09:07 – It was 67.1F (19.5C) when I took Colin out around 0645 this morning, mostly cloudy. Barbara is off to the gym this morning, and working on science kit stuff this afternoon. I’ll be spending some time on studying for the amateur radio exams, which I take this week.
As we were having an early lunch yesterday, Frances called to say they were about ten minutes out. We’ve told her and Al many times they don’t even need to call when they’re coming; just show up.
Al and Barbara spent most of the afternoon working out in the garden, while Frances and I worked on getting her signed up for Obamacare, to take effect July 1st. She’s also changed her mind about going into business for herself. I’d guess her job hunt has been disappointing. There just aren’t many good companies to work for, nor good jobs available with them.
So she’s going to start a business managing parties and similar events for people at their own homes or other venues. She used to manage events at the country club, and has lots of contacts among the CC set. Many of them host parties at their homes and need someone to manage that for them. Frances has a lot of experience doing that for companies, so it’s not a big step to start doing it on her own. I offered to help her get all the government paperwork completed, creating an LLC and so on. She’s already thinking about what her business card should include.
We went out for dinner at The Pines Restaurant and then they headed back home to Winston about 1830.
Wow, 97F in my driveway, with 57%RH. Even for Houston, it’s hot. Feels like is 109F.
Prepping last week…
String beans are growing up their poles. New crop of radishes are growing. Apple trees are in bloom. No bloom from the peach this year and only recently finished leafing in. May have a problem with that one. Still have green fruit developing on the Meyer Lemon (and currently blossoming), the established orange, the established grapefruit, and the grapefruit in the pot. Never found a lime tree to replace the one that froze so that will have to wait for next year. I think fruit trees are tangible proof of hope for the future, and are thus out of character for me, but if you don’t plant them NOW, you won’t have them LATER. Half my cukes rotted at the base of the vine, zukes are still growing.
I have one more 55 gallon drum to get plumbed in for rainwater collection and I’m about 70% ready to do that. Just need time and motivation.
Ebay sales are still slow. Craigslist is normal flakes, the occasional sale that has to happen ‘right this minute or never’ and the normal no shows, no calls. Stuff that would (and did) have sold in days is still sitting.
Radio – well, I might get time to put together a field day rig and hang out at our pool with a rig and an antenna— or not. We’ll see. Ditto for the digital modes stuff that’s almost ready. I’ve got an eggbeater, the mast, mast support, cable, and a lappy ready to set up satellite weather map D/L’ing, just need to get all the pieces together.
A neat radio project would be to identify the signal that I linked to last week, where they are using PBS broadcast spectrum to push out video and data for public safety monitoring, and maybe get something going to hack that… just saying it would be nice to see what they are seeing. In one picture it looked like they might be using an SDR dongle for the radio receiver. No time for that kind of project and outside my expertise anyway.
Meatspace, met some more of the dads at our pool. Chatting with them, there are a lot of men in ‘non-traditional’ employment. Like me. And the guy who buys storage lockers. And another guy who’s just doing odd jobs. And a bar owner. Everyone took my “I buy and sell on ebay” job without a second look. (I mean, everyone understood what that meant.)
Need to get some stuff put away, and some pantry organization redone. Hot as hell though.
Probably time to replace batteries in everything too.
n
Geez I’m sick of libturds complaining about “the rich don’t pay their fair share” of taxes. This from a ton of fukstiks that pay *no* taxes. Fair should be “everybody pays 10%” of every dime of income, no exemption. That will never happen because the fukstiks who pay nothing will now have to pay into the system they leech off of.
I don’t think any “flat tax” that’s based on a percentage of anything is any way fair. The only fair tax is a flat amount per capita.
A neat radio project would be to identify the signal that I linked to last week, where they are using PBS broadcast spectrum to push out video and data for public safety monitoring, and maybe get something going to hack that… just saying it would be nice to see what they are seeing. In one picture it looked like they might be using an SDR dongle for the radio receiver. No time for that kind of project and outside my expertise anyway.
A cool SDR dongle project to start with is receiving/decoding ADS-B “Out” using Realtek hardware. Very easy and fun result … if not a little scary.
Under NTSC, PBS used to broadcast a un-encrypted time signal, but I think the new ATSC public safety broadcast experiments are encrypted and meant for DHS people.
It’s more fair that everyone pay some than half of us pay all the tax and half don’t pay any….
n
more fair = still unfair
That’s why the Constitution limited the federal government to per capita taxes.
That’s why the Constitution limited the federal government to per capita taxes.
And excise (sales) taxes and import duties.
Flat Tax (10% when I was there) worked great in Hong Kong.
No calculation, no exemptions, and no withholding. You get a letter in Jan saying we see you were paid $X last year. If you disagree let us know. Otherwise pay $X times 0.1. Done and done. No exemptions, no calculations. Everyone pays the same % and everyone pays something. Maybe not the ideal solution but it sure beats the US & UK tax systems.
A fun night and day here; short account:
Current main desktop running latest Linux Mint went down after doing a bunch of updates and will only boot to the Grub prompt. I looked around for anything else I could do at the command line but no joy in Mudville. Now about to blow out the case and mobo and check all the fans, but it’s a last gasp effort because I saw weird error mss and unable to list from the listed devices at Grub. So the SSD may be hosed for some reason.
I’m on the Windows 8 desktop now but it took a real long time to just arbitrarily run the updates and then give me an error message that they failed and it was “reverting,” which took forever.
Meanwhile I got locked out of my fastmail account due to suspicions of unauthorized access to it, and I’d seen a bunch of failed email mss. with long headers and aol stuff floating around in them. So now I gotta deal with the fastmail support guys who want a bunch of my info to unlock the account.
Also unable to access our bank accounts last night and this morning by either online or phone, so another call into them pending, as I just got home from the VA and major torrential rain downfall on the interstate just north of Burlap. Very few slow down and the water was actually streaming on the road surface.
So now to give the mutt his meds, take him out again to pee and poop and make sure my cats are all OK, and then back to fiddling with computers, just like Mr. Nick down there in the great Lone Star State.
WRT Linux versus Windows; we gotta use the tools we need and they gotta work, whether for ourselves or whatever organization.
VA guy told me it’s almost impossible for them to approve and assist with a “self-employment” scenario and would take mountains of paperwork and hassle and a very long time. I thought I was all set, but nope, another kick in the ballz for this week.
So I’m now looking into possible counseling certification/degree programs that they WILL pay for, plus a subsistence allowance, etc. Seeing as how I’ve been doing that, more or less, for years now, informally, and w/o getting paid for it. Whether I do that or go back into IT, we need the revenue Right Now, and I’ll use some of it to continue setting up a firearms-related business ANYWAY. I wouldn’t have to work those gigs full-time, so the rest of the schedule would be on the guns. Maybe end up doing substance abuse counseling, seeing as how there’s a crying need to get help for peeps willing to take some first steps and get out of that shit, and seeing as how I’m an ex-drunk and ex-junkie myself.
Some people are worth saving, or us trying to save them, so if I can make wife happy and bring in a few bucks while building the other thing, so be it.
Probably time to replace batteries in everything too.
Yup. I’ve been thinking about replacing all the D cells in the hurricane lanterns since several of them are approaching nine years of age. I may get a couple of surprises when I open them up.
https://www.amazon.com/Coleman-CPX-Rugged-Lantern-X-Large/dp/B00VTJJ5DE/
The Gulf of Mexico is looking at the first tropical disturbance of the year. The weather dudes are just salivating at the thought of someone getting the gift of 35 inches of rain over 12 hours in the next week or so. Me, I can wait until next year.
http://spacecityweather.com/tropics-update-heaviest-rains-may-remain-east-houston/
Had number one son show up yesterday afternoon and hang with me until 11pm. We went for a two mile walk and watched the “Interstellar” movie on the FX channel. I had recorded it earlier so we were able to skip the one hour of commercials (it was on for FOUR hours). My physics and chemistry major son was screaming at all the science violations in the movie. But, we enjoyed the beautiful filmography. And I loved the rotating spaceship. Lots of stars in this one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_(film)
The wife ran off on Saturday to go spend a few days with her disabled veteran dad who is in a skilled nursing home in Lewisville, Texas. Nice little 300 mile trip each way. Her sister lives ten miles away from her dad at the moment but her husband is reputedly retiring from UPS in August when he hits another magic number for their pension plan. They are both 62 and considering to move to central Texas where he grew up to cut their living costs. My BIL is walking wounded from loading UPS trucks for 30 years but says all 5,000 guys in his facility are just like him.
[snip] Fair should be “everybody pays 10%” of every dime of income, no exemption. [snip]
I have to disagree, in part. Interest, dividends, capital gains, estates, etc are the fruits of one’s (Warning to Leftists – Trigger Words Ahead) labors, talents, and success. Taxing them is a second bite at the apple. I don’t have a huge problem with the graduated tax scheme, but as I see it there are two large problems, and one lesser one springs to mind.
The first is that a huge portion of our population don’t understand it. If you tell them “There are two brackets. The first is 10%, and starts at $1. The second is 50%, and starts at $100,001.” they think that once they’ve earned $99,999 for the year, that next $2 will subject *all*of their income to the 50% rate. I’ve known quite a few reasonably intelligent, supposedly educated people who labor under this assumption.
The second, and far larger problem, of course, is the absurd size and complexity of the tax code. Most of the links provided by a quick search yield an estimated size of ~70,000 pages. The first IRS code, enacted after the 16th Amendment was passed, as 13 pages. Granted, the economy of the US is considerably more complex than it was in 1913, but almost all of that growth is one group or another paying some Congressman / lobbyist / other vermin for a very particular carve out, exemption, loophole, call it what you will.
Put 20 very smart, technically knowledgeable people into a room. Tell them to come up with a tax code that’s no more than 50 pages, 8.5″ x 11″, double spaced, 12 point font. The last clause is that the code may not be amended, except in case of declared war, for the next 10 years. (The specifics I’d like to see: Brackets of 0%, 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25%; the latter on earned income over say $300,000.) Some tax accountants, lawyers, etc will be out of work; they’re smart enough that they won’t starve. Sit back and watch a million flowers bloom.
Third, lesser problem: People who pretend that the 16th Amendment doesn’t count, doesn’t apply to them, ad nauseam. Yes it does, people, get over it. The 16th is just as valid as the 1st or the 24th. My sister the defense attorney had a case involving these loonies assigned to her by the Federal District Court; she described them as cult like in their disconnection from reality.
Put 20 very smart, technically knowledgeable people into a room. Tell them to come up with a tax code that’s no more than 50 pages, 8.5″ x 11″, double spaced, 12 point font. The last clause is that the code may not be amended, except in case of declared war, for the next 10 years. (The specifics I’d like to see: Brackets of 0%, 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25%; the latter on earned income over say $300,000.)
No. The federal income tax should 10% on the first dollar of income and 10% on the last dollar of income. If that is good enough for God (tithing) then that should be good enough for Uncle Sam.
BTW, that is net income, not gross income. I have rental property that makes about 20% return after expenses. I should only pay a 10% income tax on that 20% profit. I should not pay income tax on the gross rental income.
Replacing Batteries
This weekend I went through all the electronic stuff in my bug-out bags and emergency car kits. Found several flashlights with battery leakage and one radio ditto. All the stored batteries were a couple of years old (or older) and worthless. So I did a COSTCO run and bought a shitload (50+) eneloop AA and AAA cells. These are rated to hold 70% of power over 10 years and recharge easily. I stored the eneloop in baggies allongside the electronics so I won’t loose anymore kit to battery leakage. Yes, they are expensive, but my (limited) research shows they are the best on the market for long term reliability. And they have C and D cell “adaptors” but I don’t need those as all my kit is AA or AAA.
Lynn: I have rental property that makes about 20% return after expenses
Good on you. Property taxes and insurance in Oklahoma keep my rental profits low.
Yes many years ago my FIL pointed out how unfair property taxes were. His were pretty high. Not value, but size of the property should be the basis. Since the pt mostly goes to schools, police and fire he correctly pointed out that he did not use more than others but probably less than the ones that pay nothing.
I’ve come to realize how right he was.
“…keep my rental profits low.” mine too. If I have enough left over for repairs, upgrades, and empty months, I feel great.
The payoff will be in selling the property, which my tenant is currently buying for me with his rent. The mortgage is negligible, but the taxes are brutal.
n
“So I did a COSTCO run and bought a shitload (50+) eneloop AA and AAA cells.”
our costco currently has them on sale, in packs without the charger. I’ve got 2 or 3 packs with the charger, so it’s nice to just get the batteries and save a few bucks.
Also, fire extinguishers are $8 off, so STOCK UP.
n
In the “more shit we really didn’t need” category, these two headlines:
Russia Halts Cooperation With US In Syria, Will “Intercept Any Aircraft” In Russian Areas Of Operation
Pentagon Responds: “US Pilots Will Defend Themselves If Attacked By Russians”
Which were proceeded by this one:
Russia Slams US Downing Of Syrian Jet As “Act Of Aggression” And “Support For Terrorists”
n
WRT property taxes:
In the counties around here (actually all counties in WA State now) they are allowed to raise property taxes 6% per year without a vote of the people. In addition property values are “revaluated” EVERY year now and that revaluation does not count toward the 6%.
So the County Assessor colludes with the cities and school districts to ensure they get more money every year without the consent of the taxed. The left-wing state legislature has made sure that the voters have no say.
Welcome to the Peoples Republic of Washingtonstan.
Lookup California Prop 13. Y’all need a tax payer revolt. St Jarvis – may the blessing be upon him.
Got to love those headline writers. The article is straight forward however.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/supreme-court-decides-hate-speech-is-free-speech/
There is no hate speech.
Yes even the lefty justices get it (this time).
WRT to Russia-Syria-FUSA: our neocon sons of bitches are bound and determined to get us into a hot war with either Russia or Iran or both, while we still have wars cooking merrily away in Afghanistan and Iraq. The South China Sea and Taiwan with the Chicoms and maybe the NORKs is another option for these assholes.
WRT property taxes; good luck raising them an iota in this town for any reason whatsoever; the people here are major cheapskates with shallow pockets and will fight against that shit tooth-and-nail. Yay for us!
Even though California leans slightly right of Cuba, attempts to go after Prop 13 never go anywhere. After all the middle class and the elites pay most of it and no matter how hard the tax eaters squawk property owners don’t like taxes.
There has been talk of only changing the rules for business property but that doesn’t even make it.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/supreme-court-decides-hate-speech-is-free-speech/
There is no hate speech.
Yes even the lefty justices get it (this time).
Rush Limbaugh was wondering if the Washington Redskins will get their trademark back that Obola canceled some years ago.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/06/19/washington-redskins-owner-thrilled-by-supreme-courts-trademark-ruling.html
There is little being said about our destroyer that was hit by a Japanese (run by Filipinos) freighter. This incident stinks all the way around and now I am hearing from my sources that there was gross incompetence on our destroyer and that the freighter was being run by ISIS controlled Flips (macro-aggression intended here). The hit was intentional and aimed at a weak point. All the collision avoidance systems and personnel on the destroyer FAILED. How coincidental is that?
Obuttwad has left our Navy in the control of incompetents (not to mention the Air Force headed by a fembat-dyke that does not know what an airplane is).
tRump cannot win here. The military is too far gone. Big war (real war) on two fronts coming soon (Syria and NKO).
Get your money out of the stock market while you can.
All tubes loaded, all ahead flank…
Don’t pay attention to the squirrels.
Lynn: I have rental property that makes about 20% return after expenses
Good on you. Property taxes and insurance in Oklahoma keep my rental profits low.
Man, my property taxes keep on going up. The appraisal office just raised the value of my office property ($854K) to the level of my insurance coverage ($850K). Both are eating me alive. And yes, we get our properties revalued every year around here.
EDIT: Texas limits annual increases by taxing districts to 8% before requiring a rollback election. That is the combined value of the taxing district as a whole and the tax itself. Texas also limits homesteads to a max increase of 10% per year in value. But rental and commercial properties can be raised to any value.
[snip] BTW, that is net income, not gross income.[snip]
I agree, lots of people don’t know the difference between gross income (revenue) and net income (profit). It’s the whole God thing where you’ve lost me. I don’t think charitable giving should be deducted. To paraphrase Loyola, I prefer to give from the sweat of my brow & the charity of my heart, but without counting the cost.
WRT property taxes:
In Florida, the tax basis value of your homesteaded residence can be increased a maximum of 3% per year. AFAIK, there is no cap on the assessed value of non-homestead property. We are particularly lucky here, in that there are tens of thousands of condos up & down the beach to help split the tax burden, and when things were booming the assessed values were going up ~ 10% / year. My tax bill was going down, slightly, each year for a long time. The homestead exemption also means that the first $25,000 (for school board taxes) and $50,000 (all other taxes) don’t get taxed. Florida also has an small extra discounts for widow/widower, blind, and disabled. Disabled vets and ex-pows get 100% discount on their homestead.
It’s the whole God thing where you’ve lost me. I don’t think charitable giving should be deducted.
The New Testament suggests that people tithe (give 10% to their church). My point was that if God only asks for 10% then why should the government get 40% of your income ?
I did not suggest that charitable giving should be deducted if I am paying 10% of each dollar I earn. I only support a deduction for charitable giving right now because the tax rates are so high and looks like that they are getting ready to go higher.
“the rich don’t pay their fair share”
I took a course 45 years ago where I learned that “paying fair share of taxes” was the government euphemism for “paying more taxes”.
Or, it is a lie, always a lie.
“Big war (real war) on two fronts coming soon (Syria and NKO).”
Sure, why not? Cui fucking bono? The usual suspects, of course; several large political crime families, the arms dealers, certain manufacturers, the neocon bastards who’ve kept pushing for it, etc.
And the long-accepted DOD doctrine is that we can somehow magically fight two major-front wars simultaneously, which is utter bullshit and has been since 1945.
So it looks like our masters and overlords have deemed it fun hijinks to get into it hot and heavy with not only the Russians in the Middle East, but also all the Shiite and Sunni factions. Won’t THAT be special.
While also poking the Chicoms and NORKs every chance they get.
I guess the rationale is that this will hyper-boost the economy and line so many pockets that not many derps and sheep will squeal. Might have worked 20-30 years ago, but now? With this tottering house of cards? Even if they keep printing boxcar loads of fiat currency?
Mr. DadCooks is right; get out of the market shell games ASAP if you’re in them, learn as much chit as you possibly can as fast as you can, quit looking at squirrels, and tool up like a mofo. tRump can’t save us; he’s being cut off at the knees. Assuming the best intentions on his part, we have a small window to get our ducks lined up this year.
WRT Washington Redskins:
I find this term as applied to Native Americans to be really disparaging of me. Yes, I have been to Kayenta, AZ in the heart of the Navajo Reservation. None to the folks there have skin of color that is anywhere near the shade of red on my neck!
Why are they using a term that applies to me for their football team?
http://www.ttgnet.com/journal/2016/11/19/saturday-19-november-2016/
Roger that to dkreck for this:
“Lookup California Prop 13. Y’all need a tax payer revolt. St Jarvis – may the blessing be upon him.”
We bought this house in 1967 and prop 13 was approved in 1978. It has been a lifesaver for us. (Yes, I still pay my “fair share”).
I did not suggest that charitable giving should be deducted if I am paying 10% of each dollar I earn. I only support a deduction for charitable giving right now because the tax rates are so high and looks like that they are getting ready to go higher.
As usual, I am about as clear as a Louisiana bayou. If we should ever throw out the incredulously complicated tax code of today, I advocate replacing it with paying 10% on every net dollar to the federal government by each and every individual. No personal deductions for property taxes, charitable giving, mortgage interest, etc, etc, etc.
What do I mean by net dollars ? The only deductions there should be from gross income is if the individual has legitimate business deductions such as travel, housing away from home, meals away from home, stuff you bought to resale to somebody else, some sort of depreciation on real property, things that you bought for your business such as computers and pens, rent of business equipment and housing, etc, etc, etc. In other words, things that are required to run your business.
Current main desktop running latest Linux Mint went down after doing a bunch of updates and will only boot to the Grub prompt. I looked around for anything else I could do at the command line but no joy in Mudville. Now about to blow out the case and mobo and check all the fans, but it’s a last gasp effort because I saw weird error mss and unable to list from the listed devices at Grub. So the SSD may be hosed for some reason.
NVIDIA graphics card? Lots of bad voodoo is often involved in making those work under Linux, and I’ve had perfectly fine Mint installs go Tango Uniform with a minor kernel upgrade.
My “No Windows None Of The Time” laptop has the current Mint and Fedora releases in separate “/” partitions, sharing a common “/home” partition with different user names under UID/GID 1000. I leave Fedora in charge of the Grub menu, switching back and forth between Linux systems depending on what I am doing.
WRT to taxes: I am fully willing to pay and support all the government that can be financed with bake sales and lotteries and. no. more.
I would like a 10% federal sales tax. You buy something you pay tax. Such a tax would encourage savings and investments as they would not be taxed until the money is spent. That $20 million dollar yacht will cost you $2 million in taxes. Only exemption would be medical and food which would be tax free. Lot of tax lawyers out of business (no big loss), IRS agents out of a job (well deserved loss), no end of year filing, no reporting by employers. Just collect at the POS and send to the state which forwards to the FEDS.
The current tax laws are so complicated that even the current IRS agents don’t understand it all. Have a tax question beyond the simple and you will get different answers from different agents. If you do what an agent says and the agent is wrong, you still get charged interest on the late money, penalties might get waived. The IRS’ stance is that it is your problem to understand the tax laws and not rely on the IRS. Anything wrong on your taxes is your fault, not the IRS.
I’m on the Windows 8 desktop now but it took a real long time to just arbitrarily run the updates and then give me an error message that they failed and it was “reverting,” which took forever.
Did you try WSUS Offline Update?
If the Offline Update barfs, find the Internet Explorer *.msi and install that program first. Installing updates in Windows 7/8/10 is heavily dependent on having IE and all its dependencies up to date.
Also, Google for “Classic Shell”. It makes Windows 8/10 tolerable.
I keep waiting for Microsoft to buy the Classic Shell developer out like they did with Sysinternals, but, for now, he’s still independent.
In Florida, the tax basis value of your homesteaded residence can be increased a maximum of 3% per year. AFAIK, there is no cap on the assessed value of non-homestead property. We are particularly lucky here, in that there are tens of thousands of condos up & down the beach to help split the tax burden, and when things were booming the assessed values were going up ~ 10% / year.
Gov. Charlie Crist’s last tweak to “Save Our Homes” to allow portability may have rendered the law unconstitutional in the long run. Getting rid of those caps has been on the FL Democratic party’s wish list for a long time.
“Governor Opie” has been a done deal for 20 years, but watch out after that.
You can only fleece the sheep for so long. I’m truly amazed Prop 13 has not spread to more states.
Words of wisdom.
Words of wisdom.
“NVIDIA graphics card? Lots of bad voodoo is often involved in making those work under Linux, and I’ve had perfectly fine Mint installs go Tango Uniform with a minor kernel upgrade.”
Now that you mention it…damn. As I had the case open, I wondered about that, because I put one, I think it was Nvidia, into the machine last year. I might yank it and try again this week if only to attempt a data recovery from the SSD, but otherwise I’m rolling now with a new Mint 18.1 install and this wunnerful Winblows 8 box.
“Did you try WSUS Offline Update?”
I have it on there bookmarked and was gonna but didn’t. Will next time, though.
“If the Offline Update barfs, find the Internet Explorer *.msi and install that program first. Installing updates in Windows 7/8/10 is heavily dependent on having IE and all its dependencies up to date.”
Roger that. Even though we never use IE.
“Also, Google for “Classic Shell”. It makes Windows 8/10 tolerable.”
Yup, dat’s what’s on here, one of the first things I did.
WRT taxes, I favor Mr. Nightraker’s proposal a million percent. Who needs these ratfuckers, anyway? We’re once again gonna rely on the gummint to administer whatever tax collection method/s??? Count me out.
And from the J’ever Wonder If You’ve Been “Made” Department:
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40331215
You can always count on politicians to fuk you ovah!
And from the J’ever Wonder If You’ve Been “Made” Department
I don’t think that breach qualifies as serious enough, but I’ve long believed that “The Cloud” will end in the face of a major privacy loss event.
Imagine what would happen if everyone’s Gmail went online with a nice index for easy searching …
Well, for one thing, everyone would be so made that the manpower required to round us all up and for the guys doing the rounding up to round themselves up, is just too mind-boggling to even think about. Throw in yahoo mail, hotmail, and corporate internal email and you’re talking mathematical impossibility.
(cue up somebody now winging slick formulae at us proving the opposite, mark my words…)
Nails it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb99RVT6afI&feature=youtu.be
@nick, got rain ? We got three inches this afternoon. And I had the roof guy out afterwards to find the roof leak which we did after an hour of crawling over the roof and then jungle gym’ing the attic. That dude was older than me and a lot more flexible.
A single nail hole from a plumbing vent was draining a small stream of water onto my ceiling. Sigh. He plugged it for now (just in case we get the 35 inches of rain on Thursday). Then he will come back next week and replace the decking and shingles as needed.
It never stops.
Everything happens, as my old pal Sebastian Ronin says, right on schedule:
http://fmshooter.com/trump-setting-take-blame-stock-market-tanks/
Any bets on which week this year it takes a big plunge?
Ima gon go wid the week of July 19th, my birthday. Just for laffs.
Nope, for two reasons.
1. They won’t be trying to round up everyone. Just people they decide to look at. Show up at a protest TPTB don’t like? Let’s run some facial recognition software on the pictures of the protestors, then look up their social and mail history, then see if there’s anything we can prosecute or investigate. Same as is being done now, just more so.
2. That’s what big data and ever-cheaper storage and processing are all about. Google can trawl your email account to feed you targeted ads, and do it well enough to keep the advertisers happy. I imagine the various governments, with full access to every bit of information they have on you, would find it trivial to find some inconsistency, some admission of as-yet-unprosecuted wrongdoing, some reason to deny benefits or services. (By the way, do you remember when the info collected by the various agencies and various levels of government was supposed to be siloed, so your tax records and your driving record and your building permit applications were all separate? Yah, it was a long time ago.)
Nick wrote:
“Also, fire extinguishers are $8 off, so STOCK UP. ”
What about FLASHLIGHTS?
2. That’s what big data and ever-cheaper storage and processing are all about.
Those 8 TB and 10 TB WD hard drives are not dropping in price yet. $300 and $425 respectively since Big River cannot keep them in stock.
https://www.amazon.com/Red-8TB-Hard-Disk-Drive/dp/B01BYLY4DM/
I am waiting on the $225 price point for the 8 TB drive so I can buy three of them for our internal LAN backups. I may have to go ahead and buy three WD blue 6 TB drives for now at $175 each since our LAN backup is now 3.5 TB and the old 4 TB backup drives are requiring reformatting every month or so.
https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Desktop-Hard-Disk-Drive/dp/B013HNYVCE/
Anytime is a good time to buy flashlights. Unless you are buying at the grocery store with a tropical storm watch under effect.
https://www.heb.com/product-detail/energizer-weatheready-waterproof-led-flashlight/1567852
$12 !!!1111!! what a rip off. These were one the ‘might as well grab one’ endcap at checkout.
n
@lynn, no rain here. Did get the TS watch alert email though.
Will be securing the tarps covering my “inventory” and doing some general cleanup and put away…..
n
Sorry to hear about your roof. I’m pretty sure my rent house will be missing some shingles if we really do get a good blow. I hate leaks.
Torrential monsoon-level downpour here about an hour ago. Everything was already pretty wet and now it’s saturated. Wife had weeded all the stuff out back so I’ve nothing to do or can do out there today. Damn it. Back to taxes and VA paperwork again.