Sun. Sept. 5, 2021 – did some stuff, more to do

Hot and humid, little chance of rain. And we got through yesterday without getting rain at home. It did get hot. Morning was cool, but by the time I was outside it went from 85F to 105F in the sun. Since I was in the sun, well, it was hot.

Got the front yard cut. Started on the back but ran out of battery. If I charge it, I can do front and back. If I leave it after doing the back,the next week I can only do the front, or the back again. It’s pretty consistent. Still liking the mower btw. I love that I don’t have to wear ear pro.

Spent a bunch of time cleaning one section of my food storage shelves. The rat was moving around on them, and on the stores, so it needed to be cleaned. I started with the easiest of the three shelves. I am very happy with my idea of putting everything in low bins with lids. The food in that section was all protected from spoilage. The stuff that wasn’t in plastic? It didn’t fare as well. I lost a box of instant oatmeal in envelopes to bugs. I lost several of the big cardboard oatmeal containers to ‘moisture’. And I had some bulging cans. 4 cans of evaporated milk were bulging a bit. They were best by 2015 and have been poorly stored so I’m not put out. I expect spoilage and losses because my storage conditions are so bad. My Kraft Mac n cheese is one year past best by, and it tastes a bit “old”. Two cases. Dang. Funny how your eating patterns can change.

One of the things we’ve learned with this whole “lockdown” thing is that our eating habits changed a lot. Over the last year we pretty much stopped eating breakfast cereal. We were steady eaters of Cheerios since the kids were babies. Mac n cheese consumption is way down, and I’m more likely to make the cheese sauce from FD cheese powder and milk, with normal pasta, than from a box. I don’t know how much is just the kids getting older, or if there was some appetite fatigue, but it’s something to consider in your long term food plan.

What to do about it? Variety and versatility. I store stuff like the Kraft Mac n cheese because it’s easy and quick. The kids can grab it for themselves. But, it’s not as versatile as bare pasta and cheese powder. We still eat a lot of pasta, but much less orange cheese. To combat any potential appetite fatigue, I stock lots of weirder things that we don’t normally eat but might make an interesting change of pace. Lima beans. Butter beans. Canned asparagus spears. Artichoke hearts. Weird imported fruits. You name it, if I saw it on a shelf, I’ve probably picked up a can or two. I occasionally bust out the weird and add it to a meal just to see if it might be great (and to acclimate the family to the idea of eating unusual stuff.)

As I read around the web, I’m becoming increasingly nervous about food. Having some spoilage from the rats and heat is contributing to my concerns. If things get bad, you probably don’t have enough food. You may not have enough boots, socks, and underwear. How’s the elastic on your shorts? I just replaced a bunch of pairs that were a bit crunchy from the dryer being hot (and they are years old.) But back to food… Unlike Bob, I’m not counting calories and just filling buckets with salt, sugar, flour, rice, and beans. You can do that, and there is plenty of guidance here (look at the keywords on the right), but I think in terms of “meals.” It also keeps me from worrying about nutrition too much. Normal meals are going to be normally nutritious. If you’re not starving now, you won’t be later.

I do have lots of buckets filled with those things (except beans, I keep those in cans.) I think of the buckets as meal extenders. Bread/tortillas/pasta added to a canned meal, or rice combined with other food will extend the length of time that my canned meal plan will last. Whatever your preference, and plan, consider adding to your stack. After all, if things don’t get bad, you can donate excess to food banks or your neighbors. And consider variety and novelty when stacking. More is better. More choice is better too.

Keep stacking.

nick

65 Comments and discussion on "Sun. Sept. 5, 2021 – did some stuff, more to do"

  1. Greg Norton says:

    “Portland is considering BANNING all Texas imports over their abortion law: City slams ‘unconstitutional’ new legislation and plans emergency resolution to ban services and goods from the Lone Star state”

    –wouldn’t that be un Constitutional? Pretty sure the States can’t restrict trade between them…

    City. The government can spend its money as it sees fit, but the Mayor’s schtick won’t amount to much.

    Where are they going to start? Dell?

    Doh! Dell has a big development shop in Portland with a lot of employees on the payroll. And that doesn’t count the VMware employees.

    What about all the Southwest flights in and out of Portland Airport, including multiple daily departures to Austin?

    And any “Apple Silicon” machine or iPhone has a CPU designed here in Austin. Isn’t the Portland Apple Store the busiest in North America?

    A boycott gets tricky fast.

  2. Greg Norton says:

    Yeah, OpenGL was cool and did not come out on the PC until 3dfx released their graphics card in 1994 ???.

    OpenGL support was in Windows 95 from the start, but hardware acceleration was non existent. Better cards and WHQL made the platform viable starting about 20 years ago, but Microsoft has always pushed DirectX for 3D.

    Apple deprecated OpenGL in favor of their Metal API a few years ago, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Microsoft went along and did something similar. Still, OpenGL lives on in the Interwebs.

    Angel, the big text for graphics classes, switched to WebGL and Javascript in the last edition change I saw. With three major OS platforms now common in academia and Microsoft continuing to go its own way with development tools, an undergrad class could easily waste a month getting students’ first projects running with C/C++.

  3. Greg Norton says:

    We are out at the TX coast again this weekend. Boycott or no boycott, I see a lot of CA, WA and OR plates in the parking lots of restaurants and hotels. With schools back in session, I can’t imagine all of them being transplants, but it is possible.

    A co-worker who lives outside Portland reported that a lot of the OR coast is still locked down/closed, including the landmark Camp 18 restaurant in Elsie, OR, located on the main road from the city to the beach communities.

    As with the 4th, all of the restaurants in Coastal TX are packed with big parties, 10-15 people at a table. Oldest daughter Karen makes sure the oldsters are included since she’s counting on them to leave her something for her own retirement … and, say, wouldn’t Aunt Margie’s jade index finger ring look good on her hand?

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  4. Alan says:

    –wouldn’t that be un Constitutional? Pretty sure the States can’t restrict trade between them…

    City. The government can spend its money as it sees fit, but the Mayor’s schtick won’t amount to much.

    Seems like this may apply?

    Dean Milk Co. v Madison (1951) deals with discrimination against out-of-state (as well as much in-state) commerce not by a state, but by a city. At issue in yet another milk case was a Madison, Wisconsin ordinance that prohibited the sale of milk in Madison that was bottled more than five miles from the city’s center. The ordinance was justified by Madison as necessary to facilitate inspection by city dairy inspectors. Finding the ordinance discriminatory and believing that reasonable non-discriminatory alternatives existed, the Supreme Court invalidated the ordinance despite the fact that a Milwaukee dairy was shut out of town just as much as one from Illinois.

    http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTRIALS/conlaw/statecommerce.htm

  5. Alan says:

    Locast, a nonprofit streaming service that piped local broadcast signals over the internet, is shutting down after a federal judge ruled against the organization in a rare case tackling the legality of network content delivered online.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/02/business/media/locast-shuts-down.html

    Interesting that they are permanently shutting down now rather than potentially restarting should they prevail upon appeal.

  6. IT Pro says:

    In NJ, our idiot governor wants to electrify everything by 2050.  Eliminate natural gas for cooking, heating, and I guess, backup generators.

    That master plan calls for a “transition to 100 percent clean energy by 2050” and natural gas doesn’t meet the state’s definition of “clean energy.”

    https://www.nj.com/opinion/2021/09/cooking-with-gas-not-if-governor-murphys-plan-goes-through-mulshine.html

    I have an oil-fired steam boiler for heat and cook with natural gas.  I also have a gas fireplace and am planning to get a gas backup generator.

    Of course, by 2050 I might not be around to worry about any of this.

     

  7. Nick Flandrey says:

    In 2050 your idiot Governor certainly wont’ be around.

    n

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  8. drwilliams says:

    Fake News: The strange campaign against ivermectin escalates

    https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/09/fake_news_the_campaign_against_ivermectin_escalates.html

    Photoshopped images to make Joe Rogan look unhealthy:

    https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/09/fake_news_the_campaign_against_ivermectin_escalates.html

    Egg Covers Faces After a Viral Claim About Ivermectin Completely Implodes

    https://redstate.com/bonchie/2021/09/05/egg-covers-faces-after-a-viral-claim-about-ivermectin-completely-implodes-n438298

    A lot of people are starting to wonder about the conspiracy [my word] to denigrate Ivermectin.

    This latest blowup comes as a “doctor” makes outrageously false claims about gunshot victims being denied care at an Oklahoma hospital because they have so many patients overdosed on Ivermectin.

    Blatantly false because a) the “doctor” hadn’t worked at the hospital in two months [and probably won’t work in Oklahoma ever again], b) the hospital had not turned away emergency patients, c) had no cases of Ivermectin overdose, and d) no spike in gunshot victims

    The third link above shows the Twit from Rolling Stone. Note that the accompanying photo of this supposedly recent event shows people attired for winter in a climate that averages highs of 88, 94, and 93 degrees in June, July and August respectively. After nearly three generations of total prog control over education, it’s not suprising the the editors of the Riting Stoned wouldn’t see anything wrong with that photo–most of their readers wouldn’t either.

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  9. Nick Flandrey says:

    86F at 10am, house still quiet, but I’m up. Felt good to sleep in. Humidity is down a bit at 77%RH and the windows are covered with condensation. Clearly it’s still humid by anyone’s standards. Patchy sun poking thru the overcast. It would be a good time to cut the grass in the back yard. Or eat breakfast. Hmm.

    n

  10. Nick Flandrey says:

    Tropical Cyclone Ida – FEMA Region VI
    Lifeline Impacts: (NRCC SLB as of 6:00 a.m. ET, Sept 5)
    Safety and Security:
    ▪ LA: Search and rescue activities ongoing
    Food, Water, Shelter:
    ▪ LA: 214 (+27) Boil Water Advisories in effect impacting 1M (+828k) people
    ▪ LA: 28 (-1) shelters open with 3,246 (+299) occupants
    Health and Medical:
    ▪ LA evacuated 13 (-1) hospitals, 3 partially evacuated; 30 hospitals and 34 nursing homes on
    generators, 2,533 patients at risk of needing evacuation if generators fail
    ▪ 11 confirmed storm related fatalities
    Energy:
    LA: 613k (-130k) (28%) customers without power (Eagel-I as of 8:00 a.m. ET, Sept 5)
    ▪ Most areas expected to be restored by Sep 8; full restoration to heavily impacted areas by Sep 25
    ▪ U.S. Secretary of Energy authorized use of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve
    Communications:
    ▪ 16 MCOVs to support command and control and site intake/registration
    ▪ 911 communications in New Orleans restored; 5 MCOVs staged and supporting Sherwood Forest
    ISB and 4 EOCs
    Transportation:
    ▪ LA: public rail closed pending assessment; Louisiana Offshore Oil Platform, South Louisiana ports
    remain closed; New Orleans and Lakefront airports open

  11. Nick Flandrey says:

    Tropical Cyclone Ida – FEMA Region II
    Lifeline Impacts: (NRCC SLB as of 6:00 a.m. ET, Sept 5)
    Safety and Security:
    ▪ Overall search and rescue activities in NJ completed
    Food, Water, Shelter:
    ▪ NJ: 5 (-8) shelters open with 86 (-170) occupants NY: 1 (-2) shelters open with 18 (-17)
    occupants
    Health and Medical:
    ▪ NJ: 3 of 4 hospitals resumed normal operations
    o Fatalities:
    • NY: 15 confirmed; 9 unconfirmed (open-source media)
    • NJ: 27 (+2) confirmed
    Energy:
    ▪ 6 of 8 major transmission lines restored; grid “fully secure”; <1% without power in NJ and NY
    Transportation:
    ▪ NJ: Transit rail operating on regular schedule with delays; Hudson-Bergen, Newark, River
    Line, operating on regular schedule
    ▪ NY: Metropolitan Transportation Authority restored subways and commuter rail service to
    the system with delays; bus service restored; detours cleared
    o Metro North – Hudson Line: Limited-service restoration of early next week
    o Amtrak suspending operations on Empire Corridor until further notice

  12. pecancorner says:

    You may not have enough boots, socks, and underwear. How’s the elastic on your shorts?

    Elastic – especially long-lasting non-rubber elastic – is an unsung modern miracle. I recall as a little kid, my socks slipping down the heal into my shoes so that by end of day, only the toes half of my feet had socks and the rest was wadded up inside my shoes. Did no good to pull them back up, because they immediately started back down again. That was in the days when men still used garters to hold up their dress socks. The Burlington commercials were funny, but their technology was genuinely revolutionary:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AyANHb6EaY

    Period clothing used attached strings to tie everything together and on, and drawstrings, and even the garters that held up sleeves and socks and hose were basically just embroidered ribbons that had to be tied.  That cordage the bushcrafters are so keen on making was not just for fishing line, but essential for holding everything together.

  13. Nick Flandrey says:

    Hurricane Larry is in the Atlantic and forecast to go up the east coast.

    There is a disturbance in the gulf working from Yucatan up TX coast toward the FL panhandle.  Radar shows precip and storminess… LA is gonna be wet too.

    So more weather impacts coming.

    n

  14. drwilliams says:

    Factoid on CBS this morning: U.S. union membership was 17.7 million in 1983 and is 14.3 million now.

    3 million are NEA members.

    If you add in AFT (1.6 million) and AFSCME (1.3 million), that’s 5.9 million, or three unions representing nearly half the total union members. BLS gives the split as 7.2 public sector and 7.1 private sector, so there’s another 1.3 million or so outside the Big 3.

    Looking at it another way, 4.6 out of 14.3 million is 32% of union members are teachers.

    https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/union2.pdf

    https://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2016/union-membership-in-the-united-states/pdf/union-membership-in-the-united-states.pdf

  15. Nick Flandrey says:

    “Anything to do with fabric, we do more of it than anyone in the world.” -Burlington Industries, c. 1967.

    Now while they exist, and went thru bankruptcy, they are focused on technical fabrics and apparel, selling to the .mil and service industries.    At least they still exist.

    n

     

  16. drwilliams says:

    “I come from a mixed race family. My mother is white and my father is dark white, so I have a very diverse ethnic background”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSh5voSUhrs

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  17. drwilliams says:

    Final round of the Fedex Cup today.

    Winner earns $15,000,000

    There can be only one.

  18. ~jim says:

    That was in the days when men still used garters to hold up their dress socks.

    Funny ad. I’m surprised I don’t remember it. What I want is an elastic doohickey to keep my shirts from untucking themselves.

    Does anyone know if the Smith in Smith-Corona typewriters was the same Smith as Smith & Wesson?

  19. SteveF says:

    ~jim, what you want is an adult-size onesie. Pull it on and button it like a nice shirt and then snap it at the bottom. No more coming untucked!

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  20. SteveF says:

    Smith & Wesson: Horace Smith

    Smith Corona: Hurlburt (not a typo!) Smith

  21. dkreck says:

    Tuck shirt tails in? Even when I wear dress shirts I rarely tuck them in. There was a time I always did but I guess I’m just old and lazy and have little desire to impress anyone.

    On the central California coast. Beautiful, 50-65. Shorts, t-shirts and slaps. A sweatshirt if it cools at night and maybe socks with my Vans. (btw I won’t buy anything with Nike on it, after 50 years of almost no other sport shoewear. Kaperdick and all that)

    Eating too much.

  22. ITGuy1998 says:

    Short range trip yesterday. Took the boy and we shot around 200 rounds of 9mm. He figured out he shoots the glock better left handed, since he is left eye dominant (he is right handed).

    He shot the PSA AR-15 for the first time, right handed, and was grouping just fine with it, with iron sights. We shot 50 rounds. Next on my list is a good red dot for the rifle.

    I also put 50 rounds through my Glock 42. I previously had jamming issues with it. I used a different mag, and didn’t have a single jam.

    Unfortunately, on the way home, the trunk popped open on a bump in the road and everything flew into the river. Such a shame…

  23. Nick Flandrey says:

    I hate when that happens.

    n

  24. Nick Flandrey says:

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/09/teen-charged-murder-gunning-70-year-old-grandmother-outside-deli-chicago-video/

    70-year-old Yvonne Ruzich was sitting in her car at 4:25 am on August 16 waiting for her boss to open the deli she worked at in the 13300 block of South Baltimore in Hegewisch when two ‘teens’ opened fire on her.

    Surveillance video shows Ruzich talking to her stepson in the car next to her when the gunmen approached her and began shooting at her.

    Ruzich drove off but lost control and hit a street sign.

    The gunmen ran over to her and shot her 5 more times.

    Police believe it was a botched carjacking.

    –this happened about 5 miles from where I grew up.

    n

  25. Nick Flandrey says:

    Huh, I thought drugs were illegal? The more things change the more they stay the same…

    Comedian Fuquan Johnson is among three dead from ‘cocaine-laced fentanyl overdose’ at party in LA: Model and comedian Kate Quiqley is in critical condition

    The stand-up comedian was found dead at a party in the Venice neighborhood of Los Angeles early Saturday morning
    A fourth person found unconscious at the party is believed to be comedian and model Kate Quigley
    Quigley was transported to a hospital in critical condition
    Police suspect the four victims ingested cocaine laced with fentanyl

    [music playing]
    […livin’ on reds, vitamin c, and cocaine. All a friend can say is “Ain’t it a shame.”]

    n

  26. Greg Norton says:

    Hurricane Larry is in the Atlantic and forecast to go up the east coast.

    Larry isn’t going anywhere near the US mainland, and the models on the mess in the Gulf are going everywhere from South Padre to Key West.

    The weather guys/girls must be bored.

  27. ~jim says:

    Tuck shirt tails in? Even when I wear dress shirts I rarely tuck them in.

    You probably wear white shoes after Labor Day, too…

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lnGHB-kI2ZM

  28. Nick Flandrey says:

    ‘It is very frustrating. We have been talking about gun violence for a long time, and we know that this issue is not unique to Washington DC, but I think it speaks to the overall sickness that we are seeing in our community.

    ‘Now, that sickness being gun violence.

    –can’t solve a flat tire by filling the gas tank, and you won’t stop gang bangers from shooting people until you identify that it’s the bangers killing people, not the ‘guns’.

    lock up or execute the ‘bangers, they won’t be shooting anyone.

    n

    (yeah, could be amish kids blowing off steam, but … DC.)

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  29. Alan says:

    Funny ad. I’m surprised I don’t remember it. What I want is an elastic doohickey to keep my shirts from untucking themselves.

    Try ‘longtail’ shirts:
    https://www.duluthtrading.com/mens-longtail-t-short-sleeve-shirt-with-pocket-95587.html

    Tuck shirt tails in? Even when I wear dress shirts I rarely tuck them in.

    Shirts made to be worn untucked:
    https://www.untuckit.com/

  30. Nick Flandrey says:

    I only buy shirts that I can wear untucked.

    If I tuck them in, I need to switch holsters.

    n

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  31. Nick Flandrey says:

    So much fail.

    Anna Rosado, the young man’s wife, called him a family man who left behind two young sons, who are ages 2 and 5.

    ‘He’s not a criminal, he’s not a cop shooter. That’s what the NYPD did to us, they broke our family. Now we have nothing,’ she said.

    ‘He didn’t deserve to die like that. He was 24 years old, his life had just begun. The truth is gonna come out, I promise.’

    –shot by cops because he was shooting into a crowd. Then DAD picks up the gun. Dad has no love of cops….

    t Rafael Rosado has been arrested nearly 60 times on charges including drug possession, assault and weapons possession, the Daily News reported.

    Rafael Rosado has five prior felony convictions, including one for dragging a cop who tried to pull him over in 2010 and another for driving his car into multiple police cars when cops tried to pull him over for speeding in 2013, prosecutors said.

    In the latter incident, five police officers were sent to the hospital and Rosado spent five years in prison, prosecutors said.

    –I’m sure it’s racism and the gun’s fault.

    n

  32. pecancorner says:

    Funny ad. I’m surprised I don’t remember it. What I want is an elastic doohickey to keep my shirts from untucking themselves.

    Apparently, in addition to the long tailed shirts Alan linked, there are a bunch of gadgets:

    6 Best Types Of Shirt Stays That Keep Shirts Tucked

  33. ~jim says:

    Apparently, in addition to the long tailed shirts Alan linked, there are a bunch of gadgets:

    Hmm, I might give that silicone/elastic tape a try. Thanks! A garter is going too far. I always wear 7 button Oxfords, don’t know why except they look good on me because I’m still pretty slim.

  34. Nick Flandrey says:

    Certain men’s dress slacks had a sort of soft sticky plastic in wavy lines along the back of the waistband to keep your shirts tucked.

    n

  35. MrAtoz says:

    I used the Y-Style garters every day at the PinHeadaGon. It is better to look good, than feel good. Fernando.

  36. drwilliams says:

    Edgar Flagg (Colonel Flagg’s father) always looked trim’n’tucked in his orthopedic shirts. That was back in the Fifties, and it seems they don’t make them any more.

  37. drwilliams says:

    Some of that removable adhesive spray (Post-It) would do the job, but you’d have to shave a band around the waistline or get a “Brooks Brothers Wax”.

  38. ~jim says:

    _Einstein’s Fridge _ turns out to be pretty good. I downloaded a sample and enjoyed the history and biographies as much as the science that I purchased the whole book. He presents the evolution of the idea in such a way that I found myself puzzling along with the scientists of the day despite knowing more than they did at the time.

    https://www.amazon.com/Einsteins-Fridge-Difference-Explains-Universe-ebook/dp/B08BZVJHH9/?tag=ttgnet-20

  39. Nick Flandrey says:

    I’d like to wash my Expy today, but it’s 105F in the sun. So hot in the shade that the black truck burns my hand. Working in my office instead.
    n

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  40. lynn says:

    ▪ Most areas expected to be restored by Sep 8; full restoration to heavily impacted areas by Sep 25

    One gets the feeling that they are overly optimistic about putting the high lines back up but I hope they are correct.

  41. Nick Flandrey says:

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9960063/Taliban-resume-flights-press-assault-final-holdout.html

    Taliban STOP six planes carrying American citizens and allies from leaving Afghanistan airport: Top Republican says passengers are being ‘held hostage for demands’

    –well that didn’t take long

    n

  42. lynn says:

    “Unsettled end to Labor Day weekend, as Gulf tropical mischief misses to our east this week”
    https://spacecityweather.com/unsettled-end-to-labor-day-weekend-as-gulf-tropical-mischief-misses-to-our-east-this-week/

    “The second item to note on that map is an actual cold front. Sadly, this isn’t going to be a classic autumn cold front, but this may be just enough to help lower humidity a little for the week ahead, particularly during the afternoon. Instead of nighttime lows in the mid to upper-70s, perhaps we’ll have a few mornings in the low to mid-70s this week. For those seeking that true pumpkin spice latte weather, this won’t be it, but it will be a start.”

    Cold front ? Cold front ? Be still my beating heart !

  43. Greg Norton says:

    “Unsettled end to Labor Day weekend, as Gulf tropical mischief misses to our east this week”

    Not too far east. Brady opens the NFL season Thursday night in Tampa, and Dallas is facing a rough night protecting Dak Prescott.

    Storms know.

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  44. lynn says:

    “Israel is planning to administer FOURTH Covid shot which could be adjusted to fight new variants as country battles wave of infections despite hugely successful vaccine roll-out”
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9959811/Israel-planning-administer-FOURTH-Covid-vaccine-adjusted-fight-new-variants.html

    Coming to an injection site near you.

    BTW, interesting graph on the effectiveness of the booster jab to to slow down the infections.

  45. lynn says:

    Typical Labor Day weekend here in Fort Bend County, 101 F on Sunday.

  46. Greg Norton says:

    BTW, interesting graph on the effectiveness of the booster jab to to slow down the infections. 

    If you accept the “projected hospitalizations” as being accurate. Seems like a wild guess to me.

    We have yet to see the ugly of mandatory vaccinations being imposed by employers here in the US. The HR and C-suites are here on the Texas coast and in Florida on vacation through tomorrow. Emails will go out Tuesday, meetings with employees to follow.

    Things will get real unpleasant if the population is required to roll up their sleeve for boosters every six months to remain on the job. Whether or not you believe the stories about the number of people dying from the vaccines being suppressed are valid, many of the injected have a negative reaction of some form, albeit mild from most accounts.

    I’ve honestly yet to decide what I will do if the “all hands” meeting at the new job on Thursday is about the jab being required to stay on the payroll. Being 100% remote and somewhat underutilized in the face of signed customers being zero for the product already makes me nervous.

    Jab now, layoff next month? I doubt I’m alone with regard to uncertainty in the situation

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  47. Nick Flandrey says:

    Jab now, layoff next month?

    –in a perverse universe that seems likely.

    Could be they move you to a different project. Could be the all hands is good news about signed customers. Or bad news about a deal that fell thru. Or the end of the company completely….

    Don’t borrow trouble. That’s what we tell the kids. We also tell them to prepare, so doing the normal ‘times are gonna get tougher’ things might make sense.

    n

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  48. SteveF says:

    Jab now, layoff next month?

    That would be a reasonable question to ask. If you get the clot shot at their insistence, will they guarantee to keep you employed for at least a year? Will they guarantee to cover all of your medical expenses and pay your full salary if you are unable to work because of the clot shot?

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  49. Nick Flandrey says:

    Well, got my new UPS in place. Moved the pcs to it, and finally put the Terastation RAID I bought in the hope of using it to recover my failed terastation RAID on the network. Since it was a empty disk, from a corporate environment, I didn’t even look to undelete anything… and I decided to back up my videos folder (~600 movies) to it as long as it was connected. Moving 450Gb to a 700Gb drive. Supposed to take a while.

    Once I get it copied, I’ll put my personal NAS back on the network and do it all over again. I really didn’t want a RAID to even have the chance of the power going up and down and up and down…

    n

  50. Greg Norton says:

    That would be a reasonable question to ask. If you get the clot shot at their insistence, will they guarantee to keep you employed for at least a year? Will they guarantee to cover all of your medical expenses and pay your full salary if you are unable to work because of the clot shot? 

    Unless the situation has changed — always a possibility — illness from a mandatory jab was already deemed to be “reportable” by OSHA and subject to workman’s comp coverage.

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  51. Greg Norton says:

    Jab now, layoff next month?”

    –in a perverse universe that seems likely.

    The last 18 months doesn’t have you convinced we live in a perverse universe?

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  52. Nightraker says:

    Robot choreography, Spot’s On It:

    https://youtu.be/7atZfX85nd4

  53. lpdbw says:

    @Greg:

    Unless the situation has changed — always a possibility — illness from a mandatory jab was already deemed to be “reportable” by OSHA and subject to workman’s comp coverage.

    https://www.theburningplatform.com/2021/08/26/osha-tells-employers-do-not-report-vaccine-injuries/

    It changed.

    By the way, I gave up using the CDC Excess deaths database page.  After a year of looking at the data every week, I’ve finally noticed them retroactively changing the datasets.  They’ve changed the shape of some of the charts for older data.

    Lying liars who lie.    All of .gov.

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  54. drwilliams says:

    @Greg Norton

    “Unless the situation has changed — always a possibility — illness from a mandatory jab was already deemed to be “reportable” by OSHA and subject to workman’s comp coverage.”

    there is ample documented evidence that:

    1 Reactions to Wuhan flu vaccination are common, resulting in sick days for many

    2 Vaccination is inferior to natural immunity

    3 Vaccination may provide some additional benefit in addition to natural immunity, but the magnitude of that benefit is not clear and there is no data on persistence

    4 People who have had Wuhan flu react more severely to vaccination, getting sicker and spending more time off

    5 The percentage of the unvaccinated population showing antibodies is higher than expected, indicating that significantly more of the population have had the Wuhan

    If I were in a position where I might be required by an employer to be vaccinated against my wishes, my first move would be to get an antibody test, whether I had a previous positive Wuhan PCR test or not.

    If testing showed antibodies, I would find an attorney and discuss my case and my willingness to be part of a class action. I would anticipate that the first step would be a letter recapping 1-4 above and stating that there was therefore no legal basis for requiring vaccination.

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  55. drwilliams says:

    @ lpdbw

    OSHA “does not wish” and “will not enforce”.

    Sounds like they just wrapped the veil of qualified immunity around their necks and dared anyone to pull hard.

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  56. drwilliams says:

    “We need to stop this medical catastrophe and face the truth: this isn’t about our health; it is about politics and it is about control.”
    –Dr. Denis Rancourt of the Ontario Civil Liberties Association

    https://pjmedia.com/columns/david-solway-2/2021/09/05/vaccine-apartheid-a-wake-up-call-to-the-slumbering-public-n1476130

    The above is from the “Letter to the Vaccinated” as quoted in the link. The entire letter and its predecessor should both be read in their entirety.

    The irony of “My body, my choice” for the pro-abortion crowd, which are largely the same demographic supporting forced vaccination, is again noted.

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  57. Nick Flandrey says:

    Pulled the dell I’m using as an NVR out of the rack to put in additional fans. It was running really hot, and the fan was running at turbo blast speed. I figured I’d just add one to a blank spot, like most cases.

    Nope. Cheap costco version, no extra fan locations. No punched opening for bigger fans. No room to mcgiver one in either.

    Blew dust and crud out of the fans, and the cpu heatsink, and turned the only fan around so it blows outside cool air across the cpu fan and the cpu. It’s running really quiet right now, can’t even hear it. All the cores are basically running flat out. Memory usage is low, about 1/4 of installed 16Gb.

    Ok, fan just went up a notch. It buzzes a bit, which I couldn’t hear before. Might have to do something about that. The only case fan is 40cfm. I should have something higher capacity in a box somewhere….

    n

  58. lynn says:

    5 The percentage of the unvaccinated population showing antibodies is higher than expected, indicating that significantly more of the population have had the Wuhan

    I took the antibody test at Kroger in December after supposedly having covid last February. I did not have the antibodies. But the Kroger pharmacist told me that the antibody test that they used only worked for six months after having covid. I took the antibody test ten months so, who knows ?

  59. lynn says:

    The wife and I watched “The Courier” on Amazon Prime tonight. Totally awesome movie. Highly recommended.
    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8368512/
    and
    https://www.amazon.com/Courier-Benedict-Cumberbatch/dp/B0916PSH18?tag=ttgnet-20

  60. Nick Flandrey says:

    The home test is antigen test. They come in 2 packs.

    n

  61. Alan says:

    I’d like to wash my Expy today, but it’s 105F in the sun. So hot in the shade that the black truck burns my hand. Working in my office instead.

    Isn’t running it through an automatic car wash a better use of your time?

    I used to wash our cars myself but now it feels like a chore and there’s a nice car wash two minutes from our house.

  62. nick flandrey says:

    Isn’t running it through an automatic car wash a better use of your time?

    –$12 and doesn’t get the grey silty dust off the black paint.  Plus roof rack and antennas = bad results.

    I normally wash vehicles only about 4 times a year, but the Expy is nice, and black, so I want it to look good, and it looks bad quite quickly.   With a long handled brush, it only takes a half hour, but it is a half hour I haven’t had.  Car wash takes the same time, if you are honest and add in going and coming.

    When I do it, I usually do mine and the wife’s at once.

    One thing white paint has going for it, doesn’t show scratches in the clear coat like black does.

    n

  63. JimB says:

    Here in the desert, we dust cars more than we wash them. I have one car I have owned for over five years, and I have not washed it yet. I do damp mop it, and have waxed it a few times. It has been rained on, but I haven’t driven it on wet streets since I have owned it. It is a 1994, and has no rust anywhere. Looks like a new car. I have a 1997 car that has a reputation for rust, but it has lived its whole life in the desert where plastic rot is more common. It spent most of its life outdoors, and still looks good, but it takes work. It is ready for retirement.

    I started life in the rust belt. Just before moving to the desert, I lived in Ft Lauderdale. Didn’t like either, and both were very hard on cars. Rust holes were common. When I look at a used car, I always look underneath, and if there is any sign of operation in harsh environments, I pass. There was one exception. I bought a well worn PU that was right for me, and I owned it for 28 years. I didn’t have garage space for it, so it sat outside. It had a little surface rust when I bought it, but that stopped here in the desert. A friend now owns it. It needs to be painted, but I didn’t paint it, and he will not. It has a nice “patina,” but not as much as a rat rod.

    I have never run a car through an automatic car wash. I have used the ones where I operate a spray wand, but it has been decades. I sometimes wash the underside of a car if it gets dirty on our dirt roads, but I am retired and am usually able to stay home until the roads dry out. I actually enjoy menial tasks such as cleaning a car. It is simple, and the results are always satisfying. Some other jobs are less certain.

    I hate dark and very light paint. Dark is obvious, but light eventually gets dingy stains on the lower parts. The easiest colors to maintain are light browns, tans, and golds, followed by light blues and greens. They are hard to find. When I lived in the Midwest, I had an emerald green car with a white vinyl top, and a white interior with black carpet. The carpet was the easiest to maintain, but the green looked dusty after about one minute. Keeping the seats clean was impossible. Cured me. Sure was beautiful, though. Owned it for 10 months, and drove it 20k miles, probably a record for me. Short love affair.

  64. Greg Norton says:

    Here in the desert, we dust cars more than we wash them. I have one car I have owned for over five years, and I have not washed it yet. I do damp mop it, and have waxed it a few times. It has been rained on, but I haven’t driven it on wet streets since I have owned it. It is a 1994, and has no rust anywhere. Looks like a new car.

    Around the mid-90s, the companies got their acts together with regard to rust proofing, especially the Japanese.

    Unfortunately, some manufacturers have backslid a bit in the last decade to cut costs, but the jury is still out about the long term implications of what the companies claim is “surface” rust.

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  65. Greg Norton says:

    BTW, new record witnessed last night at dinner — 22 seated at a massive, hastily-assembled table dominating the inside floor space of the restaurant.

    One of the demographics making the delta variant “out of control”, most likely tourism from points south. Lots of hugging and kissing when everyone got up to leave, and no English.

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