Wed. Oct. 26, 2022 – gah, plans. Just a way for the universe to stomp you…

By on October 26th, 2022 in open thread, personal

Cooler and damp, overcast clearing later.   Maybe.   It was partly sunny for most of yesterday but then the temp started to drop.  Wind shifted too.   It was 57F at about 10pm.   Today should be similar.

I spent most of the day not moving much, sitting in my chair.   I did something to my back while making breakfast, and I could barely take  a deep breath.   Normally that would work it’s way out, or I’d find a way to release the pinch, but I didn’t and it didn’t.

I put some groceries away, and poked at a broken TV, but mainly just sat.   In retrospect, I should have just bitten the bullet and had a lie down.

Today will need to have some stuff get accomplished, no matter the weather or my back.   Hopefully I’ll be up for it.

Short shrift, so OPEN THREAD!

Stack something.   And lots of it.

nick

66 Comments and discussion on "Wed. Oct. 26, 2022 – gah, plans. Just a way for the universe to stomp you…"

  1. Greg Norton says:

    Greg, don’t you have a 486 stashed away ?

    I can remember my 486DX-25.  It was a floating point monster compared to the 386 with the separate 387 chip.

    No. My last 486 class board with a Cyrix replacement CPU went out the door to be a computer for my wife’s step grandmother sometime in the mid 90s. The step grandmother didn’t really appreciate the gesture so I think the board ended up trashed by one of the uncles instead of being returned.

    The board was plenty of power for Grandma, but Grandma was a b*tch.

    Just about anything else I had left got purged for the West Coast move in 2010, including, which I regret now, all of my old Commodore gear.

    The oldest board I currently have is my primary desktop’s LGA 775 (?) for the Q6600 CPU. That will go bye bye within the next year because the Q6600’s virtualization capabilities are not supported by the motherboard BIOS, and I’d like to play with Docker Windows containers among other things. Plus, 14 years is ancient by CPU standards. Still, the system is uber stable and has 16 GB RAM. Good enough.

  2. Greg Norton says:

    I am a member of two societies, ASME and AIChE.  Both are so woke that it hurts.

    I was in IEEE and ACM. Dropped both ages ago. Membership served no purpose, magazines served no purpose, and my dues supported their social engineering.

    I’ve never been a member of ACM. They are way more woke than IEEE or the other societies and have been going back a couple of decades.

    The program in Vantucky, where I did my first pass at grad school, had an ACM-W chapter, not mainstream ACM – women first, men are welcome to bring refreshments to the meetings. The sponsorship of the chapter was tied in with the faculty’s project of running a questionably qualified Lutheran cult escapee single mother through the undergrad cirriculum as Suma Cum Laude and getting her a “blue” badge (non-contractor) job at Intel in Hillsboro – uber rare at the time.

    The Intel job lasted less than two years. I think the girl has a podcast now where she talks about … being a Lutheran cult escapee single mother! 

  3. Nick Flandrey says:

    Wow, 46F this morning.   And damp.  

    Back still hurts.  I might have to renew at The Joint and get an adjustment.  I ‘ll try my hang board again.

    I meant to close last  night with a link to the story on Dr Who.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-11353077/David-Tennants-wife-Georgia-shares-sweet-tribute-Doctor-return.html 

    Interesting the connections his wife has to the show.

    n

  4. Nick Flandrey says:

    @stevef, it’s not quite the same, but replacement c64 stuff isn’t expensive on ebay.   I threw some away last year or the year before because it wasn’t even worth shipping.  I might have kept the drive…

    n

  5. Greg Norton says:

    This is the principal reason that I want to move our software to pure C++. Fortran is just not stable on any platform anymore using mixed programming.  And Windows may go Arm like the rest of the world.

    I’m guessing Microsoft wants to create a “walled garden” Arm device similar to an iPad but running Windows 11. 8/16 GB RAM and decent 3D would be “good enough” for most people if it offered a 10 hour battery life like a Mac Book Air.

    Apple is starting to wall off the garden on Mac, but Redmond is not going to be able to replicate what Apple did with the M1/M2 running Qualcomm’s garbage. All the good engineers working for Qualcomm here in Austin were recruited by Tim and moved up to the new buildings which he started to build on the Parmer campus property after Steve Jobs died.

    I doubt Microsoft could get away with their own chip design group either, at least not openly. The PC makers would flip. As things currently stand, they don’t like the Surface but tolerate it.

  6. Greg Norton says:

    Interesting the connections his wife has to the show.

    The wife was on the show and her character was left as an open ended story under an arrangement between Russel Davies and Steven Moffatt. 

    The wife’s mother, Tennant’s mother-in-law, is Trillian on the BBC “Hitchhikers Guide” radio and TV series, and she provided the voice on the speaker in the original run “Teletubbies”. 

    Also of note – the father, Peter Davison, was not only on “Doctor Who” but he is “Dish of the Day” on the “Hitchhikers” TV miniseries.

    Geesh, that miniseries is … 42 years old! Well, depending on how you count.

    But what do you get when you multiply six by nine?

  7. Greg Norton says:

    The actual next Doctor once the publicity stunt is done.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6Hj1v3ZLtw

  8. Greg Norton says:

    @stevef, it’s not quite the same, but replacement c64 stuff isn’t expensive on ebay.   I threw some away last year or the year before because it wasn’t even worth shipping.  I might have kept the drive…

    The 1541 drive is arguably useless long term unless a collector has a tech available to do the periodic maintenance work, specifically the alignment required when the drive has been used to read a lot of copy protected disks. Plus the 5 ¼ media is at the limits of its intended lifespan, and no manufacturing capability exists for more to get made right now.

  9. SteveF says:

    But what do you get when you multiply six by nine?

    I don’t know, but the square root of sixty-nine is 8-something.

  10. MrAtoz says:

    Wow. It’s amazing watching the PLTs, Dumbos and LameStreamMedia trying to cover for Uncle Fester-man. It has gone from he is perfectly fine, so says his “doctor”, to “Dr. Oz is bullying Fester”. How can that evil Doctor EVEN run against the poor man. They won’t come right out and say Fester is handicapped or disabled. That would mean looking at his mental capacity. Spinning to the max. If Oz doesn’t win in a landslide, you know the fix is in.

  11. paul says:

    “I won’t see it. Ever.”

    Yep.

  12. Ray Thompson says:

    “I won’t see it. Ever.”

    Yep.

    I suspect it will wait an Academy Award of some sort. Because to not win an award would be unwoke and racist.

    I will not watch the movie, ever.

    10
  13. Nightraker says:

    @Lynn

    <a

    Florida Man Puts Up Pig Pen After Developer Builds Driveway On His Property

    🙂

    https://700wlw.iheart.com/content/2022-10-25-florida-man-puts-up-pig-pen-after-developer-builds-driveway-on-his-property/

  14. MrAtoz says:

    plugs gonna save us from BIG CORP:

    Hold onto your wallets because Biden just announced more measures to ‘bring down costs’ (including ending racist airline fees for extra legroom)

    These people have no idea how the free market works. Plane tickets will go up and you won’t even get that extra 6″ of leg room. Which should be reserved for the Amish, anyway.

    This is how the Dumbos will end inflation? Regulate businesses out of business. How is he going to force this on corporations? Deny them any type of Fed assistance? If airlines don’t comply, deny them access to Federal airports? This is going nowhere like student loan relief.

  15. MrAtoz says:

    I suspect it will wait an Academy Award of some sort. Because to not win an award would be unwoke and racist.

    I will not watch the movie, ever.

    I will wait for the free version on the innertubes. Probably the same with Black Adam.

  16. Greg Norton says:

    I suspect it will wait an Academy Award of some sort. Because to not win an award would be unwoke and racist.

    I will not watch the movie, ever.

    SeaOrg will rig the “Fan Favorite” category (or whatever they call it now) for “Top Gun” unless the Cruise flick is up for “Best Picture”.

  17. MrAtoz says:

    MrsAtoz and I are checking one off the bucket list on November 17th by going on the Turner Classic Movie Cruise.  I’m psyched to see Close Encounters hosted by Richard Dreyfus, Journey to the Center of the Earth hosted by Pat Boone and Blade Runner hosted by Sean Young. Plenty of other classic movies and SciFi. I’ll probably watch Rio Bravo hosted by Deanna Martin. Also, plenty of booze tasting events. Thanks, Disney!

    7
    1
  18. Lynn says:

    “The US now has just 25 days of diesel supply — the lowest since 2008. Here’s why that’s more alarming than a dwindling ‘oil piggy bank’”

        https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-now-just-25-days-160000619.html

    “Unlike gas and jet fuel, demand for diesel recovered at a much faster pace from the pandemic. Diesel is used for transporting goods as well as powering construction, farming and military vehicles and equipment.”

    “In 2021, the U.S. transportation sector alone consumed 46.82 billion gallons, or 1.11 billion barrels of distillate fuel (essentially diesel fuel) — at an average of about 128 million gallons a day.”

    Diesel, jet fuel, kerosene, and heating oil are very close in the petroleum cuts to each other.  In a pinch, each can be substituted for each other.  And, we are sending million of gallons of diesel to Europe each day and have been for years.

  19. Lynn says:

    Florida Man Puts Up Pig Pen After Developer Builds Driveway On His Property

    https://700wlw.iheart.com/content/2022-10-25-florida-man-puts-up-pig-pen-after-developer-builds-driveway-on-his-property/

    Oh my goodness !  Can I ?  Should I ?

  20. Greg Norton says:

    Wow. It’s amazing watching the PLTs, Dumbos and LameStreamMedia trying to cover for Uncle Fester-man. It has gone from he is perfectly fine, so says his “doctor”, to “Dr. Oz is bullying Fester”. How can that evil Doctor EVEN run against the poor man. They won’t come right out and say Fester is handicapped or disabled. That would mean looking at his mental capacity. Spinning to the max. If Oz doesn’t win in a landslide, you know the fix is in

    The fix is in.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fetterman-declared-debate-winner-by-pennsylvania-paper-sparking-ridicule/ar-AA13ow2m

  21. paul says:

    Yesterday was probably the worst part of a new PC.  Installing T-Bird and Firefox and then copying the profiles from the old to new machine.

    FF was not much of a problem.  T-Bird, yeah, I somehow copied a profile from 2018.  Tried again and it’s good.  But that took the afternoon. 

    Today was “move out the old and install the new”.  Dang, it’s dusty under my desk.  I had a power strip that will turn off the other outlets.  The new PC draws enough juice to turn the other outlets on while it’s booting and then “click” off goes the monitor once the PC is booted.  I sort of expected this.  It’s all re-routed with a different power strip. Stupid transformers and having all of the outlets on the UPS running like this: I I   I I   I I  and not like =  =  =, what the heck. 

    The Yamaha speakers and sub woofer are out of the way.  The Epson scanner is off the desk… but I’ll connect it to see if Win11 has drivers.  If not, in  the trash it goes.  I’m not expecting any joy, Epson didn’t make Win7 drivers for some reason.   Three fewer things plugged in.  Stuff off of the desk and out of the way.

    I even cleaned my desk!  A bit of Windex to clean and then a good spray of Lemon Pledge.  Looks nice.  Too bad it’s a Flat Surface and will collect unknown amounts of stuff.  

    I installed the UPS software.  If it’s accurate, PC, monitor, the switch, a Ubiquiti NanoBeam, and a Ubiquiti UniFi, and the Pi, are simply sucking down the juice.  All of 29 watts.  Total. 

    The monitor’s speakers ain’t nothing to write home about.  I expected better sound than the 9 volt radio with SEVEN TRANSISTORS that I had when I was 9 years old.  Just saying.   But good enough for System Sounds and various videos.  The lack of bass is disappointing. 

    The picture on the monitor is huge.  Duh, going from 24″ to 32″, what can I say.  I keep turning the Brightness down.  Default is 80 and that’s “tan corneas” bright.  33 for now.  Picture is very sharp and clear.

    Tomorrow’s project is to pull the SSD from old machine and copy it to the new machine.  Using the USB 3.0 to SATA/IDE gizmo.  Then pull the DVD and install the Lemark printer stuff, PaintShopPro, and the Dymo Label Printer stuff. 

    New PC seems faster than the old machine.  Good.

  22. Lynn says:

    “FERC approves MISO reliability contract to keep Ameren Missouri’s Rush Island coal plant operating”

        https://www.utilitydive.com/news/ameren-rush-island-ferc-miso-reliability-ssr-contract/634977/

    The bureaucrats are running this country.   This is not a good thing.

  23. Lynn says:

    “Project Hail Mary” by Andy Weir
       https://www.amazon.com/Project-Hail-Mary-Andy-Weir/dp/0593135229?tag=ttgnet-20/

    A standalone science fiction book, no prequel or sequel known. I read the well printed and well bound trade paperback published by Ballantine Books in 2022. I will continue to read all books by Andy Weir, this is my third book of his.

    This is a story of love, desperation, betrayal, incredibly long loneliness, and great achievement. This is the story of Rocky and Grace, two people who never should have met.

    This is not a hard science story as there is an amoeba like creature that can absorb light and turn it into mass and vice versa (E = mc^2). And there are space aliens. Everything else is definitely hard science. Science rules !

    I loved the spaceship “Hail Mary”. It just makes sense for the multiyear journey to Tau Ceti. And it is a transformer to provide a centrifuge for gravity when the engines were not firing, just cool.

    MGM has bought the movie rights to the book for $3 million and Ryan Gosling has signed on as the main character.
       https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/lord-millers-project-hail-mary-enlisting-martian-scribe-drew-goddard-1299338/

    The author has a website at:
       https://andyweirauthor.com/

    My rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars 
    Amazon rating: 4.7 out of 5 stars (87,753 reviews)

  24. paul says:

    I had a program called Edgeless on the Win7 box.  It lets the mouse wrap around.  For instance, you hit the right side of the screen and mouse appears on the left side.  Worked great.  Hated the tray icon.

    I looked today and found Mousinity_v1.20 .  No tray icon.

    Turn on the accessibility option that displays the concentric rings when you press the Ctrl key. 

  25. MrAtoz says:

    I voted.

  26. Lynn says:

    “Twitter Employees Create a List of Demands for New Boss Demanding Elon Musk Doesn’t Fire Them”

         https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/10/twitter-employees-create-list-demands-new-boss-demanding-elon-musk-doesnt-fire/

    Oh, this will not go well.

  27. Greg Norton says:

    “Twitter Employees Create a List of Demands for New Boss Demanding Elon Musk Doesn’t Fire Them”

    Oh, this will not go well.

    He walked into the HQ in San Francisco today, carrying a sink. “Let this sink in”.

    Har har har har.

    I believe something will happen with the Feds before Friday.

    I also believe Musk and the banks want intervention by the Feds. 

    My office mate at the Death Star used to ask me how people ever lost money on bonds. He was clueless about the math but wanted to earn a living trading at home. Another sheep for shearing.

    Musk’s purchase of Twitter will be a textbook example as to how to lose money on bonds. The banks who wrote the paper know.

  28. paul says:

    That “Mousinity_v1.20” thing?  Ah, Win11 hides a lot of stuff.  

    Stash the program where you want.  R-click, copy as path. Win key R (I don’t have a Win key… ) Anyway.  Click Start, type “run” in the search bar.  Type in shell:startup.  Paste your copied path.

    Seems like it was easier to just find the startup folder in the Windows folder and drop shortcuts there.

    My head hurts.

    I’ve used Edgeless for a few years, no problems, I just didn’t like having the icon in the cluster of things next to the clock. 

    Oh, and I have to find the mouse settings somewhere. It seems to be real happy to repeat key presses.  Insert eye-roll.

    Time for dog cookies.

    That gizmo I bought so I could use my ps/2 mouse and keyboard on a USB port?  And the mouse part crapped out… so I found a USB mouse in the junk box.  Today, for grins, I connected the junk box ps/2 mouse I was using and it worked for all of 20 minutes.  So the gizmo isn’t junk.  Pulled the mouse from the old machine and it works.  Guess what was added to the trash bag today? 

    The UPS software is obnoxious.  I get a pop-up by the clock every time I reboot telling me it has re-established a connection to the UPS.  There’s a setting…. or there’s “un-install” that program.

  29. paul says:

    I voted.

    Did you vote for me?  If not that’s ok.  But ya gotta vote for SteveF…. send him a dollar….

  30. Alan says:

    >> I voted.

    Don’t stop now…

    (“Early and often” as the saying goes.)

  31. EdH says:

    @Kenneth C Mitchell:

    Skinny pipe yesterday. My father had copies of both “Now Hear This!” and “Cap’n Fatso”, great books, read them several times.  I suppose one of my brothers still has them.

    I believe the “Space Bat” shows up in one of them.

    His other books look interesting.

  32. nick flandrey says:

    Made all my pickups, now I can start on the Halloween display.   D2 is practicing the trombone in the house.   Which makes this a great time to be OUT of the house.

    n

  33. Alan says:

    If the dealer had any common sense he’d step up and give the guy the truck and then go one further and donate another vehicle to charity. Gotta be something in some weird color or low-end configuration gathering dust in the back corner of the lot. Just make sure all the local TV stations are on hand. Free publicity you usually can’t buy. Othwise only one of the lawyers will wind up with the truck. 

    https://jalopnik.com/golfer-sues-ford-dealer-country-club-after-backing-out-1849698564?utm_source=jalopnik_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2022-10-26

  34. nick flandrey says:

    Someone tell me how Mittens can have at least two multi million dollar homes to SELL, while he presumably still sleeps in at least one more…

    Downward slope? Mitt Romney finds buyer for luxury six-bedroom Utah ski lodge for $11.5 million – one year after selling $23.5m oceanfront California villa 

    n

  35. Lynn says:

    Someone tell me how Mittens can have at least two multi million dollar homes to SELL, while he presumably still sleeps in at least one more…

    Downward slope? Mitt Romney finds buyer for luxury six-bedroom Utah ski lodge for $11.5 million – one year after selling $23.5m oceanfront California villa 

    n

    Mittens used to be the head of one of the largest hedge funds in the USA, Bain Capital.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitt_Romney#Private_equity

  36. nick flandrey says:

    Ah, so he made it off other people.  Better than stealing it.

    n

  37. Greg Norton says:

    Mittens used to be the head of one of the largest hedge funds in the USA, Bain Capital.

    Mittens father ran American Motors in the 50s/60s before being elected Governor of Michigan, and I believe the family’s wealth predated even him.

    Mittens has serious Daddy issues from his father’s unfulfilled ambition to be elected President.

    Among other things, Bain built Staples from cobbled together regional chains and participated in the asset strip mining of Toys R Us, but Romney may have been gone during the antics with the toy store chain.

  38. Greg Norton says:

    Downward slope? Mitt Romney finds buyer for luxury six-bedroom Utah ski lodge for $11.5 million – one year after selling $23.5m oceanfront California villa

    And the wealthy weed moguls are beginning to invest in property outside of CO, providing the incentive to sell. One of my friends who is up in Gatlinberg all the time suggested finishing our Tennessee trek soon before the weed billionaire who bought the only ski mountain in the state, Ober Gatlinberg, starts making serious changes.

  39. Lynn says:

    Wow, Tesla is building a Tesla Service Center down the road from my house, about three miles away.  It is a huge tilt wall building, probably 75,000 ft2.

  40. Greg Norton says:

    Wow, Tesla is building a Tesla Service Center down the road from my house, about three miles away.  It is a huge tilt wall building, probably 75,000 ft2.

    Driving to/from Louisiana last week, I saw a huge Tesla facility on the other side of town, near where 1610 meets I-10, not far from Baytown.

    The Twitter circus is another distraction from the 50% drop of the share price over the last year.

  41. paul says:

    I connected and powered up the Epson scanner.  Win11 found new hardware.  But no drivers are available.

    Bummer.  To the trash it goes.

  42. Kenneth C Mitchell says:

    EdH: “Space bat”?

    Please, SEA bat. There won’t be a “space bat” until there’s a space vessel large enough to require mid-wit crewmen to help maintain the thing, and who are gullible enough to bend over and look into a box on the deck. I think the “sea bat” appeared in “Now Hear This”. 

    Interesting historical note: I believe that the author, RADM Daniel Gallery, was the last naval officer to issue the order “Away boarding parties”, when his squadron captured the U-505. He also wrote the book of that name;

    https://smile.amazon.com/U-505-Rear-Admiral-Daniel-Vincent-Gallery-ebook/dp/B01KUGU5S0/ref=sr_1_4?crid=QCNFXF5KNCD2&keywords=u505&qid=1666827020&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIzLjU0IiwicXNhIjoiMi45NSIsInFzcCI6IjIuOTgifQ%3D%3D&sprefix=u505%2Caps%2C113&sr=8-4&tag=ttgnet-20

  43. Jim Aller says:

    Paul

    https://www.hamrick.com/

    This is not free, but very powerful,and works with every scanner or printer  with a scanner (I have 5 different ones). It works perfectly on every computer I have tried it on.  (you can install it on 3). 

    Try for free to see if it works for you.

  44. Lynn says:

    “Stockman: The Macroeconomic Consequences Of Lockdowns & The Aftermath”

        https://www.zerohedge.com/political/stockman-macroeconomic-consequences-lockdowns-aftermath

    “During the past three years, Washington has made three catastrophic errors.”

     “These include:

    “The draconian one-size-fits-all Lockdowns in response to the Covid;”

    “The insane $11 trillion bacchanalia of monetary and fiscal stimulus payment designed to counter the supply-side shutdowns caused by the Virus Patrol;”

    “The mindless Sanctions War on Russia, which has caused global commodity markets to erupt skyward.”

    Catastrophic, draconian, insane, and mindless.   I could not have come up with better comments myself.

    Hat tip to:

       https://www.dailypundit.com/dailypundit.wordpress/2022/10/23/david-stockman-discovers-the-fourth-turning/

  45. nick flandrey says:

    One mast of the wrecked pirate ship is up, and in place.   Two sails on it too.   Lost the light before I could get the other mast and yardarm into place.

    Neighbors are starting to wander by…

    n

  46. Lynn says:

    “Slimmed-down Elon Musk carries KITCHEN SINK into Twitter HQ as he changes his profile to ‘Chief Twit’, vows to cut 75% of staff and close the $44BN deal by Friday – as new report reveals ‘absolute decline’ in users”

       https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11358061/Elon-Musk-changes-Twitter-profile-Chief-Twit-location-Twitter-HQ.html

    I thought it was an internet joke.  Turns out it really happened.

    Hat tip to:

        https://www.drudgereport.com/

  47. Lynn says:

    My wife has evidently managed to trigger the immobilizer circuit in her 2019 Toyota Highlander.  She got a CD out of her vehicle and forgot to remove the key this morning.  Now she tries to start it and the “locked engine” symbol just flashes at her.  She has a tow truck on the way, the Toyota dealership said to bring it in.

    Why ?  This is freaking crazy and dangerous.

  48. Alan says:

    >> Bummer.  To the trash it goes.

    @paul, any electronics recycling available in your area? Either municipal or private? Keeps some of it out of landfill.

    When we were packing up to leave FL there was a non-profit start-up in Tampa that was happy to take everything down to wall-warts and video cables. 

  49. Alan says:

    Gee, ya think he might have vetted the people doing the captioning a little better?? 

    Joe Calvello, communications director for Fetterman’s campaign, said in a statement after the debate that the Democrat, “did remarkably well tonight— especially when you consider that he’s still recovering from a stroke and was working off of delayed captions filled with errors.”

    Fetterman used closed captioning during the debate to follow the conversation.

    https://www.newsweek.com/fetterman-dodges-question-releasing-full-medical-records-1754689

  50. Greg Norton says:

    Follow the money they said…

    Pfizer cashes in on pandemic: Pharma giant plans to sell its vaccine with a 10,000% markup – despite revenues tripling and CEO pocketing $50m during Covid crisis 

    Who in their right mind is going to pay for a jab this time next year except he extreme hypochondriacs who still wear masks?

  51. drwilliams says:

    @Lynn

    Oh my goodness !  Can I ?  Should I ?

    Check your zoning.

    Make them believe you are.

  52. drwilliams says:

    “Twitter Employees Create a List of Demands for New Boss Demanding Elon Musk Doesn’t Fire Them”

    I’d tell them that they may be able to keep their jobs after a six-month deprogramming course.

  53. drwilliams says:

    GOP Lawmakers: Air Force Responsible for Leak of Republican Candidate Jennifer-Ruth Green’s Military Records

    The Air Force confirmed that one of its personnel leaked confidential military records of Republican U.S. House candidate Jennifer-Ruth Green to an opposition research firm just weeks before the mid-term elections, according to two Indiana Republican congressmen.

    Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Banks and Rep. Larry Bucshon said in a statement Wednesday that they spoke to Air Force Inspector General Lt. Gen. Stephen Davis and that the Air Force was taking full responsibility for the leak of records — which was then reported by Politico — that revealed that Green, an Air National Guard lieutenant colonel, was sexually assaulted during her time in the military.

    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/10/26/gop-lawmakers-air-force-responsible-for-leak-of-republican-candidate-jennifer-ruth-greens-military-records/

    It was not just reported by Politico–they claimed that they got it through a routine FOIA request. A transparent lie, and a transparent attempt by leftwing liars to influence the election.

    Step one is a deal to the leaker : 5 years in prison for rolling over on everyone involved,with the promise that otherwise it will be twenty-five years.

    Step two is criminal prosecution of Politico to the fullest extent of the law.

    Step three, in parallel, is green’s lawsuit against Politico. Send them the way of Gawker.

    In the meantime, folks, please refrain from posting Politico links here, unless you want the surrogate steaming pile vote from me.

  54. drwilliams says:

    31 years ago, The Minnesota Twins won Game 6 of the World Series

    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/10/the-paranormal-kirby-puckett-and-me.php

    [note: baseball has long since figured out how to pump a few more millions out of our pockets with a longer series. Ends in December this year, doesn’t it?]

    I watched every game of that series. I admired Jack Morris, and it was a shame that the Twins, with their slim financial foundation, couldn’t keep him around.

    The current brain trust believes piecemeal pitching is the way to win games, and it coincidentally prevents any pitcher from being a star.

  55. Lynn says:

    Oh my goodness !  Can I ?  Should I ?

    Check your zoning.

    Make them believe you are.

    What zoning ?  My office complex is out in the country.

  56. Lynn says:

    My wife has evidently managed to trigger the immobilizer circuit in her 2019 Toyota Highlander.  She got a CD out of her vehicle and forgot to remove the key this morning.  Now she tries to start it and the “locked engine” symbol just flashes at her.  She has a tow truck on the way, the Toyota dealership said to bring it in.

    Why ?  This is freaking crazy and dangerous.

    OK, the vehicle would not start.  All we got was the clack clack clack.  So I put my 100 amp battery charger on the battery and tried it after minute.  Zoom !  The Highlander started right up.

    I took the Highlander over to Autozone.  The battery tester said the battery is 100% good.  I have no idea what was wrong but it works now.

  57. drwilliams says:

    @Lynn

    What zoning ?  My office complex is out in the country.

    If you call the county and ask for regulations concerning hog lots, you might be surprised. Runoff, for example.

    Might be best to claim the “integrated system”: put in some corn, feed it to the hogs, capture the manure and turn it into methane for your gennie.

    Actually, based on driving by an ADM plant some twenty years ago, you could probably get a suitable smell from a small alcohol plant. You could write it off as research.

  58. drwilliams says:

    Recolonize Africa immediately.

    Let’s start by sending the Somalis back.

  59. lpdbw says:

    Being retired (involuntarily) and at loose ends is dangerous.

    I am a member of a not-for-profit organization, and I got involved in an annual process of solicitations for donations and participation for an event.  We need to contact individuals and businesses and request them to help.  Along the way, we realized that we can ask for support for our ongoing operations as well as this one big event, like for instance advertising in our monthly newsletter or presentations at our monthly meetings.

    Being a systems guy, I immediately realized that there is a need for a  CRM system, (Customer Relationship Management).  Basically, a database of companies, contacts, call logs, etc. so we know who needs called, who was called, what was asked, what was promised, what was delivered.  We also need a list of volunteers to make the calls and record the information.  “Call” here is a catch-all term for phone calls, personal visits, emails, and snail mail.  Basically, any touch-base.

    Such a system could be anything from hand-written spreadsheets, to Excel, to shared Google sheets, to a home-grown CRM system online, to Salesforce commercial software.  Salesforce is free to 501©3 orgs, but implementing it still requires a lot of money for hosting and consultants.

    I just spent 3 weeks re-learning PHP and HTML and MySQL and a lot of side things, like Bootstrap and various forms generation and Ajax processing software.  It was fun, since I haven’t done any serious programming for over 10 years.  I did it partially for its own sake, but the timing was because I have a design for a web-based CRM that would be slicker than bug snot, and I think I could get it up and crawling by the end of the year.  Polished a bit after that.

    I’ve put out feelers through different people in the org, and compiled a list of candidates who could actually lead this marketing effort.  I’m a systems guy; I identify problems and deficiencies and potential improvements, and design solutions.  I’m not a marketing guy.

    I chatted up my last candidate today, and I’m done.  I’m folding up my tent and walking away.  I am reverting to my old role as “definer of roles and duties” and “scribe/historian” so future event planners will actually have a clue how to put on one of these events.  But no one in this volunteer organization has the right combination of energy, talent, positive attitude, and ability/experience with sales and marketing to grow the club.  All we have is a board of directors that wants it to grow, but can’t figure out how.  Heck, the president is clueless about project management basics.

    It’s a pity, because as an organization we do serve the community, and more members and more money would only increase our outreach.

    In the long run, personally, it’s just as well.  The club has existed for decades without my guidance, and it will continue (or not) without it.  And I have other personal projects I’ve back-burnered during my learning frenzy.  Potentially income-generating projects.  

    I don’t consider my tech study time wasted, because I may need the knowledge in the future, but it did divert me from other important work.  I begin that afresh tomorrow.

  60. Nick Flandrey says:

    @lpdbw,  it’s a constant challenge for small non-profits to bring in new members and grow.   My non-prepping hobby had a member bring up the issue of growth two meetings ago.   He wanted to offer classes again (like we did some time in the past) and maybe get a dedicated space to do so.   Most of the members would like more members to join.  A subset attends classes when offered.   Not many were interested in renting space.   Even partnering with a Makerspace would be difficult and need a bunch of additional effort.  So the issue was pushed down the calendar again.

    There is a built in bias towards stasis and status quo that is hard to overcome.   People are comfortable with the state of the club, it’s why they joined.

    I don’t thing it’s a waste of time to try to push a small organization to become bigger.  If nothing else, you know more people in meatspace because of your involvement.   AND you had a good idea inspired by their situation.   Plusses in my book.

    n

  61. Lynn says:

    “Destruction Of German Heritage…430 Year Old Family Craft Bakery Succumbs To “Green Revolution””

        https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/10/26/destruction-of-german-heritage430-year-old-family-craft-bakery-succumbs-to-green-revolution/

    ““The traditional bakery has been baking since the 16th century – now it has to close down,” reports Pleiteticker.de here. The Sinzinger bakery was even able to survive the nasty Thirty Years’ War, Napoleon, two destructive world wars and numerous technological and economic upheavals, but not Germany’s Green Revolution and the energy shocks it has brought with it.”

    Welcome to the future.  They are just among the first of many businesses to close in Germany and Europe.

  62. drwilliams says:

    When you go to your next meeting(s), look around and estimate the average age.

    Are new members going to come from the same (probably gray) age group?

    Is there a way to pull in younger members?

    How many internet communities can you name that are either defunct or morphed into unrecognizable banality by rapacious FPFH’s? (for profit fooie-heads)

    Remember Geocities?

    Yahoo Groups?

    Hell, twenty years ago eBay had a number of thriving interest groups. I was in several, and then one day some shiite-for-brain in corporate decided to flush years of discussion threads. Gone permanently.

    If you have knowledge that you think will be valuable in the future, you have three choices: 1) do nothing; 2) pass it on; or 3) give it a reprieve from a digital death sentence and get it into book form and publish it as a POD, even if it’s only a few vanity copies.

    The last hundred years are the best documented century ever, but the rate at which it is turning to free bits is accelerating. We’ve lost whole movies to nitrate rot, episodes of early tv recorded over, magnetic sound tape that flaked to oblivion, thousands of original music master tapes burnt. We’ve lost or are losing all the 35mm slides except the weird chemistry of the original Kodachrome, polaroids are gone or getting gone except for SX-70. Videotape and floppies are not made anymore, so “saving” them means transferring to something else and just slightly resetting the clock.

    I have more computer processing power and memory that NASA in 1969, but where is the software?

    Huh. Looks like the beginning of a good rant, but I’m done for the night.

Comments are closed.