Hot hot hot, and humid, like a hot sweaty thing… Houston in summer.
Went to do some of my pickups. Hit the goodwill outlet on the way home. Bins were mostly full of clothes, which don’t usually interest me. One vintage made in USA work boot, but no pair. Some vintage electronics but nothing worth enough to grab. I did grab a FoodSaver unit as backup to the ones I use all the time. I’ll test it and if it’s working, just clean it. If not, it’ll go in the parts bin. Most of the FoodSavers have very similar parts with cosmetic changes. It’s a recent, higher end unit.
I grabbed a nice sturdy folding keyboard stand for D2, like new, with tags. I’m working on setting up a music workstation for her. She’s been writing lyrics with a friend from school, and wants to play around with making music and recording. I’ve got almost all the pieces of a decent workstation, just need to find the time to get it all together.
Not much lego, only a couple of hot wheels, and a handful of Pokemon cards…. really a very slow day at the bins.
Dinner was an experiment. I have leftover chicken breast from a whole Costco chicken, and none of us really like the white meat, so while I was grocery shopping I picked up a “skillet meal” pouch of sauce. I’ve had good luck with the other HEB sauces, so I thought I’d give cilantro and lime chicken over rice a go. Meh. Glad I only bought one pouch. If we’d liked it, I’d use it with the Costco canned chicken too. I’m always looking for ways to use the canned chicken, it’s my primary long term protein. I was careful to add enough rice to the pot this time and it came out as expected. I can learn…
My trip to the grocery store earlier in the day had only one surprise, chicken gizzards are $2.68 a pound. Freaking breasts don’t cost that much, legs are $1.o9 and thighs are $1.39. Chicken was limit 2. Why would the dang offal be more than the breast? No hearts either, but plenty of feet. (Oddly, they are usually labeled chicken “paws” on the package.) There were bare spots throughout the store. Everyone was complaining about high prices. A bag of chips was $5, that I used to buy for $2.50 on sale. A pleasant surprise was prime top sirloin steaks for only $5.99/pound. I bought the limit. Temporary decrease in beef prices due to culling herds, or just my local store shedding excess inventory as usual? Don’t know, wish I could have bought more.
Good hamburger, 93/7 % was over $5, while cheap 70/30 was about $3.49. False economy though, you pour the 30% fat in the trash, even though you’ve paid for it. And for a dollar a pound more, I’d rather eat steak. Granted that hamburger is more versatile… The bacon I buy was unchanged, that’s going on months now without a price fluctuation. Weird that. Bought some.
There were a lot of unfamiliar brands filling out the shelves. The cookie aisle was very noticeable. Given that we’re in Texas, a lot of the brands were mexican with spanish names, and might just be catering to the buyers. HEB has their own spanish label house brand, and that is gaining prominence on the shelves too. I think that it’s more about supply issues than stocking for a demographic though. If it continues, I’ll notice.
Today I’ve got another pickup, and I need to start pulling stuff together for my show/swapmeet. I have bins full of stuff, scattered across 3 or 4 locations. And load in is Friday morning. I better get busy.
Stack all the things! Learn all the things! Know all the beings!
nick
The store is probably experimenting to find out what people are willing to pay. Drumsticks were $1.18/lb at Sam’s yesterday but thighs were $1.39.
Another possibility is people buying gizzards to cook for a pet, but I noticed that when drumsticks were also priced at $1.39/lb in that store recently that they didn’t move very fast, filling an entire case in the meat section. Data mining at work in Bentonville. Again, they are very high tech. HEB is too with a semi-secret development shop here in Austin near the airport.
My sticker shock yesterday was the phone bill, but the trip to Sam’s was $80-something for two trays of chicken, dishwasher tablets, a 4 pack of soda, and two boxes of resale pack Frito Lay product chips.
The dishwasher tablets don’t even include the plastic bin to keep them dry.
Charlie Crist. FL Dems shot themselves in the foot again yesterday.
I can see the t-shirt slogan now: “At least he’s not a meth head.”
https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/elections/2022/08/23/florida-primary-election-live-updates-polls-closing-soon/
Charlie plays well at the Garden Club in Tampa.
I get home phone service through Xfinity, my internet, TV, phone, and cell provider. The home phone is part of the triple play package and with the price discounts is only $10.00 a month. Wife demands a home phone. Why? I have no idea. Just something else she can complain I don’t answer.
When a call comes in, and I do answer, I generally say nothing. I let the other person say something. If I detect an indian accent I immediately hang up. If the caller ID on the TV shows something phoney (clever, huh?), I press the answer button and hang up button in rapid succession. The number of spam and fake calls is really annoying.
78F this morning. Saturated of course. Still, bit of a chill there in the air. Weirdly bright for 7am too. Felt like when the time changes and the sun is wrong….
BTW, dog seems to be fully recovered from whatever ailment he had. He’s eating his normal food and treats, so I think they are fine. Don’t know what he got into.
I know something got into the rat poison in the garage, and now it’s dead. In the garage. Somewhere. I’m hoping for a few cooler days in a row. I’ll find the skeleton eventually.
n
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/finland-braces-rolling-blackouts-winter
-the bit at the bottom is most concerning….
–emphasis added. “Keep exporting, we need it and don’t care about YOUR citizens.”
n
As JerryP used to point out, the road to prosperity is paved with cheap energy. The reverse holds true as well.
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/belgian-pm-warns-next-5-10-winters-will-be-difficult-energy-crisis-worsens
– they are acting just like doctors, with gradual revelations of how much worse it’s going to get and how long recovery will really take.
n
We could always call off that deal to join NATO …
Finland and the rest of Europe did it to themselves, going back at least four decades.
More like mechanics at car dealerships. The Exploder has been at the dealer for two days and I haven’t even heard preliminary time or money numbers yet.
Gotta call them this morning. Like my spouse is going to do leg work like this — it is her vehicle.
Back in the very early days of the Internet, I taught web development. Haven’t touched it for 20 years or more. Now I need to get back up to speed, in particular, with the frameworks Spring, Springboot, Angular, React, Thymeleaf, etc.
I’m not much past the “Hello, World” stage at the moment. My impression of frameworks remains the same as it has always been: They let people play pinball with complicated stuff, trusting that the layers and layers of code generated actually make sense.
There are so many levers and buttons, and who knows what they all really do? The level of complexity is, in the end, a lot higher than any programming language. I’m not really convinced of the advantages… But that’s all right, I’ve got to learn this stuff, so I’ll chug along through various tutorials.
If anyone has a reference they want to recommend, I’d be happy to take a look. Haven’t found anything I’m really happy with, just yet…
– – – – –
Small comment/question about home phone service: Who needs it anymore? Everyone has a mobile number, and even then, phone calls are getting rarer. We did away with our landline when we moved, three years ago, and haven’t missed it.
Matches my sentiments. My son will never have a landline, ever. I suspect most of his generation and younger will never had a land line, ever. There is no longer a need. Even alarm systems are now moving to completely cellular system, such systems being the last remnant of a need for landlines. Even business systems are going to VOIP, one of the last conversions I did at the church. What is critical when doing system systems is that a UPS is required for the gateway and supporting components. At least one phone should be on a UPS.
In the US, traditional copper phone service is highly regulated with certain guaranteed minimum service levels to insure reliability, which the new-fangled wireless and VOIP services are not, even when provided by the same local phone company.
@Brad;
We need a landline to get internet (We have VDSL2, fibre-to-the-cabinet) but the number of genuine calls is within epsilon of zero. Nearly every one of them is from a call centre, pushing anything from Timeshare refund scams, to solar refund scams, via “We’ve heard that you recently had a car accident. Is that right?” despite the line being registered with the Telephone Preference Service (Merkin: “Do not call”) If I don’t recognise the number, I don’t answer. Nor does Jane.
So I’m seriously considering unplugging and switching off our 3-handset DECT cordless phone. I think Jane is on board with that, as well.
Both our mobiles are also TPS-registered, and my Android has a sizeable blocklist. I don’t know what Jane does.
TPS/”Do not call” is pointless. There’s very little to no enforcement, and any fines levied are avoided by the culprit self-immolating, and restarting with a new name at the same premises the following day. The only way to fix that is to make the MD of the company personally liable for any fines, which are no worse than “cost of doing business” level, in any case.
And non-payment by that MD needs to be followed by jail time. Never happen, of course.
G.
And mobiles aren’t immune either. But at least I can block, with about 3 taps, any abusive number. This is on Android, but I’m sure iThings have similar capability.
G.
Having a traditional phone with dialtone made it easy for the kids and grandparents to call 911. The service is actually VOIP, but I’ve got it connected to all the phone outlets.
——————–
power blinked and all my computers went down. Who designs a freaking ups to NOT come back up in UPS mode after a prolonged outage? The SOBs that designed the UPS I’ve got in my office, that’s who. The last outage caused it to shut down, then when power was restored it didn’t turn itself back on, although it was passing electricity to connected devices. Can’t see the brand from where I’m sitting, but I am switching back to APC after this.
n
Short article about “reshoring”
https://www.americanmachinist.com/shop-operations/article/21249280/recordsetting-manufacturing-job-creation-forecast-for-2022-reshoring-initiative
n
Shut up and eat the bugs.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-11141089/Would-try-beetle-burger-Scientists-create-meat-like-flavouring-cooking-insects-sugar.html
n
I’ve eaten bugs. Don’t care for them.
Did a show were the motivational speaker was one of the vets from the “Hanoi Hilton”. He spent his time on stage talking about the indomitable spirit of his fellow POWs, the “knock code” and how they used it to share news, sometimes by coughing while they were being routinely beaten, and how they memorized the names and details of the other prisoners so that if anyone survived, the list would survive. Those stories were ones I’d heard about or heard of in one form or another before, but one story I’d never heard.
He described in detail how they used some of the horrible and meager food they received to secretly raise cockroaches to eat, so they would get some protein in their diets.
So who eats bugs? Prisoners dying of starvation, that’s who eats bugs.
You know who “doesn’t own anything”? Prisoners.
F that noise.
n
Extremism is bad, mmm‘kay? Part 1.
Extremism is bad, mmm’kay? Part 2.
May be. I scored two large packs of 85% hamburger for $1.97/lb a couple of weeks ago, most of which I browned and canned as I already have 1/2 lb packages stacked in the freezer; two large packs* of top round “London Broil” for $1.97/lb last week, half I used to make broth that I canned then reworked the residue for taco meat; and this week they are offering large packs of sirloin tip steaks for $1.97/lb. Safeway digital deals; I’m sure they have my info anyway so may as well take advantage. *large packs here tend to be 4.5-5 lbs.
And now for today’s WTF moment:
https://phys.org/news/2022-08-opinion-algorithm-tool-populist-rhetoric.html
WTF?
WTF indeed. The words are in english, but the sense is missing…
And “rampant populism” = politically leftist, progressive author.
n
Bugs are delicious! But they have to be properly processed first. Through a chicken. Feed the bugs to chickens, wait a couple of months, and you’ll have chickens for dinner, and maybe even eggs. All good protein!
And “rampant populism” =
politically leftist, progressive author.communist.FIFY.
>> Dinner was an experiment. I have leftover chicken breast from a whole Costco chicken, and none of us really like the white meat, so while I was grocery shopping I picked up a “skillet meal” pouch of sauce. I’ve had good luck with the other HEB sauces, so I thought I’d give cilantro and lime chicken over rice a go. Meh. Glad I only bought one pouch. If we’d liked it, I’d use it with the Costco canned chicken too. I’m always looking for ways to use the canned chicken, it’s my primary long term protein. I was careful to add enough rice to the pot this time and it came out as expected. I can learn…
@nick, isn’t the Costco canned chicken all white meat? If so, what happens to the dark meat from those chickens? Not enough demand to can it?
>> A bag of chips was $5, that I used to buy for $2.50 on sale.
Yesterday at Albertson’s a package of eight premium Pepperidge Farm hamburger buns was $4.99. Granted they’re not full of air like the store brand, but 62 cents for a bun?? Geez.
>> I grabbed a nice sturdy folding keyboard stand for D2, like new, with tags. I’m working on setting up a music workstation for her. She’s been writing lyrics with a friend from school, and wants to play around with making music and recording. I’ve got almost all the pieces of a decent workstation, just need to find the time to get it all together.
“…just need to find the time…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmhoOp2fUzg
@nick, just sayin… Been there, done that, and have had my regrets,
>> In the US, traditional copper phone service is highly regulated with certain guaranteed minimum service levels to insure reliability, which the new-fangled wireless and VOIP services are not, even when provided by the same local phone company.
IIRC, and this probably goes back years, the copper line phone service (aka POTS) was run through big banks of batteries at the Central Offices (COs) such that if there was a power outage you could still get a dial-tone and reach 911. Not sure how that works today with all the computers at the PD/FD/EMS dispatch centers, but at least a few folks can still call each other and yell “to the basement” when it’s TEOTWAWKI.
I make my own barbecue sauce but you can use your favorite bottled brand. I drain the chicken and put in the pot on the stove. Let it simmer a few minutes to make sure all the liquid is out then stir in the barbecue sauce. Makes a great meal with baked beans and slaw with or without a bun.
Hot dogs among other products.
Copper line service is still CO powered as far as I know.
I never lost phone service during the week of the February 2021 freeze in Texas or during hurricanes in Florida.
For you astronomy fans – a 174 megapixel shot of the moon .
See https://www.sciencealert.com/ridiculously-detailed-new-image-of-the-moon-is-a-masterpiece-of-space-photography .
And now for today’s WTF moment:
https://phys.org/news/2022-08-opinion-algorithm-tool-populist-rhetoric.html
WTF?
Generated by a chatbot?
The SouthWestern Bell central offices I have heard about and have been in pretty much run on a giant UPS. Changing the switches to computers instead of the old relay stuff saved a lot of power.
By memory the batteries in the CO are 1.5 volts each. Each cell is about 2 feet tall and whatever…. scale up a D cell. Thick wires, maybe 5/8 inch thick. Battery duty once a month was a BIG deal.
Back up generators? They’ve got that down pat. Crazy stuff like a Volkswagen diesel engine standing on end instead of normal “car position” and an underground tank with a thousand gallons or so of fuel.
Ma Bell knows how to get it done.
Supper tonight is going to be edible.
I was going to make Parmesan Chicken. Oh. no parmesan cheese. And for a side, fettuccine alfredo. Oh, still no parmesan cheese.
Scale back and how about making mac and cheese with canned tuna?
Uhm, the milk in the fridge looks rather chunky. Exp date is Jun 17. Onward to plan number whatever….
How about some egg noodles? Add butter, a glop or two of sour cream, a sprinkle of lemon pepper? Might toss in a beaten egg. Then, because Nick says it’s good, a can of Kirkland canned chicken that says use by sometime in 2017.
Fakachini Alfredo with chicken.
Worse comes to worse, the dogs will feast like kings.
“Remember”
https://areaocho.com/remember-5/
“The person urging you to do illegal s*** is probably an FBI agent. You can’t trust anyone, not even family. Even if you ARE among those you can trust, letting someone new into the group is a huge threat. That person may be, or may become, an informant.”
So our federal government is running a huge number of entrapment schemes. Lovely, just lovely.
“WSJ: Virginia Raises Electricity Bills to Pay for Offshore Wind”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/08/22/wsj-virginia-commissions-expensive-offshore-wind-power-under-duress/
“Dominion Energy plans to build 176 wind turbines 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach. That’s enough to power about 660,000 homes. The capital cost is $9.8 billion. The state Corporation Commission assented to a related rate increase, but it noted that the downside risk is on consumers. Typically, the commission says, a utility might buy such power from an outside developer, “which limits the risks to customers.” Yet Dominion “has chosen to construct, own and operate the Project.””
Get ready, we the public are getting to buy a huge number of underperforming electricity generating assets. I agree with the author, a CAT 3 or above hurricane will probably take all of these very expensive assets out.
>> For you astronomy fans – a 174 megapixel shot of the moon .
See https://www.sciencealert.com/ridiculously-detailed-new-image-of-the-moon-is-a-masterpiece-of-space-photography
Boy, the latest iPhone camera really is that good.
Generated by a chatbot?
– like my second thought, that it was artificially generated based on a large number of submitted papers…
IDK if she’d pass the Turing Test, based on the written sample.
n
In grad school, I saw papers on artificially generating academic papers and getting the end result into peer-reviewed journals. In some fields, like CS, the AI was remarkably effective at generating authentic-seeming gibberish.
I’m sorry, but no. Entrapment is something very specific. Committing a crime and having a family member inform the police that you did so is very, very, different.
>>Generated by a chatbot? <<
No, just the result of Italian tax dollars at work in the institutions of higher learning. It comes perilously close to the word salad generated by schizophrenics.
Re offal:
Check out an Asian market sometime. I just dropped by mine and they had lamb hearts at $5.99/lb and lamb livers at $4.99/lb. I didn’t see any beef tongue (which I love), but I was in a hurry. Last one I got at Sam’s Club was ridiculously expensive.
You can find lots of goodies if you’re willing to hunt around in an Asian market. Only place I’ve ever found that has dried figs, from California, for export to China!
They had chicken hearts and deboned chicken ‘paws’ too but I forget the prices .
EDIT: and live eels and other things too gruesome to mention. Take the kids!
>>In grad school, I saw papers on artificially generating academic papers and getting the end result into peer-reviewed journals. In some fields, like CS, the AI was remarkably effective at generating authentic-seeming gibberish. <<
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
Need we say more?
>> Generated by a chatbot?
Certainly not one from Twitter, right Elon?
“Uvalde school board fires Chief Pete Arredondo over shooting response, after he calls vote a “public lynching””
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/08/24/uvalde-school-police-chief-pete-arredondo-termination-board-vote/
The school was a lot nicer to him than he was to those kids and teachers in Uvalde. No telling how many of the kids and teachers would have survived had the former chief led a team to immediately kill the shooter.
>> The dishwasher tablets don’t even include the plastic bin to keep them dry.
Get the Kirkland brand at Costco, they (still) come in a plastic bin.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/08/federal-judge-slams-defense-dept-and-marine-corps-grants-class-action-status-in-vaccine-mandate-case/
So the only review was checking the applicant’s retirement date.
>> Back in the very early days of the Internet, I taught web development. Haven’t touched it for 20 years or more. Now I need to get back up to speed, in particular, with the frameworks Spring, Springboot, Angular, React, Thymeleaf, etc.
My company was getting heavily into all of the above, plus Docker, Kubernetes and more, when I went out on leave. Lots of grumbling from my colleagues about implementing some of these technologies just for the sake of saying we did. Of course, without additional resources, delivery to the clients sometimes took second place.
>> @nick, isn’t the Costco canned chicken all white meat? If so, what happens to the dark meat from those chickens? Not enough demand to can it?
Hot dogs among other products.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf2j-YzZRAA
Hot Skillz! Docker and Kubernetes are two of the hottest.
I have a half finished Kubernetes self-paced class sitting in my work training queue even though it doesn’t make a bit of sense for our product.
Get the Kirkland brand at Costco, they (still) come in a plastic bin.
– that is one of the few things I’ve ever returned to Costco due to lack of satisfaction. They just didn’t clean my dishes and left a strong odor on them.
========================
https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2022/4/13/23023950/michigan-governor-gretchen-whitmer-kidnapping-plot-acquittal-fbi-entrapment-jacob-sullum-column
Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.
See also almost any of the “plots” in the last 10 years that were “stopped” by the FBI. Most if not all involve the FBI creating the terrorist, begging them to commit crimes in some cases, and supplying all the material and know how to move from talking to crime.
n
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/01/05/bundy-fbi-misconduct-another-example-why-feds-need-leashed-james-bovard-column/1001603001/
See also Randy Weaver and Ruby Ridge.
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Turns out it’s much easier to solve crimes if you create them.
n
The Marines had zero Covid deaths until around the time the vaccines started rolling out and mandates began.
Still unjabbed here. Now with natural immunity.
“WSJ: Virginia Raises Electricity Bills to Pay for Offshore Wind”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/08/22/wsj-virginia-commissions-expensive-offshore-wind-power-under-duress/
“Dominion Energy plans to build 176 wind turbines 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach. That’s enough to power about 660,000 homes. The capital cost is $9.8 billion. The state Corporation Commission assented to a related rate increase, but it noted that the downside risk is on consumers. Typically, the commission says, a utility might buy such power from an outside developer, “which limits the risks to customers.” Yet Dominion “has chosen to construct, own and operate the Project.””
Get ready, we the public are getting to buy a huge number of underperforming electricity generating assets. I agree with the author, a CAT 3 or above hurricane will probably take all of these very expensive assets out.
Wow, I just read the WSJ article. These are the new 780 foot tall wind turbines with the 250+ foot long blades. They are to be placed way offshore, maybe 20 miles. They are very tall since the wind velocity increases with altitude.
So 14.7 MW/turbine * 176 turbines = 2,587 MW. Cost of $9.8 billion installed.
$9.8 billion / 2,587,000 kw = 3,788 $/kw. They are claiming a 42% capacity factor which would be double the average capacity factor of the wind turbines installed in the USA. The fuel is “free” but the owner of the land (or sea bed) is paid a rental fee, generally 20% of the power generated. So, the fuel is not free as claimed.
I can buy a 48 MW gas turbine for 950$/kw plus 200 $/kw installation (SWAG). Yes, it will burn natural gas or diesel in low fuel situations.
So much for cheap energy in the USA. They are going to bankrupt us all.
Costco is why TSP disappeared from automatic dishwasher detergents about 12 years ago following WA State’s ban on phosphates in the products on store shelves there.
No, they will bankrupt their serfs. They will enrich themselves.
No, they will bankrupt their serfs. They will enrich themselves.
You know, eat the rich is not just a saying.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2022/4/13/23023950/michigan-governor-gretchen-whitmer-kidnapping-plot-acquittal-fbi-entrapment-jacob-sullum-column
Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.
See also almost any of the “plots” in the last 10 years that were “stopped” by the FBI. Most if not all involve the FBI creating the terrorist, begging them to commit crimes in some cases, and supplying all the material and know how to move from talking to crime.
Sorry dude, the under bridge dweller has the reading comprehension of a rock. So, the facts that you presented here are going to be summarily dismissed by it.
Most of the satisfaction is in the cooking.
You’ll probably need a lot of sauce to make them palatable, and maybe some strong drink before and after.
n
Truth from a 10-year-old:
https://www.statesman.com/story/news/state/2022/08/25/uvalde-school-district-police-chief-arredondo-fired-for-his-response-to-the-shooting/65417878007/
Nah. Kind of like watching the chef prepare puffer fish and having shrimp instead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kKofn5UGqE
Heinlein said “The most you can do to a free man is kill him.”
Well the slip in my electrical install schedule has officially pushed my septic back a week too.
Grrrr.
n
>> You know, eat the rich is not just a saying.
Hmm, the rich or bugs, “tough” choice…
One might “taste like meat” but the other IS meat….
and if the future is roasting strays over railroad tie fires…. well, looks like meat’s back on the menu.
n
And with that cheery thought…
n
The IRS giving back money?!
Hmm…what’s that Mr Satan? Turn up the heat you said? It’s freezing down there?
https://www.wsj.com/articles/irs-waives-1-2-billion-in-late-filing-penalties-for-income-tax-returns-11661363047
@brad
home phone service: Who needs it anymore?
We’ve got a rotary dial phone on a land line. It’s not a ‘real’ land line, it runs thru our cable box or modem in some fashion i don’t quite understand. It worked when cell service was overwhelming following our last large earthquake. Daughter can make phone calls without requiring a cell. Works (for awhile) when power is out.
we like it.
I still have a real copper-based land line. It is pretty reliable. The most frequent problem is audible noise for a few days after it rains. It also supports DSL, which is less reliable.
Fun fact: the two wires have approximately 48 VDC across them when the phone is “on hook.” One is typically 5 volts negative referenced to ground, and the other is 53 or so negative referenced to ground. They are both negative to reduce corrosion.
We had the most advanced and reliable phone system in the world, but we are abandoning it in favor of cell phones.