Hot AND humid. Like that was gonna change… It was extra hot yesterday though, and so I was moving a bit slowly for anything involving exposure to the flaming fusion fire in the sky.
I did my doctor appointment in the morning and was only a little late. Had a chance to talk with a neighbor about one of the other neighbors- I took the opportunity to get an update on his health and that of his ailing wife. They’d both gone into care and we hadn’t heard much. Unfortunately she died, but he’s doing OK for values of OK. Anyway meatspace put me behind, and google made it worse by not knowing exactly where the office and entrance were. Then I couldn’t find the office in the building. Normally I’d have arrived with plenty of time to get sorted, but meatspace…
Involving ourselves with other people sometimes has costs, large or small, and is sometimes messy. Still needs to happen.
I am more convinced of this than ever. You need to be a part of a group/community/circle of acquaintances. It’s like the root level certificates, someone will need to vouch for you at some point, and you will need to be ABLE to vouch for someone else… people will need to know who you are and think well of you, or at least have no reason to not think well of you. To succeed, the right people need to be in your circle. That has always been true on many levels and there isn’t any reason to think that will change. What makes them think well of you might change.
John the forensic accountant may not be valuable to anyone but John the hobbyist leather worker might. Johnny the hobbyist gunsmith might be of some use, but Joan the goatherd and part time vet tech is certainly going to be. And Juanita the cheesemaker is going to be a hero. Depending on how this whole collapse/reset/global realignment thing goes, of course. Maybe the ‘freedom squads’ will need John the forensic accountant to find the stolen money and the next step in the network of traitors most of all.
In any case, strengthen your ties to people in the real world. Know who is selling what, what they need, and where you might get it for them… Do people favors. Let them do some for you. Build some trust. You don’t need to know their kids’ names, but if they tell you they have kids, it’s helpful to remember that and ask about it once in a while… normal in-person stuff, that I’m sure isn’t that normal for many people here, or even out there in the modern world. Build some connections where we’ve been intentionally isolated and fragmented.
And stack stuff. Having stuff can’t hurt, and might make a real difference in your life, or someone else’s.
nick
A Silverado EV is coming. Who knows about Stellantis anymore.
Next Summer the 2025s will have to meet the tightening CAFE standards.
The Hill Country has the terrain but no water. East of I-35 gets the rain … well, in most years … but lacks the elevation.
Lake Travis and Lake Buchanan are man made and serve as reservoirs for the City of Austin. Right now, however, they are less than 50% full. The last of the boat ramps closed Tuesday.
Government from California is next, complete with an income tax.
Wait until the 2026 trim notices hit post-“reform”, when the temporary property tax rate compression stops hiding the ISDs lack of fiscal discipline over those two years.
Anyone planning an exit should pay attention to the Supreme Court again this fall, when WA State’s new capital gains tax, effectively an exit/wealth tax, goes before the Roberts Court.
WA State doesn’t have income tax either, but that isn’t for a lack of trying by the Progs.
“What do you *do* with people who cannot or will not be civilized? You don’t want them running around, you can’t afford to jail them all (even if you could make criminal charges stick). So what – really, realistically – do you do?”
Start by doing away with the myth that life is precious.
Then do away with the myth of “victimless” crime or “property crime”. Anyone who has ever been victimized by theft or vandalism can tell you that the perps have literally stolen days, weeks, even months of their lives as they struggle to deal with insurance, make repairs, etc. Even if they get the job done, the accounting starts with the loss of the deductible and the decrease in resources, followed by the loss of their time and the stress toll on their health.
More than thirty years ago I advocated for measuring crimes in part by the amount of time that is stolen from people. On that basis the phone spammers would be in the negative with a couple of scams and be on the list to make lampshades.
Yeah, when you steal my stuff you are stealing the part of my life that I spent working to get that stuff, and if it’s stuff that must be replaced, you are stealing my life that I’d have spent on other things but now need to spend on replacing the stuff…
Since I have a very limited amount of life, the time should be precious to me, and especially as my remaining time gets smaller, the percentage of it that is take up by replacement of stolen stuff becomes larger. Add in inflation and the theft is magnified the later in life that it happens.
n
Slightly cooler to start the day. 81F when I was waiting for the bus. Somehow I think that it won’t stay that temp.
n
@drwilliams: interesting idea. We could apply it to things other than property crime. For example, if we counted all the hours that the TSA has wasted – by its very existence? They must be millions of lifetimes in the red.
– – – – –
As Ray does, I’m subbing today: At the local trade school, for a class I don’t normally teach. They are just starting papers they have to write on various IT topics. Being an IT type, I’ve gone around and talked with each one individually, giving them tips and pointers about where to start.
All of the discussions were in English. Request of the school: I basically never use German with students. It’s really surprising how good their English is, given they are off the academic track, and officially only had a couple of years of English in school. English is conquering the world, especially the IT world.
They mostly have a good work ethic – it’s been pretty quiet and concentrated, with only a few times that I walk by and – suddenly – what’s on the screen changes. Two or three are either clueless or unmotivated – hard to tell which. As it happens, I’ll have these same kids in my class in the Spring. It will be interesting to see how things go then…
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12491223/Disney-slashes-price-basic-subscription-service-bid-attract-subscribers-ditched-latest-quarter.html
Showing my age, but an image of the K-Mart blue light special light popped in my head.
+1,000,000
I handle this by telling people to come to me if they’re totally clueless about how to get started or what they’re supposed to do. I won’t laugh at them. If they’re embarrassed, they should suck it up and take the small amount of embarrassment now in finding out how to get going rather than the big embarrassment later in not being able to do their project. (Or pass a course, in your students’ cases; I don’t teach classes but do tutor and mentor.)
If they never come to you, well, either they’re unmotivated or they’re paralyzed by anxiety and wouldn’t be able to make it anyway.
Disney Basic. Other packages are going up. Plus they are still on a p!ssing match with Spectrum and all of their channels are off the cable system. I read that Spectrum pays Disney 2.1 B$ a year. Someone will begin to feel the pain.
Of course none of the subscribers such as myself are getting a reduced bill for less tv.
Live by The Woke, die by The Woke:
Eric Adams says New York City’s migrant crisis will DESTROY the Big Apple as he warns that 10,000 illegal asylum seekers arriving EVERY month will flood EACH of the five boroughs: ‘The city we knew, we’re about to lose’
The Cloud People in NYFC will watch the battle between crimmigrants and rats with glee. Which ever side wins, they will soon be coming for the Cloud People.
WWWD (What Will Wheels Do):
Judge orders Texas to remove floating barriers aimed at deterring migrants
Texas violates Federal Waterways law. Almost laughable. He didn’t get permission for the Corps of Engineers.
As a commenter states: “Abbott has a chance to be the GOAT.”
Wheels should just say, “Hey, those are on the Mexican side. Obrador gave me permission over tequilas.”
Spectrum isn’t waiving the ESPN extortion added to every cable bill while the standoff continues?
I cut the TV feed a few years ago when the “Sports and entertainment programming fee” reached $15/month.
Sounds like the Texas plan of shipping illegals to sanctuary cities is having the intended effect. Keep it up.
Here, we’re having fun with Eritreans. Those who came in the 1980s support the current government (that came to power in…1991?). Those who came later are refugees from said government. And they’re fighting.
The press, of course, is missing the point: if someone has been here for 20, 30, or 40 years, they should feel Swiss first and foremost. If they still feel that level of loyalty to Eritrea, they need to go home. Which isn’t here.
The real purpose of the clot-shot revealed:
Can ‘Human Engineering’ Make Us Intolerant to Meat to Save the Planet?
I can’t tell if the audience is cackling (Excellent, Smithers) with him, or laughing at him.
Abbott needs to drop a busload in the neighborhood of a certain federal judge.
@lynn: Is the molten sulfur storage something that will (can?) pan out eventually? I mean medium term, not next year.
We already have several molten sulfur plants here in Texas, across the USA, and in Canada. In fact, the biggest one is in Alberta, the TarSands project produces 2,000 tons of sulfur from the H2S in the tar sands each day.
The problen with sulfur is that you have to be careful with oxygen or it produces minute amounts of sulfuric acid continuously. That means that your entire process must be built with stainless steel, very expensive. And even with stainless steel, good luck on everything lasting past three years. Very high maintenance.
For Texas, batteries are the way to go. The battery recycle process is a joke so that is a looming problem.
“Texas paid $31 million to bitcoin miner to cut energy use during heat wave”
https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/texas-bitcoin-riot-ercot-grid-energy-18352398.php
“The bitcoin miner Riot said it raked in the record profits by reducing power use at its Texas facilities to earn energy credits from the state.”
I spent three months working at the Sandow plant outside Rockdale, Texas back in the 1980s. The four coal (lignite) burners were a mess.
I am going to say something out of character, something so terrible, something so shocking that women should be next to their fainting couch (not Jenny tho) and children should leave the room.
.
.
.
.
I had a Sam Adams Jack-O Pumpkin Ale, and it wasn’t horrible. Kind of smooth.
Likely no worse than an IPA
>> How are you going to keep people from having children again ?
Sterilizing people will not go over well here in the South.
A little something in every can of PBR should do the trick.
Did you have it at The Joint in Randsburg? My SIL and I want to stop in there in the near future.
“What do you *do* with people who cannot or will not be civilized? You don’t want them running around, you can’t afford to jail them all (even if you could make criminal charges stick). So what – really, realistically – do you do?”
The crazies: Medicate the ones who’ll benefit from treatment. Institutionalize those who can’t or won’t take their meds, along with the criminally insane.
Alkies and junkies: Incarcerate those who’ve become either a public nuisance or a public menace, jail time to include mandatory rehab. Increasingly longer sentences, up to and including life, for repeat offenders.
Tramps and bums: Escort them to the city limits, with an admonition never to show their faces within those limits ever again.
The remainder: Referral to the many charities who provide services to the down-and-out.
IOW, nothing that our forebears would’ve considered controversial.
Reading an article in the LA Tmes this morning from Geneva talking about the extreme heat in Europe. It was quantitatively described as “….about 2.7 degrees warmer than….”. How stupid were these tow writers in Geneva and of course, an LA Times person who did not fix it.
Yes, an “F” or “K” missing between “2.7” and “degrees”.
Round them up, put them on a ship, and deposit them near Acapulco.
If you want to make it really fun, don’t feed them between pick-up and drop-off but give each a Liberator pistol and tell them that if they want to eat, they have to take it.
No, it was just a seasonal variety case from somewhere. And not an AB product.
But I think I’d like to go to the Joint, been there once some years ago.
As I recall, it had a lot of atmosphere and was neat. Unfortunately they didn’t have a working bathroom that day and sent us down the street to a supposed open public facility. That was also out of order. Fortunately there’s a lot of desert about.
(Bizarrely the ai on the iPad is putting commas in every fourth or fifth word recently.)
Too close.
Drop them off in Nigeria or Calcutta or anywhere according to their skin color where they have to swim to get back here.
Had a chance to talk with a neighbor about one of the other neighbors- I took the opportunity to get an update on his health and that of his ailing wife. They’d both gone into care and we hadn’t heard much. Unfortunately she died, but he’s doing OK for values of OK.
A lot of that is going around. My wife’s BFF put her 85+ year old mother in to hospice today. Her mother had several heart attacks last year and she had carotid surgery last week and then had a massive stroke afterwards in recovery. Her mother failed the swallow test and cannot move her right arm anymore. But she can talk and is demanding no more treatments. Her Dad is beside himself. So she is moving her mother into her home and will be transporting her Dad back and forth. Her Dad is blind but mobile. Getting old is tough and the end of life stuff is tough.
A Silverado EV is coming. Who knows about Stellantis anymore.
Next Summer the 2025s will have to meet the tightening CAFE standards.
A Dodge Ram EV is coming in Q4 of 2024.
https://www.ramtrucks.com/revolution.html
I note that none of the ¾ ton and 1 ton trucks have EVs yet. Of course, there is the Tesla Semi of which there are reputedly 30 on the road at Pepsi and a few other places now.
I was there once back in the ‘70s, but about time to get back there. I’ll let you and JimB know when we plan our trip. Oh yeah, we will be making our annual Thankgiving weekend trip to the LOW desert as usual this year, Borrego Springs.
YUUUP! But I won’t accept the possibility that I might be next!
Well, I am having a can of PBR now. Then Sat. afternoon I will be here having a few listening to a C&W band. https://www.facebook.com/MothersTavern
Lake Travis and Lake Buchanan are man made and serve as reservoirs for the City of Austin. Right now, however, they are less than 50% full. The last of the boat ramps closed Tuesday.
Every lake of any size in Texas is man made. Mostly cooling water for power plants. We are getting ready to build a 100 square mile lake north of my house up in the Fulshear, Texas area for a drinking water backup to the Brazos River.
BC: A New Ride
https://www.gocomics.com/bc/2023/09/07
Yup, that funky tailed dude is an Ankylosaurus.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/ankylosaurus-magniventris-1
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12491223/Disney-slashes-price-basic-subscription-service-bid-attract-subscribers-ditched-latest-quarter.html
Showing my age, but an image of the K-Mart blue light special light popped in my head.
Funny, but I thought that Disney was going to be one of the three streaming services to survive. I figured Netflix (the king of content), Amazon, and Disney Plus were the three.
Today’s fun customer trick is the simulation of reacting aluminum and water to produce hydrogen and aluminum hydroxide. This carbonless stuff is getting wild.
Longevity and health predictions are thrown off by suicide.
“”Michelle Obama 2024″ Author Joel Gilbert Explains Why Big Mike Will Likely Replace Joe Biden”
https://rumble.com/v3fnfgd-michelle-obama-2024-author-joel-gilbert-explains-why-big-mike-will-likely-r.html
No, no, no.
DIS went into the 70s briefly today before clawing back to close at 80.57. PE is still 65.5.
The Mouse will have to pay up to Comcast for the third of Hulu they don’t already own. The intrinsic value of a streaming service is effectively zero, but Iger cut an insane deal to buy out their partners back when the company was flying high.
@EdH
“I had a Sam Adams Jack-O Pumpkin Ale, and it wasn’t horrible. Kind of smooth.”
What you do in the privacy of your own home is your business, but I have added to the “Negatory Information” header in your file. It’s not just your consumption of such an adulterated beverage, it’s the poor choice over so many better brews from SA, notably Octoberfest and Cold Snap.
Well, at least it wasn’t the effing mango.
“Well, I am having a can of PBR now.”
Some people are born damaged, others work around hydrazine.
Vitrified clay retorts the size of stadiums?
A professor of mine, years ago, started his class with the comment that “the dirty little secret of aerospace is that our vehicles are only as good as the stuff the materials scientists can create”.
Sounds like those guys need to get cracking on batteries…
@Lynn
“Today’s fun customer trick is the simulation of reacting aluminum and water to produce hydrogen and aluminum hydroxide. This carbonless stuff is getting wild.”
If you use the hydrogen to power aluminum reduction, what’s the net loss on the cycle, and speaking of cycles (since you’re doing the calculations) how many climate zealots on bicycle generators would it take to break even? Assume for calculation purposes that they are themselves powered by green energy–Soylent Green. Note it is not necessary at this time to add a carbon capture loop on the pedalers.
Why Pennsylvania dirt is used in most MLB stadium infields
https://apnews.com/3e9b5062c72a4775b94fdf86dd61904e
https://flipboard.com/topic/mlb/this-pennsylvania-dirt-farm-supplies-infield-mix-for-86-of-mlb-teams/a-kz0Gghg7REKbedhgPsi7AA%3Aa%3A248213600-6db9db6a74%2Fflipboard.com
I was asked about this today and had to look it up.
re: battery technology
I have a friend who literally wrote the texbook on space power systems. We spoke this week, and he’s revising his book. For decades now, the chapter on batteries omitted Lithium based batteries, because no one sane would put them into a non-disposable spacecraft.
Now he has to add care and feeding information for lithium into the book. Because SpaceX uses them, and the engineers who work at SpaceX study from this book.
Note that Elon’s satellites are probably in the “disposable spacecraft” category. Don’t know if his manned stuff used them or not. It’s a question worth pondering.
Looking for a lower mid-range laptop. Never had one before with an AMD processor, anything of concern I should consider going non-Intel?
It certainly is! Make them walk the walk which they so endlessly talk. I suggest a mask with a filter which prevents CO2 from passing. If they are going to produce CO2 then make them keep it to themselves.
@SteveF
“It certainly is!”
In the intermediate design, but this was just a preliminary.
TXU sent email out earlier requesting conservation today.
It looks like ERCOT was tight again around 7:30 PM.
Alan Re AMD:
I’ve had several Lenovo laptop with AMD processors Thinkpads and now an Ideapad 5 Pro with a Ryzen 5000 7 series with no problems.
“Seveneves” by Neal Stephenson
https://www.amazon.com/Seveneves-Neal-Stephenson/dp/0062334514?tag=ttgnet-20/
A standalone science fiction apocalyptic novel with no sequel or prequel. I read the massive illustrated trade paperback published by William Morrow Paperbacks in 2016 that I bought new on Amazon. I would like to see a sequel for the many hanging threads but I doubt it. BTW, Seveneves is a palindrome for those words smiths out there.
If you like to buy your science fiction by the pound, have I got a deal for you. 1.3 lbs, 880 pages in trade paperback for $14.39 on Amazon. I am not sure that you can beat that deal anywhere else. In my opinion, the author should have published this book as a trilogy since he very carefully split the book into three parts. Part One starts with the Moon blowing up into seven pieces in the first paragraph. No, these are not the seven eves. And they rapidly become eight pieces on the way to several trillion pieces.
The author does not explain how the Moon blew up, he just states it as a fact. Everyone on Earth thinks that this is amazing until two weeks later when a leading scientist realizes that the various pieces are going to hit each other and start raining down on Earth in two years and lasting for 5,000 years. They nickname it the “Hard Rain” because it is a death sentence for everyone living on Earth. Some people have verified that if this were to happen, it would be very bad for us. Here is a simulation:
https://kottke.org/17/10/a-scientific-simulation-of-seveneves-moon-disaster
Also at youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQfgWQZa0Ow
Part One starts in the near future and lasts two years. Several of the nations of Earth start sending supplies and people to the ISS, the International Space Station. By this time, the ISS has been equipped with a very large iron asteroid to help keep it in orbit. An Elon Musk type lifts several super heavy payloads into orbit and builds a space ship without any one really noticing what he and five other guys are doing. One of their payloads is a four gigawatt nuclear reactor which they plan to use to power a giant ice ball after capturing a comet and bringing it back to the ISS. Many people die while modifying the ISS to hold more people and things.
Part two begins at the Hard Rain and lasts three years. At the beginning, there are over 1,500 people at the ISS. Over 1,400 of them are teenagers from various nations. The teenagers are living in ten foot (1.5 m) diameter by forty foot long (12 m) plastic shells with bare minimum air generation algae farms, also their food. Some of the teenagers rebel, steal several of the plastic shells with extra food and propellant, and head for Mars. Many of the other teenagers head for the Moon’s orbit to keep from getting hit by rocks. When the comet sliver is brought back, they process the ice into hydrogen and oxygen and start moving the ISS up to the Moon’s orbit also.
Part three starts 5,000 years later. There are three billion people living in various habitats, mostly in the Moon’s orbit around the Earth. The reterraforming of Earth was started over a hundred years before and Earth has a breathable atmosphere again due to the many comets crashed into it. Not everyone agrees on how to move next.
This book is very controversial as to whether or not it is hard science. I find that it is very much hard science. Here is an opposing view by James Nicoll, a noted science fiction and fantasy reviewer:
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/some-races-are-disciplined-is-fact-tekla-said-japanese-are-more-disciplined-than-italians
Amazon bought the screen rights to the book back in 2016. They hired Ron Howard to direct the series for streaming. Ron Howard put a note on twitter in 2020 that they were working on the script but that was the last word.
https://twitter.com/RealRonHoward/status/1276136984076042241
The author has a website at:
https://www.nealstephenson.com/
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.3 out of 5 stars (29,637 reviews)
@Lynn
“Today’s fun customer trick is the simulation of reacting aluminum and water to produce hydrogen and aluminum hydroxide. This carbonless stuff is getting wild.”
If you use the hydrogen to power aluminum reduction, what’s the net loss on the cycle, and speaking of cycles (since you’re doing the calculations) how many climate zealots on bicycle generators would it take to break even? Assume for calculation purposes that they are themselves powered by green energy–Soylent Green. Note it is not necessary at this time to add a carbon capture loop on the pedalers.
“Reaction of Aluminum with Water to Produce Hydrogen”
“A Study of Issues Related to the Use of Aluminum for On-Board Vehicular Hydrogen Storage”
“U.S. Department of Energy”
https://www1.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/pdfs/aluminium_water_hydrogen.pdf
Several of my customers are working on DOE and DOD projects. I think I can say that. Electric backpacks are very interesting to a certain group of people.
TXU sent email out earlier requesting conservation today.
It looks like ERCOT was tight again around 7:30 PM.
Looks like ERCOT hit 83,911 MW at 5pm. And then the 13,000 MW of solar went away. I’ll bet that a certain part of their anatomy was puckering up.
Firday’s XXXXX Friday’s peak is estimated to be 84,198 MW. I predict a bumpy ride.
re: battery technology
I have a friend who literally wrote the texbook on space power systems. We spoke this week, and he’s revising his book. For decades now, the chapter on batteries omitted Lithium based batteries, because no one sane would put them into a non-disposable spacecraft.
Now he has to add care and feeding information for lithium into the book. Because SpaceX uses them, and the engineers who work at SpaceX study from this book.
Note that Elon’s satellites are probably in the “disposable spacecraft” category. Don’t know if his manned stuff used them or not. It’s a question worth pondering.
The Starlink satellites are designed for five years. They have already deorbited several hundred of them. And not by choice, the Earth’s atmosphere surged last year and got 40 of them.
https://tech.hindustantimes.com/tech/news/nasa-reveals-how-a-powerful-solar-storm-destroyed-elon-musk-led-spacex-satellites-71680330072928.html
“Well, I am having a can of PBR now.”
Some people are born damaged, others work around hydrazine.
Wait, I have worked with DRUMS of hydrazine. It is the oxygen scavenger of choice for high pressure subcritical (1,800 and 2,400 psig) and supercritical (3,600 psig) steam boilers.
It is people that smoke around hydrazine that bother me. And, those same people would smoke on the natural gas firing aisles of steam boilers with so much natural gas leaking from the gun hoses that I could barely breathe. I could yell “put that out” though.
ADDED: For those who do not know, a drum is 55 US Gallons.
Vitrified clay retorts the size of stadiums?
Uh, no. The power batteries are placed on 1U racks, just like web servers. Each battery has a digital controller that controls whether it is on standby, charging, or discharging.
I am reading “Station Eleven” now. I had no idea it was about a R=10.0 Georgia (country not state) Flu.
https://www.amazon.com/Station-Eleven-Emily-John-Mandel/dp/0804172447?tag=ttgnet-20/
Heat may be an issue on less expensive AMD laptops.
And, at this point, I wouldn’t look at any laptop without USB-C charging/docking capability even if it meant paying a bit more.
As long as no one crosses the beams…