Cool, but warming later. That’s the plan according to the liars. I must say, they were spot on yesterday. Morning was dreary, but I avoided any rain. Got nicer later. Ended chilly and damp.
Drove to the estate sale, and filled 4 bins. Some for me, some for resale, some for the household. There seemed to be about as much still there when we all left as when we arrived, but I know that a lot actually did leave. There was just so much.
Got back to the BOL to find the girls all having fun. The HOA work day was over, and I avoided any work. Did attend the meeting. UN-surprisingly it was mostly the same people I’ve already met that comprise the active membership. Any volunteer org is mostly run by a few people that are willing to do the work. Those people are the one’s most active in the community too. Shouldn’t be a surprise that I ended up volunteering to help solve a problem or two.
Haven’t done any work on the house yet, and don’t know if I’ll get any done today. I’ve got stuff I can do that isn’t too disruptive and I should do something. Maybe I can get some gardening in. Gardening would be productive. Fishing too. Yeah, some fishing would be good. Practice of a vital skill.
I’ll stack up some practice time… yeah, that’s the ticket.
nick
Althouse: I was deeply puzzled by “Here’s the real reason the Vikings left Greenland/A new study found some Viking settlements experienced up to 10.8 feet of sea level rise over four centuries.”
From the comments:
So the article is like a magic act. 20 minutes of show, and the last two minutes the trick.
This article will be linked millions of times to prove ACGW
@RickH
If it was a novel it could have been Twin Planets by Philip E. High (1967). He was English and fairly prolific in short stories, but this short novel (Paperback Library) and 2-3 Ace Doubles are about it on this side of the pond.
ADDED:
The Day The Earth Stood Still” was not about the rotation of the earth.
@Nick
First discovered by The Spanish Inquisition, IIRC.
PETA knows and has a whole group preventing spread of this knowledge on the internet.
If you have ever wondered why the 17th edition of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary always has page “pee” torn out, that’s the reason.
Humor? Maybe I’m not awake yet, but huh?
Trust me and have another cup of coffee.
Teens are still in bed. Pre-teens are up and eating breakfast. Day is clear and sunny but not too hot yet. Gorgeous day.
Time for me to get moving too.
Watched Jurassic Park last night. Looked good on a 120″ screen, although it was downright chilly over the water. Forgot it started as a Micheal Crighton novel. Had a weird moment looking at the pretend “prop” merchandise in the movie. I’m so used to seeing them as actual merch that when I realized they had to create them as props it threw me a bit.
Sky was reasonably clear and dark so I got the small tabletop dob out and we looked at the moon. Good crater viewing, especially along the shadow edge. With the small dob, the moon completely fills the view. Any more magnification, and you don’t know where you are… and it moves out of view too fast, the kids can’t get in place and see before it moves. ( I don’t know about switching eyepieces yet. We’ll have to figure that out…) Someone left the red dot sight turned on and so it was dead. The moon is easy to find though
nick
Florida robbery suspect fleeing police shot 8 times by store clerk: ‘Swift end to dirtbag’s crime spree’
https://www.foxnews.com/us/florida-robbery-suspect-fleeing-police-shot-8-times-store-clerk-swift-end-dirtbags-crime-spree
I really want to know what that clerk was shooting and what it was loaded with.
“Jurassic Park” was a huge book 30+ years ago. Hollywood seemed to forget about Crichton after his initial wunderkind success in the 70s. Too conservative with the brain cells to back the arguments.
None of the other films from Crichton’s books optioned after “Jurassic Park” were as successful. “Disclosure” made money, but the politics were uncomfortable for the studio, as was the case with all of Crichton’s work after the 1994 beatdown of the Clintons.
Hollywood has never really forgiven Roma Maffia for her performance as Michael Douglas’ lawyer in “Disclosure” even though she had semi-mainstream success in “Nip/Tuck” and a recurring role as a judge on “Boston Legal”. Even though she didn’t write the script and was simply paid to deliver that performance, the left always associates the face with the words.
And, damn, did Maffia deliver in that film.
Extinction Rebellion founder dorsn’t like carrots
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/04/30/xr-founder-moans-about-his-carrots/
Take a look at the side table. No less than three foam cups, plus enough high-tech oil-based pacj
Parenting tip: tell the teens and preteens that this is what their faces will look like if they don’t wash regularly and adjust diet to keep the acne under control.
I don’t recall having heard of the movie or novel. Having looked it up, yah, I can see why it wouldn’t go over well. I’m surprised that they didn’t gender-swap the offender and offendee; they’d started some of that by 1994.
He’s the right age to have seen “The Young Ones” as a lifestyle suggestion instead of the satire it was originally intended to be.
The story tells me that there is still hope for the UK. Someone in the kitchen is probably cooking up an extra special “vegan” option after the rant. Dunno if saliva counts as a meat-based comestible, however.
Well, there’s The Andromeda Strain. Done, redone, TV mini, but the original movie (and book) are the best.
They are always hypocrites.
He looks closer to 70 than 56. That must be one of the benefits of the vegan diet.
The 1994 election set back the agenda for 15 years and caused the Dems to go crazy, leading to our current political situation. Hollywood changed a lot after that election.
Unfortunately, the Republicans didn’t close the door, nominating Bob Dole in 1996 because it was his turn and not because anyone thought he had even a remote chance of beating the Clintons.
One of the few bright spots for the Dems in 1994 was that the Old He Coon, Governor Lawton Chiles, won reelection in Florida, securing the Florida Supreme court majority for the party until midnight on the first day DeSantis took office in 2019, 25 years later.
Subhead on AoSHQ this morning:
Hold Their Feet To The Fire…it’s The Only Way To Get What We Want From Our Politicians
ahh, no:
Hold Their Feet To The Fire…Then Push Some of Them In…it’s The Only Way To Get The Rest Motivated.
“plus enough high-tech oil-based pacj”
was cut-off above by fumble-fingering.
plus enough high-tech oil-based packaging to make him a card-carrying hypocrite.
Not to worry, drwilliams. Both the meaning and the likely cause of the glitch were clear enough.
As for most leftists (by current American definition), remember: If they didn’t have double standards, they’d have no standards at all.
Update to this story:
https://hotair.com/karen-townsend/2023/04/30/update-manhunt-for-mexican-national-gunman-wanted-for-mass-shooting-in-texas-n547456
Has Fox teporting that the perp is in the country illegally, after being deported and reentering numerous time.
It is also reported that the police had been out several times in response to reports of him firing a gun in his yard.
So:
illegally in the country + multiple firearm violations
Police and prosecutors busy setting up honeytraps for litterers, or are they just graduates of the Uvalde School of Law Enforcement?
I’ve been watching Eric’s I Do Cars YT channel for a while. He makes a business of selling used engine parts in the St. Louis area, and makes videos of engine teardowns. He mostly concentrates on more exotic European engines whose parts command high prices, but here he does a more popular Subaru EJ253 engine that had an epic failure. It makes for some good entertainment, especially if you are familiar with some of the more common internal engine failures.
He often comments that all car manufacturers seem to be able to make good engines. Instead, he shows failures caused by either extreme operation or lack of maintenance, particularly extended oil change intervals, and I agree. Eric is also pretty entertaining. He adds some irony and running jokes. He is mostly serious, though.
I am also impressed with all the complex castings used in modern engines. I have a cousin who was part owner of a company that designed the Ford 300 cubic inch inline six engine castings. I don’t remember why Ford used an outside company; very unusual back then.
And now, for your entertainment,
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NynVITCe2zg
DWI in 2009.
Here’s the best line, however:
“In the area where many immigrants have settled, it is common for its residents to unwind by firing off guns in their yards.”
Honorable mention:
“FBI spokesperson Christina Garza said investigators do not believe everyone at the home were members of a single family. “
You will know when I win the lottery.
Ten houses bought in close proximity to people like the FBI director, members of the military command, select chiefs of police, dems in leadership positions and a few just starting out, then rented to “deserving’ extended families ”struggling to find the American dream” and having difficulty due to chemical dependence, felony records and other minor problems.
Or maybe the better idea is to target the children of those folks. Give me half a billion dollars and I can visit hell on earth to a lot of deserving people. Bet I could get a lot of contributions to a standing bail fund, too.
>> Hold Their Feet To The Fire…Then Push Some of Them In…it’s The Only Way To Get The Rest Motivated.
I know there has been disagreement but fire is just so middle of the road, I’m still in the wood chipper camp.
Or there’s always this…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kpQmVkdIX_g
(contains violence)
I may have posted this before, but I recommend privacy.com They are one of those virtual credit card companies. I have have the free level, paid levels can also hide your info better. I ordered a part for printer from a janky company, so decided to use a privacy card. Sure enough they tried to charge me again for some service. You can put enough on a card to pay for something, once it clears, cancel the card and left over $$ go back to your account.
They have browser plugins which can generate a card when you want.
Really recommended.
“Fugitive Telemetry (The Murderbot Diaries, 6) by Martha Wells
https://www.amazon.com/Fugitive-Telemetry-Murderbot-Diaries-6/dp/1250765374?tag=ttgnet-20/
Book number six of a seven book series of science fiction novellas, short stories, and full length novels. I read the well printed and well bound hardcover published by Tor in 2021 that I bought new from Amazon. The first novella in the series won the 2018 Hugo, Nebula, Alex, and Locus awards. The series won the 2021 Hugo for the best series also. Book number seven will be released in September 2023 and is a full length novel.
Murderbot is a SecUnit, similar to a T-800 Terminator with a cloned and severely modified human head. There is a human brain in there but it is run by the AIs embedded in its genderless torso. There are lungs, there is a blood mixture with a synthetic, there is human skin over the entire body, there is a face. Everything else is machine. Somehow, the blood is enriched with electricity as there is no stomach or intestines. But, there are arteries and veins to keep the skin and brain alive. All of the major arteries and veins have clamps to stop bleeding in case of damage. There is a MedSystem computer with an AI, a HubUnit computer with an AI, and a governor module that can force the SecUnit to follow orders using pain sensors in the brain. It has a energy gun in each arm and several cameras, all directly wired to the brain. The SecUnit can sustain severe damage to everything but the head and still survive.
Murderbot is a self named SecUnit due to an unfortunate circumstance with 57 miners on a remote moon. It has hacked its governor and no longer allows the governor to give it orders or inflict pain. It prefers to internally watch its 35,000 hours of downloaded media such as episodes of “The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon” and “Lineages of the Sun”. Even though it has a face, it does not like to interface with humans, yes, very introverted. However, it is getting more comfortable with humans. It will follow human orders if it see fit to do so.
Murderbot is back to the normal security duty for its friend, Dr. Mensah, the head of the Preservation planet. Murderbot finds a dead body on Preservation Station in the mall area, the space station in orbit around the Preservation planet. Complications and misunderstandings ensue as Dr. Mensah insists that Murderbot be a part of the investigation with station security.
Warning: The violence is graphic and extreme. Murderbot also has a potty mouth. Books one through four are a series of novellas, not regular length books. There is a short story “Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory” between books four and five. Book five is a regular length novel, book six is back to the novella, and book seven is a full length novel due out in November 2023. You can buy collections of the first four hardbacks or all six currently available hardbacks.
https://www.tor.com/2021/04/19/home-habitat-range-niche-territory-martha-wells/
The author has a website at:
https://www.marthawells.com/
There is a wiki for Murderbot including various episodes of “The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon”:
https://murderbot.fandom.com/wiki/Murderbot_Wiki
and
https://murderbot.fandom.com/wiki/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_Sanctuary_Moon
My rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars (15,543 reviews)
Made it home, and no gardening was perpetrated. Did mow the lawn, and poison fire ants. Fished a bit. Didn’t catch anything.
Drive home was uneventful, until a mile from home, when someone ran the red at a major intersection. Fortunately the driver next to me and I have both adjusted to Houston driving and neither of us moved an inch when the light turned green. So, tragedy averted by an abundance of caution. The number of people running the red light has increased dramatically. Don’t know why, but now I don’t move until I’ve looked to be sure everyone is actually going to stop. It’s probably every other day or slightly more often that someone runs the late red right in front of me.
Got everything unloaded and back in the fridge. Will spend tomorrow going thru and sorting my estate buys, but for now the bins are sitting in the library room.
Trying to decide if I want some dinner…
n
“Irontown Blues (Eight Worlds)” by John Varley
https://www.amazon.com/Irontown-Blues-Eight-Worlds-Varley/dp/1101989378?tag=ttgnet-20/
Book number four of a loose four book science fiction series plus several short stories. I read the well printed and well bound trade paperback published by Ace in 2018. As with Cory Doctorow, Tom Clancy, William Gibson, and many others, I love and have read all of John Varley’s books. His Thunder and Lightning four book series is is in my six star books.
It has been several hundred years since the Invaders came to the Solar System and destroyed all of the infrastructure on Earth to help the dolphins and whales in a pristine environment. No human technology is allowed on Earth or Jupiter, space ships landing on the Earth are destroyed. Most of the people on Earth subsequently died. The 5,000 humans on the Moon, 1,000 humans on Mars, and the few scattered across the outer planets and asteroid belt have expanded to several million people since then.
Chris Bach is a private eye, former police officer, in the warrens of the Moon. Life is much easier now than when the Invaders first came to Earth and destroyed the resupply rockets to the Moon. Sherlock is his trusty sidekick, a genetically engineered smart bloodhound with an implanted AI. They are visited once day by a woman inflected by a biohacker form of leprosy who wants to find the man who infected her. Things are never what they seem on the Moon.
John Varley has a website at:
https://varley.net/
An explanation of the Eight Worlds universe is at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_Worlds
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.3 out of 5 stars (381 reviews)
>> I really want to know what that clerk was shooting and what it was loaded with.
Loaded with seven in the magazine and one in the chamber.
Keep pulling the trigger until it only goes “click.”
“Approximately “.
Heh. So, sounds like he emptied his gun, and some hit the suspect.
What was that old studies conclusion? Something like “most gunfights take place at under 20 feet, and 9 out of 10 shots miss”.
“Approximately “.
Heh. So, sounds like he emptied his gun, and some hit the suspect.
What was that old studies conclusion? Something like “most gunfights take place at under 20 feet, and 9 out of 10 shots miss”.
I was told by a firearms instructor to push the gun into the ribs and fire at least twice.
The older you get the more light you need.
There are multiple ways to upgrade garages and workshops to LED lighting.
1. Swap screw-in incandescent bulbs for LED bulbs with about the same or slightly more lumen output.
2. Swap screw-in incandescent bulbs for LED folding arrays with greatly increased lumens.
3. Swap fluorescent bulbs for LED tubes. Two options: Leave the ballast in and do a simple tube swap, accepting a lower efficiency, or remove (or disconnect) the ballast and do a bit of rewiring to use a higher-efficiency tube.
4. Gut the fluorescent light and use the shell to mount self-contained LED lights like Stevo J:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8Ko_wxA7R8&pp=ygUaS2lodW5nIDhmdCBMRUQgU2hvcCBMaWdodCA%3D
5. Mount the self contained LED lights directly to the ceiling after removing the fluorescent lights or as an upgrade to incandescent lights.
This is what Cam Anderson at Blacktail Studio did when he built a new shop in Oct 2020:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YANmFqr9WDY
I’ve done #1,2, and 3. I’m doing the research to do #5.
Cam used lights from Kihung, as did Stevo. 4.5 rating (76% 5-star) on 489 ratings on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07GPPRNXG/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?tag=ttgnet-20
Barrina sells a very similar light for about the same money. 4.5 rating (80% 5-star) on 4576 ratings on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/Barrina-Fixture-8500lm-Daylight-Warehouse/dp/B07JVXLQ8R/ref=psdc_2314207011_t3_B07GPPRNXG?tag=ttgnet-20
About $20 for an 8-ft light burning 72-75 watts to produce almost 10,000 lumens.
I’ve looked at a number of videos and read a lot of reviews. Barrina gets the nod for better customer service and supplying more cord and connector options with the lights. They have a 3-year warranty and people have had shiiping damage and defective lights replaced.
I have three concerns:
The CRI is 85. Better than fluorescent, but room for improvement. One of the pro woodworkers (Bent) has a video showing his American Green Lights with 95 CRI. Spendy, about 5x the price. It would cost about as much as a Festool track saw to put them up, but I don’t have one of those, either. Nor do I have the video channel to draw sponsorships and get shiite for free.
One of the known defects is the flimsy mounting system. Consensus in reviews is to throw away the screws that are supplied as they are dead soft, but the clips are still mickey-mouse and there are reports of lights falling. Preventable, if you are forewarned. I’d loosely install a couple of clear zip ties around each one.
The third concern is the largest: The failure rate is significant. Chinese manufacturing quality sucks–50,000 hours my backside. My list is too damn long to be doing over because the Chinese culture is based on screwing everyone else, and twice if they round-eye.
I have to wonder if the failure rate is caused by operating temperature. The aluminum base is a heat sink, and when mounted against a wall or ceiling has limited ability to cool by shedding heat to the room. That’s why I included the link above to Stevo’s installation, because I suspect that by using the old fluorescent light fixtures as mounting bases he gained the side benefit of more metal for heat sink and better air circulation.
So my thought is to order some of the Barrina lights and test one. Before installing them all I can put one up flush on the ceiling and measure the operating temperature, and then install some spacers to create a 1″ air gap to the ceiling and see what the effect is on temps.
If I like the lights it would be prudent to have a couple extras to swap in if need be. I’ve seen the YT vids where the screw-in LED bulb is rejuvenated by finding the bad LED and shorting across is with some CA glue doped with pencil lead graphite to make it conductive. That may be an option with these, too.
If anyone has any experience in this area or has other thoughts please speak up. My timeline for this project is loose–this summer.
The idea that it takes 10,000 hours to be expert at something is persuasive. Getting to a lower level with a firearm–call it proficient–is still a major investment in time and money. Most civilians don’t get there, and few LEO’s can even reliably match their qualifying scores–too much other training and not enough time.
One thing is sure: Let them get to knife range and if you are not dead you will never be the same.
Too late to add to the above on LED lights for work spaces.
The amount of light you need to light up your cubic depends in large part on the amount of “bounce” light you get.
I use white paint on the ceilings and most walls. On shop floors I use cream-colored epoxy. Parking areas can compromise a bit for functionality of cleaning and protecting the surface. And if you have that classic ’34 Ford with 2o coats of Candy Apple Red, you want the floor color to set it off, even if it means that Jeeves has to dust it daily and topcoat it every month.
>> It is also reported that the police had been out several times in response to reports of him firing a gun in his yard.
Highly unlikely that this cretin would have had one…but perhaps if it wasn’t such a BFD to purchase/own a suppressor…
BTW, Fox is reporting that thhe weapon was an “AK-15 style” rifle.
@Dr Williams, I bought several boxes of different 4 ft and 8ft led lights. Some are tube replacements, some are flimsy little ‘fixtures’ by themselves.
The two 4 ft single strip ‘fixtures’ I put up in the shed are shockingly bright. They may be the Burina brand, but with any chinese ‘brand’ you get what you get TODAY and maybe something else tomorrow….
I’ve yet to put more up in the garage at the BOL due to time and competing priorities, but I have them.
The clips to hold up the fixture strips are super cheap and crappy as are the “fixtures”. The plastic is cheap and thin and brittle. The metal is like thick foil. The hardware is like a pretend version of a counterfeit of real hardware. If you can put them up out of the way, and never touch them again, they are ok. I don’t expect them to last, but then they are very cheap and relatively easy to replace.
If I get around to putting them up in the garage, I’ll probably attach them to 1×3 wood strips and then mount the wood. Anything else is not likely to look good or be doable on an uneven ceiling plane.
FWIW, I prefer the strips or tubes that replace glass tubes in existing fixtures. They are protected by the fixture. I’ve got dozens of those, and I like them well enough. They are also super flimsy but it doesn’t matter as much.
I’ve been looking at the flat panels, like Costco sells. A 1ft x 4 foot surface mount light fixture, or 2ft x 2ft panel seems much more sturdy and a neater install than the single strip bulbs.
hope that offers some help.
n
““No Bricks, No Glass, No Cement” – What Net Zero 2050 Demands According to Government-Funded Report”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/04/29/no-bricks-no-glass-no-cement-what-net-zero-2050-demands-according-to-government-funded-report/
“No bricks, the walls and foundations made of compacted earth, cement made from clay and glass scavenged from demolition skips are just some of the construction changes needed to comply with Net Zero by 2050. The latest paper from Government-funded U.K. FIRES looks to “minimise new construction”, and notes the shape of the urban environment will change, allowing for “denser living and reduced transport needs”.”
Absolutely freaking crazy.
Um…how? Except for the very local politicians, they live in a different world. You might get to see them at a carefully controlled meet-and-greet. Otherwise? They aren’t getting anywhere near anyone’s fire, unless its warmth of the money-bonfire fuelled by lobbiests.
And he was still in the country, and not in jail, because…why?
As one of my neighbors points out: The real solution is having fewer people on the planet. Somehow, that solution is never open to discussion.
Here, they keep talking about having denser housing, because our population is growing so fast from immigration. The idea of limiting immigration somehow never comes up…