Cool and pleasant. I could get used to this.
Nice day yesterday. Looked at the house, looked at some other areas around the lake. Swam in the warm water. Kayaked. Pinata and special dinner with brownies for desert. Very nice day.
Even saw an armadillo last night. Cheeky bugger came up to the fire pit, snuffled around, then trundled off into the night. I think that may be the first one I’ve seen alive? Certainly the only one in the last 15 years.
Headed home at some point this morning or early afternoon. Then it’s catch up for the next few days.
Oh woe is me…..
I better get stacking. I learned a couple of things that I will mention when I have a full sized keyboard.
n
I thought they were born dead, by the side of the road? Seriously, there probably are a lot less of them than there used to be.
While I’m no eco-freak, we humans do have a problem. A population problem: too many people on the planet, occupying too much space, leaving too little for nature. Maybe less of a problem in the Western US, but most other places we’ve pushed wildlife almost out of existence.
Here, they’re trying to let wolves come back in the mountains. There are, I dunno, maybe 30 wolves in the whole country. People complain about necessary culling of the deer population – well, duh, that’s because there aren’t any predators! But listen to the shepherds (who want to leave their flocks unattended all summer) and you’d think that having a few wolves around was the end of the world.
Sooner or later everyone comes to the Wisdom of Steve.
Getting ready to head home. Wife fell in the lake during the morning kayak. Fun!
Freaking windows. Starting last night this little lappy is having mouse and keyboard issues. Mouse (trackpad) will move a couple inches, then pause for a 3 count, then continue moving. Been doing that even with a reboot. At the same time, some letters only capitalize with one shift key or the other. left shift + c does nothing. Right shift works correctly. There is at least one other letter that does the same.
Loading out now,
n
That is what doe hunts are for.
I like the idea of England’s hedgerow culture as a way of preserving space for the little wild things. Clean fence rows prevent them from having good places to nest or burrow. Even deer can bed down safely and hidden in the 6 foot wide tangled undergrowth of an un-managed fencerow.
Fortunately (or unfortunately, as when I had to trap and remove armadillos to stop them burrowing under our house), there’s no shortage of small wild animals in our part of rural Texas: armadillos, possums, skunks, squirrels, have all been seen alive and well in our tiny-town yard within the past few months. I don’t see raccoons, cottontails, or jack rabbits here in town, but I’ve seen them busy at being themselves about half a mile further out.
Which website has the best long-range weather predictions for the Texas area? Meaning 3 months or so. The two main almanacs are predicting another mild winter, although one thinks it will be drier than the other.
Freaking windows. Starting last night this little lappy is having mouse and keyboard issues. Mouse (trackpad) will move a couple inches, then pause for a 3 count, then continue moving. Been doing that even with a reboot. At the same time, some letters only capitalize with one shift key or the other. left shift + c does nothing. Right shift works correctly. There is at least one other letter that does the same.
The 4GB laptop?
I don’t try to run Windows 10 on something like that anymore. Even my daughter’s 8GB laptop was iffy for school work so we upgraded that machine to 16GB last weekend.
Any machine below 8GB is destined for recycling or Linux. Enjoy the freedom while it lasts since I doubt the ARM laptops from Apple and, eventually, Dell/HP/Lenovo will be unlocked to allow replacement of the factory-installed OS. Think Chromebooks, with the associated forced obsolescence.
IBM/Fedora know the score with 4GB machines and have been working to optimize the recent releases of Fedora to run well in limited memory environments.
You have never watched congress on C-SPAN.
@Ray: comparing Congress to armadillos? That’s not really fair – armadillos are a lot more useful.
I think Ray was saying that Congress is so insipid that listening to them kills armadillos.
OTH, ProgLibTurds (mostly Dumbos and RINOs) are a pus dripping, festering, carbuncle on the backside of the Constitution.
HARRIS/biden 2020
Fall is here in Indian Country.
With lows in the 50s for the foreseeable future, I am draining the hot tub, deflating it, and storing it away for next year. I’ve been relaxing in it for an hour almost every evening for months but it’s getting far to chilly to keep going.
Today I had a long talk with our handyman. He does excellent work but can’t bid a job or pick good help. I’m investing 5 grand in his business if I can review his bids and interview his help. Like many craftsmen, he’s not a good manager and doesn’t have management skils. I’m dangerous with a hammer or saw but have managed teams worldwide. I want him to succeed if only so he can finish all the work I have for him to do around my house.
” I want him to succeed if only so he can finish all the work I have for him to do around my house. ”
–My uncle did that with a kid in his neighborhood, it worked out well.
–home, everything is fine. The left behind animals survived, and we’ll go pickup the dog in a bit. Rain started around FM1960 and is currently coming down steadily. It was beautiful in Crockett.
–my travel lappy is an HP mini w/ win7, I forget the specs. VERY weird behaviour. I’ll probably look at it a bit more before our next trip. Maybe blow it away and try dual boot again. (it’s the one I couldn’t get the oss chrome running on for my daughter.)
Flags at half staff, presumably for RBG and not the death of the Republic? LOTS of trump signs, flags, banners, and even a billboard on this trip. That matches the election map by county, everything outside the Clinton Archipelago was red. Realtor was clued in and had retired away from the blue city for a reason.
Very funny watching lefties complain that the right is doing what they want to do, ie. stack the court. Better to appoint judges who will uphold the law, which starts with the black letter law of the Constitution. Unfortunately, and a sign of how far we’ve fallen, even doing that is seen as a partisan act.
It’s good to be home.
n
Excellent, Harold. Hope it works out.
I’ve consulted with a couple people who were forming businesses. While I’m lousy at actually performing most of the thousand things needed to start a business and make it grow to something that will support you, at least I know what needs to be done. None of the people I helped (or tried to help) had a clue. Things like maintaining separate business and personal accounts, keeping receipts, and budgeting were a mystery. (How they managed their personal finances is a separate but related mystery.) Setting a goal and then making a plan to reach it was something they’d never considered; they’d thought that declaring “my goal is to have forty paying students by this time next year” or “I need to have at least fifteen billable hours per week” was enough.
Enlightened self-interest, the best kind.
Even saw an armadillo last night. I think that may be the first one I’ve seen alive?
We drove to Abilene last night because the daughter decided to go with us after all which was amazing. Her nights and days are backwards again so we left at 11pm. I managed to run over a large racoon at 78 mph south of Rising Star, TX at 5am. No damage to my F150 4×4. Checked into a hotel, slept for a while, and going to funeral visitation soon.
For a raccoon? You are dedicated.
Yes, I know what you meant. It just struck me as funny.
It was 51 F when we hit Abilene at 6 am. Where is this global warming that people are talking about ?
yep, thank gnu for global warming. We’d be well into the ice age if not for it.
Thank you oil and gas industry!
n
Thank you oil and gas industry!
No joke, we take an enormous amount of items for granted nowadays. The wife got nervous so we filled up her Highlander in Temple at 3 am. There was an open gas station with clean bathrooms, amazing !
Took us 7 hours to go 350 miles cross country in Texas. 100 years ago that would have been a couple of weeks if you could find a vehicle.
BTW, we are still in an ice age which is defined by one or both poles are frozen. Both poles are frozen … which is unusual. We can no more control this than we can make the sun rise in the west.
No joke, we take an enormous amount of items for granted nowadays. The wife got nervous so we filled up her Highlander in Temple at 3 am. There was an open gas station with clean bathrooms, amazing !
Temple has Buc-ee’s on the north side of town. Everyone else who lacked tax breaks had to step up their game.
Closer to Belton on the south side, the Baylor Scott & White and VA hospital complexes are huge employers, running 24/7, with a lot of staff commuting up from Austin.
If you head back at a reasonable hour, Schoepf’s in Belton has pretty good BBQ.
3AM. Were the barrels of porn out at the truck stop?
Ok, here’s an odd question.
Some friends asked me if they made tv’s with built in cellular connections?
They’ve an elderly relative who wants to watch Netflix tv, can’t get internet via copper, and can’t be trusted with an normal internet browsing connection anyway (sounds like a combination of early dementia, being a shopaholic, and other issues – but I’m no doctor).
As far as I can tell there isn’t, which seems odd.
You are a dangerous man. First you run over a racoon and then you hit Abilene. You should be behind bars (with no beer).
They’ve an elderly relative who wants to watch Netflix tv, can’t get internet via copper, and can’t be trusted with an normal internet browsing connection anyway (sounds like a combination of early dementia, being a shopaholic, and other issues – but I’m no doctor).
You can’t work out a deal with a neighbor for a network drop?
6 Mbps DSL might be sufficient for a standard def or 720p TV, but the streaming services are starting to drop support for older Roku hardware which support analog TVs.
You are a dangerous man. First you run over a racoon and then you hit Abilene. You should be behind bars (with no beer).
+ a million!
I noticed that, but you were first with an excellent comment.
I should win the innernets. Never got one of those. Care to nominate me?
You know what? Nowadays with the thumbs up and down it would even make it more democratic. I could even be the first one to win or loose by consensus! 🙂
Marcelo, OK, I upvoted you, and even gave you an emoji. I usually don’t notice those newfangled things. Wear ’em with pride.
Not sure how to nominate you, but as far as I’m concerned, you win the innernets today. 😉
Hey, aren’t you somewhere past the international date line from California?
Great. Thanks!
I think OFD was master of ceremony on this one and that is why we seldom see it nowadays. It wasn’t a nomination thing, just a statement like: And so-and-so wins the Innernets today!
Date line in California? Sheesh when did that happen? It has always been Greenwich.
I am Myles replacement so there is some DownUnder representation in the blog. Wish I knew what happened with him… I am non-native and non-native-speaker. Par for the course around here. 🙂
–my travel lappy is an HP mini w/ win7, I forget the specs. VERY weird behaviour. I’ll probably look at it a bit more before our next trip. Maybe blow it away and try dual boot again. (it’s the one I couldn’t get the oss chrome running on for my daughter.)
Cheap laptops disappeared this Summer once it looked like school would be online for at least part of the year.
Browsing at Office Depot last weekend waiting for my wife to look at something, I noted Dell Chromebooks with similar specs to my travel laptop (low end Intel CPU, 4GB RAM) selling for $400+. Yikes! Plus it was some pathetic amount of storage where I have a 1 GB Crucial SSD in my laptop.
Office Depot was dead. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re history after Christmas, but I know they do a lot of online sales to businesses.
@Greg:
I am told it isn’t an option…
My current thought is a some sort of standard cellular modem from Verizon or whomever, with everything but the HDMI port and on/off button glued shut and sealed away.
I think there’s a cellular shield for Raspberry Pi’s and such, but then I’m building (and worse: maintaining, arrgghhh ) a computer for someone hundreds of miles away.
Maybe a fake outer case for a modem with “INTERNET TV ONLY” stenciled on it?
Do hotspots even have HDMI ports?
Sheesh, you go all about 8GB of memory not being enough and you have a tiny SSD? I hope you also have a respectful disk drive that hosts whatever OS you run. 🙂
(The net is merciless!)
Sheesh, you go all about 8GB of memory not being enough and you have a tiny SSD? I hope you also have a respectful disk drive that hosts whatever OS you run.
Bah. 1TB. Sorry.
The $400 Chromebook had something like 32 GB storage.
Crucial sells 240 GB SSDs for $50 IIRC.
@ed, I had an old moto cell phone with a mini-hdmi out jack. I used it to play youtube vids onto big screens, as a piece of test gear.
It was a little bit fiddly to get the output to switch on sometimes, but that is about the only thing I can think of that will easily let you use a cellular data plan to stream video directly to a tv.
n
Otherwise, you’re looking at marrying a device like a chromecast, roku, or fire stick with a MiFi local hotspot. you could use your sim card or get one from freedom pop for free… just be aware and cancel their plan before they convert to monthly, and VERIFY. Bastards clipped me for several months of autobilled “enhanced” service. Verizon hotspots are cheap on ebay.
n
@nick, I found this, a little while ago, and a couple of others like it:
https://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-LTE-Modem-Broadband-Connection/dp/B01N5ASNTE?tag=ttgnet-20
The question is, once set up, could the Ethernet line come out of it and go directly to the input port of a “smart” tv? No login or user intervention. I think so…but I’m not sure.
@ed, that looks like it would work, assuming a strong and fast LTE service was available at the TV, or with the extended antenna.
n
Office Depot was dead. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re history after Christmas, but I know they do a lot of online sales to businesses.
I just bought a new HP color Laserjet DN through Amazon from Office Depot. It was discounted almost 50%.
I haven’t actually seen an armadillo with my own eyes yet – but the trail camera I put in my back yard has captured pix and video of the critter digging up my …. well, I can’t call it a “lawn” with any honesty, but that’s the PLAN, at least. I’m now in “far west” San Antonio, about 4 miles west of Sea World. More rural than suburban, but that was what I was hoping for. We have deer, possums, stray (or abandoned, or feral) cats, the armadillo, and I’m told that there are coyotes in the area.
Different views of the same thing–
“‘I have been holding onto too many things’: Billionaire Ron Perelman, 77, says he wants a ‘clean house’ and sells nearly all his treasures including his jet, yacht, art, property and stocks”
————————————————————
” “He Needs Cash”: Ron Perelman’s Leveraged Empire Collapses In A Deluge Of Fire Sales
“At least nine banks” have claims to Perelman’s assets…”
–I don’t think he’ll be shopping at Goodwill any time soon though.
n
It was 51 F when we hit Abilene at 6 am.
You are a dangerous man. First you run over a racoon and then you hit Abilene. You should be behind bars (with no beer).
Oh man, you gotta hit Abilene. You can’t just drive into Abilene. And Abilene was dry until not very long ago.
“Abilene?” “Yeah, I’d hit that….”
n