Basically 80 at 8… which suggests another hot, sticky Houston day.
Got a TON of stuff going on today.
Quick scan of headlines shows the world continuing to flex and twist, with the Eurozone in trouble, third world sh!tholes getting sh!ttier, and our own decline accelerating.
Cops are busy shooting people again.
On the plus side, some old crimes are being solved, and old mysteries coming to light.
Ebola seems to have faded, and that is truly good news.
Preps, skills, people. Get busy! Your whole life will be better if you do it right.
n
My preps this week were limited to reading the Oregon Trail Cookbook, from which I learned a couple recipe’s for when you only have a bit of stuff, and that bear grease was a staple; and buying a tank and possibly a solar panel. I was hopping around like a one legged paper hanger with the kids, and that takes pretty much all the time.
n
My preps for this week include purchasing six motion-activated solar lights for outside. They were on sale at Amazon earlier in the week for $11.87 with a promo code when I purchased them.
I am letting one charge before I install it. I want to see the light pattern to make sure I place it in the best location.
I have two solar lights (different from those above) that I have used to illuminate my back stairway. I installed them about one year ago and they have been a great help if I arrive home late and when power is out. They have a black plastic body and were much less expensive than the new ones I just received.
Chili: Beans or No Beans?
I lean toward the latter. There’s some old quote along the lines of “Anyone that knows beans about chili knows there’s no beans in chili.”
Finally home. Spent the night at our friends house as we were just too tired to drive. Woke up about 4:30 and could not sleep so just quietly left the house (we told them we probably would) and started the drive home. Even at 5:00 there is a lot of traffic in Atlanta.
Now to take a nap.
From B.H. in yesterday’s Fort Bend Herald (this is an old fashioned naewspaper):
“”You are not really broke until you consider toilet paper, $1.25/roll; fast food napkins, free.”
There is a prepping message in that but I am not sure what it is.
Beans are a GREAT extender. High in protein and fiber and nearly complete amino acids when paired with cornbread. Cheap and long shelf life to boot.
And you get a free nightly serenade….
n
And fireworks if properly handled.
Guess we won’t be seeing Bolos anytime soon:
Russia’s Tank Drone Performed Poorly in Syria
Guess we won’t be seeing Bolos anytime soon:
Russia’s Tank Drone Performed Poorly in Syria
Must be the MK I model. The Bolos have extreme problems until they get a good AI in MK XIIII or so.
And fireworks if properly handled.
Welcome back, Traveling Ray ! You were missed.
Guess we won’t be seeing Bolos anytime soon:
Mesh networking is hard. When I worked for CoCo/Unium in Seattle, the “spin” that year was military communications, specifically for drones. Bleeding edge, but this was as recently as 2013.
I read some crazy papers, including one patented design that fed the locations of all entities into a MiniNet-based simulation and harvested the routing data. Lots of “Throw it against the wall and see if it sticks” approaches.
The Russians are generally more practical than the US military when it comes to the bleeding edge.
(CoCo didn’t get the contract. Dunno what happened. That was the only professional job I’ve ever quit without notice. Long story.)
Mesh networking is hard. When I worked for CoCo/Unium in Seattle, the “spin” that year was military communications, specifically for drones. Bleeding edge, but this was as recently as 2013.
I was thinking that 5G Internet had mesh networking in it but I do not see it mentioned here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G
I was thinking that 5G Internet had mesh networking in it but I do not see it mentioned here:
IIRC, the handoff between WiFi calling and the cell network is seamless, but TPTB would never permit the phones to route between each other without a tower being involved. Beyond control issues, there is a practical consideration that phone users don’t have to be licensed as long as the transmitter in the mobile unit is under complete control of a tower, large or small.
“This Week on The Homestead: Homesteading Progress and Preps For The Week / June 16, 2018” By M.D. Creekmore
https://www.mdcreekmore.com/homesteading-progress-and-preps-2/
Translated loosely as, get off your butt and get to work !
I approve of this message.
ADD: I want a UTV. But the wife says that I will kill myself in it. Something about past performance does mean future performance. I swear, if I had seen that guy wire, I would have swerved my motorcycle around it instead of hitting it as 30+ mph.
ADD2: I would like to have a small Excavator and/or a Bobcat too !
I just had an old customer contact me about getting his old version of our software from well over 15 years ago to running on a modern pc. Back then, we still had Win16 software in our installation. Sigh. He does not want to pay to upgrade. Sigh. It is like talking to the wall.
He’s loyal!
n
I don’t know what is going to happen with the rental car we had in Croatia. A pre-authorization was done on the credit card for about twice the rental which is typical. When we arrived at the airport at 06:15 AM for our 7:55 AM flight there was no rental car return. The airport is a dump and is being remodeled. So we parked the car in the rental lot, went to the Hertz counter to turn in the keys and tell them location.
No one was at the rental counter and there was a sign to leave the keys and paperwork. Which I did. No one to inspect the car, take mileage, fuel level, etc. Not worried about damage as I got the full coverage insurance.
I have yet to see a credit card charge come through for the final amount. It has been two days and nothing. At least if there is a problem I can deal with the issues with Expedia whom I booked the car with and Hertz in the US. Part of my reason for picking Hertz. I had a bad experience with SixT before and were it not for my German friends I would have been on the hook for over a $1,000.00 dollars. Thus I picked a known entity.
A lot of the credit card charges are coming through. I got a notification on my phone when a charge was made but it was only a guess as the final charge is done a day or two later and the exchange rate would have changed.
I did pick up a nasty lung issue while over there. Not sure what it is, coughing (severe) and lots of mucus being horked up. It was fairly severe on the plane although I did my best to limit the coughing. Had one person demand to know why I was flying sick. I asked them if they were willing to pay the cost to change the ticket and pay for an additional three or four days in Europe as I didn’t pick this crap. They just looked at me and then walked away. It is possible I infected half the plane. Since many of them were smokers based on the odor from their clothes they deserve the result.
My brain is screaming to go to bed but I am unable to get to sleep because of the cough. About 11:00 PM I will take a large dose (larger than recommended) of Nyquil and crash. I will deal with the confusion in the morning after some sleep.
He’s cheap!
I did pick up a nasty lung issue while over there. Not sure what it is, coughing (severe) and lots of mucus being horked up. It was fairly severe on the plane although I did my best to limit the coughing. Had one person demand to know why I was flying sick. I asked them if they were willing to pay the cost to change the ticket and pay for an additional three or four days in Europe as I didn’t pick this crap. They just looked at me and then walked away. It is possible I infected half the plane. Since many of them were smokers based on the odor from their clothes they deserve the result.
The last time I flew, I saw a guy in first class wearing a surgical mask. I must admit that I thought it might have been a good idea.
@Ray: I have had some credit card issues recently. I call the 800 number and talk to a rep. I tell them that I will dispute the charges. Until the dispute is resolved in my favor, I will make no payments whatsoever. If it is resolved in my favor after my next due date, I will make no payment of interest or late payment fees. I also tell them, do not bother with bill collection agencies, they have no paper with my signature on it that states that I have a contract with them. If they do not agree with my position, they may cancel me at any time.
Well, I have had no terminations to date. Outside of that, I treat them as if I am just another tRump.
Still having rat problems Nick?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-23/rats-eats-$24,000-worth-of-atm-cash/9902034
He’s loyal!
No, he is not. He uses our software to validate the calculations from a competitor’s software. And, he says that our software has better calcs but he likes the other software’s user interface better (they use Visio as their front end, we have a homegrown CAD UI).
There was a movement a couple of years ago to get rid of bad customers. This guy might actually be one….
n
yeah, still got rat problems, despite poison, traps, etc. I did get a huge momma and the two babies last week. I’d say it was better, but still not ready to put all my food back in the garage.
n
I just had an old customer contact me about getting his old version of our software from well over 15 years ago to running on a modern pc. Back then, we still had Win16 software in our installation. Sigh. He does not want to pay to upgrade. Sigh. It is like talking to the wall.
VirtualBox running XP as a guest. Maybe.
I have a XP VM just to run Visual Studio 6 and an old version of Office for my resume.
(LibreOffice does not always produce clean *.doc files, and a load/save Word 98 makes life simpler for the HR droids.)
they use Visio as their front end, we have a homegrown CAD UI
They’re probably talking to Visio via COM. Interesting.
I’ve seen all kinds of crazy approaches to Windows GUIs. A lot of open source seems to have settled on Qt.
Welcome back, Mr. Ray, and get better. I had the *hack* over Christmas. Took over a month to get rid of it. That bug hit Vegas hard.
They’re probably talking to Visio via COM. Interesting.
I built my own COM interface into Excel. Not trivial. Took me quite a while and then I had massive memory leaks since I did not truly understand COM.
I built my own COM interface into Excel. Not trivial. Took me quite a while and then I had massive memory leaks since I did not truly understand COM.
I’ve only done COM through Tcl and the tcom library. Strictly science experiments, nothing professional.
I ship my Excel COM interface in our software. Engineers love their spreadsheets !
I absolutely HATE Office interfaces into some other backend. Stupid .vsto installation for some accounting package consumes hours EVERY WEEK. Supplier can’t figure out how to make one package work with Office 2007 through 2016, with Office 365 thrown in. Ick.
For the Win16 stuff – we have a Windows NT server 4.0 box running in VMWare. Works well enough. I inherited it. Virtualization is a good thing. The other positive is that it can be backed up by shutting it down and making a copy of the vd file(s). Restore points are easy, too.
My Excel COM interface works with Excel 95 through Excel 2016. And 365.
We are professionals, don’t try this at home.
My Excel COM interface works with Excel 95 through Excel 2016. And 365.
We are professionals, don’t try this at home.
The Excel COM interface is almost as sacred as Win32, especially for internal developers at large companies, doubly so for Wall Street. It is a blessing and curse for Microsoft.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the DDE still worked.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the DDE still worked.
Nope, DDE became unreliable as of Excel 2007. At least for large quantities of data. That is why I converted our Excel interface from DDE to COM. #neverlookback