Warm and wet. Possibly sunny. Probably not for the whole day. Friday we got rain on and off most of the day. Over an inch at my house, other parts of Houston got a whole lot more. The bayous were well up from their normal levels.
Did one pickup yesterday, mostly household items and some additional defensive gear. One well broken in pair of combat boots will be going into my truck with a heavy pair of socks. I often wear lightweight shoes or even sandals (granted that they are Teva brand and very sturdy and I’ve walked hundreds of miles in them over the years). However, if I had to walk a long way or over rough terrain, I’d prefer to do it in boots. Finally found a pair cheap enough, and sturdy enough, and slightly big, that I can just leave in the truck.
I unloaded and moved some stuff around at my secondary location. After my pickups today, I’ll be headed there to set up a couple more lots for my industrial auction.
Turns out, I’ve got less than a week before going out of town for a few days. Yup, making progress on my ebay and cleanup, so of course we’re going on vacation. WDW here I come. As much as it bugs me to keep interrupting my progress on other things, I do love the place and I love being there with the kids. Everything has a sort of “last run” feel to it right now too, so there is that consideration. Mom and one sibling will be joining us, and we’re staying in a resort I’ve never stayed at before. I’ll have a good time, but there are always tradeoffs.
It is interesting to see some other bloggers FINALLY getting it, and starting to seriously prep for bad times. Also a bit dumbfounding, as I’ve been doing it for so long now (even though I started fairly late) that it’s second nature and I thought the reasons were pretty self-evident. Well, better late than never, and there is still time. No one knows how much time, but using Venezuela as a model it could be another year or two. Or something could kick off tomorrow. If it did, it’s unlikely that things would be very bad for some time even then. Unless it’s something like 2008 only 3x as bad, or 9-11 only with a container nuke in a port city.
Even when China moves on Taiwan, I think it will have immediate negative impacts on us but we’ll dither… and there will be time for a ‘last run’ or two. We’ll probably even let them have it in a short sighted attempt to keep the chips flowing and the entire world economy from crashing. Then it will be up to China how fast they crack down, or start the extortion, and manage to kill the golden goose. And it WILL all crash down anyway, because China will be as heavy handed and brutal as always.
I’m not so worried about Russia in Ukraine, or Estonia, they don’t make the underpinnings of the entire world economy. Russia will move, we’ll let them, our oligarchs will maneuver to profit from it, and that will be that for us. It will suck for whoever the Russians move against, but it won’t make much difference to us. Taiwan on the other hand does make a difference. Since we’ve put chips into almost literally everything (my toaster brags that it is ‘microprocessor controlled’ on the front panel) we need to keep getting chips. No matter what China tries to do, there will be disruptions in the just in time flow of chips, and we’ve already seen some of the effects of disruptions in the chain… When NOBODY can get the chips they need, it WILL fall apart.
And that will be very ugly.
These are the Crazy Years. We celebrate madness, literal madness, when we celebrate the mental illness of trans people. We revel in debauchery that would have made the Romans blush as part of our public ‘culture’. We become more partisan, more divided as a people with every passing day. Our ‘leaders’ have become our rulers and the power relationship enshrined in our founding- that THEY work for US, that THEY are our SERVANTS- has been inverted. The barbarians aren’t at the gates anymore, they’re being bused and flown to cities well inside the empire. The gates have been flung open, and the flooding continues.
Most of us just want to be left alone to live our lives as we see fit, with as little contact with, and interference from our government as possible. I don’t think that is going to happen. They can’t let it happen, because as long as someone could point to us and say “well they’re doing ok without you” the whole lie falls apart. We must be brought into the fold, we must be forced to repent, and we must be punished for our sins.
Keeping our heads down and our profiles low might work. For some people, maybe most people, there will be an accommodation arrived at. But for some, it’s going to be violent, and destructive. People have argued that all we do when we bomb foreigners is create more people that hate us, and create the next generation of terrorists. WTF do those same people think will happen here to the children of THEIR political prisoners, or the people who will be killed by the state when this kicks off? What happened to the people who remember Waco, Ruby Ridge, Ashli Babbitt, LaVoy Finicum, and others killed by the state already?
Bad things. Bad times. Coming like a freight train. I keep asking for a reality check, asking if anyone sees a way to avoid it, and I keep getting no answer. It’s coming. People are gearing up in every sense of the word, and in every conceivable way. You can feel it. You can see it in their actions.
Stack it now, or wish you had later.
nick
Sure. Be your own doctor. You don’t need all of that training. Heck, just ask the Internet. Or people here. They don’t need medical training either.
If you are going to horse around with Ivermectin, talk to a trained medical professional.
WDW here I come
You saw the footage from yesterday’s 50th anniversary opening?
Be careful. Florida’s numbers are way down, but the parks are a FOMO/fetish thing for a lot of people.
Plus the resellers are out in force to get merch for EBay.
Seriously, folks, popcorn buckets?
Nitecore has 21700, 18650 and other rechargeables with a built in USB port and circuitry. You can plug them in to any wall wart and charge away. I’ve tested them all and bigger chargers on my two solar *generators* with no problem.
I’ve mentioned I’ve charged my eGo big battery for the mower off the Jackery generator. During the Apocalypse, while my neighbors are fending off Zombies, I’ll be mowing my lawn no problems. LOL!
If you are going to horse around with Ivermectin, talk to a trained medical professional.
Of course. Of course.
@Nick
With regard to eBay and selling in general, a few thoughts:
1 prioritize listing the fashionable and the collectible, as neither has much worth after the shtf
2 reduce volume–sell the bulky items
3 save the small items that are a store of value for later
4 sell prepper dups you don’t need as primary and backup, if you can get something you don’t have
5 better to turn it fast than sit on it to maximize profits
6 you have to list it to sell it (repeating recent discussion)
I numbered the list not as piority, but to facilitate additions. I’d like to hear the thoughts of others.
Tinfoil hat or not:
CDC allows hospitals to classify dead vaxxed people as “unvaccinated”
Personal data point: I’ve met no one who later died of COVID. I know people who have said “my XXX died of COVID” but I never met the deceased. I don’t know what my data point means. Maybe I’m a hermit?
I numbered the list not as piority, but to facilitate additions. I’d like to hear the thoughts of others.
Don’t post anything you suspect will come back from a picky buyer. A lot of sellers seem to be using EBay as a kind of pawn shop as of late since the purchase-return cycle can take several weeks
Looking at my purchase history over the last year, I have more returns than things I’ve kept.
If I sell something, it stays sold.
Dam log in.
82F and humid, part sun.
<em>
Don’t post anything you suspect will come back from a picky buyer.</em>
–they’re all picky buyers and scammers. That’s why I’m sending so many bins to local auction. I should just send it all, but some just won’t bring the money I need locally.
n
@rick, don’t know if its anything you can or should do as I’m likely the only one affected, but if my log in ends, the dashboard menu bar doesn’t disappear. I only know the login expired when my comment gets bounced for no name or email. And the comment form doesn’t have boxes for those if you are logged in. Some part of the page builder thinks I’m still logged in and hides the cred boxes, but when I submit it fails because I’m not logged in and haven’t added the name/email…
Freaking godaddy. My business website and email are on godaddy.
THey changed their email from webmail to MS office 365 and gave a free two month trial. Which I just got a notice expires in 2 days, one of them being Sunday, the other being today. Thanks for the heads up jack@sses.
I’m confused by the whole thing. I want to get all my stored and sent mail, basically grab my whole email history from them and store it locally, but I don’t know what to do. I’ve got office and outlook installed locally.
Email has always been a bit of a mystery to me, as some lives there, some lives here, some gets forwarded, etc.
How the hell can they expect to force everyone onto paid 365? I already pay them for a mailbox.
n
addded- ok , I started outlook and gave it the log in and it found the account and self configured for an exchange server. It SAYS it’s creating a local copy of my mailbox. THe progress bar shows a couple hundred MB transferring so it is doing something.
Looks like I’ll have everything even if I don’t know how to get new mail after Monday. I hate change to infrequently used systems more than frequently used ones. There is far less incentive for me to learn the new mess on stuff I don’t use much.
How the hell can they expect to force everyone onto paid 365? I already pay them for a mailbox.
They’re Go Daddy. Sex sells.
Providing email in house involves a set of legal restrictions that the management probably decided weren’t worth whatever small amount of money they made from the paid service, starting with an ISP cannot search employee emails without a warrant.
IBM unloaded the Global Network ISP to AT&T for that reason. It is much easier to fire people for “policy violations” when you can monitor the email and web traffic without restrictions.
Microsoft has gained market share over Google with Teams and Office 365 on the basis that customers own the data and can mine it for information as they see fit.
There are alternatives to GoDaddy … for now.
I’ve used Domain Monger going back to the 90s.
Wow, the big national auction platform most of my auction sellers are on has been down for two days now. Even sold items can’t be picked up because the local sellers don’t have access to payment status or invoices to pull the orders. I’m guessing ransomware at this point…
n
Too bad we can’t just send a package to Moscow:
Oh! Sorry! Customer ordered BASF Neutral Beige, 1-qt, but the ransomware scrambled the order and they got USAF Neutron Bomb, 1-kt instead.
Well, it is ransomware-
THis seller is moving this auction to another platform. The seller specializes in high end stuff, watches, jewelry, exotic cars, etc and so does the new platform. It wouldn’t be appropriate for most of my sellers…
n
Interesting about the phones and email.
AoS has a sub-head today titled:
Sophisticated Science-Fiction TV Show Cafe
—Ace
with a bunch of links to sf tv show intros and such.
Fun to guess from the description.
Reached my limit quickly–cheesy special effect age like used diapers.
Another lefty media outfit folds.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10051061/Ozy-Media-shuts-leaving-investors-70M.html
–when an insider says something like the bold above, it’s WAY past time to bail….
n
‘This guy is the biggest shyster I have ever seen in my life.’– Sharon Osbourne
He passes the cracked versions to a guy in Czechoslovakia who puts it up on a web server. They then have a mailing list that they share the URL at. I will see 20 to 30 new users in the next 48 hours. I reckon that they have cost me a half million dollars over the years as my international sales have dropped in half since then.
@Lynn: I know it would be a massive effort, but still I wonder: If the software were running on *your* servers (in the cloud), and customers only saw the interface via remote-desktop, they couldn’t crack the software (as easily).
Definitely a massive effort, many weeks if not many months. An effort that does not forward the software for my demanding clients. And an expense to allocate a server for each test driver.
@nick
I hosted our personal email on a server under my desk in the early 2000’s.
I switched to GoDaddy because it was easy, and because Merak IceWarp raised their licensing. A lot.
I hate hate hate O365 on GoDaddy. I’m seriously considering going thru the hassle of bringing all our email and hosting back to a server under my desk. Maybe something Linux based. I don’t have the chops for that so better up my skills.
I really don’t have the time to do it but I’m pretty annoyed.
A high level of annoyance is motivating.
On the local front – picking crab apples like mad. They are sweet and sour and crunchy and delicious. The trees are probably 50 years old. The bulk of the apples are difficult to reach even with a 10’ ladder. I need to make a tool on a stick to get the rest of them. And consult with an arborist on how to prune the trees to bring the delectable apples to lower limbs.
Still (still!) constructing the rabbitry at new house. It’s ridiculous and frustrating and I can’t articulate why. I think my brain and motivation are simply utterly depleted from the stress and battles over the last umpteen months.
Home inspection on the old place produced a list of 21 items, only 6 of which were health/life/safety. One of the HLS was inevitable – 1969 house, yeah, egress windows in bedrooms don’t comply with modern standards. Break and rake.
The other five HLS are minor, 3 are to install GFCIs, another for a non-existent water leak, and the last which I take seriously – adjust the hinges on the man door (fire door) to the garage so it shuts completely without intervention.
The rest of the stuff on the list is either trivial to do (so we will), or so stupid we are saying no (fix the microwave light? Um no. Investigate why the 25 year old garage door opener rattles? Um, no.)
Anchorage Assembly continues their tyrannical behavior. We’ve had three nights of testimony against another illegal mask mandate and aren’t done yet. The fully vaccinated sponsors of the ordinance have defiantly and tearfully declared they won’t show up in person until we are muzzled and the chambers are limited to a few dozen people (200 have been packed in lately). Heavy attendance by police to keep the peasants in place. Hours of wrangling over parliamentary procedure. Multiple arrests and hauling people out. Apparently the Assembly have never read the fiction of Mr. Ross.
All over something that’s not in their purview.
Three other ordinances on this agenda aim to neuter the Mayor. I am pushing people to continue showing up and testify against those as well. One of these will allow the hostile Assembly chair to shuffle the Mayor and staff completely off the dias and bullet proof partition (if the Assembly needs a bullet proof partition they’re exceeding their authority), reduce the capacity of the chambers to suit their purposes, and force the Mayors hand on executive appointments.
I write of these things not because I think any of you have an interest in our local poo storm, but because this behavior and story is certainly repeated across our beautiful country. Are you paying attention to your local politics and citizen behavior?
I miss America land of the brave, home of the free.
Over The Hedge: Traveling at 67,000 mph
https://www.gocomics.com/overthehedge/2021/10/02
Gonna need more than a seat belt if it all stops suddenly.
So, starting yesterday I’ve been experiencing “Site can’t be reached / ERR_TiMED_OUT” errors for some random sites (including ttgnet.com and wikipedia.org). Other sites continue to perform normally (e.g. google.com and amazon dot com).
Have tried the usual remedies including:
1. Update Chrome (v94.0.4606.71)
2. Clear Chrome cache and cookies
3. Change DNS (tried both Google and Open DNS)
4. Stop/start wireless connection
5. Restart modem/router (Cox Cable)
6. ipconfig /flushdns, /registerdns, /release, /renew
7. netsh winsock reset
8. Anti-virus scan (Eset)
9. Malware scan (Malwarebytes)
10. Reboot the PC (Lenovo laptop running Win 7)
What am I missing?
Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
I write of these things not because I think any of you have an interest in our local poo storm, but because this behavior and story is certainly repeated across our beautiful country. Are you paying attention to your local politics and citizen behavior?
Oh, sure. It is everywhere.
Austin PD was implicitly enforcing a non-existent mask mandate at Sam’s just within the last couple of weeks. Cruiser parked, lights on, sitting at the entrance of the store all afternoon.
Everyone inside was masked of course. Big smile!
I’ve never run an email server at home. You are braver than I am.
I run a home server for torrent, file and print services on Fedora Linux, but, lately, the print service part isn’t working, probably Samba related since the printer works fine for things sent directly from the machine.
@alan, it might not be you. Cloudflare is having issues, and they handle traffic for a huge part of the interwebs, akami or whoever might be having issue too.
I used to look at Internet Weather Report https://www.internetweathermap.com/
and there were a couple of other sites I can’t remember now that showed outages and problems.
Jenny, please keep sharing. The power grab continues and grows.
n
Prepper fail?
Daughter 1 has an assignment to make an indian bow for class. She picked up a stick and asked for some twine.
I’m like, No, I’ll get some reference material so you can at least not half ass it…
Well, spank my bottom and call me a weasel. 10 survival manuals, including 6 versions of boy scout books from pre-1960, and the .mil one, and a few books on indian crafts for kids from the 50s and 60s, and NOT ONE instance of “how to make a bow and arrows.”
Even the Foxfire series only has a toy bow, and no instructions.
I was VERY CONFIDENT that one of the craft books for kids would have SOMETHING. Ben Hunt was a madman for indian crafts… Nope.
Tells you something about the difficulty and value of a bow in a survival situation that not one manual suggests it. They have bow and drill fire starting, but not as a weapon.
Still, first book I see about bow and arrow making, I’m grabbing that even if I have to pay up.
n
I despise VOIP, and usually hang up on people who call us from such systems. If a real person cannot reply after I say “hello” twice, they don’t deserve our attention and we hang up. Nearly hung up on our Dr a couple weeks ago. I told him to call us from the phone from now on and not their telemed system, and to have the phone in his hand when he dials.
The delay in delivery of sound in VOIP from when one party says something to when the other hears it is ridiculous. Young people who’ve never used land lines have no idea how much quality has been lost.
@ Alan
Had the same sort of thing happen to me a couple months ago. Switch browsers and the problem went away. Original browser was ok a week or so later.
@Jenny
It is interesting, and yes, symptomatic of progressives out of control all over.
Surprise !!
Should have mentioned that I can access the same sites on Chrome on my phone via the same wifi.
Let me try my wife’s PC, she will almost certainly have an older version of Chrome.
OMG it's so BRIGHT.
and on FFOX 92 all the stuff that should be in the blank area on the right, got flowed to after all the comments.. and is showing full page width…. as soon as I zoom past 140%. I was previously able to see it all at 150%. At 140 the text is still too small for me, especially the tiny tiny text in the edit window….
n
n
If a real person cannot reply after I say ‘hello’ twice, they don’t deserve our attention and we hang up
I have gotten to the point that I no longer say anything when answering such calls. Unless the person’s name shows specifically I let the caller speak first. If they don’t say anything within 15 seconds I hang up. If they don’t like it blame the robocallers.
Yay! My login credentials are just there. Good job, Mr. Rick!
Surprise !!
Hmm…
1. Can we still compose in “text” mode?
2. Can’t seem to insert a blockquote tag.
3. Positioning scroll on my phone leaves the left margin off the screen.
4.Hard to read the Previous / Next Post link text with the green background.
5. Could use some white space between the rows of the tag buttons at the top of the RTE.
But…
Name and Email are retained YAY!
As always Rick, thanks for all your hard work.
Looks nice Rick. Could use less margin on the left side. And… I have my browser sized at 1068×1158 so I can have T-Bird open one side of the screen and FF on the other…. for now /all/ of the right column links are at the bottom of the page. Changing font size has no effect on layout. Only window width.
The fields for name and address are filled correctly.
@Ray, Google Call Screening FTW.
Thanks, Rick!
ADDED: Oh, Shiny! It saves my login!
@Rick…
a. Text after save my name checkbox should have "website" removed.
b. Message "Your email address will not be published" is missing.
c. Not sure if it's just me but on my android phone I'm having a problem with text selection. Tapping the screen shows the two green pins as normal but trying to move the 'trailing' pin causes it to jump to the bottom of the entire page with all the text selected.
I love the new look, Rick. Very attractive, I like the brightness, it looks so clean and welcoming. Nice header, too.
Found the Recent Comments at bottom – that's ok, I can just go there to find where I left off.
And my name and email are pre-filled. Very nice.
Oh and even better: when I click on one of the Recent Comments to read from there, when I come back that link is still red! Perfect! I can keep my place now.
internal server error
Marketing people are scum.
Yahoo hooks up with NordVPN. They can't just say: "$4.99/mo. Try it free for the first 30 days." Oh, no. Click on "Start your free trial", get another puff page, click on the next one, repeat, finally get to the cost.
ATT upgrades to iPhone 13. Only $10 a month with qualifying trade-in." What's a qualifying trade-in? The phone you bought last month for $1000.
I'm going to buy a gas station and advertise gas for $0.10* a gallon.
*with qualifying diesel fuel trade-in.
Or how about: “Fill your tank for $5*”
*weed whackers only, up to 30 ounces
something wrong with the "recent comments" section. When I reload the page, Dr Williams comment is at the top, but clicking on it takes me to the current POST. THEN the page has a 'recent comments' section that DOESN"T have DrWill's link, but mine, which works correctly.
Subtle, I'm sure.
n
My test comment had blockquote used and I added and then deleted blockquote several times. Maybe the 500s are coming from something the blockquote dohicky does.
n
If you are going to horse around with Ivermectin, talk to a trained medical professional.
Of course. Of course.
— unless your name is Mr Ed….
n
@drwilliams:
While I agree 100% with this sentiment, I should enter a caveat: If you run an adblocker, they may be trying to show you extra ads on the interstitial page, because they haven't clocked the existence of adblockers.
I use Brave, which allegedly blocks most ads out-of-the-box, and (redundantly, if so) Ublock Origin. As a result, I can legitimately say, "What are these ads, of which you speak?" And such patterns irritate me, too.
G.
@drwilliams:
They want me to trade an unlocked handset for one that is (almost certainly) network-locked? I should coco. My last (probably 5 or 6) handsets have been bought not from a carrier, but on the open market – Big River, in fact. OK, I have to pay a lump sum up front, but there's no hassle with e.g. travelling to another country and buying a local SIM while there.
You wouldn't believe (on second thought, maybe you would believe) the hassle I had to go through to get my last carrier-provided handset unlocked. Maybe I'll tell the story sometime.
G.
I'll second that on my phone. There's a vertical line on the left margin, too. And the text inside the compose box is awfully small.
Joe Bob Briggs Halloween hoedown is October 8th at 9 p.m. EST. It's streaming on Shudder. Want to hear some UN-PC jokes?
Joe Bob jokes
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CN8JQmqFhbQ
P. S. — I'm having a bit of trouble highlighting text for inserting a hyperlink, too. I just get a copy and paste dialogue and can't select full text
@jim:
Seeing your comment reminded me that I should have replied to your comment of 24th July about pronunciations.
With the caveat that this is just my opinion, it should be –
your-eye-nal
3 syllables, with the emphasis on the second.
G.
Joe Bob:
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One of them says: "Does this taste funny to you?"
I cleared the fridge out a week or so ago. The black bean chili paste was def past its date. Looked fine. Smelled funny. Didn't taste. I might look stupid.
I had a jar of dill pickle spears. It took a while to open the jar. Where the heck did the rubbery lid griper thing go? It's been in the fridge for a few years and Best By date was 10 years ago. Never opened. Flavor was ok, pickles not at all crisp. Why did I never open it? The burger cook-out I bought them for never happened. I forget why. Plenty of room in the door of the fridge and there it stayed. Anyway, if I want some dill pickle I just stab a fork into the jar of hamburger slices instead of eating half a spear and tossing the rest out into the grass.
I have my browser fonts set to 18. Firefox whatever. Win7 with fonts at the default…. changing that screws up icon spacing. To read the text in this comment box, I have to zoom the page to 120%. Still, the new design is pretty darn nice.
And such patterns irritate me, too.
–likely hold over from old school design that counts "page views" and "click thru rates". I see a bit of that still, where something is broken up solely to increase click count or page views.
This text entry field is still not a text entry field to FFox. You can't right click and paste until AFTER you've already entered text. Right click on an empty field gives you the web page selections, not text tool selections, and it does something funny and un-necessary overwriting the right click menu with it's own "context sensitive" menu. IE it only offers paste if you have something on the clipboard, and only offers the copy or cut choices when you have something highlighted. Needless complications.
BUT CRUCIALLY, FFox doesn't recognise it as a text field so misspelling doesnanst get highlightered…. That is a deal breaker for me.
I HATE when sites override the standard right click menu.
n
Everybody is asking why The Kamel is in Kalifornia. For a day (wonder how much that cost). Especially during the fall of the plugs $ trillion boondoggle. No answer from the White House. The most transparent administration evah.
Start uBlock for this site. Turn off javascript. Theiss is snttill nott a texxt fiedl. No spellcheck,m no right click menu at all except the normal "page" menu, back forward, reload, set page as, etc…..
n
"Y: The Last Man" series on FX and Hulu
https://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/y-the-last-man
Every male creature on the planet with a Y chromosome suddenly dies one day. Except for two, a man and his monkey that he rescued from a lipstick laboratory.
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
FF tells me I have to ctrl-v to paste. No spell check either.
Phew…. I didn't think I have had /that/ many beers.
submit button was gone for a while!
n
so I coulnd't commentt theisiis…..
And suddenly uBlock says it blocked 46 items on this page, 2 of 3 domains, when it used to report 0 blocked for the site.
log says vip1.g5. cachefly. net ? called by the cdn. ckeditor .com? (spaces added)
n
ah, suddenly I get text tools! and misspelling highlighting and all the buttons are gone!!
work in progress I guess, keep the hamster wheel spinning
I forgot to say above…. I did a dose of Ivermectin. 1.5 ml based on weight. No weird feeling, no bad tasting burps.
Directions say "once a month as a preventive, every other day when sick". I can have this all garbled up too.
I've slept like a rock the last two nights and my usual morning soaking of paper towels with snot was down to one select-a-size sheet of Scott this morning.
The whatever I picked up doing the inner tube floating down the river thing in San Marcos (or wherever) that is an itchy spot on my leg is itching like crazy today. I thought it was gone. All the athletes foot goo and jock itch stuff and some prescribed anti-fungal my Mom had have done nothing but move it from my shin to the outside of my calf. Oh, and it also moved to the toe nails on that leg. Double layer nails…. None of this on other leg. I started spraying it all with store brand Lysol a few months ago after a shower. That works and my toe nails look almost normal.
I woke up this morning and I have a finger sized scaly patch on my leg that itches like mad.
Looks like the Ivermectin is doing something. Another dose is happening. And growing up in the RGV, and swimming in the irrigation canals that are supplied from the Rio Grand River, no telling what I've been carrying for all these years.
I mean, canal is nice fresh water one day and two days later it's full of dead rats. Shrug.
Hmm…
1. Can we still compose in “text” mode?
2. Can’t seem to insert a blockquote tag.
3. Positioning scroll on my phone leaves the left margin off the screen.
4.Hard to read the Previous / Next Post link text with the green background.
5. Could use some white space between the rows of the tag buttons at the top of the RTE.
Actually, the buttons above the RTE box should not be there – leftover plugin, now disabled. All formatting done with the buttons *in* the box. In most cases, highlight text, hit the button.
No manual tag entry. Use the buttons. No 'text' mode at this time.
The RTE used for comments is the CKEditor Rich Text Editor. All input handled there. There are some add-ins I might add – like a spell checker for you unwashed people.
There is a button up there to turn on spell check (the 'abc-checkmark' thing on the top row, button 8).
I can right-click inside the CKEditor comment box, and see the Paste choice. Ctrl+V works too. Plus there are three paste buttons, so you can paste in different ways (buttons 3-4-5).
Text inside the CKEditor box might be a bit small, though. Will probably change that.
Working on a way to globally increase/decrease fonts, but will have to also make it 'sticky' via a cookie, I think. Will be done with some Javascript.
Use the 'link' button to insert links if you want to change the text of the link. Otherwise, just paste in the URL and that's all. The buttons are your friends.
CKeditor is served from a CDN. So Ublock might block those pieces, although mine doesn’t.
https://www.justfacts.com/news_face_masks_deadly_falsehoods
From the article:
Oh, yeah. It is. If you dive down the links you find a rather anodyne page at CDC that sets out their standard for "fully vaccinated", which has been in place for quite a while. And the unsupported assertion that 80% of the COVID cases in hospitals are in people that have had one or two shots but haven't reached the 2 weeks past final dose.
Ah, the text got smaller and the menu bar did too.I'm still zoomed 130% to read the main body text.
I see thater is a butttonn for spellll check as you type but ti doesn't weerk at all while ewe are typingg but only after you hit a period. and enter.
Using someone else's checker I guess. Does it send the text somewhere? WHat do they dodo with the text??
We'll see if the bold in the original text stays inside the blockquote.
As it happens, one of the reasons I didn't like the wysywig editor before was that it preserved formatting in pasted text, and often that meant a HUGE headline font or other things I din't want to have come over. I can paste it, see it happen, hit control z, then use my RealText helper app to strip all the formating on my clipboard, then paste it again… we can adapt to the needs of the machine, IF it results in the goal which started this whole thing– no more internal server errors and lost comments….
n
Huh, the bolded original text pasted into the blockquote was changed to normal weight, but the italicizing stayed. Wonder if I can put the bold back?
n
added- yes, I can manually add the (b) and (/ b) tags and they work. Funny thing is that the (strong) and (/ strong) tags are still there they are just not being applied.
And the eddddit window uses FFox spell check, putting the wavy line under mistakes.
For the life of me I can't figure out where that came from. But on the other hand I did figure out why you guys pronounce specialty so strangely. It's those pesky neighbors across the Channel! Here in Murika we say spesh-al-tee, not spesh-ee-al-it-tee.
For pasting, take a look at the three buttons up there (buttons 3-4-5). Three different ways to paste.
Spell check is a button you have to enable each time. Short delay before the red underline appears. Right-click to get correction choices (plus an ad to upgrade to the fancy-pants spell checker).
I set a larger font size in the comment editor box.
Lorem ipsum hocus pocus doesn't look much bigger to me.
Sorry — text enlarging only on the test site. Haven't moved it over. Adding some more changes, but have to fine-tune on the test site first.
Freaking godaddy. My business website and email are on godaddy.
THey changed their email from webmail to MS office 365 and gave a free two month trial. Which I just got a notice expires in 2 days, one of them being Sunday, the other being today. Thanks for the heads up jack@sses.
I’m confused by the whole thing. I want to get all my stored and sent mail, basically grab my whole email history from them and store it locally, but I don’t know what to do. I’ve got office and outlook installed locally.
Email has always been a bit of a mystery to me, as some lives there, some lives here, some gets forwarded, etc.
How the hell can they expect to force everyone onto paid 365? I already pay them for a mailbox.
n
addded- ok , I started outlook and gave it the log in and it found the account and self configured for an exchange server. It SAYS it’s creating a local copy of my mailbox. THe progress bar shows a couple hundred MB transferring so it is doing something.
Looks like I’ll have everything even if I don’t know how to get new mail after Monday. I hate change to infrequently used systems more than frequently used ones. There is far less incentive for me to learn the new mess on stuff I don’t use much.
This is why that I have stayed with https://www.pair.com/ for 21 years. They don't mess with you. And I have my corporate MX record sitting at gmail so they handle all of our email and allow me to POP all of my email down. I get 200 to 400 emails a day on my corporate email so I need reliability. I also dislike Outlook so we use Thunderbird instead.
AoS has a sub-head today titled:
Sophisticated Science-Fiction TV Show Cafe
—Ace
with a bunch of links to sf tv show intros and such.
Fun to guess from the description.
Reached my limit quickly–cheesy special effect age like used diapers.
Ok, I forgot again. Who is AoS ?
Looks like I’ll have everything even if I don’t know how to get new mail after Monday. I hate change to infrequently used systems more than frequently used ones. There is far less incentive for me to learn the new mess on stuff I don’t use much.
BTW, I send all of my personal email to my gmail account which I POP down to my home PC.
@Pecancorner
Two criticisms of terminology:
1 N95 respirators are not “masks”. They can be reusable or disposable. All reusable and some disposable N95 respirators use exhalation valves. These valves allow free unfiltered outgoing air flow when the user is exhaling, which can include any virus-containing aerosols. Such will not protect others from exhaled aerosols.
2 UV disinfection technology is “safe” if it is properly designed. The UV spectrum is roughly 400nm (nanometers) down to 100nm, divided as UV-A (long, aka “black light”) 400-315, UV-B (medium) 315-280 and UV-C (short) 280-100. UV-C is the most energetic, and is blocked by the atmosphere. It is generated by mercury-discharge lamps with quartz tubes (quartz passes uv light) and is used for disinfection and in industrial and commercial processes such as screen printing and water purification. UV-C sources cause retinal burns and should not be looked at with unprotected eyes. Conventional UV sources for these applications are shielded and interlocked to prevent human exposure.
UV-A LEDs are new within about the last 5-10 years. UV-C LEDs are still under development. If you have seen cheap Chinese-made UV “disinfecting” devices, chances are good that they do not emit UV-C and are worthless.
@Lynn
Ace of Spades HQ
http://ace.mu.nu/
I despise VOIP, and usually hang up on people who call us from such systems. If a real person cannot reply after I say “hello” twice, they don’t deserve our attention and we hang up. Nearly hung up on our Dr a couple weeks ago. I told him to call us from the phone from now on and not their telemed system, and to have the phone in his hand when he dials.
The delay in delivery of sound in VOIP from when one party says something to when the other hears it is ridiculous. Young people who’ve never used land lines have no idea how much quality has been lost.
I still have five land lines connected to my Panasonic PBX at the office. AT&T is giving me pressure to convert to a $500/month fiber line and change those land lines to VOIPs. I have been telling them to stuff it so far. I have a 25 pair cable to the phone switch, about a mile away that they desperately want to cut.
@Lynn
"I still have five land lines connected to my Panasonic PBX at the office. AT&T is giving me pressure to convert to a $500/month fiber line and change those land lines to VOIPs. I have been telling them to stuff it so far. I have a 25 pair cable to the phone switch, about a mile away that they desperately want to cut."
Might be a good idea to talk to your state regulator and find out what their position is.
General Motors has just issued safety recommendations for Bolt EV’s
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/10/02/ev-buyers-beware-fires-scarce-charging-times-and-parking-restrictions/
It is not sufficient for the greenie dipstick owner of the mobile firebomb to park and walk away from the public hazard that he owns, unless he makes sure that no subsequent vehicle parker can park within 50 feet.
Rich text poor text bigger man teeth…
Hey those buttons have tool tips.
Just finished dinner. Steaks from a year ago. Yummy. Fresh mushrooms saute'd in butter and red wine. Brussel sprouts saute'd in bacon fat with chunks of bacon. SUPPOSED to have truffle oil at the end but I havn't been able to buy any in a long time.
Dislike having to click to enable spellcheck every time. That's just another step that shouldn't be needed when the browser does spellchecking.
n
Looks good Rick! I like the lightweight feel and layout.
VoIP… most phone calls are VoIP now and have been for years, including (most) cell phone calls. IIRC 5G doesn't have non-VoIP calling.
The delays you associate with VoIP are from 2 issues… one is the fact that those call centers are in less developed parts of the world, or people's homes, and the voip traffic bounces around a few places before getting to the phone, adding latency. Second is something called an ACD – Automatic Call Distributor. Basically, there's a ratio of calls to operators. If it's 10:1 and there are 5 operators available, the system will place 50 calls (all with fake caller-ids). If you answer, the call is allocated to an operator. Depending on the setup, his/her phone may actually ring and they have to pick up to answer, hence the "hello, hello" delay. Or, there may not be an operator available, and you get dead air.
Super frustrating. Most people don't answer calls from unknown numbers any more due to this.
"Second US Academic Arrested, Accused of Starting California Wild Fires"
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/09/27/second-californian-academic-arrested-accused-of-starting-wild-fires/
What the heck is going on in California that the academics apparently feel the need to start forest fires ?
One comment, “If they have found two, there were likely more.”.
"USPS slowdown: What to know about new delivery delays and price hikes"
https://www.cnet.com/how-to/usps-slowdown-what-to-know-about-new-delivery-delays-and-price-hikes/
"Millions of customers who rely on the US Postal Service now face longer delivery times for first-class mail and packages."
Wonderful. They are purposefully going to slow USPS down.
@Rick
The "accept cookie" dialog box appears to be throwing the margins off on my phone. It looks like it's formatted for full width or something? When I accept and close it I can still scroll left and there's a bunch of blank space (the entire page) to the right of my screen.
Prepping related.
A while back someone linked to a guy that was reusing canning lids and I checked it out. He has done the research and used some of the lids several times. I had thought to do that myself but had not gotten around to it, saved me some time. I've been saving used lids, carefully removed ones without opener marks or distortion and glad of it because they haven't been on the shelves here for some time – I did see a couple boxes two weeks ago, at more than $0.30 each lid, that I passed on. All of my empty jars already have lids and rings keeping them clean inside, another tip I saw here a while back and should have thought of myself. If the used lids have been labeled with a marker a dab of rubbing alchol and a little scrubbing cleans them right up, the same thing we do with the freezer bags we reuse after testing for leaks. Also, we use a lot of the little 15oz Salsa Con Queso dip jars with a seal built into the lid. I've saved the jars for bacon grease, etc., and had a number of empties, so I pressure canned a mess of crushed tomato sauce in some of them, it worked quite well and that is an excellent size for the two of us. I just scored a couple dozen pint jars in their original boxes for $0.30/ea at the local senior center store.
@paul, my 'small' HEB has a couple boxes of jars lids and rings on the shelf. I'd heard they were not generally available, but I'm guessing that it's more local or regional then national. Or maybe the available places are the exception.
I passed on a bunch of jars at the goodwill outlet in the past weeks, they are heavy so almost the same price as new. I did grab all the rings and lids I've come across (not many, couple boxes worth.) I've only canned 'fridge pickles' but I've got several flats of jars and lids in different sizes. My garden has been so poor, and I'm not one to buy at the store to can. RBT did the math on that, and it's only good for practice.
I use them for bacon grease too, putting it in the freezer. I put the lid on when the grease is hot and it self vac seals.
Daughter asked today why I save the grease. Told her it costs $7/lb in the store, and we get it as part of what we paid for the bacon we're eating. She didn't realize that I use it all the time for cooking either, she just saw me saving it… I cooked her hash browns in it this morning. The stew meat in it yesterday, and eggs for breakfast in it every day… any recipe that starts with 'melt 4 pounds of bear fat' can probably be cooked with pig fat.
n
You don't want to run your own email server. Part of the spam problem used to be people setting up their own server, blasting out the spam, and then shutting down and moving to a new IP address. As a result, mail providers don't trust just any server – if you set up your own, you will be presumed to be a spammer. Getting your server trusted is difficult, and will soak up way more time than you want to spend.
I think it comes down to picking a decent provider – and not one of the big ones like GoDaddy. We've been very happy with Hostpoint for years now. I haven't shopped around, so I don't know how prices compare, because: "if it ain't broke…"
MS Office 365 was, I think, a strategic error on Microsoft's part. All of the office applications work just fine in a web browser, which eliminates a big reason businesses have stayed with MS Windows. With Win11 shaping up to be another mess, I hope to see more individuals and businesses moving to Linux.
That's really odd. Older son had a guy come to their school when he was 12 or 13, and had everyone carve a bow. He still has the bow, and it still works fine. The skills are out there, but maybe one really does have to find a local expert. Maybe a local archery club?
From what I remember of the process: the outer (front) part of the bow has to be a single layer of grain all the way down, to prevent splitting. This means, of course, that the grain needs to be very straight, and cannot have any knots. It took a long time, with many hours of patient carving. Not something you can make a good job of in an afternoon. So that's a really odd assignment – likely the teacher has no idea what they're asking…
Not sure she qualifies as an academic. More likely a nutcase.