to me, this is a science fiction book, not a science fiction romance book. I am reading book #2 in the series now.
BTW, there are lots of messages from today on the Tuesday page.
https://www.ttgnet.com/journal/2024/08/27/tues-aug-27-2024-well-i-was-asking-for-rain/
“North Texas assistant principal says she was blinded by ‘irate’ student”
https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/education/article/texas-principal-eye-blind-19727834.php
“An assistant principal at a North Texas middle school who was airlifted to a hospital after she was attacked by a student on Aug. 15 revealed on Tuesday the attack knocked her right eye out of her socket and doctors say she has lost sight in that eye.”
“Rogers went on to blame the incident on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and the Texas Legislature. She said a lack of funding for public schools has led educators to struggle with academics, student discipline, teacher retention and less student support.”
No, the fault is with the students who attack each other, the teachers, and the staff. You cannot add enough security to fix this problem. The student needs to go to the juvenile prison in Gatesville.
>> Anyway, we’ll see. The initial settings aren’t right – they overcompensating the missing frequencies, and I actually hear worse at lower frequencies. Adjustment appointment next week. I keep these for a month, then they want me to try out another model as well, probably for another month. All with no obligation, and there really is no pressure to buy unless I am happy. On the other hand, if I do buy, the price including a couple years of service is $8k. Jeez.
Quality OTC hearing aids can be had here in the states for +/- $1,000. The key is to exclude any not marked as “self-fitting.”
Random search: https://lexiehearing.com/us/lexie-b2-plus-powered-by-bose-hearing-aids
Article: Effectiveness of an Over-the-Counter Self-fitting Hearing Aid Compared With an Audiologist-Fitted Hearing Aid
A Randomized Clinical Trial
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaotolaryngology/fullarticle/2803832
(YMMV – IANA Audiologist)
>> Anyway, we’ll see. The initial settings aren’t right – they overcompensating the missing frequencies, and I actually hear worse at lower frequencies. Adjustment appointment next week. I keep these for a month, then they want me to try out another model as well, probably for another month. All with no obligation, and there really is no pressure to buy unless I am happy. On the other hand, if I do buy, the price including a couple years of service is $8k. Jeez.
Quality OTC hearing aids can be had here in the states for +/- $1,000. The key is to exclude any not marked as “self-fitting.”
“Guns and Ammo” and “American Rifleman (NRA)” magazines are advertising Over The Ear OTC hearing aids for $295 for a pair. I think that they are just miniature versions of my electronic shooting muffs.
https://www.amazon.com/Lightweight-Water-Repellent-Protection-Enhancement-Amplifier/dp/B005GRG470?tag=ttgnet-20/
“Why Kamala Harris’s approach to capital gains is generating so much controversy”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-kamala-harriss-approach-to-capital-gains-is-generating-so-much-controversy-112935244.html
“But these plans — which include the taxation of unrealized capital gains on holdings not yet sold — would face an uphill fight on Capitol Hill even if Harris wins big. Many of the critiques also vastly overstate how far-reaching they would be.”
“That hasn’t stopped many wealthy figures — especially Trump-friendly ones — from casting these plans as part of a broad-based attack on wealth and the business community from Harris.”
“”This path leads to bread lines & ugly shoes,” Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk posted on X, formerly Twitter, about the Harris economic agenda.”
Ugly shoes ? How about no shoes at all ?
A little bit of rain here. Enough to make the grass and trees sparkle. Nice. And humid too.
I’ve the SS stuff figured out. I’m slow sometimes. They pay a month late. To get your July payment you have to live through July. The entire month. To get the payment in August. Which actually makes sense.
No partial months.
That I have to take my socks off to be able to count, well, like I said, slow.
I’m bouncing off the walls today. Antsy. Don’t know why. Just a thing I seem to be doing once in a while. I know enough that if I start walking around too much the dogs get concerned. They can tell I’m wacky. So I just park myself in a chair and watch a DVD. Dunno. It’ll sort out.
“Will your health care – or lack thereof – depend on your political views?”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2024/08/will-your-health-care-or-lack-thereof.html
“We’ve seen how “woke” ideology is invading the medical profession, and has been for years. Dr. Stanley Goldfarb’s well-known article and subsequent book of the same title, “Take Two Aspirin And Call Me By My Pronouns“, showed how medical education has been hijacked by the progressive left and turned into just another ideology, rather than a science.”
“Now comes news that in formerly Great Britain, nurses may be allowed to use your political views to determine whether or not they’re going to treat you.”
Oh my goodness.
>> Those were an option for me. I opted against because of the small size. When I got mine the fully in-ear did not offer all the connection options and were not rechargeable, at least the ones the VA offered. That may have changed with new technology. The behind-the-ear were available in battery or rechargeable option. I have been able to go almost 20 hours on a single charge. I also have a rechargeable battery hearing aid recharge case. It works quite well.
IIRC, a big difference between the in-ear and behind-the-ear is with the former there’s in effect a full seal so that you only hear through the aid while with the latter some amount of the sound is not going through the aid. Two different user experiences and comes down to personal preferences.
“A Time for Mercy: A Jake Brigance Novel” by John Grisham
https://www.amazon.com/Time-Mercy-Jake-Brigance-Novel/dp/0593157818?tag=ttgnet-20/
Book number three of a three book legal thriller series. I read the well printed and well bound MMPB published by Vintage in 2021. I suspect that there may be one or more books in the series as time goes on.
“Clanton, Mississippi. 1990. Jake Brigance finds himself embroiled in a deeply divisive trial when the court appoints him attorney for Drew Gamble, a timid sixteen-year-old boy accused of murdering a local deputy. Many in Clanton want a swift trial and the death penalty, but Brigance digs in and discovers that there is more to the story than meets the eye. Jake’s fierce commitment to saving Drew from the gas chamber puts his career, his financial security, and the safety of his family on the line.”
I would not be surprised to see this book made into a high end movie like several of Grisham’s other books. It is a long book that can be fairly easily cut down into a single movie. Or a TV series.
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars (86,130 reviews)
Lynn
I’d go with behind the ears just so my ears can breathe. Wearing ear plugs for a few hours while mowing makes my ears wet and waxy.
The batteries they sell at HEB? For $12 a pack of 10? You can buy the same exact thing from Big River and get 80 batteries for $22 or so.
He got about a week from a battery.
I’ve seen hearing aids you can buy on Big River and you program them with your phone. A couple of hundred bucks. Amplifiers. I imagine you would miss the sounds you can’t hear without being tested.
I’ve seen hearing aids you can buy on Big River and you program them with your phone. A couple of hundred bucks. Amplifiers. I imagine you would miss the sounds you can’t hear without being tested.
When I wear my electronic shooting ear muffs, I can hear ants walking around the place, they are that sensitive (amplifying). I have to turn them way down.
unrealized capital gains
Unrealized meaning they are PRETEND gains. Paper gains. IE not real gains at all until actually sold for a profit. To tax imaginary things is insanity.
I have a friend who was a senior guy with a big sneaker company back in the day. He got taxed on his stock options, but by the time he could sell and get the money, they’d dropped to 0. Still had to pay tax on money he never had. The Kamel’s handler’s plan would destroy the stock market, executive compensation, and the whole economy.
n
“GOP-led states urge Supreme Court to pause EPA plan meant to cut methane emissions by 80%”
https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/27/politics/methane-epa-supreme-court/index.html
“CNN — Republican officials in 24 states asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to halt a Biden administration effort to reduce emissions of the planet-warming gas methane, adding to a series of emergency appeals challenging environmental regulations.”
“Led by Oklahoma, the states are asking the high court to pause an Environmental Protection Agency rule that went into effect earlier this year and that the agency estimates will slash methane emissions from oil and gas operations by nearly 80% through 2038.”
Global warming is fake generated by fake software studies.
I have ear molds that fit completely in the ear with a wire going to the unit behind the ear. There is a hole in the ear mold to allow pressure to equalize and provide some outside noise. I tried the ones that completely blocked the ear and, in my opinion, sucked. The sound seemed artificial and isolated. In particular low frequency sounds were heavily muted.
Top of the line, the really good units, here in the U.S. will cost upwards of $3,000 each, $6K+ for a pair. Costco can get that price down to about $4K.
Only if I was desperate. Fitting a hearing aid, and programming frequency response, takes some fairly sophisticated equipment. My hearing aids boost different frequencies differently over several dozen frequencies. The profile of the hearing aid matches my hearing loss profile.
Those hearing aids you linked would not be very discreet and from the looks not very comfortable for long term wear.
I think that all hearing aids have a small breathing hole to allow pressure equalization.
I used to have domes, which are just silicone tips that fit in the ear. There are four slots that allow the domes to remain in the ears. There is also a small piece that attaches to the receivers that fit in the interior curve of the ear. Domes are easy to use as they require no molds of the interior of the ear. The receiver is also small and less powerful. Since the domes are not an exact fit they can be annoying over long wearing periods.
Ear molds are exactly that. An impression is made of the ear and the receiver is placed in the resulting earpiece. The receiver is larger and fits exactly and can provide a larger frequency range and more power. Since the molded receiver units fit exactly, there is no discomfort over long periods of wear. Providing this molded earpiece requires the service of an audiologist.
Having worn domes for three years I was never fully comfortable with the domes. The hearing aids from Resound were not reliable. I had the right unit repaired three times and replaced twice in those three years. Why only right ear, who knows. I don’t think Resound really properly repaired, or replaced the unit, when it was sent in for fixing. My current Phonak aids are much more reliable. No issues in just over a year of use.
Based on my preferences, and on my use of the ear molds, the ear molds are superior for my needs.
Ah, but can you hear a moth fart at 10 paces? I can’t either but I thought I would ask.
“Russia Is Literally Threatening Us With World War III, but Most People in the Western World Don’t Seem to Care”
https://thelibertydaily.com/russia-is-literally-threatening-us-world-war-iii/
“(The Economic Collapse Blog)—The Russians just told us again that the world could soon be facing nuclear war if western powers don’t stop escalating the conflict in Ukraine, but this is yet another warning that has gone in one ear and out the other. The Russians can talk about nuclear war until they are blue in the face, but nothing that they say is going to sink in, because our leaders simply do not care. They are entirely convinced that the Russians will never use nuclear weapons, and so they are not afraid to keep pushing the Russians closer to a breaking point. When the Russians finally reach their breaking point, what will they do?”
Russia says that the canned sunshine will affect the USA but nobody seems to care.
I care.
Nvidia blew way past analyst expectations, more than doubling revenue over the same quarter last year.
The AI monkey trick lives on.
Wall Street believes, and that’s all that counts.
>> Adding to the insult is that my 2017 Thinkpad with identical CPU/memory specs runs much faster and cooler *than a brand new machine*.
Just recently picked up a nice certified refurbished ThinkPad laptop from the Lenovo Outlet Store for W2. T14 Gen 4. Good deal, looks new.
I only buy Lenovo T series for personal use
The US couldn’t keep Payless in business. Think about that.
>> amazon search is starting to suck.
Try to find a pair of shoes in a specific model and size… it will pollute the results with near misses and won’t even put the hits at the top. If I need a 10.5, showing me size 8 isn’t helpful at all. Neither is showing me out of stock items.
@nick, meet Rufus: https://www.amazon.com/Rufus?tag=ttgnet-20/
The monkey lives…
Twenty years ago when my father-in-law died under suspicious circumstances in the heart transplant program at UT Southwestern, one of the nurses cashed the checks on his life insurance policies, all perfectly legal under Texas law at the time.
UT Southwestern is the hospital complex where JFK died. That place reeks of creepy.
I was thinking of writing a comment to the same effect today. I searched for a specific product and it generated all but what I wanted. This must be a design feature – but I cannot understand why this ‘feature’ exists. Just give me what I asked for; no? If I search eBay – I get a sensible result – not brain science.
One of the reasons I tend to avoid buying via Big River.
Starting!? I’ve hated it for a while now. Just this week, I needed to order a cable with HDMI mini on one end, and HDMI Micro on the other. It took me four different searches and a lot of scrolling.
Well, I got the final coat of mud on the drywall ceiling repairs. And I weedwhacked the whole back yard as it was too deep to run the mower.
I’m covered in grass and weeds.
Time for a shower, then pickup the pizza. W has a work function tonight, so I’m feeding the kids.
n
Taxing unrealized capital gains sounds stupid, but in the oncoming economic crash it might be handy; taking tax DEDUCTIONS on unrealized capital LOSSES when your property or investment value falls. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, right?
Also, because Democrats WANT a nuclear war. Biden is senile; Harris is a communist, LITERALLY; party member and trained in Moscow, before the fall of the USSR.. Walz is a ChiCom, honeymooned in China.
https://x.com/WendyOnBluBird/status/1828789488207999450
Silly you.
Death to Rufus!
Found correct results on the first search. Searched for “cable HDMI mini on one end, and HDMI Micro”.
I’m going to try for an early night. It will be a long day tomorrow.
n
I refuse to believe it’s my fault. Oh, I’ll admit it’s possible. It’s just that my belief system relies on me being always right.
>>BTW, there are lots of messages from today on the Tuesday page.
Always wondered if there was a simple way to, after a certain time, to post “late” comments to ‘tomorrow?’
Oh right, it’s WordPress, there’s probably a plug-in..
>> Nvidia blew way past analyst expectations, more than doubling revenue over the same quarter last year.
The AI monkey trick lives on.
Wall Street believes, and that’s all that counts.
Almost…stock didn’t ‘blow past’ analysts’ projections by enough. Stock closed down 2.1% for the day and almost 7% in after-hours trading.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/28/investing/nvidia-earnings-stocks/index.html
>> I’ve seen hearing aids you can buy on Big River and you program them with your phone. A couple of hundred bucks. Amplifiers.
Amplifiers are not “hearing aids.” They just amplify all the sound, noise included. Think “PA system.”
https://www.amazon.com/Reizen-Loud-110dB-Personal-Amplifier/dp/B01NCIYQ9G?tag=ttgnet-20/
>> Top of the line, the really good units, here in the U.S. will cost upwards of $3,000 each, $6K+ for a pair. Costco can get that price down to about $4K.
Costco’s prices seem to account for the in-person services they provide. The top of the line Eargo 7s are $2,490 at the ‘Zon. Should meet most OTC needs unless you are dealing with profound loss.
https://www.amazon.com/EARGO-Self-Fitting-FDA-Cleared-Hearing-Aids/dp/B0BSHCNP5W?tag=ttgnet-20
>> The Russians can talk about nuclear war until they are blue in the face, but nothing that they say is going to sink in, because our leaders simply do not care.
Don’t care as POTUS, puppet-masters, handlers, family and close (read rich) friends will be in one of our bomb-proof bunkers.
As for the rest of us…as you say, canned sunshine.
>> This must be a design feature – but I cannot understand why this ‘feature’ exists. Just give me what I asked for; no? If I search eBay – I get a sensible result – not brain science.
It exists because Jeff (I rode in the Bronco) wants it that way. In his mind, it drives unplanned sales.
>> One of the reasons I tend to avoid buying via Big River.
Name your top alternatives that have a similar breadth of stock.
Hey Tony, what’s the expected lifespan? (emphasis added)
https://apnews.com/article/spacex-launch-accident-booster-db396897fbb90d00ef18be886b3b1ce0
P.S. the Polaris Dawn spacewalk mission is impacted.
—
Good night all…
Oops…one more…
Shocked I am…
Supreme Court refuses to revive Biden’s latest student loan debt relief plan
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-refuses-revive-bidens-latest-student-loan-debt-relief-pl-rcna167455
Uhh, Ms HOTUS, your reaction please?? Nothing? How about you Timmy? What’s that? They’re lying, there was no DUI? Sorry, no…
(From yesterday)
Check Monoprice. Like Newegg, their warehouse is close to me, with fast order fills and quick, mostly free shipping. An example:
https://www.monoprice.com/category/cables/hdmi-cables?&menuDisStr=hdmi%20cables&categoryPath3_uFilter=Micro%20mand%20Mini%20HDMI%20Cables&TotalProducts=28
Their website is a bit quirky, and their variety is limited, but I have always found their cables and adapters to be of good-enough quality and at some of the best prices to be found. Never had anything show up defective. Can’t say that for other sources.
They have more than cables. A real menagerie of odd stuff. Not sure where they get some of it. Do read independent reviews, because some of their electronics stuff is of questionable quality. Kind of like Harbor Freight in their early days.