Cool morning, to hot day later, but still nicer than Houston. It was at least 10 degrees cooler up here yesterday. Still brain boiling hot in the sun though, so I waited a bit before weeding in the garden.
I don’t see any sprouts, well, one or two things that might be veg, but mostly I see grass. Pulling it by hand, I can do a row in about 10 minutes. Two rows and my back is screaming at me though, so I didn’t get the whole thing weeded. Depending on temps, I’ll do more today.
I’ve got inside stuff to alternate with outdoor stuff to try and keep reasonably cool.
Last night was great. I spent a bit of time at sunset actually fishing. Didn’t get even a nibble, but I spent the time casting and tried a couple of different baits. Then after dinner, I lit a fire in the metal fire pit out on the dock and spun the dial on the shortwave for a couple of hours.
Nice open bands, heard some DX I never manage to hear, and even an australian station that I rarely hear at home. I need a good antenna and a bigger radio… or a good radio and a bigger antenna….
Since I can see the stars up here, I’m motivated to learn more about them. There might even be some astronomy content in the future. I did see about a dozen nice meteors, more than when we were watching the shower, but they weren’t as dramatic. Neat to see in any case.
Lots of big splashes on the lake too. If I could figure out how to catch them, I’d be eating fish tonight. Figuring that out is fairly high on the list of preps.
Speaking of preps, I did move some more food up here. We could go a month without starving, but we’d be pretty bored. I’m working on expanding both duration and variety. A chest freezer and a big UPS is pretty high on the list. ‘Course, septic is too.
Still stalled on the big projects waiting for other people.
Got plenty to do in the mean time.
BTW the propane “camping” instant water heater is working really well. It’s a bit of a comfort item, although hygiene is important, and morale is too. $200 well spent so far. No idea about longevity, but the only negatives in the amazon listings were people who let it freeze with water inside. Given proper maintenance, I don’t see why it couldn’t last a long time. If you’ve got the basics covered, I can vouch for how nice a hot shower is when you are filthy and sore.
One more thing to stack.
Stack all the things. You are your own infrastructure provider.
nick
Ach, you can tell that immediately from the dialect. Well, I can’t, entirely, but the real locals people here can tell which town each other comes from, just from variations in the dialects. Anyone from elsewhere in Switzerland is obvious as soon as they open their mouth. And me, with my foreign accent (I got rid of the English twang, so it’s a generic “not native, maybe dutch or something”) – I just as well wear a giant, neon sign.
Mind, people are friendly, that’s not a problem, but you could live here 20 years and never be “local”. I imagine small, rural places are like that everywhere…
Beautiful, calm sunshine all morning. Collapsed over noon, and now it’s a crazy, windy thunderstorm. I’m off to help the neighbor put in his garage door in 20 minutes. Thankfully, the wind is coming from the back of his garage, so we will be able to work. I’m gonna be soaked, getting over there, though…
Pretty sure most of them have deals with local power companies. There was even some really stupid talk about treating them as a backasswards kind of “storage”. Run your power plants at capacity, and when you need more power, the mining rigs shut down.
The big, visible operations cut an agreement with ERCOT to avoid problems, but they inspire lots of bottom feeders via coverage in the financial press.
Unfortunately, the bottom feeder miners can get … just … enough … revenue from operating to believe that they can make it viable long term. Since Christmas, the 4 GB graphics card market has loosened up a bit as the small players switch to 6 and 8 GB cards in an effort to keep up, but parts continue to be in short supply, particularly at retail, which indicates your pool guys and cab drivers are still trying to make it work as a side hustle.
“You ain’t from around here, are you?”
Of course, people make their own problems refusing to accept a place the way it existed for centuries. The Colonel and Mrs. Colonel Bat Guano neighbors immediately behind us in Florida got cranked up about Spanish moss dripping from the live oaks, Mrs. Colonel having originated in Hawaii, to the point that they called the county about having it removed from the trees.
In the US it has, unfortunately, become acceptable to give short shrift to the Y chromosomes or, at least, people identifying as “male”.
After I had my “it” moment in WA State, my wife had no lack of people who told her to either bring me to heel or file for divorce, particularly women she worked with who desired her naivete to stick around for personal gain.
Driving for errands yesterday, I caught the Ford Shill -er- Car Pro show talking about the gas-powered F150 backlog with a caller who had finally received an August delivery date on his vehicle by agreeing to some form of upgrade.
I was only half paying attention when The Shill dropped that Ford was offering $50 credits and earlier delivery dates for foregoing A.S.S. right now in some cases and then someone, either the caller or the non-car guy co-host, responded that they would give Ford $500 to take that “feature” out permanently.
That was followed by an uncomfortable brief silence.
What feature?
Since OFD isn’t here to do the honors …
What? Another Fake Pope?
https://apnews.com/article/pope-francis-benedict-xvi-religion-2186d6d10d27c67d5154197e50fc590e
I’ll also provide the obligatory link to Ann Barnhardt, a repost of her musings on the Fake Pope’s purpose.
https://www.barnhardt.biz/2022/06/04/yuuge-antipope-bergoglio-admits-that-cardinals-specifically-tasked-him-with-fulfilling-ultimate-freemasonic-goal-of-eliminating-the-papacy-the-last-monarchy/
A.S.S. Automatic Start Stop
Second on my list of recent poorly-chosen names for projects from major US corporations leading to hilarious/disturbing acronyms.
The list topper currently belongs to The Mouse. I.L.L. – Individual Lightning Lane at Disney World.
That scheme really does make one ill if you understand all of the implications.
As predicted, beautiful morning.
I should clarify a statement yesterday. Just hooking a radio to a bigger antenna doesn’t always result in better reception. It’s not a no brainer to just go bigger.
At home, there is so much RF noise polution that a bigger antenna just gets more noise, with little improvement to the desired signal. The trick there is different types of antennas, rather than just ‘moar’ antenna.
Out here though, until everybody converts to LED lighting everywhere, the noise floor is so low that just adding metal to the radio helps more than I expected. hooray for me! A long wire or a vertical pole is easy to do.
n
Huh, just noticed that the in browser spell check doesn’t work with the bluetooth keyboard as a data entry method. Wonder why?
please forgive any typos and spelling mistakes.
n
. . . hilarious/disturbing acronyms.
My personal fave: Star Trek: Discovery.
Going through a Python tutorial made me think of this place:
if first_array and first_array[0] == 1:
Who writes code like this? Who memorizes the precedence of ‘and’ and ‘==’ operations? This is MUCH clearer (at least to anyone that writes code or math):
if(first_array and (first_array[0] == 1)):
I know, I know, I used extra keystrokes. Grrrr
I am so glad I am not in charge of the media at the church.
Years I approached the church and explained that the modulator for the broadcast is old, no longer made, not supported by Comcast, and generally a weak link. I proposed just shutting down the cable broadcast and be exclusively streaming. Well, all the people in the church with VCR’s still blinking 12:00 just about ripped my guts out.
Today there is no cable broadcast. Something has failed. There is a red error light on the modulator, not good. There is a signal to the modulator as that is run through some video monitors so the video signal can be monitored. Changing the cable, running the cable direct, changing the port on the video splitter did no good. The modulator is sending out a signal of some sort as when activated it interferes with the current broadcast. The owner of the channel is running another feed to avoid a black signal. The church’s signal is affecting that feed.
The cable is good as we get a good picture on the TV that is used to monitor the actual cable feed. The modulator is sending out an RF signal or a signal of some sort.
Comcast needs to come check the cable. The tech will not know about how to fix the modulator as it is no longer supported. I doubt the tech could even send a signal to verify the box.
In my opinion the modulator has failed. The owner of the channel may have a spare, or not. Regardless the cable broadcast I suspect is probably toast. If the church wants to continue to have a cable broadcast the church needs to find a way to feed a signal the company that owns the channel. About 500 yards as the crow flies to where the signal needs to be send.
Some type of ethernet connection, sort of a VPN connection will work. Will require two boxes, one on each end. It will also require upping the internet speed as the current upload speed will not support two video feeds (stream and broadcast).
The person the church hired is technologically clueless. He may be able to edit videos, he most certainly does not understand how the signals move in the studio, RF signals, and internet.
I will be making myself very scarce for the next couple of weeks as I don’t want to be involved in the problem resolution.
Following up comments last week on the shortage of diesel exhaust fluid (DEF), and some background on the source of the shortage:
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/06/the_worst_shortage_you_havent_heard_of.html
The article could be more explicit on the synthesis of urea. The steps are:
Natural gas (or coal) >ammonia > urea
That last step is usually Bosch–Meiser (yup, our friend Karl) and has the interesting feature of being most efficient if done adjacent to the ammonia production step, where much of the CO2 required can be recovered from waste gases.
Recovering urea from urine can be done, but is more expensive and requires nitric acid. At a ratio of 200 gallons fuel to 1 gallon DEF, higher prices would have little impact, but the main impediments would be lead time and stranded investment if the shortage ended.
The primary reason to use DEF is to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions, but soot particulates are also reduced. As noted, modern diesel engines are throttled by computer to 5mph if NOx is too high. In a national emergency it’s likely that the computer code would be temporarily bypassed.
Been there, done that, and fully support your plan.
The “pythonic” way to handle the conditional is to use a try/except block.
try:
if(first_array[0] == 1):
….
except:
pass
Exceptions do not add an expense in Python like they do in C++ so performance is not sacrificed for the sake of readable/maintainable code.
Precedence hasn’t mattered to compilers in terms of parsing performance or code optimization in 30 years. The last time I saw any work situation which required rote memorization and application of precedence tables was the contrived scenarios created by the Ed degree staff in new developer training at GTE, for whom ability to commit the tables to memory was one metric to use to wash people out of the program.
I freely admit I cheated to get through those exams. Sue me.
From what I’ve heard, training at the EDS equivalent of the era was worse in terms of the mind f*ck the Ed majors would dish out at the direction of the buzz cut in charge.
Used to drive me crazy back when I was a programmer. I always used many ()s to force the execution order.
People don’t understand maintainability. I see the same thing in the Cisco world.
I imagine that Cisco would be on the level of AT&T Labs in terms of attitudes like “I have two Patents and a degree from a fancy school. Who are you to judge my code?”
Cisco are big enough to be able to set the standards.
I was thinking of 2 particular types of people in IT.
#1: We’ve always done it this way…
#2: I have a CCIE (difficult Cisco cert) and I’ve always done it this way…
Pretty sure most of them have deals with local power companies. There was even some really stupid talk about treating them as a backasswards kind of “storage”. Run your power plants at capacity, and when you need more power, the mining rigs shut down.
The miners here in Texas are running at Interruptible Level 1, 2, or 3 based on how much time they need for notification of a blackout. The mining rigs constantly store their mining status so they can startup right where they left off. It is all automatic to them.
We used to have three 90 MW electric arc furnaces in South Dallas that were on Level 1. We could cut them with no notice, we just opened their breakers that we owned. We could interrupt them for up to four hours. Of course, they were calling within 20 minutes and screaming since they were losing production.
I am not a programmer. I am just an injunear.
But I KNOW I will forget why I designed a circuit a particular way in about 6 months. So I document anything that isn’t perfectly obvious at a glance. Heck, I put the value calculations formulas in the schematic so people can check my math.
I certainly don’t want to have to try to decode a statement based on obscure precedence orders. And judging by the answers I see on FaceBook, most people don’t know the precedence of normal math functions.
The code examples also leave out optional parameters. Example:
# Prints out the numbers 0,1,2,3,4
for x in range(5): # range(0, 5, 1)
print(x)
# Prints out 3,4,5
for x in range(3, 6): # range(3, 6, 1)
print(x)
# Prints out 3,5,7
for x in range(3, 8, 2):
print(x)
I added the notes filling in the defaults. Remember this is a tutorial. Argh
With for…range code, you will still see a lot of xrange() used, which wasn’t deprecated until well into Python 3 point releases.
xrange() was argubly more efficient because it created a generator and not an interable list in memory. I believe it became the new range().
As you learn Python, you may want to get into the habit of using Pylint which can be installed into your runtime with Pip on most platforms.
Pylint will warn you about upcoming deprecations and teach the “pythonic” way as much as possible.
Unfortunately, the bottom feeder miners can get … just … enough … revenue from operating to believe that they can make it viable long term. Since Christmas, the 4 GB graphics card market has loosened up a bit as the small players switch to 6 and 8 GB cards in an effort to keep up, but parts continue to be in short supply, particularly at retail, which indicates your pool guys and cab drivers are still trying to make it work as a side hustle.
All of the miners based their business model on getting free wind turbine power from midnight to 6am. That has not happened since May 1 due to the drought. Many of them may be hurting. The wind turbine people are whistling to the bank.
Got a new robotic vacuum. Those things are amazing.
Our first vacuum was a simple Roomba. It just wandered aimlessly until the battery was discharged. It was sometimes a challenge to find the vacuum. It did an OK cleaning job.
Then I got a Roborock to replace the Roomba. The Roomba was moved to the basement and scheduled for just three days a week. Hardly anyone uses the space yet two years later the vacuum is still picking up dust. But it wanders randomly and still has to found on most days it is schedule to run as the battery just runs downs.
The Roborock is upstairs. It mapped the house. I edited the map to block a couple of troublesome areas. Half the area on M,W,F, the other half on T,T,S. Almost always returns to the dock to charge. Need to empty the holder every two days due to the dog hair. The vacuum would occasionally get trapped on something the wife left out and I would have to rescue. The map on the phone would show me exactly where the vacuum was trapped so it was easy to find. If the Roborock battery gets low it will return to the dock to recharge, then complete the cleaning process.
I have now purchased a Shark AI Ultra Robot Self-Empty XL. My son has one and says it works really well. Shark had a sale with $200.00 off so I pulled the trigger (can I say pulled the trigger?). The Roborock was moved downstairs, the Roomba removed (5 years old). Roborock is in the process of mapping the basement. When done I will split the area into two rooms and vacuum twice a week in each area. The Shark is currently charging and will be told to map the main living area upstairs when charged.
The Shark has self-emptying into a much larger container. Supposed to be able to go 30 days. But with a dog I suspect it will be more like a week. Still better than every two days to empty. Once it has mapped the upstairs I will split the area into two distinct zones. Each will be vacuum every other day. I will see how it does on the areas I had to block the Roborock. I suspect I will have to do the same blocks.
The technology is amazing and for such a small machine they really vacuum quite well. Highly recommended if you get a vacuum that maps.
I saw several wind turbines on the highway last month. Hubs and blades.
The problem for them is that the gear boxes fail long before payback and then you have a dead turbine with (probably) no way to fix it.
n
Got the oven installed, plumbed and working.
Built the shelf for the microwave, but the auction micro is NFG. Powers on, runs for 1 minute, but never heats, then shuts off. Could be a simple fix, but could be crib death of the inverter or mag.
Seem to be a lot of youtubes about dead inverter micros. I think I’ll stick with the trad kind next time.
n
Siemens has a port/staging facility near Port Aransas.
>> Got a new robotic vacuum. Those things are amazing.
Been wanting one for a while given our three dogs but there always seems to be too much “stuff” (power cords, dog toys, Amazon boxes) that would get in the way.
Did get one of these cheap from the Amazon Warehouse and it does make sweeping the floors easier. It even cleans the bristle end of the broom.
@Sue Norton
OK.
Biden Considering Retroactive Cancellation of Federal Oil & Gas Leases… As Gas Prices Approach $10/gal in California
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/06/05/biden-considering-retroactive-cancellation-of-federal-oil-gas-leases-as-gas-prices-approach-10-gal-in-california/
Isn’t it fortunate that the DNA sampling program is going so well?
Uvalde school board decides against disciplinary action for police chief whose orders delayed a tactical response to shooting
Hannah Getahun
Sun, June 5, 2022, 12:40 AM
https://www.yahoo.com/news/uvalde-school-board-decides-against-054019879.html
note that this was posted 40 minutes after CBD posted the following:
Protect The Leviathan At All Costs! The Uvalde Cops Are Cowardly Thugs Who Do The Bidding Of The State, Rather Than Protecting The Public
—CBD
https://ace.mu.nu/
And as a side note, I finally looked it up, and School District Police Chief Arredondo (not “Police Chief”, which is insulting to real Chiefs of Police) spells his name differently than the lying fool who helped throw Derek Chauvin under the bus in Minneapolis.
Cleaned up and headed home. Pulled up the last of the carpet (ex- one closet) and pad. Vaccumed and blew dust. Waiting to cool down and dry a bit before sitting in the truck for a couple of hours.
Thank you Mr Carrier for your gift to humanity.
n
When the Founders chose what became known as the District of Columbia for the location of the seat of U.S. government, they did so with the assurance that the intolerable climate of that worthless piece of swamp would prevent our elected officials from staying there beyond the minimum, and so act as a curb on mischief.
uh-oh
A quick check of Orange County, FL records shows that Derek Chauvin still owns his planned retirement condo in Tiger Woods’ old stomping grounds outside Orlando.
Don’t feel too bad for Chauvin. His retirement is going to be better than yours, and I doubt he’s alone in the Minneapolis PD. Cops buy those retirement dreams in groups. *That* is the secret Chauvin was thrown under the bus to protect.
I must have missed the part where he is retiring.
I thought he was headed to jail for decades, having been stripped of his pension.
The only party with grounds would have been Verizon, but they collected on a $50,000 insurance policy policy against my termination of employment for any reason when I left in May 2000. If I was that important to the organization, it is hard to argue that they were damaged by the way I passed the precedence order sections of the exams seven years earlier.
We need to ban air conditioning within 150 miles of the Capitol.
The little church down the street has added a new lock. They’ve had various security features for a long time. Now they’ve added a new keypad alarm lock that is set once we are all inside. I didn’t ask for details. Like all churches around here, probably 50% of all attendees are concealed carrying.
I’ve never seen a church attendee come in late. But once in a while, a beggar will come in in the middle of the service. They always interrupt with their ask, and never stay for worship. So it won’t hurt for them to wait outside until church is over.
The church is growing. There were probably 40 people this morning, and two more placed membership. I only go a couple times a month, and that makes 8 who have joined at services I attended this year. The pastor came to our house afterward and brought communion to Paul. Really kind of him to do. At a larger church, of course, that would – rightly – fall to the deacons, or to other volunteers, or even I would bring it for him. We are blessed and just plain lucky to have such a thoughtful pastor here.
Amen
And awomen!
>> And as a side note, I finally looked it up, and School District Police Chief Arredondo (not “Police Chief”, which is insulting to real Chiefs of Police)…
How many officers make a legitimate independent police department? The Uvalde SD PD has five, the Uvalde PD has 40. And by the time the shooter was dead there 14 different law enforcement agencies on the scene. Any duplication of efforts there? And who pays their salaries? Ohh, right…
>> We need to ban air conditioning within 150 miles of the Capitol.
Who would need to enact such a ban? Ohh, right, never mind…
@Nick: Which solar shower did you use?
Thinking of doing some dry (BLM land) camping shortly.
Thx.
My plane tracker just caught TEXDOT1 and TEXDOT4 flying from Uvalde to Austin.
Why does the Texas Department of Transportation need 4 Embraer Phenom 100’s?
Home in Houston.
Most common gas price for 2 hours north of Houston, $4.59 gallon. Local HEB here is still $4.49.
@EdH, I’m using a propane fired instant water heater. Similar to this one. It uses hose water as a source. There is a kit that has a 12v pump, so you can use standing water or a tank, available too.
I’ve got several of the giant enema bag style camp showers, but haven’t every used one of them. My wife was the backpacker and they came with her…
n
@Nick: Interesting, thanks.
“‘It’s hard to even fathom going into the office 100%,’ says Fara John-Williams, who started in human resources in May.”
Yoga Pants. Lets check back with Fara in a year, when the recession is rocking and the layoffs really start to hit home.
https://www.npr.org/2022/06/05/1102744672/remote-work-from-home-return-to-office-covid-pandemic-workers-apple-google
When Apple’s new Austin campus is complete, the Come To Jesus meetings will start there and at the other big companies in the area.
UHaul where I get my propane tanks refilled was out of gas for most of the last week. They just got a supply yesterday.
Someone asked about police departments.
In Texas the ISDs have their own PD, or can. They are full on regular cops, but instead of working for the city, they work for the ISD. Like cops working for the bus line, the Metro cops…
Our constables are similar in that they don’t have a municipality they work for directly. They hire themselves out to HOAs, etc. They are full on cops though, and have a geographic area they cover (precincts) but within that area they need to find employers.
The ISD cops primarily cover the district’s property, but can pull you over on the street if they wanted to.
n
>> I’ve got several of the giant enema bag style camp showers, but haven’t every used one of them. My wife was the backpacker and they came with her…
Can’t unview that image!
You are the current resident dipshit. Your question is the same as asking which gangbanger is part of a well regulated militia? Stolen gubs are still stolen gubs, don’t matter where you get the from. You need to find a better palce to trade and mine your shitcoins and maybe get some critical thinking skills.
“Lady in Black (The Black Knight Chronicles)” by John G. Hartness
https://www.amazon.com/Lady-Black-Knight-Chronicles/dp/1610261658?tag=ttgnet-20/
Book number eight of an eight book dark fantasy series. I read the well printed and well bound POD (print on demand) trade paperback published by Bell Bridge Books in 2021. I will continue to read any and all new books in the series.
Jimmy Black, the newbie master vampire of Charlotte, North Carolina, is faced with a serial murderer. But not what it seems, a vampire killing abusive men instead of hunting generally for food. And Jimmie is worried that the vampire will bring attention to the rest of them.
The author has a busy website at:
http://johnhartness.com/
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars (132 reviews)
BC: Watching His Chloresterol
https://www.gocomics.com/bc/2022/06/05
I am fairly sure that velociraptor does not have the digestive system for that.
Applied Thompson’s water seal to the other half of the deck. Have about 10’ of railing to do by brush or roller.
then, to properly finish the job, all of the outside edge of the railing snd spindles. Also by brush or roller.
Thanks again hive mind for the tip to use Thompsons. going with the water based at my level of inexperience with this product and toolset was the correct move. not to put too fine a point on it, I made a mess. The deck half I was working on tonight was narrow quarters, and stairs. Got nearly as much product on myself as the wood.
Rain Tuesday or Wednesday. I expect rain every week or so for the rest of the summer. Really glad I got it done, amateur hour and all. The wood is protected even if it’s not beautiful. When i need to redo it next year or the next, I should have fewer pressing projects and will be able to take greater care.
I used a hand pumped sprayer specifically for products like Thompsons. I do not care for hand pumping. It would have been worth my time to buy the Kobalt power sprayer compatible with the Kobalt batteries I already own. Next project. Probably for house siding. 54 year old solid cedar siding. Needs a lot of love.
@NaN
Calling folks as a group names is rude.
Criminals stealing guns to commit crimes, regardless of age, has no bearing on the second amendment. You know that, I am certain, and your comment was delivered in a mean spirit for the sake of goading.
Stop.
If you don’t like the company then go elsewhere. It is clear we are not your cup of tea. If you’d like to participate civilly that would be delightful. The barbs and jibes are unproductive.
>> You are the current resident dipsh!t.
As tempting as it is (myself included), in the long run it’s better not to feed “them” and eventually they will go away.
Musk must really be confident in his security team…
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/elon-musk-wonders-why-doj-hasnt-leaked-epstein-client-list-and-media-doesnt-care
n
>> Like cops working for the bus line, the Metro cops…
Why should the bus line need its own department? I would think a ‘transit bureau’ within the city/county PD would reduce some of the overhead? Or take it one step further and include any bus specific items during training and then any cop on the force can be assigned to the bus line.
That sounds impossible. Which, of course, doesn’t mean that it *is* impossible. Some technical designers make strange decisions…
In a similar vein: A friend gave us an old TV for the guest apartment. The TV was previously used for cable, we want to attach it to the building’s satellite dish. I spent a long time searching the settings – no joy. In the end, the only solution was a factory reset. Apparently, initial setup is the only time you can change the TV-source. Why?
After it auto-searched and found over 1000 channels, I selected a few for the “favorites” list. That’s great and all, but when you turn the TV on, it goes to the full list of 1000+ channels. No idea how to get to the favorites list to be the default. Another WTF.
I’m better at back-end code than UX, but I swear all of my user-facing stuff was better than this.
OK, groomer5.