Mon. Oct. 29, 2018 – let’s get started

By on October 29th, 2018 in Random Stuff

61F and saturated. Yesterday was a gorgeous day. Clear, sunny, 80F and a cool breeze. Hot in the sun, and humidity so high, spilled water didn’t dry. Not quite a perfect day, but nice looking.

National weather for the next couple days also shows clear for Houston. A bit dryer would be nice.

Some good info about riots and self defense here:

http://www.activeresponsetraining.net/post-election-riots

He’s got a couple other articles about riots too. Definitely worth a review. (I’ve linked them before at other times.)

People in media and other public eye are starting to find reasons why there might not be a ‘blue wave.’ I think their polling is probably abysmal. The couple I met yesterday said they were much more common than the shrieking socialist in their circle… and that the shriekers were an off-putting minority. [Duh].

I just realized I need to do early voting as I’ll be out of town next Tuesday. Dang. I could have missed that. Look at your calendar folks!

ADDED- Anyone think we AREN’T in a period of great change??

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-10-29/merkel-step-down-cdu-leader-after-disastrous-election-results

Angela Merkel will not seek re-election as chair of Germany’s ruling CDU party, effectively standing down as leader of the Christian Democratic Union, a post she has held for 18 years…

n

77 Comments and discussion on "Mon. Oct. 29, 2018 – let’s get started"

  1. JimL says:

    46º and drizzly today. Drizzled all weekend. I got wet at both of my races, but that’s okay. That’s why they pay me to be there – I’m willing to do the work and give good service, even when it’s not so pleasant.

    I’m still wearing shorts for anything that’s acceptable. I get asked about it frequently. Unless it’s below 40 (below 50 if it’s raining or very windy), I’m wearing shorts. Probably a sweatshirt to keep the upper body warm, but the legs are exposed. Runners.

    “Blue Wave”. It could still happen. But I think the silent conservatives are going to have an out-sized influence again this year. They don’t show in the polls, because they don’t trust pollsters, who they associate with the media. It’s going to be “interesting”.

    And I still wish Trump would tone it down. I like (most of) what he’s doing. But the constant pounding gets to me.

  2. MrAtoz says:

    It’s sad that Merkel let the raiders cross the border. Germany will never be the same. I wonder what Mr. Chuck thinks.

  3. JimL says:

    You know, learning from the mistakes of others is a pretty good sign of intelligence.

    Given the problems that unrestrained immigration in Europe has caused, why on God’s Green Earth (or SteveF’s front lawn) would we want unrestrained immigration here? It never seems to work out well for the invaded.

  4. Dennis says:

    …riots and self defense…
    Good read; guess I need to look at some sort of non-lethal option as the holidays come up and I’ll be in more crowds than normal.

    Weather was great yesterday in central Alabama; 50s early and hit high 70s by mid-afternoon with lotsa sun. Went yesterday to knock the rust off my wanna-be CQB skills. Nothing too fancy for a near-50 fat guy but had fun nonetheless.

    Took time this weekend to build two more what I call “ammo go-cans;” 9mm, 22LR, 556, and 12G in a Fatty50 can. If I had to bug out quickly, I don’t have to worry about collecting ammo. This will enable me to quickly put one can in each vehicle. Keep one next to the gun cabinet and the rest with my regular stash of ammo.

    Am looking forward to voting next week!

  5. Nick Flandrey says:

    I don’t know what their ‘big picture’ secret strategy is. There must be one as they act deliberately and against the wishes of their nominal constituents.

    They claim they need to bring in vigorous breeders to provide the continued expansion of the tax farm to pay for all the promises they’ve made, although they don’t put it so bluntly. In fact, they fail to consider that once the replacements are a majority there is no way in heII that they will pay for the whites to live out their retirements and entitlements. Why would they when they have their own people to take care of?

    They also assume the expansion MUST continue. No one is considering what would happen to quality of life and real income if the national economy were allowed to contract in size but increase in value. In other words, focus on better stuff, made well by fewer people and you can make more money. We don’t need 1000 laborers if we have automation. We don’t need 100M eaters if we’re producing less. Get to the point where every skilled person can live like a king, and all the low skill has been pushed out, and you’ve got Sweden or Norway (in the socioeconomic prosperity sense) on the US scale.

    n

  6. Greg Norton says:

    I don’t know what their ‘big picture’ secret strategy is. There must be one as they act deliberately and against the wishes of their nominal constituents.

    The secret strategy is to replace the constituents while watering down the value of having a job with the “Gig Economy”. I don’t think it is a coincidence that Silicon Valley and Seattle drive the new employment model.

  7. dkreck says:

    Read
    http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2018/10/some-thoughts-about-income-growth-and-mobility-part-1-the-right-way-to-measure-it.html

    A two parter with some great insight on the employment and economy.

    (ya know from the government stand point it’s all just a pyramid scheme. Mo sheeple mo money)

  8. Greg Norton says:

    ya know from the government stand point it’s all just a pyramid scheme. Mo sheeple mo money

    I don’t know anyone who drove for a “gig” company (Amazon, Uber) who managed to cover the vehicle expenses out of what they made and had even a minimum wage amount of money left over. A spousal or parental subsidy was always involved in the hope that the “gig” turned into something permanent down the road.

    Dairy Queen near my house is a better “gig”.

  9. nick flandrey says:

    I’ve known a couple of people who tried driving… there is a reason taxis cost what they do, and are beat up clapped out POSs. There isn’t enough money in it to pay for nice stuff. Losing money on every deal and hoping to make it up on volume is the silicon valley way, but REAL things have REAL costs. Atoms are not bits, bits are not atoms.

    I note that the bits part gets rich while the atoms part goes broke slowly….

    n

  10. nick flandrey says:

    In other unrelated stuff…

    I’ve been going thru my pile of old drives as I put together a couple machines, and I’ve had 3 that wouldn’t even spin up. One wd green, and two seagates SATA drives. These are not new drives. the seagates are 120g and 80g. the wd is probably 500g. I’m pretty sure the latest seagate, off my “radio” pc in the office, doesn’t have anything I need on it. I was hoping there might have been some stuff duped there that I lost when my RAID died, but in retrospect I think I built that machine after the RAID died. (Giant XPS workstation, huge CPU heatsink, heavy industrial machine. Paid $20 and used it for a couple of years. )

    My current RAID is in the fire safe and I need to bring it in and run some backups for sure…

    n

  11. Ray Thompson says:

    I voted early, just today. Voted Republican all the way except for some local elections. I know these people and have no idea of their political affiliation and don’t care. I just know their values and ethics. They are not career politicians.

    Dealing with the VA again. I don’t know who is worse, the VA or the IRS. IRS has more power to seize stuff, but the VA is just as annoying. Or is just government agencies in general?

    Just got a notice in the mail that my application for a PayPal credit card was denied. I never applied for the card. My credit report is blocked so the application got denied. Someone tried to get the card in my name. Glad I had the credit report blocked.

  12. Greg Norton says:

    Losing money on every deal and hoping to make it up on volume is the silicon valley way, but REAL things have REAL costs.

    Uber and Lyft are not publicly traded.

    Amazon’s retail operations are not consistently profitable, but they are subsidized by Corporate America’s IT departments’ increasing dependence on AWS to get anything done.

  13. MrAtoz says:

    I read Uber is ramping up to go public. Possibly the biggest IPO ever. Anyone else read that?

  14. nick flandrey says:

    I dont’ think the BoD and employees of Lyft and Uber are working for free….

    n

  15. Greg Norton says:

    I read Uber is ramping up to go public. Possibly the biggest IPO ever. Anyone else read that?

    That has been the rumor for at least the last three years. The ride sharing services still lose lots of money.

    Austin tried kicking out Uber and Lyft for a while, but the bacchanalia on 6th Street depends on participants being able to summon a sober ride home with only a single button press.

    If the ride sharing services go away again, the city’s new drunk tank -er- “sobering center” will have to add more beds.

  16. jim~ says:

    Here’s a question for the peanut gallery:

    I’ve known this guy in India for quite a few years, only through his YouTube videos in which he displays remarkably creative, scintillating, and intelligent persona. He has one of those minds you can’t help but admire.

    In addition to many other things he recently posted a stage production of Jerome Bixby’s _Man from Earth_, in which he stars and probably directed. It is a fascinating sci-fi story which began, I think, as an old Star Trek episode, of which I happen to have a copy.

    We had struck up a conversation before concerning something completely unrelated but when I saw that I thought of sending him the old Star Trek episode.

    Last week he posted another stage production entitled _Out of Order_ which was exceedingly well done. By that point I knew I had to send him not only the old Star Trek episode but other movies and/or productions he would appreciate.

    I don’t want to reveal his name, but he also has a daughter of about 12 or 13, I think. She is also sharp as a tack, and according to an email she is fluent in English.

    When I first thought of sending him that old Star Trek episode, I thought of his daughter and a beautiful copy of Disney’s 1937 _Snow White_ I happened to *find*. So that decided it: I have to put together a playlist of videos for him and send it along via microSD card.

    Meanwhile, over probably the last decade, another friend has been introducing me to old Indian classical songs and music, so I figured I should introduce my friend and his daughter to classical American cinema.

    In order to provide some structure I have limited myself to 10 films. _Snow White_ is at the top of the list, of course, followed by _Gaslight_. There are a couple gag films which no self-respecting American should *not* have seen; _Airplane_ and _Young Frankenstein_. A little Shakespeare, including _Forbidden Planet_.

    I’m also going to include _Casablanca_ and _The Maltese Falcon_.

    I am at a loss to fill in the last TWO FILMS. You’ve got to remember this is family friendly and aimed at showcasing American cinema.

    Suggestions welcome!

    jim~

  17. Terry Losansky says:

    Clue

    Which has some of the best dialog. And it is funny.

  18. lynn says:

    “IBM Acquires Red Hat for $34B”
    https://www.pcmag.com/news/364649/ibm-acquires-red-hat-for-34b

    “Microsoft buying GitHub for $7.5 billion was expected to be the biggest software company acquisition of 2018, but IBM just blew that out of the water. For $34 billion, it gains control of the leading open source technology company.”

    Good night ! I thought maybe $5 or $6 billion at most.

  19. nick flandrey says:

    Blade Runner. It defined a visual vocabulary that filmmakers use to this day to describe what they want to do, and that they use for inspiration.

    I’d drop Maltese Falcon.

    For ground breaking, Wizard of Oz.

    I’m not sure either Airplane or Young Frankenstein would translate or hold up. YF is maybe not family friendly, or perhaps I’m thinking of Blazing Saddles… “It’s twew, it’s twew….” In any case there are a LOT of cultural references that you have to know for them to be funny. Ditto for any Mel Brooks.

    Was Sound of Music american cinema?

    Anything by Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, or Wells- Rear Window comes to mind…

    n

  20. MrAtoz says:

    The Wizard of Oz.

  21. MrAtoz says:

    2001: A Space Odyssey.

  22. lynn says:

    _The Singularity Trap_ by Dennis E. Taylor
    https://www.amazon.com/Singularity-Trap-Dennis-Taylor/dp/1680680889/?tag=ttgnet-20

    A standalone book, no prequel or sequel that I know of. I read the well printed and bound trade paperback. This is a first contact space opera book set in the mid 22st century. This is the author’s fifth published book, I will continue to purchase anything he writes. The authors previous books were self published but Amazon has apparently dropped the self publishing for trade paperbacks.

    The author takes an interesting angle on the first contact saga. Of course, the galaxy is at war and the two sides are recruiting. But the interesting kick is how the recruiting happens by the so-called “good” side. Not an out and out terraforming like the Chtorr series but definitely a transforming of one person.

    My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    Amazon rating: 4.3 out of 5 stars (62 reviews)

  23. lynn says:

    I voted early, just today. Voted Republican all the way except for some local elections. I know these people and have no idea of their political affiliation and don’t care. I just know their values and ethics. They are not career politicians.

    The wife and I voted yesterday, Sunday, at the local assisted living center which is also a early voting place. Maybe so we can get a look at our future. I voted straight ticket R and checked each one of my selections since our mickeysoft voting machines seem to be having problems tallying people’s votes.

  24. Greg Norton says:

    I am at a loss to fill in the last TWO FILMS. You’ve got to remember this is family friendly and aimed at showcasing American cinema.

    “Citizen Kane”. If you’re not doing MKV with multiple audio tracks nclude a separate copy with Roger Ebert’s commentary/analysis from the last major anniversary release.

    “Back to the Future” — I don’t think there is a single frame of film wasted in the flick. Perfection.

    If you need another …

    “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” — People think I’m nuts with this one, but I don’t think any other movie does a better job of capturing American suburban mall culture in the 80s. Even the Hughes’ flicks fall short because those were intended to be timeless. Plus ‘PG’ George Carlin, possibly his best film appearance.

  25. Greg Norton says:

    Was Sound of Music american cinema?

    Yes. You don’t get more “American Musical” than Rogers & Hammerstein.

    I always get a laugh out of the dinner table scene. It is like a “Who’s Who” of American B-grade sci fi for three decades — a Klingon commander, TV Spiderman, Penny from “Lost in Space”, and Jessica from the TV “Logan’s Run”. Toss in Robert Wise who directed the flick (he went on to make “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”), and you’d have a pretty good Comic Con panel.

  26. paul says:

    While the Acronis software did clone from the old to new drive, and everything seemed to work, I couldn’t open txt files just by clicking. Open Notepad and drop the file in, sure. So. After a bit I landed at a MS page that said to re-name a .dll. to .old.

    I did. Re-booted to what appeared, by the size of the cursor, 640×480 on a 24″ monitor. With a very useful black background.

    Well, that’s why you make the recovery discs.

    I haven’t actually lost anything, it’s just sort of messed up and needs sorting.

    On the plus side, I have a nice new Win7 install.

    And now I know more about TRIM. If BIOS is using AHCI mode instead of IDE and a certain command (now lost) is entered into a CMD window and the result is 0, yer good…. Win7 is taking care of TRIM.

  27. paul says:

    And I’ll danged if I can remember how to change icons. The default for txt files is white box with faint lines. Saved URLs are white boxes with a shortcut arrow.

    Firefox is just wonderful about the bookmark icons being a round ball with lines.

    Grump…. 🙂

  28. Terry Losansky says:

    I second the comments on Blade Runner.

    And Back to the Future too. IIRC, that script was in re-write for years, and is very tight.

    I agree about cultural references, which don’t translate well. Too much to explain to make sense of dialog or actions in some cases.

    Did I mention Clue? The dialog is great. Not a family dinner goes by in my clan that fails to make some reference.
    “Are you trying to make me look like a fool in front of the other guests?”
    “You don’t need any help from me.”
    “That’s right!”

  29. lynn says:

    “Marc Thiessen: McConnell could be the most consequential conservative leader of the century”
    https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/marc-thiessen-mcconnell-could-be-the-most-consequential-conservative-leader-of-the-century

    “This weekend, left-wing protesters accosted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in a Kentucky restaurant, yelling at him that he was a “traitor.” But not so long ago, it was tea party conservatives who were calling McConnell a traitor to the GOP. They owe him an apology.”

    I have been thinking this lately and totally agree with the column. This is why I supported and voted for Trump., his ability to influence SCOTUS for the next three decades.

    Hat tip to my local newspaper, the Fort Bend Herald who carried the column.

  30. Ray Thompson says:

    I couldn’t open txt files just by clicking

    Right click on the file and select “Open with…”. Then select Notepad (or Wordpad) from the list and then click the checkbox to always open with this program. Seems to be just a messed up file extension association.

  31. lynn says:

    “California regulators prod utilities to start drafting roadmap to 100% clean energy”
    https://www.utilitydive.com/news/california-regulators-prod-utilities-to-start-drafting-roadmap-to-100-clea/540180/

    “The sum of renewables procurements from California electricity providers is not enough to achieve the state’s 2045 target, and regulators are struggling for solutions.”

    We can do it if we just try harder !

  32. Ray Thompson says:

    We can do it if we just try harder !

    We can do it if we spend more taxpayer’s money !

    Fixed it for you.

  33. lynn says:

    “How well do you actually remember It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown?”
    https://metv.com/quiz/how-well-do-you-actually-remember-its-the-great-pumpkin-charlie-brown

    I got 10 out of 12.

  34. Greg Norton says:

    “The sum of renewables procurements from California electricity providers is not enough to achieve the state’s 2045 target, and regulators are struggling for solutions.”

    IIRC, before we left Vantucky, WA and OR were discussing the removal by 2020 of a few “deadbeat” dams which caused problems for certain endangered species. I imagine that this is contributing to CA’s problem since they buy excess power from all of the states near their borders.

    NV will have to build more coal-fired power plants so the lotus blossom eaters in Palo Alto can continue to dream the Tesla zero emission vehicle fantasy.

  35. ech says:

    Films to consider:
    – Marx brothers, probably Duck Soup or A Night at the Opera to see where Mel Brooks is coming from
    – Singing in the Rain. Great movie musical, and since almost all films in Bollywood are musicals, it’s right up their alley
    – Ghostbusters (drop Airplane, too many cultural references, some quite dated)
    – Some Like it Hot

  36. paul says:

    Right click on the file and select “Open with…”.

    Tried that first thing. No joy. Bad dll. I did come off of a failing drive, so I expected a few problems. I just got stupid and read the help at Microsoft before running SFC. Then it was too late.

    Um. The Lexmark printer is reinstalled. Same for the Dymo label printer. PSP7. VLC. The UPS’s software. SumatraPDF. Other programs will be reinstalled as needed.

    I need to dig around and find the files where Firefox saves passwords and auto-fill.

    Not too bad, overall.

  37. lynn says:

    NV will have to build more coal-fired power plants so the lotus blossom eaters in Palo Alto can continue to dream the Tesla zero emission vehicle fantasy.

    Any new power plants will be gas turbines using natural gas as fuel. The gas turbines can and will be shutdown at night. The coal power plants take three days to get online so they do not get shutdown at night time.

  38. paul says:

    One more thing.

    If you import your Firefox boox marks using the json file, you don’t get your “special icons”. Use the html file and there the are, somehow encoded into the bookmark.

  39. Rick Hellewell says:

    When I was driving through NV last week, there were several solar power plants visible around Lost Vegas. Including the one big one in CA right near NV border at Primm (https://goo.gl/maps/ujTbtq7Dcyp ); that is huge. Three towers collecting energy from thousands of mirrors. You can actually see the concentration of sunlight beaming towards the towers. Plus a solar field there and another one just to the east of Primm on the NV side.

    Another big solar field NE of LV at intersection of US-95 and I-15: https://goo.gl/maps/RFJXjyTuM742 . And another SE of LV at intersection of uS-95/165 https://goo.gl/maps/Ejq5Yq54qBw .

  40. CowboySlim says:

    Three towers collecting energy from thousands of mirrors. You can actually see the concentration of sunlight beaming towards the towers.

    There was a previous of that type built in the ’80s(?), farther west in the Mojave near the town of Daggett (it can be Wiki’d). Total failure…had to shut it down….cost more to run than electrical revenue. I worked on the design…..computer simulation of the steam cycle…..like heat transfer and thermodynamics. I’ll let lynn explain it.

  41. Greg Norton says:

    Any new power plants will be gas turbines using natural gas as fuel. The gas turbines can and will be shutdown at night. The coal power plants take three days to get online so they do not get shutdown at night time.

    Regardless, CA wants to live the “green” energy fantasy while the neighboring states do the dirty work of generating the power that their economy truly requires.

  42. MrAtoz says:

    I posted some time back, the solar plant Mr. Rick notes, uses gas turbines at night etc to supplement solar. The plant failed to meet CA emissions standards. But who cares. It is only to power Teslas (supplement with Unicorn farts).

  43. jim~ says:

    Gee guys, some great suggestions. If you think of more, let me know.
    I’ll post the final top 10 once I’ve gestated a bit.

    *************************

    *Wizard of Oz — yep, already on the list.

    *Airplane or Young Frankenstein — Yes! I want to appeal to his/her goofy sense of humor, although I admit they need a good deal of American cultural background in order to get the jokes. May have to rethink that one.

    *Duck Soup — I love that suggestion, although it’s a bit sophisticated for a kid. Still, it holds up better than Young Frankenstein if you don’t get the cultural references. And an absolute classic. Yep, I think that’s a go.

    *Clue — great idea! (Although I think _Murder By Death_ is even funnier, but not so kid-friendly)

    Blade Runner & Citizen Kane — no, too artsy-fartsy and not kid-friendly

    *African Queen
    *Maltese Falcon
    Both are standalone films, classic, and very, very good.

    2001: A Space Odyssey — I dearly would like to include that as a purely visual feast, but having seen it in THE Cinerama numerous times, a video detracts from the appeal. Likewise, _Lawrence of Arabia_. Hmmm, makes me wonder if Madras even HAS a Cinerama, or something close.

    In re musicals, Hollywood can’t hold a candle to Bollywood, and though I love _My Fair Lady_ (the new restored version is great), it’s comparing apples to oranges.

  44. CowboySlim says:

    Regardless, CA wants to live the “green” energy fantasy ….

    YUUUP! And the mention above of “Tesla” reminds of the lie on the bumper sticker on the rear of many of the electric cars here. Says “Zero Emissions”, well of course not at the rear bumper. However, those in my neighborhood are recharged from the electrical generating plant about 5 miles from me which burns CNG. YUUUP, but our municipal buses have stickers that say “CNG” but not “Zero Emissions”.

    Where is AlGore when we need him to admit that the electric car emissions are at the power plants.

  45. Greg Norton says:

    YUUUP! And the mention above of “Tesla” reminds of the lie on the bumper sticker on the rear of many of the electric cars here. Says “Zero Emissions”, well of course not at the rear bumper. However, those in my neighborhood are recharged from the electrical generating plant about 5 miles from me which burns CNG. YUUUP, but our municipal buses have stickers that say “CNG” but not “Zero Emissions”.

    Out at our test site in Taylor last week, one of the young’n’s asked me the meaning of the “PZEV’ badge on one of the vehicles, a Subaru of some kind IIRC.

    “Marketing.”

  46. lynn says:

    Where is AlGore when we need him to admit that the electric car emissions are at the power plants.

    @CowboySlim, you are getting very close to having to spend a month at the re-education camp. Now repeat after me, “all electric vehicles only use electricity from solar power panels, wind turbines, and non-fish killing hydroelectric dams”.

  47. CowboySlim says:

    @lynn, good thing that you left nuclear out. We had one about 30 miles down the coast in San Onofre. But, they shut that down several years ago.

  48. lynn says:

    @lynn, good thing that you left nuclear out. We had one about 30 miles down the coast in San Onofre. But, they shut that down several years ago.

    Isn’t Diablo Canyon still running ?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_Canyon_Power_Plant

    Anyways, the electric cars do not use any of that nasty nuclear electricity either. You see, the electric car chargers have a way of looking at electricity and see where it was generated. They reject all of that nasty electricity made from nuclear, natural gas, and coal.

  49. Ray Thompson says:

    Three towers collecting energy from thousands of mirrors

    Yep, impressive. First time I saw it I thought it would look really impressive at night, a Nancy Pelosi moment before I came to my senses.

    They reject all of that nasty electricity made from nuclear, natural gas, and coal

    Those cars must be really smart.

    reminds of the lie on the bumper sticker on the rear of many of the electric cars here. Says “Zero Emissions

    I can only guess the drivers are so in tune with the environment they never fart.

  50. paul says:

    A small PITA…. import FF bookmarks via json file and your custom icons are gone. Then import via html file and yes, you have your custom icons. They are encoded into the individual bookmarks.

    And then you get to sort it out. Because you have TWO of everything. The json group and the html group. Somehow every link gets their icon. So, clean it up and export as html.

    To a safe place. Yeah, that’s the plan.

    Custom icons…. the add-ons that let you do this stopped working with FF Quantum. Perhaps “for the children”. But your bookmark files from before Quantum still have the icons embedded.

    And someday I’ll get the cookie for here working again.

  51. nick flandrey says:

    NO NONONONONONOONONONNNO

    Not African Queen!!! Watch it again. It’s dead slow and boring and she’s a stiff bitch, who I spent the whole first part of the movie thinking she really just needed to get laid… and then she does and suddenly her character is human. That’s all I took away from that, and that one cylinder steam engines are COOOL. Might be my issue, but — watch it again.

    Singing in the Rain! Yes.

    Maltese Falcon, never made it thru it, so not my suggestion.

    If looking for spectacle that is the root of Bollywood, any Busby Berkley film should do, see what wiki says is best. The only title I remember offhand is Gold diggers of 33 and I wouldn’t necessarily recommend that one.

    Cotton Club captured some stunning performances and the time, but is prob too adult.

    Clint Eastwood and the spaghetti westerns, not sure I could pick just one, but prob too adult….

    Been a long time since I watched Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, but I remember it capturing the time…

    The Italian Job, set a standard that was hard to beat, but too adult….

    St Elmo’s Fire, and Thirtysomething captured a generation… as did Pretty in Pink. Not “cinema” though.

    Yikes, gotta go, soccer game tonight.

    n

  52. SteveF says:

    PZEV = Pseudo Zero Emissions Vehicle?

  53. Greg Norton says:

    “Microsoft buying GitHub for $7.5 billion was expected to be the biggest software company acquisition of 2018, but IBM just blew that out of the water. For $34 billion, it gains control of the leading open source technology company.”

    Good night ! I thought maybe $5 or $6 billion at most.

    IBM overpaid.

    Microsoft did too, but their real goal was control of Atom.

    Who knows what IBM wants. If you don’t need support or “Common Criteria” certification, CentOS is essentially the same as RHEL without the expense. The Red Hat “bleeding edge” release Fedora (what I use for my home server), is also free.

  54. dkreck says:

    Cringley’s 2 cents……

    https://www.cringely.com/2018/10/29/red-hat-takes-over-ibm/

    best take
    Ginni is overdue for retirement, this acquisition will not only qualify her for a huge retirement package, it will do so in a way that won’t be clearly successful or unsuccessful for years to come, so no clawbacks. And yet the market will (eventually) love it, IBM shares will soar, and Ginni will depart looking like a genius.

    And maybe Ginni is a genius, but it sure took her long enough to show it.

  55. lynn says:

    Not African Queen!!! Watch it again. It’s dead slow and boring

    Until they start cutting the leeches off each other …
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYI6j4GiEd4

  56. lynn says:

    A small PITA…. import FF bookmarks via json file and your custom icons are gone. Then import via html file and yes, you have your custom icons. They are encoded into the individual bookmarks.

    And then you get to sort it out. Because you have TWO of everything. The json group and the html group. Somehow every link gets their icon. So, clean it up and export as html.

    To a safe place. Yeah, that’s the plan.

    To quote Jerry Pournelle, “sometimes you just have to nuke from orbit and move on”.

  57. Greg Norton says:

    Cringley’s 2 cents……

    Cringely is right in that it creates a problem for Oracle.

    The only other RPM (package manager) based Linux ecosystem left of any significant size is openSuSE, and Larry Ellison is not going there.

    RHEL 7 also makes Systemd optional.

  58. paul says:

    To quote Jerry Pournelle, “sometimes you just have to nuke from orbit and move on”.

    True. But not really enthused about loosing 20+ years of the bovine excrement I have saved.

    Heck, I have folders of stuff from Win 3.11 burrowed into the folder of stuff I saved when going to Win95 and then Win98se. And that’s in a folder of stuff saved when I went to XP. And continue onward…. to Win7.

    My MO is to copy the old drive to the new drive as I go from PC to PC and OS to OS.

    Works for me. I do need to clean up a bit…. might clear out a gig of stuff.

  59. dkreck says:

    NJ newspaper endorses awful candidate.

    All of this can be overlooked, according to the Star-Ledger, because the real issue in this election is President Trump. In other words, Menendez may be a crook but at least he’s a Democrat:

    https://hotair.com/archives/2018/10/29/new-jersey-star-ledger-endorsement-choke-vote-menendez/

  60. lynn says:

    To quote Jerry Pournelle, “sometimes you just have to nuke from orbit and move on”.

    True. But not really enthused about loosing 20+ years of the bovine excrement I have saved.

    Heck, I have folders of stuff from Win 3.11 burrowed into the folder of stuff I saved when going to Win95 and then Win98se. And that’s in a folder of stuff saved when I went to XP. And continue onward…. to Win7.

    Don’t throw everything away ! Make 2 or 3 good copies on separate backup devices. Then reformat, reinstall Winders, and reinstall all your stuff. It is painful and sounds like you have problems besides that. But, at least that would get rid of the corrupted operating system stuff (your registry has some problems apparently).

    Or just fix as you go along. Shoot, you’ve got plenty of time, it is just the level of frustration that you can stand.

  61. lynn says:

    Cringley’s 2 cents……

    Cringely is right in that it creates a problem for Oracle.

    The only other RPM (package manager) based Linux ecosystem left of any significant size is openSuSE, and Larry Ellison is not going there.

    I’ve always wondered how they ported Linux, et all to the mainframes since they are not stack machines. They taught us how to manually create stacks in IBM 370 assembler class, it was horrible but we just created macros so only had to do it once. And very time consuming for the machine since was in software rather than hardware. Maybe they just did it in Linux the same way we did.

  62. pcb_duffer says:

    Re: movies. Don’t forget the oaters, war movies, and heist pictures. Yes, the overwhelming majority of them are complete crap, but that’s true of Hollywood in general.

    Westerns are an interesting look into the perspective of the times. I’d suggest The Searchers, High Noon, The Wild Bunch & Unforgiven, along with Blazing Saddles as comedic view. For war movies, some that pop to mind are Hell in the Pacific, Apocalypse Now, Das Boot (not American, of course) and Dr. Strangelove. For heist flicks, The Getaway (the early 70s version w/ McQueen & McGraw), The Score, & Heat.

    Finally, please don’t leave off The Godfather (I & II) and Reservoir Dogs. Not all of these are necessarily kid appropriate, but worthwhile viewing for the movie fan.

  63. Jenny says:

    @nick
    I’m cracking up. African Queen Is hands down my favorite movie. Watched it for the umpteenth time just last month. The book is even better. I like the slow pace. I like the dialog. Couple of very funny scenes, like when they’re married by the captain then he immediately calls for their hanging, or early on when she’s convincing him to make torpedoes.

    I don’t really like sitting still for movies but will stop for African Queen every time.

  64. nick flandrey says:

    well, I did stipulate that the issue could be with me 🙂

    n

  65. Nick Flandrey says:

    Lots of iconic movies, with large impact on pop culture, that aren’t icons of the american cinema…. some are so ‘of their time’ that they really don’t work anymore.

    Some are going to make you look like a thought criminal for even suggesting someone risk lifelong trauma by watching the badthink, in today’s climate.

    We haven’t even mentioned ‘cult classics’… paging Dr Frankenfurter.

    n

  66. Greg Norton says:

    I’ve always wondered how they ported Linux, et all to the mainframes since they are not stack machines. They taught us how to manually create stacks in IBM 370 assembler class, it was horrible but we just created macros so only had to do it once. And very time consuming for the machine since was in software rather than hardware. Maybe they just did it in Linux the same way we did.

    Never played with mainframes.

    Originally, I think Linux ran in a virtual machine. Now that a lot of IBM hardware is Power-based, my guess is that the mainframe environment is the emulated platform.

    At times like this, OFD is sorely missed.

  67. Greg Norton says:

    Lots of iconic movies, with large impact on pop culture, that aren’t icons of the american cinema…. some are so ‘of their time’ that they really don’t work anymore.

    The big 3 still work — “Casablanca”, “Citizen Kane”, “The Godfather”.

    The big problem with a lot of older movies is people getting past the black and white visuals.

    80s flicks didn’t age well with all the materialism … and big hair. The only John Hughes flick that honestly portrays the decade and aged well IMHO is “Mr. Mom”.

    The newer flicks that won’t age well are the Oscar winners given the award as a statement. I think at this point, Disney is hoping for SeaOrg to rig the ballots so Tom Cruise wins the “Best Achievement in ‘Black Panther’ Film -er- Popular Film” in January.

    The Oscar would be the kiss of death for long-term video sales of “Black Panther” after the awards show circus, especially if the Dems don’t win the House.

  68. Roger Ritter says:

    If you need a good WWII movie, “Twelve O’Clock High” should make the list.

  69. Mark W says:

    PZEV = Pseudo Zero Emissions Vehicle?

    Partial Zero Emission Vehicle.

    Only a government could invent that contradiction.

  70. Greg Norton says:

    Partial Zero Emission Vehicle.

    Only a government could invent that contradiction.

    I thought Subaru marketing came up with that one to salve the guilt of the buyers on the West Coast.

  71. Mark W says:

    I thought Subaru marketing came up with that one to salve the guilt of the buyers on the West Coast.

    Wikipedia implies that it came from an Obama decree. No reference though.

  72. ech says:

    The “popular film” category won’t be in the AA for 2018. They are pushing it at least 1 year.

  73. SteveF says:

    Partial Zero Emission Vehicle

    Well, yes, but that lacks the snark of my version so I’ll have to deduct a point from your answer.

    And, as others have noted, “partial zero emissions” is a bit of blather which in a just society would see a hundred bureaucrats dangling from lampposts.

  74. JimL says:

    You’re off by an order of magnitude.

  75. lynn says:

    You’re off by an order of magnitude.

    How about several orders of magnitude ?

  76. paul says:

    Don’t throw everything away ! Make 2 or 3 good copies on separate backup devices. Then reformat, reinstall Winders, and reinstall all your stuff. It is painful and sounds like you have problems besides that. But, at least that would get rid of the corrupted operating system stuff (your registry has some problems apparently).

    Or just fix as you go along. Shoot, you’ve got plenty of time, it is just the level of frustration that you can stand.

    Yeah, my drive was failing with random re-boots and plenty of bad clusters. Win7 itself and various programs ran just fine. If I had handled this task a month ago, at the first freeze and re-boot, it would have been simpler.

    The system recovery discs re-installed Win7 as if on a new machine. Complete with the junkware.

    The process put “my stuff” in a folder called Backup. The rest of the folder tree remains. So it’s a matter of re-installing stuff that needs to install dlls and Registry keys and creating shortcuts to what will run as is.

    Tedious. No rush. I have a lot of duplication. The Wfw3.11 drive was copied to a folder on the new Win95 drive which was copied to a folder on the Win98 drive. Repeat for XP and then Win7.
    The various drives are poorly labeled and on a shelf in a bedroom closet.

    I have a method. Might be a stupid method but it’s all mine. 🙂

  77. jim~ says:

    I had never realized thet Busby Berkeley films were the origin of “the musical”, but it makes perfect sense. What a great observation!

    I’m having my doubts about westerns because of the lack of cultural relevance, though are some truly great ones in that genre. I rather doubt children down there play Cowboys and Indians! It’s the same with war movies. Oddly enough, Indians have great respect for America but it’s not politically correct to say so. It’s like IQ. Any seven-year-old can tell you who’s the smartest kid in the class, but you’re ostracized for saying such a thing even exists.

    B&W doesn’t bother people down there the way it does here. You got to realize a lot of people didn’t have TVs until 15 or 20 years ago, and then they were black and white. With the new high definition TVs (which have so precipitously dropped in price that people are snapping them up like pancakes), some of the restored black and white classics are superb. Take for example, _Gaslight_. I, ahem, *found* a copy of that and it’s just beautiful, especially if you fiddle with the brightness and contrast on these new TVs. (I don’t know how people can stand to watch anything at their standard settings — they make Technicolor look like those quaint hand-painted portraits from the turn of the 20th century!)

    Still working on the final selection, which I’ll post when I finish. Then we move on to the odd, obscure and probably unknown music. That list is unlimited and will fill the remainder of the card as space permits. I already want to include Patsy Cline, Kathleen Ferrier and perhaps some Hank Williams; Spike Jones …. gee, so much stuff to include I haven’t given it a lot of thought.

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