Today is supposed to be moderate, with a chance of rain. I’m hoping for ‘nice’ and ‘dry’. Yesterday was nice, but not particularly dry. It didn’t rain, but with all the wetness and high humidity, it was pretty damp and sweaty.
Nevertheless, I did yard work. Cut the grass, put up the bird net over the blueberry bushes, and turned over one of the garden beds. Yeah, it’s late, but I’m gonna plant stuff in it anyway. In the other part of the yard, my grape vine was leafing out, to within about 6 feet of the end, but now the leaves are dying back. No idea why. I’ll keep an eye on it, but I don’t see any reason, and there hasn’t been any change that I know about.
My wife’s tomato plants are going INSANE. HUGE growth. Lots of fruit. I like fried green tomatoes, but can take or leave red ones. I don’t think I’ll be able to convince her to harvest early though. We’ll probably have a lot more than we want or can eat as a result. I usually only plant one or three pots because I don’t love them and they don’t do well. This year looks like it will be different. Maybe it’s that they were planted in the raised beds and not pots? Or maybe it’s the used coffee grounds I’ve been adding to the beds… It would be nice to get some veg that we actually eat.*
It would be nice to have some success with the garden, period. I’d feel a LOT better about the coming whatever if I felt like I could grow some food. A steady diet of looters and rat will get old quick without some greens….
Grass soup seems to be the traditional food of a prolonged armed conflict. Every account I read, it comes down to that at some point. I’d like to think that I could do better, especially with time to prep, but at some point you run out of stuff, if you’re not growing more. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that again.
However, since I don’t seem to have a green thumb, I better buy another flat of canned veg. And stack it just that much higher…
n
*holy cow, that paragraph is choppy. No flow for me today. I hope my usual writing isn’t that choppy.
You might try asking at Daily Pundit or Cold Fury. Both of the hosts and several of the regular commenters are very into music.
Huh. Pecancorner’s a Deadhead. Who’d have guessed?
Thanks to both for that recommendation, but that’s not it. The album was the second or third for the band, which was (sorta/kinda) famous for only using vocal and rhythm sounds until.
I think I know where the original CDs are stored, and if it continues to bug me, I’ll have to dig them out.
It’s funny the gaps in the internet. I bet my answers are out there, but I’m just not remembering something correctly, and not enough people have looked to make the connections thru inference.
n
Which is why I can’t understand no one helping me with the two albums/bands I couldn’t get out of my head yesterday!
British? Try one of the hosts at Radio Caroline and make a donation if they are of any help.
Odd factoid about apple wood. A woodturner friend of mine got a commission from a university hot glass shop to make some tools for them. Seems apple wood is ideal for shaping hot glass without sticking–something about the properties of the charred surface that forms. Only problem was that the wood had to be shaped green. If you ever visit a glass shop or watch videos of them doing their magic (Chihuly anyone?) you might notice them grabbing long-handled tools from a bucket of water, shaping and smoothing the glass and them returning the tool, often smoking, to the bucket.
A couple friendly reminders for Monday morning.
Have you backed up your data lately? Checked it? Last week I had to reference an email from 2012 that I only had in a pst archive.
If you find something on the web you want to reference long term, save it as a pdf. Links will likely work for years, but when they stop, that’s it. I have always had the habit of emailing myself a url to a site with a decent description so I can hopefully find it again. I was searching for something, and stumbled across some links for something I sent myself in 2002. The links didn’t work. The info isn’t relevant now, but if it was needed, it wold be gone.
After typing the last sentence, I went and checked the internet archive, and I was able to pull up the info. Still, I wouldn’t rely on that for anything important. It also servers as a reminder that once you put something out there, it’s there forever and everyone can see…
Covid shot updates. After having his second Pfizer shot on Saturday, yesterday my son had a fever of 100F and moderate muscle aches in his right arm and chest. Tylenol helped greatly with the muscle aches. This morning the muscle aches are gone, but he still feels a little off – slight headache and feeling a little drained. My wife got her second Pfizer shot yesterday. This morning she has a fever of 101F and other classic flu symptoms. I get my second Moderna shot on Thursday – can’t wait!
@ITGuy1998, et al….
one of the things that has been rattling around in my skull is the question of copyright and permissions, particularly wrt comments on a web site or blog. Hmm.
I’ve written 10s of thousands of words as comments elsewhere, that I’d like to reuse, recover, possibly aggregate somehow, and many of those websites are gone.
MDCreekmore’s in particular, when he sold it, stayed around for a while, then all the old material disappeared. Happens that I scraped the whole site at one point, so I probably have my comments on my drive, but do I own them?
What about comments here? How do YOU GUYS and GALS think of your comments here? There have been some really good and detailed comments about specific technical subjects, (like lead acid batteries, for example) that would be good to capture and bundle and possibly reprint, but do I have the right? Does Barbara?
Would a one time notice that this site considers the act of commenting to be granting the site (it’s owners and assigns) a creative commons with attribution license, be off-putting?
Does anyone know how other sites deal with the issue, or any articles about case law or previous attempts to codify usage?
Just something to ponder for a while…. nothing imminent.
n
–SHTF happens everywhere…
n
Nick, I’d say that the answers to all of your are a grey area.
In the usual case, most of a blog’s content is written by the blog owner. Copyright resides in the owner. No ambiguity in when that is the case.
For Daynotes, Barbara is the owner, RBT wrote almost all of the posts through 2017, and Barbara would own that content. For Nick’s (and OFD’s, Jenny’s, and anyone else’s) posts, it’s less clear.
Comment ownership is undefined, so far as I know. There are several papers in support of either site owner or commenter owning copyright or them both sharing it, but SFAIK it’s not settled in law, either black-letter law or judicial decision.
The good news for Daynotes is that commenters can’t put in images so there’s no concern about claims of violating the copyright of the image creators or owners.
“Severe Weather – Lower Mississippi Valley”
–SHTF happens everywhere…
Hines County, MS. Jackson. Back in the 80s, during this time of year, my grandmother’s black lab would sleep in the old school 50s enameled cast iron bathtub. They lived just south of Jackson.
When it came to tornadoes happening close to the house, the dog knew more than the NWS.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/russia-iran-swift-nuclear-first-strike
–article is chatty and has obvious bias but is worth the read if only for the alternate view of what’s been going on.
n
It’s moot. Considering the search engines’ unwillingness to index blog comments and the lack of comment searching within WordPress. It’s sort of like comments here go into a blackhole once it’s been long enough that I can’t remember which date to look for my comments under.
Sorry, I know I’ve grumbled about it before, but if turnkey message board solutions (phpBB, Ikonboard, et al) can let you search ALL posts and replies then why the heck can’t WordPress and other blogware? Much of the content of RBT’s site is in the comments and they’re not searchable. Absurd.
Nope. The source for this is an anti-vax activist. It isn’t true. It’s being spread by the “autism is caused by vaccines” crowd.
My guess is that the source of the “October change” is a committee meeting that evaluated the criteria for EUA of the vaccines. The panel does evaluations of “medical products”, which includes drugs, vaccines, and medical devices. I also did a search of the federal register for October 2020 and there were two items related to COVID. One was revoking the authorization for use of a rapid antigen test from one company. The other was guidance documents for companies on FDA inspections during the pandemic, restarting manufacturing that was shut down during the pandemic, and how to handle drug trials that were ongoing during the pandemic.
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-latest-antivax-false-claim-mrna-vaccines-against-covid-19-are-not-vaccines-but-medical-devices-or-gene-therapy/
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/10/16/2020-22968/guidance-documents-related-to-coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19-availability
“Much of the content of RBT’s site is in the comments and they’re not searchable. Absurd. ”
–actually, the search function that RickH implemented works pretty well, use the search tab in the header on this page. Google has at various times indexed blog comments so it’s possible to find some stuff. use the “site:http…….” format for your search.
n
and I’ve been adding keywords to old posts if I find them for a specific reason. IE, I’ve searched for ham radio content, found some comments in an unrelated post, and then added the ‘radio’ or ‘amateur radio’ tag. If the conversation here goes off on a tangent from my initial keywords, I’ll add the appropriate tags the next day (usually, and if I remember.)
n
If you’re into glass blowing you might like the reality/competition show “Blown Away.” Two seasons (so far) streaming on Netflix.
Thanks, Nick & Rick! How did I miss this? 🤯
One comment I have been searching for but can’t find (perhaps it’s a false memory… lol) is about hedges. Someone mentioned a type of plant with long 2 or 3 inch thorns that make an excellent security hedge and the thorns persist even after burning. I did some searching and found some reference to rose bushes, trifoliate orange, and blackthorn but none of those were the one I remember. Grr… I hate when I can’t recall something. Anyone have any guesses?
I wonder if there is a way to convert old WordPress posts and related comments to static HTML? So, any posts older than 30 days are converted in which case it just appears as a standard HTML page (not a blog entry with comments) and is fully indexed by google.
Ah ha! Pyracantha! Now, I should go and do something constructive with my morning. lol
RBT posted a couple of times about the thorny hedges as defensive works.
One of my trade mags mentioned the practice of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design. Apparently you can get a certificate in the practice.
Worth taking a look at the concepts.
N
added– long tradition of hedges as barriers, here’s a vid by a guy I like to watch…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGncS_lojlI
“How to …Traditional Hedge Laying in the South of England Style”
WP plugins exist for exactly that purpose. Whether it’s worth doing is another mater, especially as DDG indexes the comments just fine. (Side note: if you’re still using Google search by default, you’re wrong.)
Won’t help me any. My daughter’s window overlooks the deck, not part of the yard. On the plus side, she’s not (yet) interested in boys. On the minus side, the lack of interest is not one-sided. (A couple times I’ve seen a female classmate or friend tell her that some boy had been looking at her for the past hour. It was highly amusing, watching my daughter get all weirded out.)
I did a google search on whether or not google is evil and it seems they’re not. So, nice try, SteveF.
I did a google search asking is google . . . and evil was the first result
n
Good thinking, Chad. Now ask an alcoholic if he’s an alcoholic.
One comment I have been searching for but can’t find (perhaps it’s a false memory… lol) is about hedges. Someone mentioned a type of plant with long 2 or 3 inch thorns that make an excellent security hedge and the thorns persist even after burning. I did some searching and found some reference to rose bushes, trifoliate orange, and blackthorn but none of those were the one I remember. Grr… I hate when I can’t recall something. Anyone have any guesses?
Trifoliate Orange would come up whenever the discussion focused on security hedges.
The species is the root stock for sour orange trees which are propagated through cuttings/grafts.
I’ve dealt with the plants in Florida. Trifoliate Orange is certainly nasty enough to be a security hedge, but to grow it to a thickness which would stop personnel intrusion would require a mild climate, strategic pruning, and a long timeframe.
Planting ANY tree, but particularly a fruit tree, shows a belief that there will be future.
n
I can’t speak to the coffee grounds, but a raised bed helps. A lot. Last year’s garden project (cause what else can you do when locked-down) was put in a raised bed. Filled with about 3 cubic yards of topsoil to provide at least 4″-6″ coverage. Tomato plants, especially grape tomatoes, went nuts. Everything (determinate or indeterminate) grew to the max expected size or beyond. That growth gave me a very good read on how poor the soil quality was before. Now, I need to keep adding to that soil to maintain the quality.
(NB: If you don’t like getting tomatoes all at once, try “indeterminate”. Like the grape tomatoes, once they start they produce fruit until frost – maybe not a problem for you most years. Determinate are designed to produce all their fruit at once, because that’s what a farmer would want: a concentrated harvest period. Good if you plan to make your own sauces / preserves, but not much use if you want to liven up a salad all summer.)
I also had good success last year with red-leaf lettuce, zucchini, and green/yellow/purple beans. Romaine, eggplant, and cauliflower were not a success. Asparagus have never really worked. This year, the bunnies are back and chewing on the asparagus so I have to look to my fencing.
@Alan
I watched a couple episodes of Blown Away. Heartbreaking to watch someone cut corners in tempering and get rewarded by Crack! Tinkle tinkle!
Pyracantha are evil. I had to prune the ones at my grandparents’ house every summer. Hate, hate, hate.
@dcp, you needed this– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiXh2UYo48o
–you were deprived…
n
and let’s hope those things never become self aware….
One of the reasons for gardening even when we don’t get a crop is to learn which plants and which varieties of those plants will work for me in my own yard, as opposed to that of Mr Greenjeans’ paradise across the street. If we wait until we NEED that food to start trying, we might be out of luck. As TV points out, soil quality makes a world of difference, but also variety plays an important part:
My dad is of the “never cage tomato plants” school, and I tend to agree with him – they are harder to pick, but will put out roots along their stems laying on the ground, and, we think, produce better because of that extra “grounding”.
My dad and I have both tried green beans, with no production other than leave and vines. We finally decided there’s a reason people grow black eyed peas and not beans “in this country” as they say. Black eyed peas will produce like crazy, look dead in August, then start producing again when the rain starts in September.
My asparagus finally, after 10 years of neglect (as in zero attention, no water, weeding, or fertilizer at any time), started producing scads of big fat tasty spears year before last. Unfortunately, I planted it in the alley, against the rear fence, and last year our neighbors’ dog decided that he prefers that fenceline so now the asparagus is off limits. In 50 years someone will be able to enjoy it, though.
The bay laurel tree was nearly killed, but I cut it off near the ground and it is putting out new leaves and stems. Lost one fig tree, but the Celeste is coming back from the roots.
I envy Nick and the blueberry plants. Our soil is too alkaline to grow them, but I am tempted to try them in pots so I could acidify the soil.
I was shocked to see my 2 year old crabapple tree not only survived but actually set a few fruit this year! We’ll get fruit from the peach tree, too, as it had already made tiny fruits before the last freeze.
For thyself you shouldeth speaketh. I lean more toward the dork side of the curve. (An intentional play on a familiar phrase).
There’s a kids show called “Word Girl” and my wife and I would both sing along with “Nerd Grrl, Nerd Grrl!” drove the kids nuts.
n
(and half the time we’d follow with “Party time, excellent!”)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cALTm4TTrUI
It’s like the cockney rhyming slang of geek fandom.
n
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/cia-recruitment-ad-ridiculed-overdosing-woke-talking-points
Now if only we could neuter the IRS and the FBI as effectively….
n
and holy cow that video is awful. no mention of a husband either. wonder what privilege she uses to get day care for those two boys,
With a CIA like that, and an FBI like the luv birds, who needs Russian influence? We’re dead inside already.
n
I need one of those for the upcoming plugs/obola/proglibturdpocalypse.
Hmmm.
My tomatoes barely had any fruit last year, probably too hot here. I was thinking of a shade cloth cover, over the plants which are on straw bales, but I wonder if this would help as well?
@Ed
It would seem to me that a shadecover would only provide shade, not temp reduction (although maybe just a bit). If it is too hot, maybe you aren’t watering enough?
I’d contact my local county ag-tech guy, who should have good recommendations for your local climate and soil conditions.
But I am not a Gardener, no do I play one on TV.
and holy cow that video is awful. no mention of a husband either. wonder what privilege she uses to get day care for those two boys,
You assume that isn’t an actress hired to play a part. Recruiting is just another psyop.
I gotta agree with that. Why hire someone blackmailible right out of the box?
Roger that!
And if one asks me if I am gay, I will say “no”.
If he goes to meetings, he’s an alcoholic. Otherwise, he’s just a drunk.
Covid shot updates. After having his second Pfizer shot on Saturday, yesterday my son had a fever of 100F and moderate muscle aches in his right arm and chest. Tylenol helped greatly with the muscle aches. This morning the muscle aches are gone, but he still feels a little off – slight headache and feeling a little drained. My wife got her second Pfizer shot yesterday. This morning she has a fever of 101F and other classic flu symptoms. I get my second Moderna shot on Thursday – can’t wait!
I had my second Pfizer shot last Thursday. I woke up this morning at 4am cramping and rushed to the bathroom. And went back at 5am. And back at 8am. And back at 10am. And back at 1pm. Don’t know if that is connected with the Pfizer second shot but I’ve gotta blame it on something.
Tomatoes really like sunlight, so I don’t think (my experience) shade-cover is a good idea. They are also heavy feeders, both water and fertilizer. Of course, it depends upon how hot. They grow well in open fields in southern Italy, and that is not a cool place.
Global warming, duh.
That’s the Pfizer COVID experimental gene therapy ridding your body of COVID. And half your internal organs. Proceed to the disintegration chamber tomorrow.
If they are not setting fruit, I’ve been told to give the blossom stalks a little shake. Tomatoes self pollinate and that little bit of vibration helps the pollen move.
I’m no expert, but tomatoes do like lots of sunshine. When they sprawl, they seem to provide some of their own shade cover (as well as their own mulch). I’m in north central Texas, with very hot dry summers, and they seem to benefit from those extra roots they will put out from the stems. It couldn’t hurt to try it with a couple of plants and compare.
Tomatoes will grow a vast root system. There are two schools of thought on watering in hot dry weather: one is to give them a little water every day, and even twice a day when the temperature is more than 90F – 95F. That definitely works. The other is to water them deeply but only every 4 or 5 days. That also works.
My one attempt at straw bale gardening was an abject failure – my own fault for several reasons. My neighbor one block over had a wonderful, beautiful straw bale garden, so I know it can be done! LOL!
Wife and I both had Pfizer shots (both of them). No side effects for either of us, except for a minor sore muscle at the injection shot. YMMV. (Orr age is late 60’s.) I take multi-vitamin and D-3 supplements, in addition to other prescription drugs. (There are studies that indicate D-3 helps with a strong immune system, so that might be a factor.)
But all of these side effects means that your body’s immune system is doing it’s job. In my case, no side effects to speak of.
vitamin D def recommended as treatment and prophylaxis for the rona, at least anecdotally.
People with bad cases tend to be deficient, in any case, and at Aesop’s hospital, that is one of the first things they give incoming patients.
n
It def gets too hot for tomatoes here, in pots anyway. I think the soil gets too hot. I’m pretty sure that’s what killed my potatoes last year too.
n
While the reporting is a bit fawning, this is what an ambush can look like. Would have been a different story if not for the armor…
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9537895/Hero-guard-keeps-cool-robbers-spray-truck-30-bullets.html
n
DeSantis is signing an EO:
Gov. Ron DeSantis is signing an EO today suspending *all* COVID emergency orders. He’s also signing bill to limit localized “emergency orders,” which are a direct violation of individual liberty, and he’s permanently banning COVID-19 vaccine passports.
Is he running for President?
@ITGuy1998, et al….
one of the things that has been rattling around in my skull is the question of copyright and permissions, particularly wrt comments on a web site or blog. Hmm.
I’ve written 10s of thousands of words as comments elsewhere, that I’d like to reuse, recover, possibly aggregate somehow, and many of those websites are gone.
MDCreekmore’s in particular, when he sold it, stayed around for a while, then all the old material disappeared. Happens that I scraped the whole site at one point, so I probably have my comments on my drive, but do I own them?
What about comments here? How do YOU GUYS and GALS think of your comments here? There have been some really good and detailed comments about specific technical subjects, (like lead acid batteries, for example) that would be good to capture and bundle and possibly reprint, but do I have the right? Does Barbara?
Would a one time notice that this site considers the act of commenting to be granting the site (it’s owners and assigns) a creative commons with attribution license, be off-putting?
Does anyone know how other sites deal with the issue, or any articles about case law or previous attempts to codify usage?
Just something to ponder for a while…. nothing imminent.
n
All archived at:
https://web.archive.org/web/*/ttgnet.com
Don’t know what it would take to get it removed.
Over The Hedge: Baby Steps
https://www.gocomics.com/overthehedge/2021/05/03
Where is the A/C unit on the tent ?
“DeSantis is signing an EO:”
Is he running for President?
Yes. That is, assuming he wins reelection.
The Dem bench is empty in Florida after the party threw moderates under the bus to run Andrew Gillum for Governor, but DeSantis has never had the full support of the mainstream FL Republican party, still dominated by the legacy of Jeb! Bush.
The hand picked candidate to inherit the Jeb! legacy, Adam “Opie” Putnum, was destined for the Governor’s Mansion going back 20 years … until he wasn’t.
Pyracantha…
Nasty. I would go for Blackthorn (prunus spinosa) instead. Makes a formidable hedge, birds nest in it, the blossom is pretty and attracts bees, branches can be used for blackthorn sticks (shillelaghs), also formidable, and if that isn’t cool enough, the fruit, sloes – make fantastic jams and jellies, and are the magic key to sloe gin. Just remember that sloes are like medlars, they need a frost to become comestible (or one can cheat, and put them in the freezer for a day or three). Recommended.
I am not sure about that:
– Most people do not have a belief.
– Future for them is the consideration of things that will happen within a week.
– Instant gratification with the flower buds would win any time.
“”The Costs Are Up, Up, Up. We’re Seeing Substantial Inflation” Admits A Surprised Warren Buffett As Powell, Yellen See Nothing”
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/costs-are-were-seeing-substantial-inflation-admits-surprised-warren-buffett-powell-yellen
“BECKY QUICK: I will ask this question from Chris Freed from Philadelphia. And whoever wants to take this on stage, “From raw material purchases by Berkshire subsidiaries, are you seeing signs of inflation beginning to increase?””
“WARREN BUFFETT: Let me answer that, then Greg can get more into that. We’re seeing very substantial inflation – it’s very interesting. I mean, we’re raising prices. People are raising prices to us. And it’s being accepted. Take home-building. I mean, you know, the cost of– we’ve got nine home builders in addition to our manufactured housing operation, which is the largest in the country.”
“So we really do a lot of housing. The costs are just up, up, up. Steel costs, you know, just every day, they’re going up. And there hasn’t yet been because the wage– the wage stuff follows. I mean, the– the UAW writes a three-year contract, we got a three-year contract.”
Yup, Buffet knows. Everything stopped for 12 months and now we have a tremendous amount of delayed needs and lots of cash in people’s pockets.
Curtains or venetian blinds tilted slightly up can resolve this problem.
Alternatively, there’s a cat toy that mounts a rotating laser on a pedestal. Mount it on the roof and let it shine down.
How about a shade cloth cover, with a misting system on the supports? If the humidity is below about 70%, the mist can cool the area by several degrees as the mist evaporates and sucks heat out of the air.
“WARREN BUFFETT: Let me answer that, then Greg can get more into that. We’re seeing very substantial inflation – it’s very interesting. I mean, we’re raising prices. People are raising prices to us. And it’s being accepted. Take home-building. I mean, you know, the cost of– we’ve got nine home builders in addition to our manufactured housing operation, which is the largest in the country.”
“Greg” is Greg Abel, identified in the last few days as Buffett’s tentantive choice for successor as CEO.
Interesting since Abel runs Berkshire Energy, which includes Oncor IIRC.
To me, throwing Ajit Jain under the bus signals that Berkshire Hathaway sees The Gecko and other insurance business as less important to its future than the railroad and electric utilities. It is a big change in direction.
No no no, not peeping toms — the odds of them making it through the night without at least a few broken bones are low.
I’m talking about a friend teasing her that one of the boys had been staring at her all during lunch. Things like that.
A bunch of nerds !
For thyself you shouldeth speaketh. I lean more toward the dork side of the curve. (An intentional play on a familiar phrase).
Ok, a bunch of redneck nerds !
“Once again: The Cloud is simply somebody else’s computer.”
https://gunfreezone.net/once-again-the-cloud-is-simply-somebody-elses-computer/
“Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani revealed on Fox News Thursday night that prosecutors in the Justice Department secretly “invaded” his iCloud account and seized privileged documents. Giuliani later tweeted about the potentially illegal surveillance, asking “who else are they spying on? You?””
My guess is that the FBI is treating the Cloud as abandoned property.
“1 In 5 EV Owners In California Are Switching Back To Gas Because Charging Is A “Hassle””
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/1-5-ev-owners-california-are-switching-back-gas-because-charging-hassle
I am not surprised. My cousin can put 200 miles on his Tesla 3 using a Tesla Supercharger in 20 minutes. That is 15 minutes longer than a gas station using a charge card at the pump.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/bill-and-melinda-gates-getting-divorce
wow
n
Social media is lit up over the divorce: pedo/Epstein, cray/cray vaccine/, Bilderberg, etc.
Maybe Melinda will give the kids a hunk of her half.
@SteveF
Do you have any reference for “There are several papers in support of either site owner or commenter owning copyright or them both sharing it, “?
@Nick
This is not legal advice. But through the decades I’ve acquired some familiarity with copyright, trademark, patent, and trade secret law. YMMV.
Copyright law is pretty clear. Absent any contract to the contrary, you own what you write and have copyright immediately as it is produced, without having to file or take other action.
Contract to the contrary would be “work for hire”, which is more or less a special exception for work you do for an employer. Copyright issues would be explicitly covered in the contract.
A contract for publication would grant publishing rights to someone other than the author. Exactly what is covered and for how long should be in the contract. Contracts don’t anticipate technology very well–Dr. Pournelle made numerous comments over the years relating to e-books and contracts.
Making comments on a blog post, as we do here, implicitly grants some rights. What are they, exactly? Good question. The Catch-22 here is that much of the case law involves publishers, and claiming to be a publisher has attendant responsibilities that most internet entities do not want.
I’m sure there are weasels who own blogs that have inserted some claim to acquiring copyright in their e-fine print. Absent a contract and a “meeting of the minds”, to say nothing of compensation, it’s doubtful that any such claim would hold up in court. Copyright claims are Federal torts, so getting to court is a minimal $100k investment, hence the lack of definitive case law.
All authors and copyright holders should acquaint themselves with the DMCA, which has a tool called a “takedown notice”. Very useful in correcting the misuse of copyrighted materials on the internet.
FYI, apparently a Chlorine shortage is upon us. Small Dead Animals titled this
Chad, Take a look:
https://gardenerspath.com/plants/foliage/best-defensive-plants/
Nice list of pointy stuff. Some of it grows here, and it appears there are some things for various regions. I can attest that cholla is nasty, but it doesn’t seem to want to grow closely in the wild. Probably wouldn’t make a good hedge. Several others look very dense and foreboding. Mesquite seems to reach out and grab, especially in the dark.
I like to say I have no thumbs. That is, I have no green thumb. My wife grows a few things, and I will gladly dig holes for planting, but I hate all other plant related maintenance. This is the result of personal preference, plus growing up with an over landscaped yard I had to maintain. Now, we have a few native plants, but no lawn, which is not native here. Been lawn free for over forty years, and don’t miss it.
The comments about plants and trees freezing remind me of an odd phenomenon here. Trees are not native in our valley, but people plant them anyway. They can do OK if watered, but they take a lot of water. Also, some kinds of trees can die off if the weather is unusually hot and windy. Seems they can’t transpire enough moisture to keep the above ground branches from dying. It is insidious: an unsuitable tree can go ten or more years until we get just the wrong conditions, and then die in a day or two. The roots survive, but the top has to be cut off for there to be new growth. The desert is an unusual place; probably why I like it.
I am not surprised. My cousin can put 200 miles on his Tesla 3 using a Tesla Supercharger in 20 minutes. That is 15 minutes longer than a gas station using a charge card at the pump.
Did he have the garage rewired for 480V for a fast charger or does he use Superchargers?
@JimB, I moved from the midwest, south of Chicago, to Tempe AZ in the mid-80s. After that first year, when I subconsciously thought every thing was still under construction, because it was just raked dirt and rocks, I came to really like the desert. I loved the subtle colors and the flinty smell, the smell of mesquite, the sudden cold when you go thru an area with plants and higher humidity. I did a lot of rock climbing in the PHX area, and a little bit around Tucson. LOVED when the dust cleared out and the sky went black…
Don’t miss summer in PHX though.
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My older son is in PHX with two thirds of my grandkids. I’ll take 110 F/15% RH over 95 F/65% RH any day.
I am not surprised. My cousin can put 200 miles on his Tesla 3 using a Tesla Supercharger in 20 minutes. That is 15 minutes longer than a gas station using a charge card at the pump.
Did he have the garage rewired for 480V for a fast charger or does he use Superchargers?
He has a 230 volt, 50 amp circuit in his garage for his Tesla that can do a full charge in six hours. His employer has a couple of dozen free chargers in their parking garage also. That was one of the factors of his buying a Tesla, that his employer is fairly woke so he could get free charging.
Those 480 volt, three phase, 1000 amp circuits are VERY expensive. The transformer is several thousand pounds itself and requires an 8 ft by 8 ft pad (IIRC).
What’s going on in India is at times incomprehensible.
My wife and went for Covid antibody tests today, done for free by the University as part of a research study. Results in 7 – 10 days. Hopefully numbers will be > zero, though IIRC effective levels have not yet been set by the CDC.
WRT the chlorine shortage, everyone here should have bleach and the powder stored, right???
Go get some now if you’re worried, before everyone does.
It’s gonna kill us at our rec association pool if prices go up. At home, we use a salt machine to generate our own, or something like that… once we got it dialed in we didn’t use much additional chlorine.
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So, two hedge rows. An inner and outer. The outer that strangers (and neighbors… bwahahaha) have to deal with first is Pyracantha and the inner can be Blackthorn. 🙂 Just think of all the horrific things you can put in-between (in the “killing ground”). I do like RBT’s idea of putting out razor wire to act as a trellis while your thorny hedge establishes itself. Once established the razor wire is hidden within.
I do like RBT’s idea of putting out razor wire to act as a trellis while your thorny hedge establishes itself. Once established the razor wire is hidden within.
Razor wire is serious bad news. My son and some Marines were putting out razor wire around their FOB (forward operating base) and it broke, with 80 ft of razor wire wrapping around him. Before they could get the razor wire off him, he had cut his right hand so badly that he permanently lost his fingerprints off his thumb and two fingers. When we went to get our gun permits, the FBI fingerprint background check forced him to get his right hand redone twice before they gave up and just used his left hand.
In the endless pool of content on the internet, there are gems. How did I not know that you can make bonsai FORESTS…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0Ib8EzjAPU
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I may go take a look at this since it is only 31 miles away, “Used 2008 Toyota Highlander For Sale at Superior Subaru of Houston”
https://www.superiorsubaruofhouston.com/used/Toyota/2008-Toyota-Highlander-ef7d16ea0a0e09af1ed39cbf019ad38f.htm
156,176 miles for $9,952. Two owners, no wrecks. And being sold by a reputable dealer so probably not an auction buy.
@chad, there are some interesting things you can do with ‘hog panel’ laying on the ground, involving bolt cutter and some bending. It’s probably very effective as area denial just inside a fence, in tall grass.
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@Nick
As I pointed out before, there is not a shortage of chlorine. The alleged shortage is stabilized chlorine (trichlor) due to a fire at a major producer. I say “alleged” because it is not clear what capacity the other producers have. I’m sure the sharp increase price due to panic buying is not being milked for every cent by each step in the supply chain.
The most important aspect of swimming pool disinfection is having someone who understands pool chemistry. The relationship between chlorine, stabilizer, disinfection, and pH is not easy to understand.
Think of trichlor as being analogous to the resin in your water softener. In your water softener the good ion on the resin is sodium. In your swimming pool the good ion on the isocyanuric acid is chlorine. In both cases they are in chemical equilibrium and the good ions are slowly swapped out.
The difference is that the water softener resin is not soluble, it stays in the softener, and is easy to recharge. Isocyanuric acid is soluble and ends up as part of the TDS of the pool. Harder to recharge, and you can’t simply expose it to a concentrated chlorine solution in a separate tank, but by adding additional chlorine the equilibrium will shift. Trick is controlling pH while you do so.
It’s a new pool season. Easy check–see if your HOA’s pool maintenance guy has new chemicals for his test kit. If not, that’s a first step (although if not, he’s probably already hopeless). Second step is look at the test log and see if it’s been done minimum twice daily in the past. Third step is check the sampling procedure.
Pools are generally OCSTR’s (open continuously stirred tank reactors). With new pump regs, the “C” may be “semi-C”. Water is hardly ever uniform in composition. Correct procedure is to use a bucket to dip water from several points around the pool, swirl it, then check with the test kit. Likewise, add chemicals be prediluting into a bucket and walking it around the perimeter.
It’s too much to hope that the PMG understands breakpoint chlorination. Settle for having a good buddy at the pool chemical store.
Chemical use can be reduced by a cover, a fence (keep stuff from blowing into the pool), meticulous debris removal, and an absolute requirement that kids pee before entering the pool.
@drwilliams,
Thanks, it’s always good to have the details recorded. It helps to build the hive mind.
My wife did 2 years on the board of the rec association (where we belong so we have a pool and grounds, our HOA sold ours years ago in one of the most selfish, short-sighted, and bone-headed moves of all time.) She learned far too much about pool chemistry from the guy there so I’ve let her manage it for our little above ground covid pool and zombie apocalypse water collection point.
The rec assn pool is old, like 50 years old, has some undersized plumbing and other structural issues. Two seasons ago a couple of leaks cost us a whole lot of money in chemicals, and then we had to fix the leaks too…
The system has some sort of automation and monitoring with constant adjustments to the water chemistry as it flows thru, and monitoring over the internet. This year we will be getting a whole new mechanical system and added heating so that we can extend the season. We found a swim team to partner with, and they will be funding that.
The rec assn is independent of any HOA and serves a number of smaller neighborhoods in our general neighborhood. That means it’s fully and only funded by members though, and numbers declined steadily over the years until relatively recently.
There has been a whole lot of ‘make do’ and patchwork over those years and some of it is biting us in the @ss.
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@chad, using the search tool for “hog panel” and ctrl-F on the results, starting with oldest, I found the first time I mentioned it…
https://www.ttgnet.com/journal/2015/08/17/monday-17-august-2015/
Down in the comments, where the good stuff is…
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Stuff’s been going on for 6 years…
–applies word for word to today. F me.
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Nick, I am familiar with Tucson and Phoenix. Have visited family at both in summer and winter. Both, but especially Phoenix, are more extreme than where I live, partly because of elevation. We attended a family wedding near Phoenix in August about ten years ago. All the out-of-towners except us were from either the Midwest or the Caribbean. Everybody remarked at how dry it was. We thought it was humid, and it didn’t cool off much at night.
My location is about 2500′ elevation and surrounded by mountains that are in the 5000-8000′ height. The mountains remove much of the humidity as the air passes over them. Our normal summer highs are 100-105 F, with a relative humidity of ~10%. It cools off to the sixties at night. We have watched Independence Day fireworks wearing winter jackets on windy nights. People (but not you) can’t believe how cool it can feel at ~70 F with a 10+ mph breeze and no sun.
Today it was a high of 90 F. Skin temperature is about that. Standing outside in the shade feels about neutral. The sun still feels nice. With a breeze, the shade feels just barely warm. I lived in Fort Lauderdale in the early 1970s. I commuted to work on a motorcycle and wore a light jacket in the summer, mostly to protect work clothes from bugs. At 90 F and 90% humidity, it felt OK on the highway, definitely not hot. Real difference here in the desert. At 90 F a jacket is needed to protect from the dryness and sun. Mornings and evenings are downright cool. Winter in both places is downright cold. Florida would often be 40 F and saturated, the kind of cold that penetrates. Here, it can be in the 20s and about 50%; definitely cold, but not wet.
I probably have mentioned that my family came from the Chicago area, but my grandparents left there for LA after WWII. I have visited remaining family in Chicago a few times, and lived there briefly in 1970. It was still pretty nice in most areas then. I have not been back, and have no reason to visit. My father left in the 1930s, and went to the Detroit area to pursue a career in the auto industry. Detroit, and especially the suburbs, was also nice back then. I still have a few relatives there, but no reason to visit. The city of Detroit is a lost cause.
“The city of Detroit is a lost cause.”
–Chicago too.
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In Tempe in the summer, with 3% RH, you would feel cold moving into the shade. and it really was cold. Without the moisture to spread the heat, it was MUCH colder in the shade. It was so dry I could feel the moisture coming off of a glass of water on the back of my hand from 3-4ft away. Kiln dried lumber was stored indoors, or it would warp and twist as it dried out.
I’d get in the hot tub, and the water would feel cool, because at 108F, it was COOLER than the air temp. Pool water tasted salty from all the people sweating in it. My t shirt would have salt rings all over the front and back, and I’d never have felt wet.
yeah, super gross. But I do miss the desert.
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