Wed. Sept. 16, 2020 – nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen,….

Hot and humid.  Storm and rain possible.

Yesterday it never did rain on me, and it got stinking hot in the afternoon sun.  So I mostly hid from sun and work.

Pickup went well.  Everything needs some little thing to be complete, but given the money saved, I’m happy enough.  Really F’d up though, the way people are stealing through returns fraud.  One of the things I picked up was a Glock G19 factory magazine.   Got it today and someone stole the guts out of it.  They split open the cardboard  of the blister pack, stole the spring, follower, and base plate and re-sealed the cardboard.  It was a bit wrinkled but looked fine, like the packaging was crumpled.  Then they returned it to wherever they bought it, and it ended up in the auction.  Looked like an unopened package to me and everyone else.  I’ve got a couple of items now, I’ll take them with me next time I go to that auctioneer and see what he’s willing to do, if anything.  Technically it’s all sold as is, where is, with buyer responsible for doing an in person inspection before bidding.  Usually though, if not as described, the house will take it back.

One of my security trade magazines noted that retail “shrink”, ie theft by insiders and shoplifting, was up dramatically.   I’m guessing that as things get tougher for more people, theft and fraud will go up dramatically in all sectors.

Speaking of trade mags, one of the things I watch as an indicator of the health of the broader economy is the thickness of trade magazines.  If it’s a reliable indicator of supplier sentiment (you don’t spend money on ads when you’re broke, so the trade mags can’t afford to print the same number of pages) then we are majorly F’d.  Machine Design is down to less than 40 pages, and is just center stapled instead of bound.  Electrical Design is the same.  EC&M is as thin as I’ve ever seen it.  Some mags for the material handling, pipeline, and plant equipment industries are thinner than that.  Even Military & Aerospace is thin, but it’s still bound, not just stapled.  The mags are all thinner than I remember them being at any other time, even in the aftermath of 2008.  The publishers also tend to send out more mags and to more marginal recipients (like me) when times are tough.  They are trying to pump up their circulation numbers and capture more of the reduced business… I started getting some mags I’d never seen before just a few months ago, and re- started getting mags I’d stopped getting when times were great.  All in all, not good indicators of the state of American businesses.

And all the more reason to stock up if you can.  Manufacturers and suppliers are going to fail.  Their warehouses and existing stock will be blown out at auction, and then there won’t be any more.  In the last month, I’ve seen two large local wholesaler/distributors come through my auctions, a ship chandler, and a general industrial distributor.  There are two Chuck E Cheez stores being liquidated this week.  One auction has the contents of several CVS stores- which is especially telling, as that stock would normally just be redistributed to other stores, they must not want it.  Heck, a month ago, a major jewelry store chain had the contents of two stores seized and sold off to pay their school district tax bill here in town.

Everywhere I look I see signs of real trouble headed our way, outside of the trouble in the news.  Certainly there are going to be bright spots.  The rush to get out of the cities is producing some local boom times in some areas.  UHaul is probably making money.   Bankruptcy auctions are picking up.  Auto parts stores and used car lots will probably do well.  Optional services like housecleaning and yard maintenance will likely do poorly.  Repair should do well in general.    A lot of cleaning, repair, and remodeling already happened though.   And the secondary economy/grey market/resale is booming as people look for bargains, and sellers are unloading excess or closing out stock.

It’s gonna be important to keep your economic head on a swivel too, so to speak…

And keep stacking.  That will likely help, no matter what.

nick

52 Comments and discussion on "Wed. Sept. 16, 2020 – nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen,…."

  1. Greg Norton says:

    This is for Lynn (I think).
    https://www.neowin.net/news/c-extension-for-visual-studio-code-hits-version-10

    … and that should be C++…

    If the intern got the Linux port running this summer. 🙂

    Visual Studio Code is Microsoft pushing their IDE onto Linux. I’m a Vi user, but some of the newer people at work want that GUI and the push has been on to use the editor internally.

    Among the many other conceits of management is that they can “train Unix” if someone rolls in with development experience on Windows. Visual Studio Code enables that belief where I work.

  2. Greg Norton says:

    One auction has the contents of several CVS stores- which is especially telling, as that stock would normally just be redistributed to other stores, they must not want it.

    Legacy Eckerd Drugs stores? CVS won’t want the fixtures. Even the stock would be iffy if the store is older. Eckerd had terrible IT systems and inventory control going into the sale to Penney’s, and, ultimately, the mess wasn’t salvageable.

    I’ll bet you could find at least two decades of shampoo bottle designs in the back of those CVS stores, especially the African American products if the stores are in mostly white neighborhoods. I worked for Kroger/SuperX in Florida when the company gave up on the market in the 80s, ironically, in part, due to stiff competition from Eckerd’s. I swear we had stock going back to the mid-70s.

    Drug stores don’t age well.

  3. Geoff Powell says:

    Re: HxTSR and friends,

    Putting an optional programme element in a hidden directory is possibly justifiable. Hiding user data in obscure, hidden places is not. Back in the day I provided support for an elderly lady, running an unsupported varsion of Windows, and using a dial-up ISP that recommended Lookout Express (may its name be forever cursed). I discovered that OE puts its mail spool about 6 levels down in a place where one would not expect a data tree, and had hidden at least one of the intervening directories. Thank $DEITY for Treesize Free.

    Worse, if that’s possible, was Infernal Exploiter’s habit of hiding its cache, history and bookmarks at the bottom of a directory tree rooted in an obscure place, with at least one level super-hidden – you needed elevated supervisor privileges to get to it. And the relevant data was not cleared when you told IE to delete it.

    Don’t get me started on Windows Virtual Store, either. The principle is good, it’s just that M$ has to be obscure, by habit. Again, Treesize Free to the rescue.

    G.

  4. Greg Norton says:

    Tyler Durden cowardice. CA innovation.

    So where do you suppose the rent payment money for the streets will come from?

    The toll tag allowing you to leave the driveway will arrive in your mailbox soon. Affix the tag or your “fly by wire” controls — acceleration, steering, gear shifting — won’t operate when the car checks your status with the authorities via the 24/7 5G and or StarLink modems.

    See how that works? You think all that wireless tech is about streaming Baby Yoda anywhere/anytime?

    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/california-cities-using-their-streets-collateral-pay-down-pension-liabilities-debt

  5. Nick Flandrey says:

    So where do you suppose the rent payment money for the streets will come from?”

    –and resident street parking permits. Chicago has had those for years. IDK if you have to pay for it, or just prove residency in the neighborhood.

    n

  6. Harold Combs says:

    Re:

    returns policy

    My wife recently ordered custom Tshirts from Threadless Artist Shops.
    She ordered size small by mistake. I went to their website to check out their returns policy. They say if you’re unhappy in any way simply contact them. So I did. I was happy to pay for replacement as it was our error, but they simply sent us two new shirts in XL at no charge.
    https://www.threadless.com/artist-shops/
    Highly recommend for your custom Tshirt needs.

  7. Nick Flandrey says:

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8735119/Spiking-U-S-gun-sales-deluge-FBIs-background-check-cause-delays.html

    Gun sales up almost double, DURING THE LOCKDOWN vs last year. Imagine if people were moving around freely.

    Palmetto State Armory seems to be the only online seller with consistent inventory right now, based on the Eflyers I get. No affiliation, but I have purchased from them several times. They even had a Del-Ton AR in the last flyer. (Famous for their $300 AR during the glut.)

    n

  8. Harold Combs says:

    I am having a closet in my home office converted into a hidden gun room. Put up rifle racks and replacing the folding doors with swing out bookshelves. Following instructions from YouTube. Security by obscurity as one layer of the home security suite.

  9. Nick Flandrey says:

    Cool!

  10. Chad says:

    I am having a closet in my home office converted into a hidden gun room. Put up rifle racks and replacing the folding doors with swing out bookshelves. Following instructions from YouTube. Security by obscurity as one layer of the home security suite.

    If you’re into woodworking, then there’s some great plans out there for building various cabinetry and entertainment centers and whatnot with surprisingly spacious hidden compartments for storing weapons, ammo, and whatever else. Very cleverly disguised too.

  11. MrAtoz says:

    Plugs’ new campaign slogan:

    HARRISbiden 2020

    LOL! The Dumbos will have a cup of strychnine next to the Bible as Plugs is sworn in.

  12. Greg Norton says:

    Heck, a month ago, a major jewelry store chain had the contents of two stores seized and sold off to pay their school district tax bill here in town.

    Near the end of the Egghead Software Ponzi in the 90s, the local store in Clearwater, FL was seized by the landlords one night because the repeated mailings inquiring about late rent from corporate had been ignored by the *functionally illiterate* store manager.

  13. lynn says:

    This is for Lynn (I think).
    https://www.neowin.net/news/c-extension-for-visual-studio-code-hits-version-10

    … and that should be C++…

    Yup, we currently use Visual Studio 2015 for our Windows user interface and Excel data transfer app, just the C++ portion of it. We cannot move to a newer version until we complete our Unicode port. Junior Senior programmer is working on it posthaste. It is not going well.

    We have been using Microsoft C since version 3 in 1988 if I remember correctly. It has been a lot of water under the bridge since then.

  14. Harold Combs says:

    If you’re into woodworking

    I wish. I’m the measure twice, cut once, throw the piece out and start over kind of guy. I do more damage with a hammer than good. I am willing to pay someone with the right skills and tools to do my work.
    I have seen many ingenious designs on YouTube.

  15. lynn says:

    I am having a closet in my home office converted into a hidden gun room. Put up rifle racks and replacing the folding doors with swing out bookshelves. Following instructions from YouTube. Security by obscurity as one layer of the home security suite.

    Totally cool !

    I want a safe room that can take a tornado hit and with a hidden entrance, “The High Security Shelter – How to Implement a Multi-Purpose Safe Room in the Home, 5th Edition [2017]”
    https://www.amazon.com/High-Security-Shelter-Implement-Multi-Purpose/dp/0578118408/?tag=ttgnet-20

    Of course, my son saw many safe rooms in Iraq. Many of them were found by torching the house.

  16. Harold Combs says:

    Plugs’ new campaign slogan:

    HARRISbiden 2020

    LOL! The Dumbos will have a cup of strychnine next to the Bible as Plugs is sworn in.

    I’m sure Biden won’t survive 6 months into his administration. If I were paranoid, and I am, I can imagine an engineered Biden assassination by a “well known right wing conservative” that will gain them both sympathy and the reason to crack down on all conservatives and begin their gun grab.

  17. Greg Norton says:

    Yup, we currently use Visual Studio 2015 for our Windows user interface and Excel data transfer app, just the C++ portion of it. We cannot move to a newer version until we complete our Unicode port. Junior Senior programmer is working on it posthaste. It is not going well.

    The only developer I know who was sufficiently familiar with Unicode and Windows, enough to be effective for commercially distributed products, went to FL State Prison for a minor meth-related possession conviction *after* skating on endless charges including murdering his brother-in-law and cops finding a 10-year automatic sentence quantity of meth in the house afterwards.

    I don’t believe the “breaking bad” was related to mastering the intricacies of Unicode/Windows.

    Maybe. 🙂

    When your father is an IBM Fellow who plays golf with the sitting Governor of Florida, you can literally get away with murder … just don’t show up for the monthly probation check-in with a crack pipe in your pocket — local law enforcement will have a bullseye on you regardless of what the courts decide.

  18. Harold Combs says:

    I want a safe room that can take a tornado hit and with a hidden entrance, “The High Security Shelter – How to Implement a Multi-Purpose Safe Room in the Home, 5th Edition [2017]”

    Our new (to us) home has a nice size tornado shelter / bunker under the garage annex. I had originally hoped to make it a weapons room but the high humidity in there precluded that. I am now using it as prepping storage for items that can survive cool and humidity. Mainly bottled products and my goods in sealed containers.

    When covid hit I stored onions & potatoes in there. The onions didn’t do well and spoiled quickly. Potatoes fared much better in the dark coolness. Then I goofed up. I left the light on for several weeks. Probably wouldn’t have been too bad if it had been LED but it was the only incandescent left in the house so when I went down this week the bunker was warm , the potatoes mouldy and desiccated, and about half inch of liquid on the floor. Yuck!
    I have a box fan propping the steel door open and drying it out while I splashed bleach on the floor and walls. Yes, I replaced the bulb with a cool running LED.

  19. lynn says:

    “Judge Sets Bail at $1 Million Each for Lancaster Rioters”
    https://www.nationalreview.com/news/judge-sets-bail-at-1-million-each-for-lancaster-rioters/

    Sweet !

    Until the middle 1900s, treason and insurrection were usually handled by military tribunals followed by hanging or firing squad. Field executions were not uncommon at all when the military was called in.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurrection_Act_of_1807#Invocations_of_the_act

    Hat tip to:
    https://thelibertydaily.com/

  20. DadCooks says:

    When COVID hit I stored onions & potatoes in there.

    For long term storage and even responsible short term storage never store potatoes and onions in the same place, the “air” they are in must not be the same. Each emits chemicals into the air that is bad for any other vegetable.

    Wisdom from my Grandmothers and experience in the grocery industry.

  21. paul says:

    Each emits chemicals into the air that is bad for any other vegetable.

    I did not know that about onions and potatoes.

    Keep bananas away from apples, I know. Apples and a couple of apple sized onions in the same basket seem to be ok.

  22. gavin says:

    @nick

    Once the tarp starts flapping around it will quickly wear out and fail.

    My solution to the issue was this cargo net.

    https://www.homedepot.com/p/Cargo-Boss-Cargo-Net-191140/202224214

    I ran ratchet straps from the bottom-of-the-box tiedown points (one in each corner) front to rear along the sides and connect the net’s clips to them. When I’m not carrying anything, I can push it all to the front under my toolbox, out of sight (mostly).

  23. Harold Combs says:

    Dad cooks

    never store potatoes and onions in the same place, the “air” they are in must not be the same. Each emits chemicals into the air that is bad for any other vegetable.

    Now you tell me. My grandmother always stored her potatoes in the “root cellar” so I figured it would be good for that other “root” vegetable, onions. This summer I read the Little House books with our great granddaughter and noted that they hung onions from the rafters while the potatoes went into the spring house. I should have put 2 and 2 together.

  24. lynn says:

    Yup, we currently use Visual Studio 2015 for our Windows user interface and Excel data transfer app, just the C++ portion of it. We cannot move to a newer version until we complete our Unicode port. Junior Senior programmer is working on it posthaste. It is not going well.

    The only developer I know who was sufficiently familiar with Unicode and Windows, enough to be effective for commercially distributed products, went to FL State Prison for a minor meth-related possession conviction *after* skating on endless charges including murdering his brother-in-law and cops finding a 10-year automatic sentence quantity of meth in the house afterwards.

    When I first started writing software in 1975, the Univac 1108 we used was 6 bit bytes and 6 byte words, upper case characters only. In 1976 we ported to the IBM mainframes which were 8 bit bytes and 4 byte words. The trouble that caused was immense. Now we are porting all 3,000+ of our Win32 API calls to UTF16 but we are keeping our internal data in UTF8. It is not going well. All so our users can put a poop emoji on a drawing.

  25. Greg Norton says:

    When I first started writing software in 1975, the Univac 1108 we used was 6 bit bytes and 6 byte words, upper case characters only. In 1976 we ported to the IBM mainframes which were 8 bit bytes and 4 byte words. The trouble that caused was immense. Now we are porting all 3,000+ of our Win32 API calls to UTF16 but we are keeping our internal data in UTF8. It is not going well. All so our users can put a poop emoji on a drawing.

    As long as they don’t expect the poop emoji to talk. I imagine that a voiceover from Sir Patrick Stewart is pricey these days.

    If I have to play with Unicode, I use Tcl. The runtime defaults to Unicode internally. I’ve long suspected that the Apple/NeXT Objective C runtime cribs from Tcl since the language is semi-interpreted.

  26. lynn says:

    “Engineering firm RETTEW joins with SolMare to construct one of the nation’s largest floating solar arrays”
    http://progressiveengineer.com/rettew-joins-with-solmare-to-construct-one-of-the-nations-largest-floating-solar-arrays/

    And my first question is why do you need to float your solar array in a pond in NJ ?

    When the pond freezes over, the solar array will be compressed. Unless you dedicate the output from the solar array to keeping the pond liquid by heating.

  27. Nick Flandrey says:

    @gavin, thanks for the link. That idea looks like it would do the trick and the net is cheap enough. I have some old cotton net, like from a volleyball court, that I sometimes use to hold down boxes. It’s pretty narrow though. Funny that I used to use a cargo net on my motorcycle all the time, but didn’t think to hold the tarp down tight with a net. That’s the best part of the group consciousness…..

    I generally use my american express card rebates to buy Home Depot gift cards anyway. I’ll just tuck a cargo net in with my next order of potting soil. (I try to have the garden expenses come out of my gift cards rather than household expenses, since I’m so cr@p at growing stuff.

    n

  28. Nick Flandrey says:

    Did my instacart grocery shopping today. HEB and Costco, both arrived in less than an hour. It was 25 days since my last order.

    Costco was meat heavy and it wasn’t cheap. HEB was ‘french toast’ heavy (milk, eggs, bread products). Into the freezers went most of it. I still have to break down the ribeye roasts, and the pork ribs into meal sized pieces.

    I also got a coat of Thompson’s Water Seal on the teak patio table and the two teak porch chairs. It’s not all prepping here at casa de nick, sometimes it’s just home maintenance.

    Wife took her honda minivan into the dealer to see what the strange noise from under the hood meant. I couldn’t tell if it was fans or timing belt, due to some hearing losses certain frequencies I only hear in mono. Hard to tell direction. Turned out to be timing belt tensioner. There were some other things, bad alternator, leaky shock, and some scheduled maintenance. We’re doing all the repairs under the honda extended warranty – which has been a real money saver. We’ll do the scheduled maintenance later or not at all. We are doing the whole timing belt package- which includes replace all belts and the water pump. Once you’ve spent the labor to get access to the front of the engine, it is basically just parts cost to replace the other stuff. You put new on instead of the old. 80K miles, the water pump replacement is a no brainer under those conditions. Get a coolant flush and refill free as part of that too….

    n

  29. lynn says:

    “BLM Targets & Harasses Trump Supporter At His Home, So He Grabs His Shotgun”
    https://madworldnews.com/blm-trump-supporter-shotgun/

    “Black Lives Matter activists in Milwaukee, Wisconsin took to social media to target one man who displayed Trump flags prominently in his yard. “Pull up at 5:30 today!” the Facebook post said along with his address. The Milwaukee man had a “Trump train” flag in his front yard, and the BLM activists claimed he was a “racist.” The mob harassed the man, and that’s when he got out his shotgun. Don’t miss this.”

    “A large mob assembled in front of his home with bullhorns and loud music. After the frightened man pulls out a shotgun, the mob calls the police. The Milwaukee police arrest the Trump supporter.”

    That will not happen in Texas.

  30. MrAtoz says:

    “A large mob assembled in front of his home with bullhorns and loud music. After the frightened man pulls out a shotgun, the mob calls the police. The Milwaukee police arrest the Trump supporter.”

    That will not happen in Texas.

    I wonder what doosh in the city goobermint thought this was a good idea. Soon it will be shoot first get arrested later.

  31. SteveF says:

    Whenever I needed to hold down a load in a pickup truck, I found a feminist to lie atop it. The typical feminist is wide enough and heavy enough to hold down any load, they’re more easily found than tarps or nets, and if they lose their grip and fly off at highway speed, they’re no loss.

  32. Greg Norton says:

    “If we knock on your door, I strongly encourage you and your loved ones to participate in this important survey”

    It is long past time that someone put a lid on the Prog mayors in Texas. If Abbott isn’t going to do it, he needs to be primaried in 2022.

    https://thetexan.news/houston-covid-19-study-to-request-blood-samples-from-randomly-selected-homes/

  33. MrAtoz says:

    Can we have some blood, please.

    Fcuk NO!

    What kind of Hitler doosh came up with this?

  34. paul says:

    “If we knock on your door, I strongly encourage you and your loved ones to participate in this important survey”

    What part of “get off of my land trespasser” is difficult to understand?

  35. Rick Hellewell says:

    The folks at WyzeCam (they make those inexpensive home security cameras, including a new outdoor one, plus other things) are having a sale on HN95 masks (10/$9.95) and surgical masks (50/$9.95), and 3-ply disposable masks (50/$9.95) with free shipping.

    Here: https://wyze.com/face-masks.html . Limited supply, they usually sell fast. I’ve bought the surgical masks on their last sale, and they were as expected.

  36. Ray Thompson says:

    Left Texas today after a stop in Orange to visit relatives. Discovered yesterday that all the hotels along I-10 are full. Had to get to Alexandria LA to find a room. A little ways off our direction home but not much. Secondary roads for a while which is somewhat of a welcome relief. Not exactly what I had anticipated. Best laid plans and all that stuff.

    Hotels/motels are full because evacuating the coast but I think most of the hotels are full of workers to repair the damage. With a few con artists thrown in for good measure.

    Lots of damage. Big trees down that need to be hauled away. Many roofs with blue tarps, some roofs even completely gone. Passed several hotels with significant roof damage to some with the roof completely gone. All the room furniture, mattress and such, were stacked on the curb waiting for pickup.

    Anyway, long day tomorrow to Atlanta to stay with friends. Home on Friday afternoon, maybe even Saturday if we stay two nights in Atlanta. Fourteen day trip in that case, about 2,900 miles. Lot of AIS (Arse In Seat) time. Final hours of moving time will be calculated by the GPS when I get home.

  37. DadCooks says:

    The folks at WyzeCam (they make those inexpensive home security cameras, including a new outdoor one, plus other things) are having a sale on HN95 masks (10/$9.95) and surgical masks (50/$9.95), and 3-ply disposable masks (50/$9.95) with free shipping.

    Unfortunately, as usual, the Wyze site is unable to handle the traffic. There is a group of folks that despise Wyze and I think they do a DDOS attack whenever they make an announcement.

  38. Harold Combs says:

    If I have to play with Unicode, I use Tcl. The runtime defaults to Unicode internally

    I hate Unicode. Back in 1995 I worked for the Nottingham firm Retix who was building X.400 and X.500 products for the EU. One of their projects was called Renaissance (pronounced Ren-A-sance) which was a tool to perform automated translation of emails between various EU languages. In 1995 the AI technology was far too immature and consistently produced hilarious results. But I digress. One of the meetings we had with the EU was in Luxembourg where I was to present our total lack of progress to the EU technical council in the best light possible. While waiting for the meeting to convene, I was seated beside a nice blond woman with an Aussie accent. She introduced herself as Joan Aliprand, Secretary of the Unicode Consortium and procedded to lecture me on why the world must immediately embrace Unicode. I was saved from death by technical jargon when my name was called to make my presentation. I’m sure she was a nice woman but she was the most annoying technical evangelist I’ve encountered. Thus was born my dislike of Unicode.

  39. Greg Norton says:

    Thus was born my dislike of Unicode.

    Near the end of my time at the Death Star, I got involved with the first couple of spins of the Uverse DVR app.

    The national TV schedule comes down from Microsoft nightly in UTF-8, and parsing the show titles properly for Univision and while building the SQLite database files for each market got tricky. I pulled it off well enough to test the app, and the overseas vendor promptly stole -er- borrowed the Python code to build the real schedule files in production.

    Python didn’t do Unicode well at the time, but it was fine for UTF-8.

  40. lynn says:

    I hate Unicode.

    Unicode is a really nice idea that was implemented backwards. For instance, Windows NT was implemented to what was then called wide character, 16 bits per character. After all, there would never be a need for more than 65,536 characters right ? And then the crazy people not only put in all of the accented languages, but the pictograph languages and the emojis also. Even the freaking dominos. So now we have over a million characters and rising rapidly.
    https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U1F030.pdf

    So the various implementations of Unicode are UTF-16, UTF-32, and UTF-8. To me, the best compromise is UTF-8 because it can grow to handle any character envisioned but it is efficient for plain old ASCII characters. Which, most of the world still runs on plain old ASCII.
    https://www.unicode.org/faq/utf_bom.html

    Frankly, I am impressed at the Unicode effort. It is trying to solve a huge problem using common means to every person in the world. It may not be the best way to do things but it does work. For now.

  41. Ray Thompson says:

    I’m sure she was a nice woman but she was the most annoying technical evangelist I’ve encountered.

    You never spent 45 minutes as an employee of EDS on a Southwest Airlines flight from Dallas Texas to San Antonio Texas seated next to Ross Perot. God consulted with Ross when creating the world, according to Ross.

  42. lynn says:

    You never spent 45 minutes as an employee of EDS on a Southwest Airlines flight from Dallas Texas to San Antonio Texas seated next to Ross Perot. God consulted with Ross when creating the world, according to Ross.

    Who got the arm rest ?

  43. Greg Norton says:

    You never spent 45 minutes as an employee of EDS on a Southwest Airlines flight from Dallas Texas to San Antonio Texas seated next to Ross Perot. God consulted with Ross when creating the world, according to Ross.

    Hopefully it wasn’t the back row which Southwest pretends is wide enough for three seats on each side.

    The Perot family paid for my father-in-law’s heart transplant and then convened daily world-wide conference calls of specialists when the patient went into rejection two years later trying to solve the problem, sparing no expense. H. Ross was a weird mix of personality traits.

    My father-in-law worked for Perot Systems, however, not EDS.

    And, nobody at UT Southwestern really wanted to resolve the rejection problem. Someday, I’ll have to type up that story.

  44. Marcelo says:

    Yup, we currently use Visual Studio 2015 for our Windows user interface and Excel data transfer app, just the C++ portion of it. We cannot move to a newer version until we complete our Unicode port. Junior Senior programmer is working on it posthaste. It is not going well.

    There is a huge difference between VS2015 and VS2019. You did good to skip VS2017 in my view.

    One of the best things for non-commercial programmers like me is Dark Mode. 🙂

    Seriously though, the “intelligent” code assist is really helpful.

    Flogging? Does that still help?

  45. Ray Thompson says:

    Who got the arm rest ?

    Ross, but I had the window seat. What he really needed was a mouth rest.

  46. Marcelo says:

    I am now using it as prepping storage for items that can survive cool and humidity. Mainly bottled products and my goods in sealed containers.

    Mushrooms. Definitely!

  47. Ray Thompson says:

    two years later trying to solve the problem, sparing no expense

    Oh, indeed. The benefits of employment were outstanding. I paid nothing for healthcare for me or my wife. Everything, including prescriptions, were covered by the company. Just submitted the bills and was reimbursed by the company. No pesky health insurance company involved.

    One employee in Dallas had a daughter that developed a very rare condition. Only doctors that would attempt to treat were located in Switzerland. EDS sent the employee and his family to Switzerland, got them a house, for an entire year, naturally the treatment, and picked up 100% of the cost. Once a month the employee would fly to the U.S. for a week, 1st class, to work on the project he was assigned. The child recovered. I suspect the employee will forever be grateful. I know I would.

    EDS was good to work for as a company. Ross was/is a jerk. Knows everything. I suspect that is what got him the contracts and allowed the company to grow as it did. As employee the company expected commitment and excellence. Nothing less was tolerated.

    At the Dallas HQ there was an 18 hole golf course, indoor (huge) pool, full gym, dining facilities, etc. Employees could spend a week there and never go home. I suspect some did. Many a business meeting was consummated on that golf course with nothing more than a shake of hands. Many a technical challenge was solved on that golf course.

    I don’t regret my time and wish it would have lasted longer. But the San Antonio office where I was located was horribly mismanaged by some misfit retirees from the USAF. Buddies given cushy jobs that contributed nothing useful. Ross himself came down and fired the three top dogs, told the rest of the staff they had two weeks to find another job or move to Dallas. I had already departed about two months prior as I could sense that something was not right. Shame.

  48. ~jim says:

    @DadCooks
    I discovered a way to keep bulk potatoes from going bad, or not going bad as often, is by scrubbing them in a weak solution of bleach and then letting them thoroughly dry before setting them aside.

    I suspect a mold is the culprit, which may explain why you don’t keep the onions alongside them. Interesting about the light. I know that the sprouts are supposedly poisonous– cyanide? I can’t recall.

  49. Nick Flandrey says:

    I just break the sprouts off and eat the potato. Never had any issues.

    And this is why I stopped subscribing to SA more than a few years ago. The bias was in your face…

    Scientific American backs Joe Biden for its first presidential endorsement in its 175-year history and accuses Donald Trump of ‘badly damaging the US and its people’

    The magazine said it felt ‘compelled’ to take sides in an election for the first time
    Its editor said Donald Trump had been worse for science than feared in 2016
    An editorial lambasted Trump for mishandling Covid-19 and climate change

    n

    added- so SA thinks orangemanbad is enough reason to overlook Biden’s sexual weirdness, apparent cognitive issues, and 40+ year track record of failure/lack of achievement. The nepotism doesn’t raise an eyebrow either?

  50. lynn says:

    added- so SA thinks orangemanbad is enough reason to overlook Biden’s sexual weirdness, apparent cognitive issues, and 40+ year track record of failure/lack of achievement. The nepotism doesn’t raise an eyebrow either?

    And Biden is guilty of treason. “NEW BIDEN AUDIO TAPE RELEASED IN UKRAINE Shows VP Trashing Incoming Trump Admin To Foreign Leader, Says He’ll Stay Involved In Ukraine After Inauguration, Discusses Jointly Damaging Trump”
    https://creativedestructionmedia.com/investigations/2020/09/16/new-biden-audio-tape-released-in-ukraine-shows-vp-trashing-incoming-trump-admin-to-foreign-leader-says-hell-stay-involved-in-ukraine-after-inauguration-discusses-jointly-damaging-trump/

  51. MrAtoz says:

    added- so SA thinks orangemanbad is enough reason to overlook Biden’s sexual weirdness, apparent cognitive issues, and 40+ year track record of failure/lack of achievement. The nepotism doesn’t raise an eyebrow either?

    And Biden is guilty of treason. “NEW BIDEN AUDIO TAPE RELEASED IN UKRAINE Shows VP Trashing Incoming Trump Admin To Foreign Leader, Says He’ll Stay Involved In Ukraine After Inauguration, Discusses Jointly Damaging Trump”

    Yup x 1,000,000! Plugs has to answer for this.

  52. TV says:

    And this is why I stopped subscribing to SA more than a few years ago. The bias was in your face…

    I subscribed many years ago (late 1970s and through the 80s). It used to be a really good source of hard science articles that a non-scientist (me) could mostly understand. At some point, the social scientists were let in the door and the content went to hell which was really too bad. I stopped subscribing (early 1990s?) when it started to read more like Discovery or Popular Mechanics – too dumbed-down to be useful.

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