Cool? Windy and part sun?
Yesterday was nice, then got a bit windy. Out in the country it looked like rain coming. Later it was cool-ish and the wind died down. Smelled like rain when I went to bed.
I got much of my work done at my client’s place. Some unexpected issues, which I should have expected, but didn’t, ate into my productivity there. Got him back to where he was, and a bit further along toward where he’d like to be. Then I came home.
Dinner was crock pot stewed chicken. 10 legs from the most recent Costco order, hand full of mixed tiny heirloom potatoes from the back of the cabinet, one onion, some baby carrots and celery, and the mix. Leave alone for 6 hours and enjoy…
———————————————————————————————–
Over at Commander Zero’s place, he asked if people were having trouble maintaining a sense of urgency. Yep, I am. I’ve been letting the ducks nibble me to death almost every day.
I’ve mostly settled into this as the new normal. And I’m actually reasonably comfortable with it.
Except that hurricane season will be here soon, and we’re already starting on preps for that.
And more bad is coming, and for longer and worse than people think. Waves of desperate people will be coming up through Mexico, fleeing the collapse of their already tottering nations. Living in a border state, we’ll see the first brunt of it (if it comes) but they’ll move on through to the rest of you, same as they’ve been doing for years.
It won’t just be refugees from South of the Border.
If we’re at 30% unemployment, think what it will be like in a month, or two. When there are no buyers for your used truck, that you owe $40K on. Or your snowblower, dirt bikes, or snowmobiles, or boats, or even your guns… when even normal people are starting to really feel the crunch and have no way left to raise money.
.Gov will try the same things they always try – price controls, helicopter money, running the printing presses. And the result will be the same. Argentina. Venezuela. Brazil. Zimbabwe.
There’s a world of hurt coming to the world and this time, also to middle America.
Having food and toilet paper will make it easier.
Keep stacking.
nick
(and skills, and friends)
I picked up this charger from Duracell at Costco. It will do 6 and 12 volt batteries. Goes into float mode just fine. I use it for my lawnmower battery over the winter months. I don’t know if it will charge a dead battery as it automatically detects the voltage. Most, if not all, smart chargers require a partially charged battery to function.
I have a dumb Sears charger that just drops the charging current as the voltage gets higher with no real intelligence to do that task. It would not charge a dead battery. I had to put the switch in start mode which bypassed the circuit that required a voltage to charge to charge a battery that was completely dead. The circuit that checks for voltage also prevented shorts and incorrect polarity. Eventually the battery charged as indicated by the drop in charge current. But the battery had a very short capacity, well short of the capacity when new.
In my opinion, once a battery discharges all the way, get rid of it. The performance will never be correct, it will stop working when you need it most. Get a new battery and a decent float charger such as the one I got at Costco. Duracell makes good products. You could also check Batteries+Bulbs for a decent charger.
Relevant to yesterday’s discussion of not letting kids walk a block: Bubble-Wrapped Americans: How the U.S. Became Obsessed with Physical and Emotional Safety
Ray, agree on all your points. Most of the modern smart chargers work about the same. That Duracell charger costs $50, and as long as we are at that price, it might be worthwhile to consider a CTEK charger. They are pricier, but they make some good claims about safety and reliability on their web site, including approval by some picky car manufacturers. Who knows, but they appear to at least be trying. One downside is they make a lot of models, and choosing is difficult.
I used to do a little power supply design, and had more than a passing acquaintance with batteries and charging systems for remote unattended locations. There are many ways to make these things safe, but no way to know what’s inside these modern ones. You have to trust the manufacturer, and finding who it is can be frustrating. Various reviews are spotty also.
And more bad is coming, and for longer and worse than people think. Waves of desperate people will be coming up through Mexico, fleeing the collapse of their already tottering nations. Living in a border state, we’ll see the first brunt of it (if it comes) but they’ll move on through to the rest of you, same as they’ve been doing for years.
Mexico has pretty brutal border policies at their Southern boundaries, and they’re not p*ssing off Trump this Summer, probably hoping Senior Plugs prevails in November. Plus, if the low skill jobs aren’t here or filled by Americans out of other options, why go through all the trouble. From the perspective of other Western Hemisphere populations, his place isn’t cheap, and the culture is a train wreck in which to raise kids.
No, I’d be more worried about the Upper Class Twit Of The Year types from China and the Subcontinent fleeing bad situations in those places. The more the culture is steeped in lying, the less we know about their true numbers.
I got it on sale at Costco for $30.00.
My last mower battery lasted 10 years and was kept on a float charger any time the mower was in the garden shed.
The EGO chargers for my blower, weedeater, chainsaw and hedge clippers will discharge the batteries to 20% if not used for 30 days. Intelligent chargers that will rapidly bring the batteries to about 90% then slow charge the rest of the way. Before I use them each spring I must remove the battery pack for about 10 minutes and place the pack back to get any useful time. Lesson learned. There are also fans in the battery charger that will keep the pack cool during charging. 56 volt system.
Always I thought that here are people who is able to think, and do not follow herds. But comparing Argentina, Brazil, Zimbawue and Venezuela as the same? I know 3 of the 4, stating this is similar to state (and I use state in pure english acception) Miami, Salt Lake City, Detroit and NY are the same (order to compare is random), Romania, Poland, Holland and Switzerland (I only know one, my fault)
Any country has his faults, now we are at a lower death rates, by one or two 000 of deaths, we destroyed the economy, but, this is business as usual.
As Fred said a lot of times, usually the dentist doesnt go north of Rio Bravo
Cheers
Ray, $30 is good!
Your EGO system is lithium ion, very different from lead acid. Lithium ion is developing very rapidly, but is very proprietary, so it is hard to keep up. For instance, early chemistries preferred charging to only 60-80% for long life, but now that might be obsolete. Newer ones also have a longer calendar life.
There are also some newer battery designs that look promising.
@Ayjblog, zimbabwe is supposed to be the clue, those are only the same in that they have hyperinflated their currency, and technically I am more sure of Mexico than Brazil, but we have recently discussed and linked to stories about how bad coronavirus is in Brazil.
So I put together two ideas in the list, bad management of coronavirus currently , and destroying currency thru the printing press historically.
Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
n
An interesting list.
https://www.zerohedge.com/health/staying-ahead-shortages-what-stock-coming-year
n
That is why I snagged the charger when I saw it on sale. Replaced an old float charger, basically just a trickle current, for one with a little more intelligence. The charging system on the mower is only able to bring the battery to about 90%, seems to be consistent. Immediately after mowing I plug in the charger and it shows a slight discharge on the battery and proceeds to charge the battery. I think the charging system on the mower is designed that way in the voltage regulator to keep from over charging the battery. 90% charge is good enough to start the mower.
Yes, I know that. My point was that the chargers for the system are intelligent in terms of battery management. Why don’t the auto manufacturers use Lithium Ion batteries as starting batteries in vehicles? Seems like they could make the batteries smaller, lighter (every manufacturer is concerned about weight), more reliable and certainly provide more starting current. Or are the batteries just too expensive?
An interesting list.
The appliance market has been weird for a while, but that has a lot more to do with the asinine efficiency standards and the decline of Sears than changing consumer tastes.
Though, consumers did get sh*t stupid about front loading washers. They looked cool, but trying to appeal to that desire drove Maytag into bankruptcy and made Hoover a subsidiary of Dirt Devil.
I wouldn’t worry about mass market computer equipment. If imports are suddenly a problem, the flow of surplus out of the country will come to an abrupt halt. Though, you may want to become familiar with installing one of the popular Linux distributions if you haven’t done so already. Microsoft, Apple, and Google will all tighten the financial screws on their OS updates, and all have been running forced obsolescence programs in some form for at least a decade.
Will Bat Cooties from China finally finish off the USA? It’s almost like our goobermint was waiting for something like this to “evolve” the USA into Prog Heaven. I think it is too early to give up. If people can get by the fear instilled by goobermint, the country can recover. A plane just passed overhead. Yay!
@MrAtoz, that is one of the weirder things about this slo mo disaster– how quiet it is outside.
I’m one mile from a busy freeway, but the freeway noise is so reduced that sometimes I don’t hear it at all. It’s like when a hurricane closes the freeways. The airtraffic doesn’t go directly over my house but I can see the pattern for IAH to the north. Usually there are airplanes in the sky. No so much anymore.
There are a lot more ‘kid sounds’ in the neighborhood but that’s a different kind of noise.
n
Will Bat Cooties from China finally finish off the USA? It’s almost like our goobermint was waiting for something like this to “evolve” the USA into Prog Heaven. I think it is too early to give up. If people can get by the fear instilled by goobermint, the country can recover. A plane just passed overhead. Yay!
I believe the direction of the country depends on how long mask kabuki sticks around, but people are obviously over it.
Costco is run by Progs so watch other retail.
That reminds me. I need to stick a new partition on my main machine and install Linux. Just in case, y’know.
That reminds me. I need to stick a new partition on my main machine and install Linux. Just in case, y’know.
I run my home server on Fedora, but I’ve seen mixed results on laptops, probably due to Wayland (new replacement for X11).
The Apple laptops we own which have since been abandoned by the company run a version of Pop! OS. If you are new to Linux and can get Pop! OS to run on your hardware, it is the distribution which receives the most attention from its corporate sponsor in terms of making the platform a general-purpose OS.
Long story, and I don’t keep up with new cars. I will offer some hints.
Remember when all cars were going to use 36V systems? Oh, these were actually called 42V systems. They switched to the same convention as the military, who said 28V. A 12V lead acid battery system usually runs at approximately 14V, so to sort out the confusion: 12=14, 24=28, and 36=42. New math.
Anyway, the 36V system was supposed to save weight. I can only offer two thoughts. First, everything would have to be changed, and this would be waaay more huuuger than the switch from 6V to 12V because of all the stuff now in cars. Imagine the replacement market for all this stuff. Daunting. The second thought is the transition to hybrid or electric cars. Would it make sense to make this change if it would soon be replaced by newer designs? Who knows.
I have considered LiFePO batteries, but with existing charging systems having nonadjustable software controlled regulators, a true drop-in would be needed. Although some are claimed to be drop-in, they are still immature. They are also costly, some don’t perform well at low temperatures, and life can be short. Bad as they are, the old lead acid battery will be used for some time.
Something that has interested me as a hobbyist is to use super capacitors to replace the battery. Buying enough (6) of these surplus to make a battery substitute can cost half what a new lead acid battery costs. It is also half the volume, and very lightweight. There are lots of YT videos about this. Someone coined the term “boost pack” (Why?) so search if interested. Quality of understanding varies. Supercaps have many advantages, especially for cars not driven much, and, ironically, those that are driven daily. Older cars just sitting for months don’t need battery maintenance, and daily driven ones keep the caps charged. They put out very high starting current, because they have phenomenally low equivalent series resistance. The capacity in amp-hours of a reasonably sized pack is quite low, however, so small drains can run them down unexpectedly. You can see how this would not be practical for the broader consumer market. Some people use a small UPS style gel lead acid battery to help this, but that is added complexity.
Greg says, good idea or not, we will move quickly toward electric cars. If we do, all the above discussion will be moot. Meanwhile, some hot rodders have embraced converting old cars to electric. Some of these can really go, but the cost is impractical. Big boys’ toys.
94F yesterday and 98F prdicted today. A cooling coming and back to 78F on Tuesday. Mothersday tomorrow and daughter is now one so more of the chore of brunch for 12 will fall on me. We never go out MD morning as the crowds ree too much nd of course this year is not even possible. Shopping is done and I’ll be manning the eggs and assembly as usual. I need more grandkids to take this over.
On another front must devise a way to keep dogs from chewing the drip irrigation system. The few devices I see in store are too expensive. I’m thinking short pieces of 3/4 pvc with some holes to thread the emitter in and bury the tube under soil and rock.
@SteveF
Thanks for the bubble wrap article. It articulates much of what I was thinking.
Greg says, good idea or not, we will move quickly toward electric cars. If we do, all the above discussion will be moot. Meanwhile, some hot rodders have embraced converting old cars to electric. Some of these can really go, but the cost is impractical. Big boys’ toys.
I’m the Luddite about electric cars and believe them to be an impossibility as a mass-market vehicle given current battery technology. I do, however, think the fleet is being quickly turned over in the direction of vechicles which are amenable to being plugged into automated freeway systems, but that can be accomplished with gas engines just as easily as electric.
Of course, “amenable” doesn’t mean the same as “automated”, and given the resume flow I’ve seen lately from Siemens highway automation project here in Austin, freeway automation under a central authority is probably further off then it seemed a few years ago.
We had three automation project here in town — Siemens, GM, and a stealth player with Airtight NDAs. GM isn’t going to happen because their Austin tech center is staffed up with spoiled upper class UT/TxState OPT diploma mill MSCS grads from The Subcontinent, but the stealth player is still out there and recruiting.
@DecayedWreck
I’m thinking short pieces of 3/4 pvc with some holes to thread the emitter in and bury the tube under soil and rock.
Hmmm, that’s a good puzzle. PVC pipe would make maintenance a chore, maybe bury it under 6″ of gravel? How to keep a drip irrigation system from being chewed by dogs? I’ll let it percolate for a day or two and maybe I can come up with something better.
Of course, “amenable” doesn’t mean the same as “automated”
And I forgot to add that *automated* is not the same as *autonomous*.
I don’t see 100% reliable autonomous vehicles as being even remotely possible for a decade, possibly longer.
Two options for keeping dogs away from drip irrigation hoses…
1) Bury it. Not visible, not chewable. Cover with dirt or gravel. Drippers will still drip.
2) If using soaker hose, you could bury that Or place it in drainage-type PVC; the ones with pre-drilled holes. Or make your own holey PVC. You’d just need one-two rows of holes along the bottom of the pipe. Assuming the dogs don’t like PVC.
Third choice: solar-powered electric fence wire/tape around the outside edge of the garden area, positioned about ‘nose-height’. With a convenient on-off switch for when you need to work in the garden.
Hmmm, that’s a good puzzle. PVC pipe would make maintenance a chore, maybe bury it under 6″ of gravel? How to keep a drip irrigation system from being chewed by dogs? I’ll let it percolate for a day or two and maybe I can come up with something better.
Capsaicin tape at a strategic point?
My God, it’s a cheese festival today on
Amazon Prime Video
Someone must have been hoarding these awful Sci-Fi movies until today. Imagine not one but two movies starring Lance Henrickson! Dolph Lundgren! But wait, there’s more! More movies from The Asylum!
BC: The Flat Earth Society
https://www.gocomics.com/bc/2020/05/09
They still exist !
Dilbert: No Human Contact
https://dilbert.com/strip/2020-05-09
OK, that is just weird.
“Brutal Takedown of Neil Ferguson’s Model”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/05/06/brutal-takedown-of-fergusons-model/
“An experienced senior software engineer, Sue Denim, has written a devastating review of Dr. Neil Ferguson’s Imperial college epidemiological model that set the world on a our current lock down course of action.”
I think that even I do a better job than that. Of course, I am managing 1.3 million lines of code of real first principles (measured data) software.
An interesting list.
https://www.zerohedge.com/health/staying-ahead-shortages-what-stock-coming-year
Welcome to the new normal !
Greg says, good idea or not, we will move quickly toward electric cars. If we do, all the above discussion will be moot. Meanwhile, some hot rodders have embraced converting old cars to electric. Some of these can really go, but the cost is impractical. Big boys’ toys.
All of our electrical motors and batteries are made in China now. The prices will be doubling and quadrupling soon. Maybe tenfold.
All cars and trucks will be moving to mild hybrids over the next few years. Those 36 volt systems are cheap to add on. Gasoline is cheap today. The cost of gasoline in the future (two years away ???) will be expensive.
I saw much the same when I reviewed the climate forecast code leaked from University of East Anglia. Possibly worse: It was not only garbage code written by amateurs, it was knowingly fraudulent code, in that it had comments like “apply this scaling factor so we get the expected answer” in several places.
I wasn’t able to run the code because it required libraries which were available for only one FORTRAN compiler which was available only for one model of minicomputer. (Or something like that; it’s been ten years and godawful code blurs together.) Even just going through it by hand, it was obviously junk, though.
And here we are, slaves to the goobermint who shovel “climate change will kill us” and “COVID will kill us”, unless, you obey.
I plan to stop wearing a mask as soon as places will let you in without one. HEB groceries still *require* a “face covering” to get in. Some guy ahead of me today tried to get in holding a cloth to his face. He was told it has to stay on his face by itself. Why? What difference does that make?
It looks like our own goobermint has destroyed us. What will rise from the ashes? I’m not up for some “Two men enter, one man leaves” crap. I want to go to the movies and have a giant bucket of butter laden popcorn. I want to go out for breakfast and not have to sit in a plexiglass cubicle.
Can anybody prove the face mask Kabuki did anything?
Of course, “amenable” doesn’t mean the same as “automated”
And I forgot to add that *automated* is not the same as *autonomous*.
I don’t see 100% reliable autonomous vehicles as being even remotely possible for a decade, possibly longer.
The autonomous / automated driving systems work today as long as the weather is clear and the driving conditions are clear (no construction). Tesla claims that their accident rates on their vehicles are 1/3rd of other modern vehicles which I do not doubt.
Throw some complications in there (some nice snow, pouring rain, mischievous kids modifying the road signs, or some awesome construction with temporary lanes) and the computer systems get a little … confused.
I also wonder how much internet connectivity these systems need as one goes out of your traditional area. Texas has poor internet connectivity once you get away from the interstates.
Can anybody prove the face mask Kabuki did anything?
We are running an experiment on that right now. We should know in a few weeks.
About 50% of the people I see in the stores are wearing masks. I am not sure if the results will be conclusive other than real bad or real good. I wear a mask around unknown people.
I think that even I do a better job than that.
I wonder how much they paid John Carmack to lend geek cred. If anything, porting to a Microsoft language platform probably made the code *more* deterministic due to the cr*p rand()/srand() routines I’ve opined upon before.
A couple of weeks ago, we had a PhD with various degrees from UC Davis, Berkeley, and Stanford simply lay an egg in our interview coding challenge. I thought I made a mistake downloading from Godbolt (what we use for the test), but, nope, he had no clue how to complete the work. The scary thing is that he had a number of household names on his resume for consulting work.
I can’t give details of the test, but it is just playing with integers and std::string, scanning a randomly selected range of numbers for one which meets a certain characteristic. We accept brute force since the maximum number is 1,000,000.
I also wonder how much internet connectivity these systems need as one goes out of your traditional area. Texas has poor internet connectivity once you get away from the interstates.
The automated systems use a mesh or 5G for inter-vehicle communication and coordination with the central authority.
I believe that the a**hats I worked for in Seattle seven years ago were ultimately bought out by Nokia in 2018 for their mesh networking patent portfolio with an eye towards traffic applications. Tricking me ultimately cost them one “spin” of their business plan, a DoD project, but they started out 20 years ago with mesh networking for first responders after 9/11.
The buyout certainly wasn’t for the “talent”.
I have said many times before: “do not tolerate the intolerant”.
You are probably aware that there is a group of people who are protesting Costco’s requirement that all people in the store wear masks.
Long story short:
My son made a Costco run for us today and shortly after he arrived he noticed some suspicious activity going on. Several adults were using large hunting knives and cutting huge chunks out of the sidewalls of peoples’ tires. He carefully went up to a Costco employee who had also noticed the activity and had already used his radio call the police. Sirens were heard, there was a commotion, guns were drawn, parking lot exits blocked, and a number of people were apprehended. Our local police are getting tired of the great increase in lawlessness that is occurring. These intolerant idiots are lucky they were not shot.
I am not happy with all the restrictions being placed on us, but get a clue folks, slashing tires is not going to solve anything.
Stay well, stay safe, and stay alert.
I can’t give details of the test, but it is just playing with integers and std::string, scanning a randomly selected range of numbers for one which meets a certain characteristic. We accept brute force since the maximum number is 1,000,000.
I can do that test. Shoot, if my business fails I may be coming your way for job.
Nah, I will head to Emerson first. They will survive this mess.
Please not Austin, Elon. About a 42L on the orange suit?
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1259162367285317633
I don’t see how the powers at be can push the mask kabuki long term. I would think it would interfere with the desire for global facial recognition…
Is Microsoft hiding something about WSL?
I don’t “get” it. The other people at work swear by WSL, but I’ve never understood why. If faced with Windows as the only OS I’m allowed to boot on hardware belonging to an employer, I either run real Linux in VirtualBox or install Cygwin.
http://techrights.org/2020/05/07/microsoft-wsl-evasion/
Yep. I’m actually having fun with wearing a mask when I go out. One time I used a piece of printer paper on which my daughter had drawn a skull and cut out the eyes, which I shipping-taped to the sides of my face. Another time I had a piece of paper on which was written “safety theater”, “
fashionfascist accessory”, and “Cuomo is a retard”. The other times I wore a thin nylon “sleeve” thing, like the bottom of a balaclava, with a fanged mouth screen-printed, because let’s face it, the paper masks were a massive nuisance.Walking around wearing the mask and a pulled-up hood and flipping off cameras is fun. Unfortunately, I’m completely anonymous because I don’t wear pants*, but I’m happy with what I can get.
* It’s not quite as bad as you’re thinking. I’m one of those annoying shorts-all-year people.
The small store owners I see don’t much care whether the customers wear masks, except that the police interpretation of shit-for-brains Cuomo’s (probably illegal) order seems to be that everyone in the store has to wear a mask. Big stores require you to have a mask to get in the front door, presumably because the manager or legal department passed the word to the clerks and they have no meaningful choice in requiring it.
I remember coming to the same conclusion after spending 10 minutes scanning the code. The MSM said the code had been reviewed and it was good. Liars. Comments on various sites mocked those who pointed out the problems.
How can we possibly know? Was it a mask? Was it social distancing? Was it washing your hands? Was it…too many variables, no controls. It’s just shooting shit into a fan. Is SARS airborne to the point a mask *does* help? What about the hundred silk scarves and snot rags people tie around their faces. What’s the real death rate. “Hey this guy just died” “Check him for COVID so we can up our numbers”.
Arrgh! The sick, lame, lazy and at risk should isolate. Everyone else: BACK TO WORK!
I spent significantly more than ten minutes, but I read over the entire code. A couple thousand lines (including blanks and comments) maybe; don’t recall. And I wrote up what I found, several dozen items, which was surely only a fraction of the actual problems, and disseminated them here and there. I doubt my comments made any big splash, considering the number of people pointing out that the code was garbage.
Note that the code, call it a couple thousand lines of FORTRAN, claimed to model the temperature pattern over decades for the entire planet. The professor in charge of the students who wrote the code claimed that it took into account all of the known science. In a couple thousand lines of code, including blanks and comments. Riiiiight.
As I noted above, I wasn’t able to run the code. Others were, and they report that pretty much the same answer came out — warming! critical warming! we’re all gonna diiieeee! — no matter what input you put in. I guess that “taking the science into account” refers to politicized science; this matches “to get the expected answer” because in politicized science you start with the conclusion and then make up data and calculations — and keep them secret; very important! — to reach that conclusion.
I’d forgotten that. Yah, “science denier” was one that got flung around a lot. And “who’s paying you to say that?” Well, no one. I did this in the evening. As long as we’re asking questions, who was paying Jones et al to make up that crap? I’m sure the taxpayers who haven’t bought into the scam would like a refund.
I can do that test. Shoot, if my business fails I may be coming your way for job.
Nah, I will head to Emerson first. They will survive this mess.
My wife used to work around the corner from Emerson in Round Rock. There are a few crash pad options within walking distance if you don’t want to uproot the family.
Someone would buy you out if it came to that, but the downside is that Asian money would probably be involved. I interviewed with a small shop in February that was bought out a decade ago by a large Korean company with the goal of taking the product overseas for development.
End result: most of the development still takes place in Austin. Though, I also interviewed at a small chip litho place here in town who bought by Canon for the tech, and everything is now in Japan.
You don’t want to work where I work unless you need the money or want to avoid a resume gap. My offer stands to submit your Junior developer if you need to furlough him for a while — trust me, he won’t want to stay.
Our new Senior developer asked for a mentor the other day, but management’s problem is that anyone with enough time on the project to be useful for him makes a *lot* less money than he was able to negotiate after 20 years with Fancy Lad Company and a diploma from a school with a Gates Building housing the CS department
I’d forgotten that. Yah, “science denier” was one that got flung around a lot. And “who’s paying you to say that?” Well, no one. I did this in the evening. As long as we’re asking questions, who was paying Jones et al to make up that crap? I’m sure the taxpayers who haven’t bought into the scam would like a refund.
The USA government has been paying various professors $4 billion per year for the various global warming studies. All of the studies show that the global warming is over 90% man made and will raise the temperature of the planet significantly over the next 100 years. And that the oceans will rise 80 to 200 ft as most of the ice on the planet melts.
No anthropogenic (non man made) global warming studies were funded. Amazing.
BTW, we are living in a very unusual time. Both polar caps are frozen. The definition of an ice age is either of the polar caps are frozen. The planet has only been in an ice age for 11% of the time that we can identify. That means that the planet was significantly warmer than now 89% of the time.
We are living in the exception, not the rule.
We are running an experiment on that right now. We should know in a few weeks.
How can we possibly know? Was it a mask? Was it social distancing? Was it washing your hands? Was it…too many variables, no controls. It’s just shooting shit into a fan. Is SARS airborne to the point a mask *does* help? What about the hundred silk scarves and snot rags people tie around their faces. What’s the real death rate. “Hey this guy just died” “Check him for COVID so we can up our numbers”.
Arrgh! The sick, lame, lazy and at risk should isolate. Everyone else: BACK TO WORK!
We will know something by the end of May. The current “model” is showing 350,000 deaths in the USA by the end of June. “Death toll could hit 350,000 by end of June if all states lift lockdown restrictions, new COVID-19 model predicts”. That is 5,500 deaths per day from now until June 30. I really doubt that this is going to happen.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8292747/Death-toll-hit-350-000-end-June-model-shows.html
“7 Best Terraforming Books” by Dan Livingston
https://best-sci-fi-books.com/7-best-terraforming-books/
I have read 4 of the 7. “Building Harlequin’s Moon”, “Farmer in the Sky”, “Komarr”, and “Red Mars”.
Please not Austin, Elon. About a 42L on the orange suit?
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1259162367285317633
I have forgotten, why do you think that Musk is going to jail ?
I vote for San Antonio. Toyota already has a huge truck plant there.
I vote for San Antonio. Toyota already has a huge truck plant there.
GM Arlington is in serious trouble, and the Shreveport plant has been sitting mostly idle since 2012. San Antonio is Toyota’s town, the company having spent a lot of time and money to learn the market and the community. Heck, Fremont wants Toyota back.
Musk’s numbers for 1Q stink to high heaven. He gamed the stock sufficiently to get his big payday, probably enough for an SEC probe, but it looks like he’s headed for a collision with Newsom right now.
I’m sure Trump would prefer the Progs to eat their own.
@lynn, that dilbert was weird.
I’ve read three of the 7 and don’t really remember anything at all about either Red Planet, or Burning the Ice. Gave them both to Goodwill rather than re-read.
I read a lot of Mixon, and don’t remember ANY of it. Not a ringing endorsement. But hey, that’s why we have so many different books to read, can’t everyone love every one…
n
GM Arlington is in serious trouble
“GM is in serious trouble”
Fixed that for ya.
If Musk did pull out of Cali, he’d just be the latest in a long string. Maybe it would be a wakeup call for Cali politicians? Naw. They’ll just double down, raise taxes, cut a few services, and increase their poverty farming efforts…
n
“23 Best Fantasy Mystery Books” by Dan Livingston
https://fantasybookworld.com/23-best-fantasy-mystery-books/
Wow, I have read only 3 out of 23. The “Rosemary and Rue”, “The Good, the Bad, and the Undead”, and the awesome “Storm Front”.
If Musk did pull out of Cali, he’d just be the latest in a long string. Maybe it would be a wakeup call for Cali politicians? Naw. They’ll just double down, raise taxes, cut a few services, and increase their poverty farming efforts…
And scream for a federal bailout.
I’ll skip that list…
“If you think you’re ready for a murder mystery about a fetishist inquisitor and his gay demon-spawn lover, well, buckle up.”
–nope.
n
I’ll skip that list…
“If you think you’re ready for a murder mystery about a fetishist inquisitor and his gay demon-spawn lover, well, buckle up.”
–nope.
Eep ! I missed that nastyism.