Probably 70s and humid to start, getting warmer throughout the day.
That’s how yesterday went, although the humidity outpaced the temperature.
After sleeping late, I got some of my errands run. Not as many things got done as I’d have liked, but if you sleep half the day away, that’s how it goes.
Today though, today will be different! Today I’m going to be like a demon, a whirlwind of doing! Or perhaps not. We’ll see.
I do know one thing– after spending yesterday cleaning the kids’ closets out, my wife will be looking at my stuff VERY closely. And with an eye toward filling dumpsters. So I better get busy moving it around, and making room.
And the normal house maintenance stuff needs to happen, and some more Halloween stuff needs to happen, and getting oldest ready to attend school in person tomorrow, after riding the bus for the first time ever needs to happen…
So, as mentioned…….. we’ll see.
I did get the last of the groceries put away, and the meat broken down and vac sealed. Freezers are much more full and reassuring than they were. New temp monitors are working fine. Roof is done and looks great. Some stuff is going to plan… touch wood.
I’ve got to make room and money so I can keep stacking what matters most.
Figure it out, and stack some yourself.
nick
@TV, the funny thing is, I’d been working in the Houston area for a couple of years off and on, a few weeks at a time, before moving here. I thought I understood what I was getting into with the heat. OH HELLS NOE!!11!!
Try Central Florida in late July/early August, specifically the main Disney parking lot before the afternoon rains roll through. Early June can be worse if the rainy season doesn’t start on time.
After four years in the cold/wet misery of Vantucky, I don’t gripe about hot/humid, however. Early evening at Disney in August after the rain scares away the tourists can be a really cool time to be in the parks.
TN has comparable humidity but not quite as warm as TX. No income tax, gas prices low, etc. Greener than TX. Lower speed limits. Lots of of water and lakes. What I don’t like is Eastern Time in my area. I about 25 miles east of the time line.
One adjusts to what one has for weather. I lived in the desert when younger, high temperatures of 115 were not uncommon. My mother loved the desert as did my brother. Brother liked to 4-wheel and the desert was an excellent location.
Is it just me, or does Aesop seem to have pretty much retired from blogging, but for a once-a-month snark at people who don’t buy into the “we’re all gonna die from the China Plague” scenario?
I think he is moving to a house with some land, out of the city and getting a ‘net connection is hit or miss during break time at work.
That’s my impression.
“I also finally got a crack at a Compilers class”
Compilers are to a CS degree what Calculus is to one in Math: If you haven’t got the smarts to understand how a compiler works (and maybe build a simple one yourself) then you really should be pursuing another course of study.
A Compilers class is like a comprehensive exam for a CS program. I don’t think it is beyond the capability of anyone who has made it to the Senior level of a serious accredited cirriculum, but, increasingly, schools are eliminating or deemphasizing the prerequisites with the blessing of the ACM in the name of “diversity”.
My one regret is not getting a clarification on using C++ early so I could implement my lexer (Flex) using the -+ option and learn how to integrate the result into the parser (Bison) properly. I ended up with a C/C++ hybrid which was way too dependent on globals.
Other than that, I consider the class to have been money well spent.
I don’t recommend taking Compilers without having good C/C++ skills and being familiar with what it means when I say that most modern programming languages are context-free grammars. Sadly, many CS programs are eliminating the Computability Theory class at the undergrad level, but a good program will require it. A really good program will use Sipser as a text.
If you are stuck in a lousy CS program or are self-educating, I used this lecture series to understand the material.
http://aduni.org/courses/theory/
A rational argument against the Windows moving to Linux meme floating around lately.
https://boxofcables.dev/no-microsoft-is-not-rebasing-windows-to-linux/
The difference between communists, socialists, fascists, and national socialists is like the difference between male and female ladybugs: It matters only to them. No one else cares.
WRT Aesop,
He claims a computer failure put him behind the curve and that he’s simply too busy with other things to get that straightened out to the point where blogging is a low friction activity for him.
He’s also very tired of making the same observations, corrections, and statements about the wuflu that he’s made from the start. He’s tired of the personal attacks. I ‘hear’ it in his ‘voice’… so many of the people who challenge him in comments are either ill informed, gas lit, unable to remember a month or two ago, confused about reality, or so self-centered that it’s painful to see. No one likes to be attacked personally by anyone, let alone people you think are wrong. (after a while, Whack-a-Mole stops being fun.)
The issue of the wuflu is now so consumed by politics and misinformation that it’s not worth talking about much because the actual information is so distorted, misreported, misinterpreted as to be almost worthless. That’s why I don’t keep hammering at it. The disaster is here, I’m not looking for a storm track, I’m using my chainsaw to clear debris, so to speak. I’m also now prepping for the next disaster, which I believe will be social and economic- massive economic disruption, and social disruption all the way to a hot insurgency.
I’ve got reasons and thinking to support all that, but most people here have already heard it and made their own decision (which is the point) about how right or wrong those ideas are. I still keep tossing out supporting stuff, because it helps me refine my thinking too. And the commentariat here is VERY wide ranging and well informed, and capable of logical thought. Many have shared ‘ground truth’ which is invaluable in the current climate.
Back to Aesop though– he’s working on the front lines in an area with barely controlled outbreaks. He SEES it daily, so he has a very different experience from the guys that chime in “I don’t know anyone who had it, so it doesn’t exist and you’re a liar/shill/sheep/whatever”. I don’t know anyone who OD’d on fentanyl either, but the ER and EMT staffs sure do… but that’s too logical an argument for someone who only believes in the world within their own arms length.
I still check his site every day, hoping for a new post or at least a new bunch of comments released. It also may be that he’s bothered by the end of Ol’ Remus. Or other personal issues.
Almost everyone who has blogged steadily for any length of time has had a similar period, or a ‘crisis of faith’ or just a change in circumstances. Steven DenBeste, Kim du Toit, a random chick named Rachel I used to read daily, lots of others…
It’s harder than it looks, especially if you do the kinds of “thinker” writing that makes for the best reading.
n
And if you don’t check out John Wilder, you should…. he’s even convinced me that puns are funny 🙂
Catholics insane? Like Biden and Pelosi.
Sarah Hoyt was all over the place in her post yesterday, but she did nail this..
n
” Catholics insane? Like Biden and Pelosi. ”
–if Pelosi is actually (a believer) catholic, I’ll eat my hat. If she can set foot on holy ground without bursting into flame, I’ll be shocked.
n
It’s up to 90F in the sun here. Still nice in the shade though. Was less than 70F when I got up.
n
If you expect a broke government to keep paying out benefits, all you’ll do is take the value from the savings of those who sacrificed and saved.
The Social Security Act does not guarantee payment to beneficiaries, and that has been reinforced with at least two court challenges which established precedent which will be used if the Congress ever decides to stop writing the checks.
Of course, Roosevelt didn’t intend for the checks to ever stop. The deliberate omission has been a powerful political tool for the last 80+ years, even at the state level in places like Florida.
I write the Daily Pundit blog. It has been in continuous operation since Christmas Day, 2001. I knew Steven well – he posted at DP regularly for a while, and I still count Kim as a personal friend – as well as Glenn Reynolds and a number of my fellow OG warbloggers like Mike Hendrix. On New Year’s Day 2002, I named the Blogosphere: http://dailypunditarchives.com/?p=10823
I also set up a large emergency prepping site that still stumbles along after ten years or so at http://emergency-preps.com/index.php. Further, I wrote a long and detailed Amazon-bestselling novel called Lightning Fall about an EMP attack on the US, and the likely quite grim fallout from that, along with extensive examples of successful prepping strategies. And by the time I finally decided to leave San Francisco for NW Indiana (for prepping reasons, mostly) I had built up extensive preps, including food for five years, rainwater replenished water systems, and redundant power systems including solar, propane, and even wood. (Yeah, you can buy a cord of wood in SF). Unfortunately, much of that went by the wayside when I moved, and I am still trying to rebuild to a level I feel comfortable with. Needless to say, I was not put out by the China Plague, and didn’t have to stock up on anything to deal with it.
I’ve been around these various dance floors far longer and more deeply than Aesop. Which is why I am aware that his personal circumstances may be warping his judgement of larger pictures. At least is sometimes seems so to me.
–if Pelosi is actually (a believer) catholic, I’ll eat my hat. If she can set foot on holy ground without bursting into flame, I’ll be shocked.
Nancy Pelosi nee D’Alesandro certainly was raised in the Church, but she also grew up as the daughter of the racist, corrupt machine politics Mayor of Baltimore throughout the 50s, and that obviously made more of an impression.
Of course Nancy knows where all the racist statues are which were installed in Baltimore 60 years ago. She was probably present at many dedications.
The problem is social programs that are mandatory, and gets worse the higher the level of government that is used to implement them. The definition of some social programs do belong within the higher levels of government. National defense and property registration are good examples. These are so necessary that everyone should be required to contribute to them. However, very few social programs should be implemented at the federal level. The ACA is a good example of doing this wrong. Massachusetts had a program that worked like the ACA. Other states could have learned from their experience and implemented their own programs to fit their needs, either using some of the ideas or rejecting them. There was no value to the general populace in forcing everyone to use the same system. On the other hand, if the federal government had created a voluntary and self-funded health care system, that might have been acceptable.
This suturing practice kit is an interesting product:
https://trueskinsuturekit.com/
For $50, it might be worthwhile.
The fundamental problem with the Social Security Act is that it was underfunded from the beginning. FDR had no patience. He created social security as a Ponzi scheme instead of as an investment. The reason it is taking so long to fail is that unlike Ponzi, the government made participation mandatory, and didn’t promise much of a return on the “investment”.
This suturing practice kit is an interesting product:
https://trueskinsuturekit.com/
For $50, it might be worthwhile.
At the conference my wife attended in Chicago last year, one vendor demonstrated a new suture product designed to minimize scarring. IIRC, the hands on demonstrations used suckling pigs, but I’ll have to double check that later when she’s home.
That kit is a great way to get the sutures and tools, if nothing else.
My Dr in law had me practice with a kitchen sponge. It’s been a while and I’ve forgotten all of it. Aesop has said that self suturing is akin to just committing suicide by sepsis (I exaggerate slightly) but people have been doing it for decades… one more tool in the kit is my feeling on it.
FWIW, I have “practice” sutures and the tools, a staple tool, various bonding agents, steri-strips, and duct tape. I also consider that while I might not have the skills, someone else might, while lacking the supplies….
n
A Compilers class is like a comprehensive exam for a CS program. I don’t think it is beyond the capability of anyone who has made it to the Senior level of a serious accredited cirriculum, but, increasingly, schools are eliminating or deemphasizing the prerequisites with the blessing of the ACM in the name of “diversity”.
Well said! (As in, “I wish I’d said something like that originally instead of the comparison to calculus.”)
RE: Sleeping Late
Woke drowsy to a cool, grey morning. Only REAL chore was to get to the store before noon to get home in time to do the other non-chores that require doing. I looked at the clock and YIPES !! it was 15 to noon, so I threw on some trousers and T shirt and grabbed my kit. The wife opened one eye and said “Where are you going so early?” I told her I wanted to get the store run made before noon and I had way over slept. She glanced at the clock and said “But it’s just now 9am”. What? That’s the problem of looking at analog clocks with half awake eyes. Sigh. Went to the store anyway and it was pretty empty. I tried to return the cute inflatable Sta-Puff marshmallow inflatable that had died after two weeks on the lawn but without the box and barcode they wouldn’t take it. Didn’t think they would but it was worth a try.
The OK Concealed Carry course was BORING !! It was mainly the instructor, an OSBI agent nearing retirement, reciting the relevant Oklahoma laws from powerpoint. Three hours of that. Then, in the afternoon, we had range time. Because of the ammo shortage we were only required to fire 30 rounds not the usual 50 at 5, 10, and 15 meters. The instructor said that to pass all you had to do was not shoot yourself or anyone else on the range. This was VERY different from the CC course I took a few years ago in Mississippi. That was 80% NRA Handgun Safety and 20% when you can legally use deadly force. The range requirements was that you needed to put 70% of shots in the black at 5 and 10 meters using both strong and weak hand grips.
In any case, I now have my certificate to take to the county sheriff who will fingerprint me and send the package off to the OSBI for background check. I can expect my card in 6 to 8 weeks I am told. Sigh. In Mississippi I took my certificate to the Highway Patrol HQ and I had my card the same day.
Well said! (As in, “I wish I’d said something like that originally instead of the comparison to calculus.”)
Calculus is essentially “How to read a serious math book”. You definitely won’t get very far in a CS cirriculum without that skill.
I’m not going to complain that Algorithms generaly no longer requires a Stats background and some fairly intricate hands on Calculus to be able to get through the numerical analysis (O-nototation, etc.) even at the graduate level, but the math is in there and part of the explanation why n lg n is about the best we can hope for from sorting algorithms in general.
(Yes, people play around the edges such as with the C++ Standard Library sort() template, but, again, general case.)
You guys know I keep an eye on trade magazines as a lagging indicator of economic health…
Well, Machine Design magazine is down to 50 pages. That is ridiculously small compared to the glory days, and still shockingly small compared to a year ago.
JLC- Journal of Light Construction (general building industry) is down to 68 pages, and has entirely subsumed Deck Builder magazine. DBuilder has so few pages it only exists as an insert to JLC in other words.
Trade magazines are sent out free to qualified subscribers and are almost entirely paid for by the advertising, bought by the companies working in that trade area… so if the economy is booming, lots of money is available for advertising. If the economy is not booming, there is little money to spend in trade magazines.
The economy is shrinking dramatically if company spending on targeted advertising is any indication (and I believe it is.)
n
The economy is shrinking dramatically if company spending on targeted advertising is any indication (and I believe it is.)
One of the reasons I think my bosses decided it was safe to let me go in such an ugly way is that my customer in DC was shopping around for investors in their road rentier skims ahead of proceeding with extending the express lanes further into the suburbs. What was scheduled for later this year is now pushed a year further out, 2022 at the earliest.
I ordered one of the suture training kits.
n
RE: Houston Weather
We lived in Hong Kong for a few years and I’d compare it to Houston. March through December it’s high 80s and 80+ % humidity. Air Conditioning is required 24/7 most of the year. A couple of weeks in Jan – Feb it cools down into the 70s and the natives dress like they were going skiing. I just put on a long sleeve shirt. It doesn’t have the 100f+ highs of Houston but the constant heat & humidity wear you out fast. I’d complain about it on our Asia-Pac conference calls until the Singapore office pointed out that not only did they have hotter weather but they had no “winter” either.
We lived in Hong Kong for a few years and I’d compare it to Houston. March through December it’s high 80s and 80+ % humidity. Air Conditioning is required 24/7 most of the year. A couple of weeks in Jan – Feb it cools down into the 70s and the natives dress like they were going skiing.
Moncler and Canada Goose down coats are status symbols.
The other night after the Seahawks game in Seattle, I noticed that the female sideline reporters are wearing Moncler again. The camera guy was struggling to get the logo in the social distancing split screen shot while trying not to be obvious about it.
This is the most recent candidate.
https://www.alaskarealestate.com/Search/Property/PropertyDetail.aspx?li=20-16085
I am completely in love with it. Size, yard, mature delicious crab apple trees, lower crime neighborhood, in Anchorage (no commute), work that needs to be done is within my skill set, ticks all the boxes for me. Husband not so much – he likes aspects off but rattled off some points that are important to him where it fails. So we won’t get it. There’s likely to be a bidding war. In the 2 days it’s been listed a dozen families have been thru. It’s in better shape and significantly lower than anything remotely comparable.
But it kicked our butts into doing the banking part so that’s good.
Schools ? Schools ? Schools ? The munchkin needs a safe place to go to school where she can excel. Do you need to move to Warsila out of Anchorage for that ? You’ve got middle school coming up in a few years. That is where the kids start going nuts. Do you have a plan for her that you can afford ? Private schools are expensive.
Not really. It was more or less sound at the beginning. The problem is that the retirement age has stayed the same (more or less) and life expectancy at retirement has increased.
Over The Hedge: Sunset
https://www.gocomics.com/overthehedge/2020/10/18
Even the varmints like God’s creation.
And the heated shed in the neighbor’s back yard for the varmints is definitely over the hedge.
https://www.gocomics.com/overthehedge/2020/10/13
There is a new feature in Vivaldi that seems pretty nifty, at least for auctions: Set websites to periodic reloading.
I have never entered an auction or bid for anything on the web but a thing like this would seem essential in order to avoid many clicks in reloading pages…
I remember Mr. Chuck Waggoner arguing passionately that SS was healthy and always fully funded. It was basically him against the Bobiverse (Us lead by Dr. Bob). Next year I get SS and am getting on the teat before it is dry.
That depends on your definition of “sound”. It was operated as a Ponzi scheme, where the new “investors” were paying off the current recipients. That worked OK until the number of people paying the tax started shrinking compared to the number of people collecting benefits. Since a savvy person should have been able to see that coming, I consider it to have been underfunded in terms of the implementation. If beneficiaries were simply getting their own money back, it would be a much more solid program.
_The Collapsing Empire (The Interdependency)_ by John Scalzi
https://www.amazon.com/Collapsing-Empire-Interdependency-John-Scalzi/dp/0765388901/?tag=ttgnet-20
Book number one of a three book space opera science fiction series. I read the well printed and well bound MMPB published by TOR in 2018. I have ordered the second book in the series and an waiting for it. I will order the third book when it is issued in MMPB.
Did you know that space opera is my first love ? Seriously, I thought that I liked boys adventure books in third or fourth grade and then I read my first space opera book. I was hooked. And Scalzi has written a humdinger space opera book here. Scalzi and I may disagree significantly on politics but I love his books.
The Human Interdependcency Empire has existed for over a thousand years. Usage of the Flow as an FTL mechanism allows dozens of star systems with space stations and a couple of planets to be connected together. And they are dependent on each other. But, the Flow is changing all of sudden. The first fault in the Flow islanded the Earth from the rest of the Flow. The second fault in the Flow hundreds of years later islanded another planet. Now more faults in the Flow are occurring again.
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.3 out of 5 stars
Already there. My pencil pushing says taking now vs waiting until 67-ish has a break even of total payments at 83 years old. This assumes I live to 83. And assumes SS is being paid in 20 years.
I’m baffled by my PC. Sometimes it goes to sleep in the bit of time it takes to get a fresh beer and pet the dog. Other times I can wander away, go outside and feed the cats and the emu and pet the dog and it’s still wide awake with the monitor on an hour later.
Must be the dog’s fault. I’m not going to accuse her, she might bite me.
2020 is my first year on SSI. I retired at 67 and the wife took hers then too so between us we are doing OK. No debts and I have some additional income from my ATM business and rental properties. When I sell the storage facility I am putting that $$ back into local rentals. Property values here in Indian country have jumped in the last 5 years. When we started buying rentals we could find tiny, 2 bedroom 900 sq ft homes in fixer-up condition for $20K all day long. Today those same type homes are in the $50K range. Not getting rich off of rentals but it’s one investment that returns some income while appreciating in value. So no worries.
That is how my math worked for waiting until 70 to draw at 125% of the base amount. Live past 87 and I would be ahead by waiting and working. I opted to quit working at 66 and enjoy not having a job. I enjoyed the work, not the job.
Be careful that you don’t make too much money until you are “67-ish”. Make too much and you SS will get reduced by a big chunk. Earn up to the maximum amount of $18,240. Earn more than that amount and your SS gets reduced by $1.00 for every dollar over the base amount. Once you reach full retirement age full benefits are restored and there is no earning limit. However, earn too much after full retirement and SS gets taxed on up to 80% of the amount paid.
And… my Pantry Stuffing Project is somewhat working.
Twenty cans of oil packed HEB tuna? Nope. Fifteen limit. Water packed tuna? “Limit reached” without ordering any.
Same for Sue Bee Chicken and Dumplings and HEB Beef Stew and HEB’s knock off of Spam. Luncheon Meat, not Luncheon Loaf (a buck cheaper) (chicken whatever added and the texture of canned vienna sausage).
A few other items had limits. No problem, I’ll stock what I get and place another order.
The on-line prices are a few cents higher per item. That may be San Antonio or “nice neighborhood” Central Market prices. But Wednesday at Noon pick-up gives “free” service. Instead of $5 extra. Seems like a decent trade between driving up and waiting vs wandering the store.
Although, I like to wander the store because you never know what is new that you just have to buy right this minute.
I tried Wal-Mart and lo and behold! It actually worked. I ordered what I wanted and I have a Noon pick-up time…. as opposed to the last time I tried and it was all “time slots”. I’m not going to be at Wal-Mart at 7AM to pick up an order Especially if they expect me to be wearing clothes. 🙂
That is not going to be a problem.
The house and land are paid. It’s really down to groceries, the electric bill, phone and internet bills, and property taxes. And car and house insurance. If it was just me, with only my SS, as I assume will happen, I’ll get by. And that’s just figuring on living on the monthly check. Savings, 401k, whatever I can sell Mom’s house for, all gravy.
I won’t be driving a new Cadillac Fleetwood. But I like my Dodge truck, all it’s missing from a Fleetwood is ashtrays with lighters in the doors… and I don’t smoke anymore. Oh, and leather seats. And what the heck, FINS. Shrug.
Ghost Pets. The house we used to live in was haunted. The man who built it, Tommy, was put in a nursing home and passed away shortly before we bought the house. After we moved in we would smell the clear odor of cigarette smoke at odd times and often heard the sounds of footsteps coming from the upstairs apartment. When we had guests stay up there they complained that the door would open by itself and say they were disturbed by thumps and pounding. So we got used to having Tommy around as he didn’t really bother us. When we smelled his cigarette smoke we would tell him “Take it outside Tommy” and it would go away.
Last month we had to have our old cat put down. He had feline HIV for years and was in very bad health. He was the wifes cat. I HATE cats, can find no redeeming value in them and was never close to him at all. Yet last week I started feeling something moving around on the covers at the foot of the bed just like the cat used to do at night. And last night, I CLEARLY heard purring while laying in bed. Strangely, my wife, who is very sensitive to such matters, (long story here) has not seen or heard evidence of the cat. She thinks it’s funny he has returned to torment me. Well HA freaking HA, I am not amused. Being a black cat maybe he just returned for Halloween. I hope he’s gone by November.
PS: My Best Friend in Jr. High had a ghost in his house that amused itself by removing his head to frighten people. My wife, then girlfriend, thought he was just a show-off.
I managed to pick up food yesterday. Tough, working it into the schedule. Big bags of flour and rice, more cans, a bale of toilet paper because it was there when I walked by, a 10# bag of sugar because it was there when I walked by.* By weight I have more food than the four of us put together. Less than twice, but I’m happy enough with what I have** and don’t feel the need to go overboard, as I don’t expect disruptions to be too severe or too long-lasting.
My approach to meals if the food supply is cut off is to live mainly on bread and rice with beans for protein and a can of stew or soup mixed in for flavor and a few more vitamins.
* Unfortunately reduced to about 6# because the paper of the bag caught on a net-holding stud when I put the bag into a crate in my van and I didn’t notice and half the bag dumped all over everything. That was a bit of a chore to clean up. Tossed it into the compost heap; I figure any contamination from the carpeting on the bottom of the van’s storage area probably won’t kill whatever Grandma grows.
** Except that I need salt. I didn’t realize I needed to get salt. In fact, I could have sworn I had ten pounds of salt tucked away. In what might be a coincidence, my wife and her mother made pickled vegetables or something which requires a lot of salt.
Questionable Content: Friends with a self aware multiple bot AI
https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=4375
He invited a self aware multiple bot AI to freely roam through his house. And to play with his cat. I am fairly sure that I would not do this until I read the 30 year report on free roaming AIs.
And no, the AI does not need his door code. They already know it.
When I retired, 4-and-a-half years ago, I was 67-and-a-half. Retirement age, for my cohort in the UK, was 65. It’s now 67, which bites my wife – 9 years younger than me. Deferring taking my State Pension for those 2-and-a-half years got me a 10% per full deferred year increase in my pension payments, so 20%, with a projected 10 year breakeven point, of 77 years of age.
I thought, “No problem. I can do that easily.”
Only to be diagnosed with colon cancer at age 70, two years ago. I’ll give the NHS this, I first reported problems to my GP in October 2018, and by early December, I was in hospital for a “laparoscopic high anterior resection of the sigmoid colon”, wherein they removed about 8 inches of my lower intestines.
They thought that this would catch everything, but out of an abundance of caution they scheduled chemotherapy. The surgery caused me no long-term problems, but the chemo, a year-and-a-half afterwards, has left me with numbness in the extremities – fingers and toes. But I can live with that, the prognosis is “95+% chance of survival for at least 5 years.” Which will get me near to to pension break-even. Anything after that is gravy.
And all this at no out-of-pocket cost to me.
G.
Ghosts? Yeah. Or insanity.
When we moved out here, Fido was getting old. She had her litter box in the laundry room. She had her path from laundry room to under the wood stove in the living room. After I took her to the vet for that shot of hot pink stuff, I saw her several times out of the corner of my eye while sitting and reading at the dining room table. And yeah, I tried sitting at the other end of the table and still saw her.
And then, Fred. Brittany Spaniel. The 300 MPH dog that loved to knock over my beer and lap it up. He didn’t come in the house often. Mostly because leg hiking and I didn’t want the furniture marked.
He died here of old age.
One night, after working at HEB all day, I was on the PC doing mIRC and reading e-mail. I saw Fred come out of the back bedroom and trot down the hall as if going outside. Just the once. But the clock in the hall bath stopped at the same time. A new battery didn’t work. And there were foot prints on the bed like a dog had been on the bed.
My Dad had stories of visiting folks and knowing where everything was. Though, hey, if you know enough floor plans the bath room is almost always be “down the hall and first left”.
Then there is the Indian living in the middle bedroom closet in the house on Space Lane. I saw him a couple of times. He was cool.
When I lived and worked in the UK in the 90’s the NHS tax was 10% on all wages. Has that changed? Sounds like you were paying for it all your working life.
@hcombs:
I was, but it was taken off the top of my salary before I even saw it, so I didn’t notice. “Out-of-pocket”, to me, means actual $hekels leaving my bank account.
Consider: my salary averaged probably £40k over 46 years, which is £1.84M. 10% of that is £184k, so I consider that I’ve pre-paid for this. And there will be more – abdominal CT once a year, maybe an MRI, and consultations and tests until the day I shuffle off. Well worth it.
G.
Sadly my experience with the NHS was less than good. Our assigned GP didn’t speak english and could only see patients on days his translator was available. We were told to call between 8 and 9 to make an appointment and generally they didn’t answer the phone during that hour. His mistreatment of my wifes pre-diabetes accelerated her condition and would have led to an early death we were told when we moved to Hong Kong. Many more horror stories. When we lived there GPs were still prescribing cigarettes to pregnant women to deal with stress. Hong Kong health care was top notch and the insurance was inexpensive.
“Set websites to periodic reloading.”
–there used to be an option for that in one of the tab manager add ons. When they rolled the tab manager functions into FFox, they managed to lose that “reload page every x ” function. I used to use it often.
n
I remember Mr. Chuck Waggoner arguing passionately that SS was healthy and always fully funded. It was basically him against the Bobiverse (Us lead by Dr. Bob). Next year I get SS and am getting on the teat before it is dry.
The SS teat will never go dry. But the benefits will only be given to the destitute. You know, the people who did not save anything for their retirement. Or, the people who have hidden their savings. I figure that the amount of SS money going out will drop by 1/2 initially then go back up as the seniors give their belongings to their children so to get their SS payments back.
ADS-B update:
I’ve been having fun playing with this occasionally over the past few days. I’ve got the SDR module plugged into a 10-port USB hub, huge overkill, but it was the only working powered hub I had. The hub also powers the Pi, both from a single 5V 2A PSU.
A Pi Zero has enough cpu cycles to decode the SDR signal into ADS-B packets. That just blows my mind – a $5 computer from 2015 can perform (some of) the functions of a hardware radio costing thousands of dollars. I’m still running on my Pi3B (with built-in Wifi) as I couldn’t get my wifi dongle to work on the Zero.
I found my Wifi router has a setting called “Roaming Assist”. It ignores signals below -70dBm, even though it can decode those signals just fine. Where I placed the Pi3 it’s weak little Wifi signal was below -70dBm and the router ignored it. Turning off the Roaming Assist setting gets a rock solid connection to the Pi3 at 5.5Mbps.
With the antenna in its new outdoor location, I can receive data from planes north of Austin! (from NW San Antonio) and Junction in the west. My range to the South is non-existent due to a nearby hill.
Lots of fun and a good reason to play with some hardware I had lying around. Not sure of practical uses though.
“15 Best Weird Fantasy Books” by Dan Livingston
https://fantasybookworld.com/15-best-weird-fantasy-books/
And I am zero for 15.
“10 Great Science Fiction Authors That Used Pen Names” by Dan Livingston
https://best-sci-fi-books.com/10-great-science-fiction-authors-that-used-pen-names/
I have read several Stephen King, Robert Silverberg, Harlan Ellison, Michael Crichton, Isaac Asimov, and Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham (James S. A. Corey) books. The rest are unknown to me.
I’ve three of them: Both Gene Wolfe books (they both, as I recall won major awards) and are incredibly well written.
Perdido Station, which I liked.
And Titus Groan, which kicks off the Gormenghast series.
I’ve vaguely heard of a couple more, and the rest draw a blank with me.
“15 Best Weird Fantasy Books” by Dan Livingston
https://fantasybookworld.com/15-best-weird-fantasy-books/
And I am zero for 15.
I’ve read “Shadow & Claw” by Gene Wolfe, “Titus Groan” by Mervyn Peake, and “The Eyre Affair” by Jasper Fforde. The first two were indeed weird and somewhat tedious reads, the third one and its subsequent six books were quite inventive and entertaining, so much so that I’ve read the entire series twice.
Hah, the government will impose a 30 year look back for funds. Give away any money in that time and the government will want it back. Currently to go on Medicaid there is a five year look back. Give $20k to a church, go on Medicaid 4 years and 11 months after the donation the state will claw that money back from the church.
I transferred as much of my aunt’s money to my name as possible. At that time it was a three year look back. I was covering myself in case she was forced into a nursing home because assisted living would not keep her. At which time I would put her on Medicaid. Medicaid will not pay for assisted living. Turned out to not be an issue as I spent all her money to keep her in assisted living.
No one can plan for five years for health issues.
I got just Perdido Street Station. I read all the China Meiville at the time, and King Rat was probably the most approachable. I came to hate his books, even as I kept reading them. That was a strange time in SF. Freaking bug headed girlfriends. Bah.
I don’t think I’ve even heard of any of the others.
n
“as the seniors give their belongings to their children so to get their SS payments back”
Hah, the government will impose a 30 year look back for funds. Give away any money in that time and the government will want it back. Currently to go on Medicaid there is a five year look back. Give $20k to a church, go on Medicaid 4 years and 11 months after the donation the state will claw that money back from the church.
Florida look backs are up to 10 years IIRC. My friend’s mother went on FL Medicaid to enter a long term care facility, and the trustee told him, “It is all gone, understood?”
MJ Hegar is losing and resorting to commercials with Texans talking to Cornyn like a divorce is coming.
The last week of early voting will see an ad attempt to tie Cornyn to her abusive father.
I don’t watch tv, and I watch youtube with an ad blocker. I don’t see any political ads. I tried to watch youtube on my tivo, and there was a freaking ad every 3 minutes. I tune out and skip as soon as I can. I’m thinking of putting that razzpi filter thing in front of my network for my youtube boxes at a minimum. I’ll have to make some network changes, but if I can get rid of the ads it will be worth it.
I PAY money to avoid ads on the radio too.
n
(I’m pissed because aol changed something and is moving everyone off of other mail readers on phones and onto their app-which of course puts an ad at the top of your inbox and always reverts to a news page, which has ads. There is supposed to be a way to continue with the samsung mail app and I will have to look at that. It’s maddening that I have to jump thru these hoops to avoid seeing sh!tty ads for stuff I don’t want, that no one ever buys.)
Florida look backs are up to 10 years IIRC. My friend’s mother went on FL Medicaid to enter a long term care facility, and the trustee told him, “It is all gone, understood?”
I don’t understand ???
MJ Hegar is losing and resorting to commercials with Texans talking to Cornyn like a divorce is coming.
The last week of early voting will see an ad attempt to tie Cornyn to her abusive father.
I think that the Trumper will beat Beijing Biden by ten points here in Texas. And I think that the Trumper will have long coat tails across the nation, not just Texas.
There’s likely to be a bidding war.
Jenny, that one aspect would put me off instantly, but that is just me. I have always attempted to avoid popular anythings, and have been mostly successful. The few times, I have been able to afford the item enough that it didn’t matter. I would never get into a house at a bad price unless I planned to stay there forever. I get to define a bad price, and it merely means buying at too high a price, even though I might be able to get out with a profit.
OTOH, we have always treated our house as a home, not an investment. Successful investments and living within our means allowed that.
Not preaching, just making an observation.
I sincerely hope so for the good of the Nation and the rest of the world.
Just based on rally attendance, it’s Trump by a landslide. If it’s even close, or Joe wins, there is going to have to be a LOT of explaining about where those voters came from and who they are. If the explanations aren’t completely convincing, the war will go hot.
I expect the democrats and the deep state to do their best to put Joe behind the desk. I think they really don’t get it that everywhere but the big cities went for Trump last time, will again this time, and he’s gonna get a bigger chunk of the cities too. No one likes crazy. It is disturbing to watch and unsettling. The dems are going crazy in a very public and big way. When times are uncertain, people vote for safety, stability, and known quantities. They don’t choose frothing at the mouth screaming lies.
n
(until later. Then everyone goes nuts together. I don’t think we’re there until the real shooting starts.)
Trump Reads List Of Statues Commission Wants Removed From Washington — Then Throws Away Letter
https://dailycaller.com/2020/10/17/donald-trump-throws-away-letter-statues-commission-removed-washington/
That letter is not worth the $5 paper that it is printed on.
@lynn, @JimB
Schools, schools, schools
Anchorage public school are indoctrination centers and she’ll go to one over my dead body.
Private school in Anchorage is less expensive than daycare.
Munchkin is at a pretty good private school, not as good as the first one she attended (that closed due to appallingly bad management of student retention and student recruitment), but far far better than the best of the public schools.
She’s smart as a whip and twice as sassy. We will keep her in private school right through high school graduation. My plan for going nuts in middle school is horses. Worked for me, hopefully it will work for her. Horses settle adolescent girls. I’ve seen it numerous times.
Woke up to the first snow of the year today. It’s so beautiful.
This is the most recent candidate.
https://www.alaskarealestate.com/Search/Property/PropertyDetail.aspx?li=20-16085
I truly thought we were walking away from this one. My husband continues to surprise me after nearly 20 years of marriage.
Lots of conversations over the last few days, figured out some good marriage stuff. Spent time last night walking the neighborhood of the home and wound up talking to some of the neighbors, and sharing a beer, for an extended period of time. It shifted something for my husband and at his suggestion we went back today and spent an hour there with our most skilled and trusted friends and families. We inspected it from the back corners of the yard up into the rafters of the attic (attic is my job because I’m short). The house is dry and tight and well maintained. My husband had a calm, thoughtful face through it, and I could hear him imagining our life there with his ‘love him like a brother’ best friend, up on the deck.
I leave him be, wait for him to approach me. Give him space. Meet up in the living room away from the bustle. Husband says – let’s make an offer. Lots more talking.
And we did. We made an offer above asking, fair for our market, still below our budget, and within our means.
We will find out later this week.
If they accept? hallelujah hear the angels sing. If they don’t it wasn’t meant to be and we won’t submit a counter. We won’t participate in a bidding war.
Contingent on inspections, yada yada. We may close in late November. Moving in December will be challenging. I moved a yard of dirt out of our driveway with help tonight, a task delayed by the eruption of the homeless thing in June, in anticipation of needing to park a moving truck in a month.
-phew-
In other news the city is fighting our petition and their argument is we haven’t stated what harm we have suffered or will suffer by the proposed homeless services. I provided a spreadsheet I made a couple months back with the assessed value of each property in our subdivision and what they paid in taxes in 2020. Another person had documented information about what percentage points to expect our homes will lose. This shows how much the taxpayers in our town lose by the impact for our one small subdivision, and shows the individual loses for each home owner in our subdivision. I didn’t do the other subdivisions affected, but have offered to show someone else how I gathered the data. The city could do this more easily but naturally have no reason to do so. I do expect our efforts to stop the homeless services to fail. We will fight to the end, and if we move that doesn’t change – it’s an egregious abuse of CARES Act funds and an irresponsible way to spend $22,000,000 without a plan or way to sustain other than hiking taxes for everyone.
Social security: As y’all may recall, I gave up my citizenship a few years ago, because FATCA makes living abroad as an American very difficult. However, I am still supposed to receive social security when the time comes. I will be fascinated to see how (or if) that actually works.
– – – – –
I hate Windows. I only use it occasionally, to play the very few games that Steam cannot install under Linux. So I started Windows for the first time in probably a year. It had a massive pile of updates pending, no surprise. Then it said it was installing “a new version of Windows” – WTF? Win10 is Win10, but I suppose that’s some big annual release. Afterwards, of course, it had once again nuked the boot options: no Linux – the system only boots into Windows.
It’s an easy enough fix, once you know the obscure command required – but seriously? Who gave them permission to muck with the rest of the system, when updating their OS? And as always after any major Windows update, you have to remove all of the unwanted applications and start-icons they installed. Of course, privacy settings have also been at least partially reset.
/rant
@hcombs:
Given your experience, I can see why you were/are unimpressed with the NHS. In your shoes, I’d probably feel the same. Regardless, I think you’re painting with too broad a brush.
Of course, it’s not impossible that I’m doing the same, but with a different colour of paint. I see the good, you see the bad.
The reality is probably somewhere between our two viewpoints. At least, things came out well for you and yours, as I hope they will for me.
G.
“as I hope they will for me.”
–amen to that.
n