08:23 – As of today, the new house is ours. We have so much to do in Winston-Salem to get ready for the move that we decided not to stay up in Sparta tonight. Instead, we’ll make a flying trip up there for the closing and then head back down here tonight. That way, we can get an early start tomorrow morning on the continuing packing. We’ve already arranged for a locksmith to change the locks this afternoon or first thing tomorrow morning and deliver the keys to us. The movers are coming Friday to haul all our furniture and other heavy/bulky stuff up, so as of Friday afternoon we’ll officially be moved. I told Colin that come Friday he will officially be a Spartan Dog.
The electricity is already in our name, and we’ll stop by the Internet provider to get the fiber broadband turned on as of this afternoon. Barbara has already changed the billing address on our credit cards to our new address, and I’ve changed the ship-to address for Amazon, WalMart, and the other vendors we buy from on-line. We need to stop by Costco to make that change in person. Today or tomorrow, I need to cancel our Internet service here and call Buck Stoves to find out about getting a wood stove installed. There’s already a good sized wood pile up there. It’s rotting, but it’ll do for now. Once we’re moved in, I’ll see about getting a cord or two of fresh wood delivered. Before I do that, I want to get one of those steel tube firewood racks installed to keep the wood up off the ground. And Barbara is going to meet her sister and go off in search of some new furniture to have delivered here this week so the movers can move it up to Sparta on Friday.
Email from Jen overnight. Their simulation over the Thanksgiving weekend went pretty well. Her husband was badly wounded in an attack by rampaging zombies. As a veterinarian, he was their primary medical person, so him being wounded was a problem. They talked about the need for having at least one more person trained in trauma care, and decided that it made sense to have two of their group go through first-level EMT training at the local community college and then train others in the basics. Their well pump also failed, so they had to haul water up to the garage, pre-filter it, and then run it through their Sawyer SP191 Point Zero Two water filter to provide water for most of the long weekend. They also found that maintaining a 24-hour watch was a lot more wearing than they expected it to be, particularly since they were down a person. Overall, though, Jen thought the trial went very well, and said they all think they’re pretty well prepared to deal with just about any emergency.
Congratulations and best wishes for your new home.
Avoid Persian emissaries up there: https://youtu.be/eZeYVIWz99I
Anyone see any glaring holes in this? Remember that almost everything he put in his previous 3 books has happened (except the triggering event, and overt takeover.)
https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2015/11/29/bracken-tet-take-two-islams-2016-european-offensive/
Second question, if Europe falls what does that mean for us on a political, economic, and personal level? (No more Nutella?)
nick
Congrat’s! Lots to do, but I hope you also have plenty of fun setting things up to your liking.
As I’ve said, Europe is toast.
Congratulations on the new house, Dr. Bob. Post some shots of the wood stove once it’s installed.
Thanks. I will post pictures of the installed wood stove, since it appears I may be installing it myself.
I’ve looked all over to see if I can fix the time on comments, but it appears I’m stuck with the server time. If there’s an offset option in WordPress, I sure can’t find it. At any rate, it’s annoying that this comment will be timed at 13:32 when in fact it’s 12:32.
Speaking of which, we need to get to the closing.
I suspect the problem is that the server hosting this site is not configured to support Daylight Shifting Time. I wonder if the time will be correct when we our clocks spring forward?
New Amazon delivery drone:
http://blog.chron.com/techblog/2015/11/amazon-shows-off-its-prime-air-drones/
What could go wrong? (maybe NSFW on some panels)
http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3101
Congrats
Congratulations on your purchase. That is one big prep!
nick
Robert:
WordPress time zone settings in Settings, General, Timezone section. It shows the current server time, and the adjusted time, according to the time zone you select. WP uses that offset from server time to adjust the date/time of posts/comments.
You can edit the day/time of comments, individually. Use Comments, edit a comment, then over on the right you will see ‘Submitted on’ showing the date/time of the comment. Use the Edit link there to change that.
“Report: Ransomware on the horizon for medical devices”
http://www.massdevice.com/report-ransomware-on-the-horizon-for-medical-devices/
Why would you connect these devices to the internet?
“Why would you connect these devices to the internet?”
If it’s anything like the Grid power devices and instruments connected to the net via, quite often, Winblows XP machines, it was/is done to SAVE MONEY instead of having to pay for people to physically go to them to do things, Gawd forbid! And let the organization and/or the country take its chances on being hacked and cracked. A similar cost-benefits “analysis” takes place in government and corporate management regarding security; they absolutely HATE to put any money into it and in my experience with different scenarios and manifestations of it over forty years, they’d rather gamble on someone getting hurt or killed than spend any of their greens fees and yacht berthing money.
Why would you connect these devices to the internet?
Because of lazy and penny pinching management.
The devices can be network connected for management and reporting, which is a good thing. However they should be on a separate network that has no connection to any internet connections. Hospitals and administrators are too lazy and cheap to install the separate network necessary. It was just as easy to connect to the regular, internet connected network. You know, the one that is easily compromised because some dipstick clerk gets a birthday card from China.
All the firmware in these devices should ask for an IP address from the network. They should then ping a known external server provided by the manufacturer. If a response is received the device should immediately shut down it’s network interface until reset by a human.
Of course you run the risk of the hospital staff blocking the external server IP address in their router. But doing so would indicate intentional behavior to bypass security and any device that causes problems in a patient because it was compromised would be a field day for any lawyer. And rightly so.
What Mr. Ray said, of course, in a much more informative and intelligent manner than my own bellicose rant above. And with the relevant technical explanation, too. And nary a mention of FLASHLIGHTS or LIGHT BULBS. Outstanding in every respect.
HATS OFF!
Anyone see any glaring holes in this? Remember that almost everything he put in his previous 3 books has happened (except the triggering event, and overt takeover.)
https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2015/11/29/bracken-tet-take-two-islams-2016-european-offensive/
“In short, Paris, Brussels and many other European cities will in time resemble Beirut during the 1980s.”
That is not good. I remember those times well. All of our Marines gave some, some gave all.
Second question, if Europe falls what does that mean for us on a political, economic, and personal level? (No more Nutella?)
WW III with the USA, Australia and Japan as islands being continuously attacked. I figure that China and India will fall quickly. I am not sure about Russia.
Rather long article saying, “we are screwed”.
“WW III with the USA, Australia and Japan as islands being continuously attacked. I figure that China and India will fall quickly. I am not sure about Russia.”
Once it gets to that point, North Murka will be come a semi-totalitarian garrison police state, with borders fully militarized and adequate attention finally being paid to such ancient concepts as ‘national sovereignty’ and borders. Whether our military and political leadership will finally also realize that we’re at Fourth Generation warfare stage and long out of Second Generation blitzkrieg status, is a good question. And whether or not our financial system and Grid has collapsed would also be a very good question, because in those scenarios, even though the rest of the world would be in even worse shape, we probably would still get some successful penetrations here and also suffer from whatever plots and conspiracies have already been hatched by people we let in over the past couple of decades, and currently, of course.
Our gigantic moats on either side and the tundra to our north can protect us from a lot, but not everything. I don’t give much for the chances of Oz, New Zealand and Japan, either. Or, as we have discussed here frequently, any of our major cities or most of the East and Left Coast megalopolis. Figure a World War IV situation with partial Grid and financial collapses and an 80% mass die-off.
Most of us here will be either well along in years (more so than now, even!) or already dead. And our kidz will not find many answers or solutions by gazing into their iPads and cell phones and whining about safe spaces and trigger events and whether the poor LGBTQIA “community” is sufficiently exalted and glorified.
Yeah, I mean, we’ve known it for some time. There was the demographic thing that people were passing around for the last couple of years. And we knew the euro wouldn’t hold, since at least 3 years ago. And we saw the ‘refugee’ demographics and said ‘young men, fighting age’. The article kind of brings it all home. Winter is coming. They still won’t have anyplace to live. The fighters are among the population. All it takes is a signal.
What would the signal be? Christmas? When is Ramadan this year?
I don’t think we’ll be able to sit this out. Even if we don’t have anything like it here.
nick
We’re back. About 1.5 hours up, 1.5 hours back, and an hour or so up there. The house is officially ours.
If I was a mastermind hadji terrorist, I’d spring the signal for Xmas Eve/Xmas for the climactic event with a series of escalating events through the shopping frenzy in the weeks leading up to it. And an over-the-top repressive/retaliatory response from our gummint here would suit them just fine. Judging by past performance and history, we’ll get hit by 4th-Gen non-State actors in several locations and then we’ll send Hellfires via drone and a few bombers out to strike hospitals, aspirin factories and uninvolved hadji wedding parties in countries that had NOTHING to do with it, while continuing to let our good asshole buddies, the Saudis, off the hook.
Congrats, Mr. T, and thanks so much for the box you sent us, which arrived today. Keep yer eyes peeled for a return envelope. Now batten down the hatches and lock and load!
“We’re back…”
Great! Now I can uncross my fingers and toes. Now the fun begins and the proof of all your planning.
Edit: I see that I came back from the future, my reply was an hour before @RBT’s announcement 😉
Congratulations! Now for the move. The fortifications will be next.
Our gigantic moats on either side and the tundra to our north can protect us from a lot, but not everything. I don’t give much for the chances of Oz, New Zealand and Japan, either.
Oz, NZ, and Japan all have moats too and fierce navies. I figure that England has too many invaders already. Unless, they load them in the cattle cars and drive them into the channel.
“The fortifications will be next.”
OFD recommends solar-powered motion detector floodlights and webcams. Plus decent wire fencing on the perimeter with more motion detector sensors calibrated for, say, above rabbit and bird sizes. Trip flares. Mines (warning signs in German). Random drone/camera flights overhead and for longer-range recon ops. Add to the dawg squad at least one other patrolling K9. A couple of cats for rodent/vermin control.
Consider ballistic window sheets over the existing glass. Deadbolt locks, ground-floor window locks. Harden firearms/tools/IT areas inside the house. Safe room somewhere.
Hook up with like-minded neighbors, townspeople and organizations but not all at once and not suddenly; take it real slow and easy. It’s taking us three years and counting up here but I am ramping that up this winta outside the immediate ‘hood.
Test all your comm gear and ID the local repeaters and other comm peeps; is there a local ham radio club? Ours maintains a repeater up here on one of the ridgelines above the town.
Fire up that wood stove! ID a good local source of firewood.
Local non-fundie Prod denomination? I’d tend to recommend Lutheran or Methodist for the unchurched atheist/agnostic. The Episcopalians will all be gone in twenty years in the U.S.; otherwise I’d say go for them. If they’re still around down there, they’re likely to be what we called “low church” Episcopalians, but hey, if you go that route, I was raised with them and served as a church school teacher and verger and know it all backwards and forwards. If you do go that way and have any questions, that is…
And goes without saying, local gun club/s and range/s. Check out local area shows and auctions, too.
Considering chickens, livestock? Another learning curve like gardening.
Blah, blah, blah. You know what’s going on better than I do; congrats again!
I got around to reading “The Martian”. Worth the time & dirty looks from the family. I haven’t enjoyed a book that much since my last Heinlein, and that was 30 years ago.
I rate the book (unreservedly) at 5 of 5 starts. As others of stated – a series of adrenaline junkie pleasing crises, and the best & brightest we have to solve them.
I also enjoyed “The Martian”. I read it on the Kindle app for iPad. Haven’t seen the movie yet, probably wait for the, er, torrent. 🙂
China will not fall to the jihadis. China is already cleansing whole towns in the west and they can be just as barbaric as the jihadis. India is not so easy to predict. The Buhdists have burned train loads of Muslims recently so they are not pushovers.
@Robert
Just took a peek at your WP install time settings. Set for UTC-5. That will be the time-base used for posts and comments. Changed via General, Settings, then the Time Zone setting (8th item on the page).
And congrats on the house !! (Moving is so much fun….)
Congrats, RBT. When Friday comes and you ask “exactly what have you done to prep this week”, I suspect you’ll curbstomp everyone else combined.
China will not fall to the jihadis. China is already cleansing whole towns in the west and they can be just as barbaric as the jihadis. India is not so easy to predict. The Buhdists have burned train loads of Muslims recently so they are not pushovers.
I figure that the jihadis will use the nukes that they plunder from India on China. I do not think that India will use their nukes for their own defense. Even when Pakistan nukes India.
Russia is the wild card on the European subjugation by the jihadis. The Russians will use anything to maintain their power. Including nuking the middle east and Europe.
Counting down to groveling apology, followed by resignation:
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3339673/Oklahoma-Wesleyan-University-president-says-school-isn-t-safe-place-day-care-online-rant-targeting-student-protests.html
Serena Williams is in the new Pirelli calender…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-01/serena-williams-in-perelli-photoshoot/6989468
RUN FORREST! RUN!
Um, what’s a Pirelli calendar, and why does anyone care? For that matter, they say Amy Shuma-whatever like people should know who she is. Isn’t she some loudmouth with a TV show? I’m only vaguely aware because UKDaily Mail is a tabloid, and has entertainment all down the right side of the site. I’m pretty sure Serina Williams played tennis for a while, and mainly was interesting to the media because she’s black and tennis is white. So where are the women “of outstanding professional, social, cultural, sporting and artistic accomplishment.”
I guess Indra Nooyi wasn’t interested in getting her kit off.
Isn’t the whole point of a cheesecake calendar that you don’t care about the women as people, and are only concerned with how they look? It’s kind of like a milkshake without any milk in it. I don’t have any interest in looking at partly naked women on a calendar, nor any interest in displaying same, and I don’t hold it against anyone who does like it, but I’ve got a negative interest in some sort of social justice version.
this kind of crap gets up my nose.
nick
ADDED- annie whatever- the photographer -is arguably more of what this calendar is supposed to be celebrating than any of the people listed.
Congrats to RBT, BFT & Colin.
Hopefully you will have a clearer shot at santa this year..
(wow.. my first post after lurking for so many years) !
Amy Schumer. She’s cute but a radical fembat who thinks her chit is ice cream and womyn are at the top of God’s Creation and should be adored and genuflected before and worshiped before said God. A loudmouth bull-chit artiste like her Brit male counterpart whose name, Russell something? I happily forget. You know, that guy who thinks his every utterance is like unto God speaking to Moses and the roving Israelites. Everybody thinks he’s super-cool.
The photog you’re thinking of is Annie Lebovitz, another gift to humanity and an American Master, according to PBS, whose main claim to fame over the decades is taking candid shots of various celebs. Who gives a shit?
And Serena Williams is yet another loudmouth beyotch who thinks her chit is ice cream, only chocolate.
Most such celeb types nowadays have no, what we used to call, class. They’re vulgar, crude and imbecilic, and their stereotypical type currently are the Kardashians.
I once had the pleasure of working for a week with Buddy Epson. On the way into our theatre, he fell and split his eyebrow open on a curb. Anyone else would have exploded and not done the show. He just asked for steri-strips and to cover it with makeup. At the end of the week, out of his own pocket, he gave all the cast members a signed litho of a cartoon he’d drawn, and all the crew got a T shirt version.
Class. Absolute class.
Lots of others like that too, mostly older, mostly headed out. They generally worked for it though, not like modern ‘entertainers’. And they have a very “be careful on the way up, ’cause you WILL see those same folks on the way down” attitude.
bedtime for my grumpy ass.
nick
“I once had the pleasure of working for a week with Buddy Epson.”
“Ebsen.” Not to be a dick, but that’s the spelling of his surname. Epson is a printer brand, lol.
I once saw a video of the 17-year-old Buddy doing a bit of dancing on a stage somewhere, probably NYC. He lived to be 95 and was nearly 6’4″.
Yup, the older generation of celebs had class, most of them. Nowadays they’re almost all assholes; Charlie Sheen is another great example of a friggin’ train wreck. Yet his brother Emilio Estevez is the nicest guy and has more talent in his little fingernail. You may remember him as “Otto” in the great “Repo Man.” And he was in the “Young Guns” vehicles as Billy the Kid. Who was also a genuine asshole.
Not to be a dick
Well, that would be refreshing. 🙂
“Ebsen.”
I though his name was Jed Clampett which he later changed to Barnaby Jones.
When I lived in Wrightwood California (my dad was the local sheriff) Lee Marvin had a house next to ours. He would come stay for a week at a time several times a year. He would invite myself and my two brothers into his house and would play with us. Many times he gave us stuff such as fishing equipment. Nice fellow.
My dad also knew Keenan Wynn who also had a home in the area. I remember meeting him a few times but not much else. He was a lot older than Lee Marvin and I think was more subdued.
Many of the celebrities of today are jerks, assholes, puss pockets that are full of themselves. I see no reason why I should care which candidate Rosie ODonell endorses as she is a brain dead pig (apologies to pigs everywhere). I don’t care what candidate any celebrity endorses as most of them are clueless and have no idea what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck. The privileged class’ opinion is of no value.
I gave up on Reader’s Digest long ago because the content became like Television – ads supporting other ads.
Imagine my surprise that they’re still around.
http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/11/hey-readers-digest-your-site-has-been-attacking-visitors-for-days/
Well – nice while it lasted.
“Congrats to RBT, BFT & Colin.
Hopefully you will have a clearer shot at santa this year..
(wow.. my first post after lurking for so many years) !”
Thanks. I have plans for this Saturnalia, but I’m not telling anyone. Every year, I mention specifics, and every year Santa finds out about them and somehow escapes my clutches. This has happened every year since I was about six, when I put out milk and cookies as bait and lay in wait hidden behind the sofa with my toy Tommy gun.
Serena Williams never bothered me. She has a lot more class than Venus. Both Williams sisters are good tennis players. Not remotely in the same world class as players like Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf, Chris Evert, Evonne Goolagong, Billie Jean King, Margaret Smith Court, Alice Marble, and so on, but good players.
I’ve never met any of them other than Evonne Goolagong, with whom I once sat and watched a tennis match. And I did just miss meeting Chris Evert when my brother and I were down playing in Florida. I returned early and he stayed. Evert used to practice in Florida with the local high school’s boys tennis team, and my brother ended up playing a match against her. He won, 6-0, 6-0, and it wasn’t as close as the score indicated.
“Ebsen.” of course, stuffed up head, decongestants, and the late hour conspired against me.
Hard to judge some people by accomplishment, and to compare them. Easier to look at them and judge the looks. You can at least see all of the looks at the same time. And for something as shallow as a cheesecake calendar, that’s all that is needed.
nick
I don’t care if Serena (or Venus) is or isn’t someone’s idea of cheesecake, I was just saying she wasn’t mine. Sandra Bullock, well she’s different… 🙂
The photog you’re thinking of is Annie Lebovitz, another gift to humanity and an American Master, according to PBS, whose main claim to fame over the decades is taking candid shots of various celebs.
Her photos of celebrities are hardly candid shots. They are very carefully crafted.
I have a brother in the film business (crew side) who has worked with some of the biggest names in film both before and behind the cameras. Most have been pretty nice people. The aholes tend to be mid-level people that are sort-of stars that act out. He’s worked with Stallone (who gave everyone on the crew a personalized thank-you photo), Bruce Willis (calm, total pro, liked to joke with the crew during set-ups), Brad Pitt (who introduced himself to everyone on the crew and thanked them), Ricardo Montalban (who told stories about working in the 50s in Hollywood) to name a few.
There is one famous actor who was doing the first film he starred in and was being too big for his britches at a gathering. My brother’s then-wife looked at him and said “You aren’t a big enough star to act like that”. He went through a tough patch after a few films and fell off the A list. He is apparently now a nice guy and his career has taken off. Another big star went into a rant because a crew member showed up for work in a t-shirt. So a directive went out – no t-shirts on set. Except the Teamsters ignored it, and the star ignored the Teamsters. Everyone knows you don’t mess with them.
Dad’s rememberings:
During my kid and young adult years (the 50s & 60s) I got to meet many celebs. The most we met at one time was when we went to the Original Grand Ole Opry in the Ryman Auditorium. The highlight for me was meeting Johnny Cash, it wasn’t just a shake your hand meet, he asked me a lot of questions. I have a program with the autographs of the entire cast that played that day. My list of meets also includes Louis Armstrong, Jonah Jones, Herb Alpert, and Al Hirt; each of them expressed extra interest when I told them that I played trumpet. Louis Armstrong gave me one of his custom mouthpieces, it has always been my favorite mouthpiece.
As has been mentioned above, all these folks were very approachable and free with the autographs. Definitely different than today.
The only musical celebs I’ve met in person have been Eddie Money, and the E-Street Band (w/o Bruce). My celebs have mainly been political types, i.e., the late William F. Buckley, Jr.; the late General Westmoreland; G. Gordon Liddy; and Patrick J. Buchanan.
Buckley’s eyes got as big as pie plates when he saw me lumbering toward him with all my cop gear on; he was a little guy. Ditto Westmoreland. Buchanan is bigger in person than you think, as are Senators Leahy and Sanders, both of whom I’ve also met. All three are six feet or over and Patrick is built like an NFL linebacker.