Tues. May 7, 2019 – creatures of light

By on May 7th, 2019 in Random Stuff

75F and 95%RH. Sopping wet.

Most of us here are creatures of the light. Civilization, learning, sharing, peace- these are our goals and preference. We are also LITERALLY of the light. I think the history of civilization can be traced in our ability to make light, cheaply, easily, and widely.

Our adversaries are creatures of darkness. Chaos, destruction, hatred, instinct, emotion- that is where they thrive and prosper.

Think about what you will do to keep the darkness at bay, metaphorically and literally.

n

[and buy more FLASHLIGHTS]

52 Comments and discussion on "Tues. May 7, 2019 – creatures of light"

  1. Ray Thompson says:

    Our adversaries are creatures of darkness.

    So you are telling us that Star Wars had it correct.

    And in other news I am going to get this FLASHLIGHT. Why? Who knows. Not much different than those who collect gubs.

  2. Ray Thompson says:

    Watching the news I see where the UN is claiming that man is destroying the planet. Basically the UN wants to reduce all developed countries to third world status to match the other shirt(-r) hole countries. I have a better plan. Ignore, or abolish, the UN. It is little than a stage for third world despots with inflated egos. Truth be know this little countries controlled by these despots could cease to exist and no one would notice or care.

  3. MrAtoz says:

    I have a better plan. Ignore, or abolish, the UN.

    + 1,000,000

    The UN is the playground for the “darkness”. Especially Mooslims who can’t wait to get away from the “flag pole” to sate their darkest desires on FUSA soil. I dealt with their sleaze many times in the Army when working with them.

  4. MrAtoz says:

    I read Biden is stumping on “repeal those fucking tax cuts!” This isn’t going to go well for him. Slurring words, invoking “Jim Crow”, non-apology to Anita “Pubic Hair” Hill for the #MeToo vote. The good thing is he will get the Dumbo nomination if he doesn’t croak. tRump will win.

  5. CowboySlim says:

    10-4, I can’t believe that tRump will not stop funding, cancel diplomatic immunities, use building for homeless shelter, and revoke visas.

  6. Greg Norton says:

    I read Biden is stumping on “repeal those fucking tax cuts!” This isn’t going to go well for him. Slurring words, invoking “Jim Crow”, non-apology to Anita “Pubic Hair” Hill for the #MeToo vote. The good thing is he will get the Dumbo nomination if he doesn’t croak. tRump will win.

    Plugs won’t get the nomination. The Dems are giving him a moment in the sun before dropping the dime. Next month. Certainly before Labor Day.

    Biden is there to nuke Bernie’s support.

    The CA money knows that if they do not present a clear age contrast to Trump, they will lose.

  7. JimL says:

    50º and cloudy in the land of the best sunsets not on the gulf coast.

    It might rain today, but only during the workday. Tonight’s run should be fairly clear and still around 50º. Good day for it.

    I’m thinking and praying for the folks on this board. There but for the grace of God go I, and not for a while yet. My (our) time will come eventually. (No, SteveF, I’m not referring to your grace. We all know how that would turn out.)

    We are indeed fortunate to live in a land of light.

  8. nick flandrey says:

    It’s not whether a candidate can win or lose, it’s how much money can they raise, and how many votes can they bring….

    even if you don’t bend the rules, I’m sure there are lots of ways to transfer campaign moneys to relatives, foundations, companies you control, etc. None of the current crop of a-holes started out multi-millionaires.

    n

  9. Nightraker says:

    It has always been suspicious to spend $10 million for a $100k/yrs job….

  10. lynn says:

    From yesterday:

    My best for your Mom, Mr. Lynn. It is going to be a trying time. Only the family will get her through this. The four and a half years my Mom lived with me were trying as her health went down hill. She wouldn’t have made it six months without family.

    Thanks ! My 80 year old Dad is still shouldering the bulk of the work with Mom. I am going to there about 5pm today and see if I can get him to go home to my brothers house and rest. I will stay with Mom until 10pm or so. My sister-in-law went in at 6am this morning and stayed with her until dad showed at 11am. Luckily, we have quite a few family locally who can help. And I don’t want to talk about my youngest brother, the deadbeat.

    BTW, thanks for being a good son to your mother. It was a tough road for you to walk. I feel comfortable in soliciting advice from you and others on this board because you are interested in doing the right thing. Or maybe I am just venting, who knows.

  11. lynn says:

    Watching the news I see where the UN is claiming that man is destroying the planet. Basically the UN wants to reduce all developed countries to third world status to match the other shirt(-r) hole countries. I have a better plan. Ignore, or abolish, the UN. It is little than a stage for third world despots with inflated egos. Truth be know this little countries controlled by these despots could cease to exist and no one would notice or care.

    Brother, I second your motion to abolish the UN !

  12. lynn says:

    It has always been suspicious to spend $10 million for a $100k/yrs job….

    The President of the USA is paid $400K/year plus another $200K/year in bennies. He also gets a lifelong pension of half the current presidential pay. Plus healthcare for life. Plus Secret Service for life (Nixon paid for his personally). Plus a house. Plus a helicopter. Plus a airplane. Plus an army. Plus a navy. Plus Marines !
    https://www.businessinsider.com/financial-perks-president-of-the-united-states-2018-7

    I believe that Trump went after the job for two reasons: ego and his grandchildren. He has a huge ego, every person to occupy that office has one. And he is very concerned what the USA will look like for his grandchildren. He thinks that they will not have the same opportunities that he has had. And he was right, he may delay the onslot of socialism for eight years. When AOC becomes president though, all bets are off.

  13. lynn says:

    Pictures of the Brazos River entering flood stage today:
    https://www.facebook.com/fbcoem/

  14. lynn says:

    “Microsoft unveils Windows Subsystem for Linux 2”
    https://www.osnews.com/story/129962/microsoft-unveils-windows-subsystem-for-linux-2/

    “This is a massive new release of WSL, and for the first time for consumer-facing Windows, Microsoft will be shipping a full Linux kernel with its operating system.”

    I’ve thought for a long time that MS should do this.

  15. nick flandrey says:

    SEL is making inroads… [our school district is supposed to be using it]

    https://www.edsurge.com/news/2018-06-04-the-future-of-education-depends-on-social-emotional-learning-here-s-why

    The circular logic, and self referencial stuff in the article is a good indicator to me that they are full of sh!t.

    n

    (I’d like to see the improvements they cite broken down by ethnicity, economic status, and the presence of both parents in the home. I’ll bet that most of the gains they are talking about happen in a very specific subset of students. I’m also squicked out by their desired behaviours)

  16. nick flandrey says:

    From a youtube comment,

    There´s a saying in Russia: There´s three things that people can watch non-stop
    1. Fire
    2. Water
    3. And other people working

    That goes a long way toward explaining the popularity of fixit videos…

    n

  17. lynn says:

    I just got my residential electricity offer from http://www.energyogre.com . Energy Ogre found us a 12 month contract for electricity at roughly 9.71 cents/kwh. The contract that Discount Power had offered us was 12.3 cents/kwh for 12 months or 11.2 cents/kwh for 24 months. Energy Ogre adds a $10/month charge to the bill. We use an average of 3,000 khw/month at our house so this is a big savings.

  18. Greg Norton says:

    “This is a massive new release of WSL, and for the first time for consumer-facing Windows, Microsoft will be shipping a full Linux kernel with its operating system.”

    I’ve thought for a long time that MS should do this.

    If you just want Unix tools, Cygwin is far less resource intensive. I’m a heavy user of Cygwin 32 bit for Vim and Git daily. With developer tools installed, a lot of open source software is just a “./configure” away.

    (The 64 bit Cygwin is still a box of squirrels IMHO. Reach your hand in even once and you’ll probably get bit.)

    I’ve done very little work with WSL since it is very disk hungry and requires virtualization features which break VirtualBox. Plus, there is always hardware around which will run Linux in a pinch even if Microsoft gave up on it years ago.

    Everything we do at work is in VMs hosted in VirtualBox.

    I could probably see the point for your product if you wanted to run the back end in the WSL, but I’d wonder about the performance. Get this summer’s intern cracking on a complete port to RHEL 7.

  19. nick flandrey says:

    Tonight’s CPA session is Tactical Ops/ SWAT. We may even get to shoot the Barrett….

    Weather sucks though, slow drizzle. I understand we were going to be outdoors. Hmmm. I guess we’ll see.

    n

  20. MrAtoz says:

    SEL is making inroads… [our school district is supposed to be using it]

    MrsAtoz gets those sweet, sweet, goobermint bucks through SEL (incorp’ed into her programs).

    The “Code Switching” euphemism in multilingual settings is getting us more bucks, too. You know, when Klinton and Crazy Eyes use their Southern drawl when talking to Blacks. If I tried that as a White, Male, cis-Hetero, Veteran I’d get called a RAAYYCISS in a micro second.

  21. MrAtoz says:

    Mayor ButtHead claims he has more experience than tRump and Pence:

    Buttigieg claims more experience than Trump and Pence, would take on president with ‘very different energy’

    Right. Like that tense scene in Avengers where Cap asks Tony “what are you without that suit…” “Oh, billionaire, philanthropist, genius…”

  22. Nick Flandrey says:

    That got me chuckling..

  23. paul says:

    I don’t care who the Dems run. After the Kavanaugh mess, I’m not voting for another Dem. Ever.

    Unless it’s a local guy for a county job and I’ve met him.

  24. mediumwave says:

    I don’t care who the Dems run. After the Kavanaugh mess, I’m not voting for another Dem. Ever.

    Ditto, and for exactly that reason.

  25. paul says:

    This month’s electric bill has arrived. I’m happy.

    $68.22 for 548 kwh. Yeah, there is a $21 charge “just to have a meter”. So, a bit of fudge factor that varies.

    Minus the meter charge, $47.22. .086 kwh. ? I get the same for the EDC meter.

  26. JimB says:

    Best wishes to all here who need better health. I am just catching up.

    My Internet service has been mostly down since Friday noon. I HATE intermittents. Met another nice guy from Frontier at my home this AM. He determined that the problem was in the line between me and the central office. This is the usual problem, but getting the folks on the phone to determine that is sometimes hard. I will admit that this time the second phone guy successfully diagnosed the problem. The first one wanted to reset my gateway; that worked for the duration of the call.

    Had to go out. Just back, and no fix. Frontier web site says the ticket is still “in progress.” I guess that is a euphemism for not fixed yet.

    Paul, you and I should get together some time over a beer and discuss our fun with Internet service providers. Uh, that might take too many beers 🙂

  27. lynn says:

    We just got somewhere between 10 to 20 inches of rain from 3pm to 7pm. With a power outage from 4pm to 715pm. All of my computers and LAN spun down hard since the UPSs ran dry. I am very unhappy at my LAN UPS, it is brand new (2018) and tripping off with 175 run time showing.

    There is water everywhere ! The spillway on the one acre back pond is normally ten foot wide. It is 600 ft wide at the moment. The pond is covering some 5 to 8 acres and is three foot higher now than this morning. It even extends to the neighbors front door, I hope their house did not get flooded. The office building is still two foot above the back pond though.

    The half acre front pond is almost level with the front cutoff road. It is probably about six acres in size now and is also three feet higher than this morning. The nice thing is that the 14 acre property performed as designed, my hat is off to John P. who designed and built this place.

    The Brazos River literally just jumped two feet in elevation. Maybe three ft, the graph is hard to read.
    https://water.weather.gov/ahps2/hydrograph.php?wfo=HGX&gage=RMOT2

  28. lynn says:

    There is two foot of water in front of my house now. I cannot go home. Our pumps have been running for two days now according to the LID who is begging people to stop calling them.
    http://www.fblid11.com/general/pumps-stations-are-operational/

    “For everybody asking us to “turn on the pumps” please understand that the pumps have been on for the last 48 hours. We have received over three inches of rain in a 2 hour period. The inlets and storm sewers are inundated. The streets are ponding.

    To be perfectly clear, the pumps stations are on and operational.”

    We have gotten WAY more than three inches of rain.

  29. lynn says:

    If you just want Unix tools, Cygwin is far less resource intensive. I’m a heavy user of Cygwin 32 bit for Vim and Git daily. With developer tools installed, a lot of open source software is just a “./configure” away.

    Actually, I’ve been using the old Thompson Toolkit since 1990. It runs 10 to 100 times faster than cygwin. John Thompson told me that he unrolled all of the loops and replaced them with assembly code so it runs like a dog chasing a squirrel.
    http://www.tasoft.com/toolkit.html

  30. Rick Hellewell says:

    Note to potential hackers: don’t hack Israel …

    The escalating global threat of cyber attacks against nation-states took a turn yesterday when Israel’s military announced that they had “thwarted an attempted Hamas cyber offensive against Israeli targets. Following our successful cyber defensive operation, we targeted a building where the Hamas cyber operatives work.”

    Link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/05/06/israeli-military-strikes-and-destroys-hamas-cyber-hq-in-world-first/#1fd0222eafb5

  31. lynn says:

    My wife is talking about abandoning our house and moving to my parents home in Port Lavaca for the duration of the storms until Sunday. She freaked when the water suddenly rose two foot in front of the house in less than an hour this afternoon. Our daughter is not doing very well (yes, we are getting hit from both ends) and my wife wants to be able to get her in an ER if she suddenly starts having seizures again.

    I’ve been trying to tell her that the hospital in Victoria sucks but she thinks any hospital is better than being flooded in our house. I don’t know what to think.

    And it just started pouring again. The weather service says that we got 10 inches of rain this afternoon in Sugar Land. This is crazy.
    https://spacecityweather.com/heavy-rains-multiple-flood-warnings-and-its-just-tuesday/

  32. lynn says:

    Note to potential hackers: don’t hack Israel …

    The escalating global threat of cyber attacks against nation-states took a turn yesterday when Israel’s military announced that they had “thwarted an attempted Hamas cyber offensive against Israeli targets. Following our successful cyber defensive operation, we targeted a building where the Hamas cyber operatives work.”

    Link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/05/06/israeli-military-strikes-and-destroys-hamas-cyber-hq-in-world-first/#1fd0222eafb5

    Is there any way to validate this ?

    I suspect that this was not the first time that Israel identified people in this building.

  33. Rick Hellewell says:

    @lynn ….

    Is there any way to validate this ?

    A bunch of stories on various media sites. Here’s a google news link to articles here.

    A “Wired” article about it here https://www.wired.com/story/israel-hamas-cyberattack-air-strike-cyberwar/ . (Note that Wired has a paywall after xx ‘free’ articles, but I always get around that by opening their links in a new private window.)

  34. Greg Norton says:

    Actually, I’ve been using the old Thompson Toolkit since 1990. It runs 10 to 100 times faster than cygwin. John Thompson told me that he unrolled all of the loops and replaced them with assembly code so it runs like a dog chasing a squirrel.

    Cygwin has the Posix emulation DLL layer which extracts a performance penalty in return for an expanded library of utilities. The license was also an issue for commercial users until Red Hat bought out Cygnus.

    Working tonight until 2AM. Customer acceptance test. The company’s web filter doesn’t like the Thompson site.

    Slow week. I will only be up to 30 hours since Sunday morning when I go to bed tonight.

  35. Greg Norton says:

    And it just started pouring again. The weather service says that we got 10 inches of rain this afternoon in Sugar Land. This is crazy.

    I heard hail outside earlier so I took a break from work to move cars around. In a few weeks, I’ll be worried about the lawn drying out and croaking before winter cold fronts start. Yeah, crazy.

    Your family is at the house without you?

  36. lynn says:

    And it just started pouring again. The weather service says that we got 10 inches of rain this afternoon in Sugar Land. This is crazy.

    I heard hail outside earlier so I took a break from work to move cars around.

    Your family is at the house without you?

    My neighbors are all reporting 14 inches to 17 inches of rain now. We are starting to get reports of massive flooding everywhere around Houston.

    My wife and daughter are at the house. My son is at the office with me. The pumps have pulled the two feet of water off the street in front of our house. But we are the high point of our street and both ends of our street still have a foot of water in them. I can go around to the front of Greatwood in a hour or two and get home that way. Apparently there is or was water over the bridge on the way I normally go home. I don’t drive on flooded bridges.

  37. lynn says:

    Sugar Land police now have an MRAP that they are using for high water rescues according to the police scanner. Unreal.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRAP

    Sugar Land Fire is reporting that they lost a pumper in my neighborhood at the peak when one of my neighbors reported a child not breathing. One of the EMTs ran two blocks in waist high water carrying resuscitation equipment and managed to get the child’s airway cleared and get him to breathing again. Wow !

    I wonder what the cost to rebuild a pumper engine is. We bought a new one last year for $1.25 million IIRC. It looks like a carousel going down the road with hundreds of lights on it.

  38. Greg Norton says:

    I wonder what the cost to rebuild a pumper engine is. We bought a new one last year for $1.25 million IIRC. It looks like a carousel going down the road with hundreds of lights on it.

    One of my things to see in LA is the county fire museum with the “Emergency” vehicles.

    Universal craft people built the paramedic unit but the big truck was the real deal. It was so expensive in 70s dollars that the studio didn’t just park it on the backlot to rust (like the Delorean from “Back to the Future”), and the engine went to Yosemite for a couple of decades of real fire work where the crews there fortunately kept it immaculate.

  39. nick flandrey says:

    Just got home from class, haven ‘t read the comments, but

    most of the rain and flooding is south of me.

    Our power went out 10 or more minutes ago, and Oh, there it comes back.

    the power failure flashlights lit up, and I went for my streamlight seige, but it was flat. The 3 pack of led lanterns I bought last month for GS camp saved the day.

    I’d just taken my flashlight out of my pocket and left the office when the lights went out.

    n

  40. nick flandrey says:

    My electronic gage says less than one inch. I’m going to check the tube one in the driveway. Lots of thunder and lightning though.

    n

  41. nick flandrey says:

    Well, outdoor gauge matches the electronic one. Less than one inch.

    Power blinked again.

    Main pc and camera pc still not on ups.

    Another blink. my big dell rode thru both, but the costco dell rebooted.

    network rack in attic is on ups and stayed up.

  42. nick flandrey says:

    wife is sitting in a plane at IAH, which is an improvement from sitting in a plane at DFW.

    Still, pilot says 20 minutes until they get a gate. She was supposed to be home 3 hours ago.

    n

  43. nick flandrey says:

    Holy crap,

    missed this

    One student, 18, is dead and seven others are injured after two classmates opened fire at Denver high school before being tackled by police, as yet another community is devastated by campus shooting

  44. nick flandrey says:

    1230 and wife still not at a gate…

    I can’t keep my eyes open. Power has been steady for a while now.

    @mr lynn, keep your eyes open, and I hope your daughter will not need any emergency care during this episode.

    We are up to one inch here, and the rain, thunder, and lightning have faded.

    n

  45. lynn says:

    I got home at midnight. I had to weave my way through 40 or 50 flooded cars and trucks. And one flooded fire engine, a hook and ladder, from them saving that kid. I only had to drive through water of six inches depth or so twice. Not bad for my Expedition.

    Man, the Rabbs Bayou bridge was unnerving. There was a flooded truck on it. The bayou was just 4 or 5 feet below it with a strong current heading to the Brazos River. Normally there is 25 feet of air to the foot deep stream at the bottom.

    I may post some photos tomorrow if people want to see the flooding on my office property.

    We did find a new roof leak in the game room at the house. Right over my computer desk. Scratch one expensive logitech mechanical keyboard that I got for my birthday las year. The roof fix will be much more expensive.

  46. lynn says:

    wife is sitting in a plane at IAH, which is an improvement from sitting in a plane at DFW.

    Still, pilot says 20 minutes until they get a gate. She was supposed to be home 3 hours ago.

    Bummer. My brother flew back from New Orleans, had a fun landing with the wind according to him.

  47. Greg Norton says:

    wife is sitting in a plane at IAH, which is an improvement from sitting in a plane at DFW.

    Still, pilot says 20 minutes until they get a gate. She was supposed to be home 3 hours ago.

    She could have boarded Megabus at DFW and been home by now. 🙂

    We have a special case lead who works out of our small office in Dallas/Arlington doing … well, I don’t want to frighten anyone. He rides down to Austin from the Megabus terminal at DFW. They have Wifi on the bus!

  48. lynn says:

    @mr lynn, keep your eyes open, and I hope your daughter will not need any emergency care during this episode.

    Me too ! She has slowly been declining for several months now. Her body has stopped making extra red blood cells and her iron is now 7.4 (should be 15). She was at 9 in January. Any more drop and she will need blood transfusions in order to breathe. We are still working through the regular doctor and iron supplements are not helping at all.

    I think that we have had enough rain for now. Maybe May. Weaving my way through the flooded vehicles to get home was weird.

  49. JimL says:

    I don’t care who the Dems run. After the Kavanaugh mess, I’m not voting for another Dem. Ever.

    Unless it’s a local guy for a county job and I’ve met him.

    Sometimes the best man for the job is a woman. And a dem. Local council elections – so far the best candidate is someone I know.

    On the other hand, local district justice is a woman I know. She won. It was a mistake based on some of the things I’ve heard.

  50. JimL says:

    Link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/05/06/israeli-military-strikes-and-destroys-hamas-cyber-hq-in-world-first/#1fd0222eafb5

    Is there any way to validate this ?

    I suspect that this was not the first time that Israel identified people in this building.

    I am reminded of Jerry Pournelle quoting Larry Niven: “Don’t throw poo at men with guns. Don’t stand next to people throwing poo at men with guns.” Were I living in that building, I’d get far away.

  51. paul says:

    Uh, that might take too many beers

    Is there such a thing? 🙂

  52. JimL says:

    Not in my book.

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