Probably hurricane conditions today, although who knows? Nicholas became an official hurricane last night. We’ll see where it came ashore and what it did this morning.
Yesterday was overcast with misty drizzle interspersed with downpour…
I got wet on my ‘last run’ to the grocery store. Being the good prepper I try to be, I didn’t really need to go to the store and we’d have been fine but it was time for my normal grocery run. The bonus was getting a bunch of prime steak on serious discount, and even grabbed some pork chops on sale. It’s been a while since I had a good meat score, so I was due. And it never hurts to top up the fridge.
As of midnight, we still didn’t have any real weather at the house. I watched some youtube footage of it coming ashore in Surfside TX, and it was blowing pretty good, with some storm surge. Definitely 2-3ft flooding in Surfside.
This guy in his house is better than network coverage by a factor of 10. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QC2Xh_dvAo4 Ryan Hall, Y’all. His Ida coverage was great. He must have an iron butt and huge bladder because he’s in the chair for a long time. His setup is stunning. Interesting to see the future of ‘citizen journalism’. One guy, education and skills, a lucky break, and good follow through, joined to a crowd funding model. Ain’t technology grand? And some people are ready to burn it all down.
Opportunities are everywhere.
Keep your eyes and mind open, your powder dry, your head on a swivel, and your stacks high đ
nick
A lot of repuglicans in VA donât like dumbrocrat governors also. The government guys cutting up the Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond with a chain saw did not go very well with much of the populace last week.
That’s an understatement with the KKKlansman. Google Ralph Northam and take the litmus test with the yearbook picture yourself.
Which one of the two in the picture is the future Governor of Viriginia?
And did you ever catch how Rush Limbaugh would pronounce the Governor’s name?
Ralph … Northam [ like an old Southern Belle announcing him at a cotillion ]
I read that they are raising the SALT cap from $10,000 to $20,000. I got hit by that cap in 2019 and 2020 also.
The personal exemption was dramatically increased as the tradeoff.
We got hit in 2019 from residual weirdness left over from my wife’s misadventures in private practice, but, thanks to the increased personal exemption and child tax credits, we went from paying something every year to a refund for 2020.
While I was a firm supporter of economic policies of 45, I was hurt quite a bit when the SALT limit went into effect. As a resident of NJ working in NY and paying high property taxes in NJ (>$25K per year), and income taxes to both states, I lost tens of thousands of dollars of tax deductions and was only marginally helped by the adjusted tax rate.
I bought my house back in 1984 when the property taxes were about $4k per year. That property taxes would rise this high and the deduction be effectively eliminated was never on my radar.
And of course neither R or D governors have done anything of significance to reduce property taxes over the years and have continue to allow inflated pensions for government employees. And our current governor, Phil Murphy, has an ad campaign saying âIf youâre a one-issue voter, and tax rate is your issueâŚweâre probably not your state.â
I didnât have my new UPS set correctly. Happened to me months ago. Had plugged into the surge ports, not the battery backup port.
Test! Test! Test!
OK, easy mistake, and you probably won’t make that one again soon, but just think of all the other possibilities.
Test! Test! Test!
73F and overcast this fine late morning. Kids are still asleep, or hiding in rooms with devices or books. Quiet in the house.
Looking around the cams, we’ve got some small clumps of leaves down in the yard and street. No branches I can see.  We get a text looking for a chainsaw from a friend. They have a BIG branch down next to the house. Missed them by THAT much.
Had the power blink out for less than a minute for the second time… and the TV and TiVO in the bedroom both blinked out… they’re supposed to be on UPS too. WTF? Tripplite UPSs have a stupid design. NOT recommended. Even plugged into the right outlets, with a lit up display the damnable thing might not actually be set to UPS. I’m going to have to do far more looking and reading than should be necessary for such a basic and mature tech. Products should BY DEFAULT provide the service that you buy them to provide. Oh, and in the office this time the NVR pc stayed up but my main machine didn’t so something is still wrong there.
n
@JimB: Happens to all of us, even if we’re the careful types. When I first set up my UPS, it just kept beeping an alarm. Continuously. Took me an hour to realize that I had plugged it into the switched outlet meant for a room lamp, and it really didn’t have any power :-/
Days are getting shorter, fast. Semester starts in earnest on Monday. It’s pretty much chaos at the school – planning and re-planning. The school leadership is too politically oriented, weak, and always slow.
Last week, I mentioned that our hallowed leaders announced that the school will start requiring vaccination certifications on October 15th. Great, so everything will get to be re-planned all over again.
Why in four weeks? I couldn’t restrain myself, and sent a mail saying that they should get off their duffs and have everything sorted out by semester start. I may have put it slightly more politely than that, but the intent was clear. I actually got a brief reply: they are unanimous that they need a month to figure things out. I suppose moving faster would require actual leadership, and maybe cutting down on the coffee breaks.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/new-study-suggests-almost-half-all-covid-hospitalizations-january-june-had-mild-or
Grrr
n
Recently as I’ve been driving around, I’ve noticed a bunch of signs touting something called Delta-8. The signs are usually in front of CBD stores (which it turns out is where you get the non-dope versions of marijuana…) Well, this health advisory makes it clear.
https://emergency.cdc.gov/han/2021/han00451.asp
–so they got a certain class of chemicals approved for use, then it turns out you can upconvert them to products that WILL get you high, and they are apparently still legal. And people are making mistakes with dosing because of the ‘nod and wink’ legality.
Unintended consequences.
n
–so now we’re in a legal arms race like with meth, keep changing the exact formulation to try to stay ahead of the law.
n
More sexual fetishism shoved into the mainstream.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-9988611/Cara-Delevingne-makes-statement-Peg-Patriarchy-bulletproof-vest-Met-Gala.html
–I would not recommend ‘looking it up.’ it is a sexual act that is EXACTLY a female sticking it to the man… and now you know what ‘pegging’ is.
n
–and I thought we were done with ‘heroin chic’ as a fashion trend.
Nicholas made a lot of noise and blew things around a lot as he went over us at 5 am. At 2 am I was thinking that I was idiot for not putting the trash cans in the garage (they sit on the back patio). We lost a lot of leaves and a couple of long branches off the tree out front. We have power but I can hear generators running behind us and in front of us. The wife righted the trash cans and all is good.
âand I thought we were done with âheroin chicâ as a fashion trend.
That look is Suicide Squad/Harley Quinn. The flicks are hard ‘R’, but my former corporate masters target teenage girls with the marketing. “*The* Suicide Squad” should be hitting the remaining dollar theaters soon if it hasn’t already.
Warner probably paid her to sport the look as well as all the hair, makeup, and wardrobe, including the “pegging”-related slogan.
Met Gala is another long-standing freak show event with lots of media coverage.
BTW, if you have a really dark sense of humor and a strong stomach, the gold standard Pegging “how to” video, “Bend Over Boyfriend”, is a riot to watch.
âso they got a certain class of chemicals approved for use, then it turns out you can upconvert them to products that WILL get you high, and they are apparently still legal. And people are making mistakes with dosing because of the ânod and winkâ legality.
As soon as weed is legalized in Texas you will start hearing about houses exploding from experiments from cooking hash oil. Never fails. The weed high starts to not be enough.
And it won’t be ghetto houses going splodey. Before we left Portland, a hash oil explosion blew out the walls of a 6000 sq ft house in Linus Torvalds’ neighborhood, Dunthorpe, possibly the most exclusive neighborhood in the city.
Of course, Oregon’s attempt to solve the problem was to decriminalize small amounts of harder drugs — coke, meth, and heroin are all legal up to a certain weight.
My office building does not have power yet. Two of my employees drove by and reported no power. Several of my employees do not have power at their homes either. One of my employees accused the office manager (my wife) of taunting him that we have power AND a generator if needful.
I would like to put a generator at the office but do not want to spend the $30K to $35K. I will have to have the natural gas line run a quarter mile for $8,000. Plus I will need a 48 kw or a 60 kw generator since the office building is total electric including the water well pump, air conditioners / heaters, water heater, 15 computers, and a hundred light bulbs. Plus the building is unattended on the weekends and will need some sort of security to keep the generator from walking away.
If I do build another office warehouse then I have to build a small fire station with 10,000 gallons of water and a pumping system with a generator. It is just money, right ?
I didnât have my new UPS set correctly. Happened to me months ago. Had plugged into the surge ports, not the battery backup port.
Test! Test! Test!
OK, easy mistake, and you probably wonât make that one again soon, but just think of all the other possibilities.
Test! Test! Test!
Ah, a man after my own heart. I am an old power plant engineer, if you don’t test every change you make to the system then the system will not function as expected when you want it to. We had many black start tests on our system where we would isolate huge grids, tens of square miles, with a power plant and go black. We would then start our diesel generators, brings the local grid up, and try to start one of the units. You would not believe what would go wrong. And we were ALWAYS short of power. The design engineers always shortchanged us by at least one 2,500 hp locomotive engine. I was the designated observer for several of these from the downtown Dallas office and would just walk around the power plant control room trying to keep from screaming.
Raked up the debris into a pile. Mostly clumps of leaves from the live oaks and pine needles. Blew off the sidewalk and cars. Cleanup sorted.
Station says we got a bit more than one inch of rain overnight. That sounds about right for what I see.
Now to shower and get started on the day.
n
I would like to put a generator at the office but do not want to spend the $30K to $35K. I will have to have the natural gas line run a quarter mile for $8,000. Plus I will need a 48 kw or a 60 kw generator since the office building is total electric including the water well pump, air conditioners / heaters, water heater, 15 computers, and a hundred light bulbs. Plus the building is unattended on the weekends and will need some sort of security to keep the generator from walking away.Â
I’m not a huge “cloud” fan, but I see the upside of the current job using paid Github.com accounts to provide access to our source repositories from anywhere 24/7.
The last job put a Gitlab behind a Cisco Anyconnect VPN after running access on the open Internet for a long time. The SSH public-private key protection of the source remote access in Git was arguably better security, but what do I know.
Had the power blink out for less than a minute for the second time⌠and the TV and TiVO in the bedroom both blinked out⌠theyâre supposed to be on UPS too. WTF?
What model TiVo?
Depending on the age, the power supply may be malfunctioning in addition to the UPS problems.
Tivo Bolt. Which I only use for youtube watching, mainly Skyrim music and ambient to fall asleep….  The GUI is good, and just works. KODI was maxed out on licenses after midnight, and the UI isn’t great, the xbox worked but the controls sucked.  Tivo is more than I need, and the yearly sub is an expense I don’t want, and probably won’t renew come Christmas if I can find a simple way to watch youtube in bed.
I’m NOT putting the bedroom tv online.
n
From the daily FEMA brief
n
Tivo Bolt. Which I only use for youtube watching, mainly Skyrim music and ambient to fall asleepâŚ. The GUI is good, and just works. KODI was maxed out on licenses after midnight, and the UI isnât great, the xbox worked but the controls sucked. Tivo is more than I need, and the yearly sub is an expense I donât want, and probably wonât renew come Christmas if I can find a simple way to watch youtube in bed.
Iâm NOT putting the bedroom tv online.
n
My bedroom TV is on a Roku Ultra box and that is it. The TV is not directly hooked up to the intertubes. None of our TVs are hooked up directly to the intertubes, just Roku boxes.
Stop with the unexplained acronyms ! I am reading “Thirteen” by Richard K. Morgan right now. He is throwing around COLIN and UNGLA like I should know what these mean. I have no freaking idea except COLIN has something to do with the Mars colonization effort and UNGLA might have something to do with the UN. If you are going to use acronyms in your book then please provide a glossary !
https://www.amazon.com/Thirteen-Richard-K-Morgan/dp/0345480899/?tag=ttgnet-20
I was having a discussion elsewhere about geolocation based on IP address. There are many places that can determine a location based on IP address. But most of those are a ‘radius’ result – your actual physical location is with a certain radius of the location specified.
For example, the ‘center pin’ of my radius is about 30 miles away from my actual house. So, not ‘street address’ accuracy.
I think this is probable for many people. So, the question to the ‘hive mind’ here – if you use a service like https://ip-api.com (or any other of the public geolocation services), how accurate is the result for your physical location? Within xx miles, or within xx feet?
What is your result? (Not looking for Three Letter Agency theories, but what you will find at a service like the above link.)
I was having a discussion elsewhere about geolocation based on IP address. There are many places that can determine a location based on IP address. But most of those are a âradiusâ result â your actual physical location is with a certain radius of the location specified.
For example, the âcenter pinâ of my radius is about 30 miles away from my actual house. So, not âstreet addressâ accuracy.
I think this is probable for many people. So, the question to the âhive mindâ here â if you use a service like https://ip-api.com (or any other of the public geolocation services), how accurate is the result for your physical location? Within xx miles, or within xx feet?
What is your result? (Not looking for Three Letter Agency theories, but what you will find at a service like the above link.)
I just use a big file of IPv4 addresses located to country that I buy from MaxMind for about 20 years now. I need to update mine again as it is telling me that an IPv4 address in Saudi Arabia is in Colorado.
https://www.maxmind.com/en/geoip2-country-database
"regionName": "Washington",
"city": "Seattle",
"district": "",
"zip": "98122",
Google Maps says I’m 8.4 miles off center.
Actual location is 98119
109 miles.
Which is an improvement. For a long time, the interwebs thought our IP was in Canada. There are still some annoyances with the distance (ie shopping when stores try to “use your location”) but not as many as when it thought we were out of country.
They report the location of our ISP, about 15 miles away. As expected.
But that’s not exactly true. My location is usually thought to be somewhere in continental Europe unless I choose to use a “normal” browser.
My office building does not have power yet. Two of my employees drove by and reported no power. Several of my employees do not have power at their homes either. One of my employees accused the office manager (my wife) of taunting him that we have power AND a generator if needful.
I would like to put a generator at the office but do not want to spend the $30K to $35K. I will have to have the natural gas line run a quarter mile for $8,000. Plus I will need a 48 kw or a 60 kw generator since the office building is total electric including the water well pump, air conditioners / heaters, water heater, 15 computers, and a hundred light bulbs. Plus the building is unattended on the weekends and will need some sort of security to keep the generator from walking away.
If I do build another office warehouse then I have to build a small fire station with 10,000 gallons of water and a pumping system with a generator. It is just money, right ?
And the power has been back on at the office building since 2 pm. I’ve got all the computers back up and life is good.
I think this is probable for many people. So, the question to the âhive mindâ here â if you use a service like https://ip-api.com (or any other of the public geolocation services), how accurate is the result for your physical location? Within xx miles, or within xx feet?
What is your result? (Not looking for Three Letter Agency theories, but what you will find at a service like the above link.)
About five miles away from our actual address. And the wrong zip code.
I forget what I used in the past but it gave me house number accuracy.
n
that api just gave me a map centered on my neighborhood, no pin. ah, I see the text changed, and it has the zip wrong, but well inside this part of town.
Sad news from Barbara:
I had to take Colin to the vet yesterday afternoon to have him put to sleep. He was bleeding internally in his stomach from the cancer but there was nothing the we could this time to save him.
RIP.
Our cat mostly recovered from the brush with death last Fall due to a rodent ulcer on her upper lip, but the ulcer is back, making a steroid shot necessary last week after the pills failed.
Every steroid shot with an older cat is a risk for diabetes development.
We already have a two-a-day pill regime to control a hyper-active thyroid. We don’t do the recommended radiation ablation of the thyroid due to the lousy outcome with the last cat — $1000 for another nine months of life, and she developed a tumor in her throat in the area of the ablated thyroid.
The pills work. I’d hate to add an insulin shot to the routine, however, since a pet sitter is already a $300 week charge added to vacations for twice daily visits for food/water, litter, and medication.
Way back when my ISP was PGRB after Momentum sold out, before PGRB turned into Pegasus, then Xanadoo, then Skybeam, and finally Rise, the bill gave my bombing location.  Looking at IP-API, it’s about 30 feet East from my antenna. I reckon it’s where some guy parked his truck twenty years ago. Close enough for any bomb worth tossing this way to trash everything here and to aim the antenna.
Looking at the map for my ISP’s location, I suppose it’s correct. My antenna is aimed, as far as I can tell by looking at a radio the size of a mac&cheese box on a 40 foot push-up mast, correctly.
Small town. Google says I’m 2 miles from town as the crow flies to the Post Office?  Eyeballing it, the ISP’s tower is almost as far on the other side of town.
Close enough.
Patch Tuesday. Seems to have a short list of things this time around.
Within 3 decimals of a degree in latitude and longitude, or within about 2 miles.
Wrong postcode, though. It thought UB6, I’m actually in W13.
Still terrifyingly close, for someone who attempts to keep his ICBM address secret online.
G.
“$3,586,456,000,000: Federal Tax Collections Set Record Through August”
https://www.cnsnews.com/article/washington/terence-p-jeffrey/3586456000000-federal-tax-collections-set-record-through
“(CNSNews.com) – The federal government collected a record $3,586,456,000,000 in total taxes through first eleven months of fiscal 2021 (September through August), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement.
The federal government also collected a record $1,829,589,000,000 in individual income taxes in the September-through-August period.
However, because the federal government also spent $6,297,090,000,000, the Treasury still ran a deficit of $2,710,635,000,000.”
We have a spending problem.
Hat tip to:
https://drudgereport.com/
@lynn:
So do nearly all of us, individually. This is Parkinson’s Law: “Expenditure rises to meet income”.
G.
RIP Turd Ferguson. You will be missed.
https://deadline.com/2021/09/norm-macdonald-dead-obituary-comedian-saturday-night-live-weekend-update-anchor-was-61-1234833212/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deMQhFBvg5s
“Sean Connery” is arguably the most popular celebrity in that sketch, but Turd Ferguson’s podium was at the Saturday Night Live exhibit at the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago when we visited.
Actually, it seems to be that it exceeds in most cases and that includes governments in particular.
@lynn:
We have a spending problem.
So do nearly all of us, individually. This is Parkinsonâs Law: âExpenditure rises to meet incomeâ.
Actually, it seems to be that it exceeds in most cases and that includes governments in particular.
Most politicians like being Uncle Santa. And it is cool to give away other people’s money. Until it runs out.
So, the question to the âhive mindâ here â if you use a service like https://ip-api.com (or any other of the public geolocation services), how accurate is the result for your physical location? Within xx miles, or within xx feet?
80 miles, but that is where our ISP’s location is. It makes shopping a bit annoying: I have to manually select a store closer to me, if there is one.
ISTR when I got my first cell (smart) phone that the GPS didn’t work very fast. It could take up to about a minute before it received enough satellites and solved the location problem. During that time, it used cell towers. Not surprisingly, out here the location was off by a few miles. I think we only had about two towers at the time. When we went to the first urban area, I was very impressed how accurate it was using only cell towers. It was sometimes within a few hundred feet of our actual location. I also think that was before GPS allowed us unwashed civilians to get the accuracy we do today. Now, I can see what room my wife is in inside a house. Impressive, but also scary.
Most politicians like being Uncle Santa. And it is cool to give away other peopleâs money. Until it runs out.Â
We are going to be paying a price for the pandemic payola for a long time.
https://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/archives/2021/09/13/bubbalous-bbq-closes-original-winter-park-location
Karen’s Power Tools are not yet abandonware….
Just got an email from the maintainer, who took over after Karen’s death many years ago. He says he’s behind, tired and stressed, but still here.
Karen used to write for one of the big PC mags, and she wrote a number of very useful little utilities that are a bit long in the tooth, but still have loyal users.
https://www.karenware.com/karens-power-tools-utilities-for-windows
n
Karen used to write for one of the big PC mags, and she wrote a number of very useful little utilities that are a bit long in the tooth, but still have loyal users.
Is VB6 deprecated for Windows 11?
Most of the utilities look like they are dependent on the VB6 runtime. Microsoft reluctantly included the DLLs in Windows 10 to make Corporate America happy, but Redmond warned that the support would sunset with that release of the OS.
When I did scab training for the 2009 almost-strike at the Death Star, I was surprised at how many internal VB6 utilites were involved to keep the customer service operations organized in the face of legacy mainframe order entry systems from multiple Baby Bells, DirecTV, and Cingular Wireless.
Two miles.
“Until it runs out.” Ha! What you think all those printing presses over at the Dept. of the Treasury are for? To just sit idle?? Come on. . .
One guy, education and skills, a lucky break, and good follow through, joined to a crowd funding model. Ainât technology grand? And some people are ready to burn it all down.
I go back and forth between the Navy and Spaghettimodels.com (Mike’s Weather Page)
Very cool graphic on Mike’s today. Lest anyone doubt that West Central Florida is the lightning capital of the world …
https://www.facebook.com/mikesweatherpage/posts/405765437573466
Facebook required for that link…
n
Mike’s Weather Page https://www.spaghettimodels.com/Â (full link, referenced by @GregNorton). Includes graphics on his FB page. He has other social media pages.
Karen used to write for one of the big PC mags, and she wrote a number of very useful little utilities that are a bit long in the tooth, but still have loyal users.
Is VB6 deprecated for Windows 11?
Most of the utilities look like they are dependent on the VB6 runtime. Microsoft reluctantly included the DLLs in Windows 10 to make Corporate America happy, but Redmond warned that the support would sunset with that release of the OS.
When I did scab training for the 2009 almost-strike at the Death Star, I was surprised at how many internal VB6 utilites were involved to keep the customer service operations organized in the face of legacy mainframe order entry systems from multiple Baby Bells, DirecTV, and Cingular Wireless.
I am not surprised. Building a VC++ app is hard. Building a VB6 app is not real hard, about medium I would say.
“My solution? Buy ammo and food storage. Make friends with your neighbors and be useful to your community. Donât live anywhere run by democrats. ”
–Larry Correia
https://monsterhunternation.com/2021/09/10/this-week-in-politics-its-all-bullshit-and-were-fucked/
Larry does have a way with words….
n
“UK: E-car chargers will turn off to prevent blackouts”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/09/13/uk-e-car-chargers-will-turn-off-to-prevent-blackouts/
“Electric car charging points in peopleâs homes will be preset to switch off for nine hours each weekday at times of peak demand because ministers fear blackouts on the National Grid.
Under regulations that will come into force in May, new chargers in the home and workplace will be automatically set not to function from 8am to 11am and 4pm to 10pm. Public chargers and rapid chargers, on motorways and A-roads, will be exempt.
The government is also taking powers to impose a ârandomised delayâ of up to 30 minutes at other times to avoid pressure on the grid if there is a scramble among motorists to recharge their batteries at the same time.”
Do you know what a bait and switch is ? Man, does this look like one. Although, the switch is to have a non-functioning vehicle.
ip.api is about 3miles off for me – uk, so we’re closer packed