Another clear and chilly day here near the Eastern Seaboard. There are still some vivid red leaves on some few trees, but most of the leaves have turned and fallen. It’s as grey and depressing as I remember.
Spent most of yesterday asleep in a recliner. Sugar overload and sore back conspired against me. Did get out for a while to the bookstore. D2 wanted the whole place but only conned grandpa into buying a few things. She spent $28 of her own money too. Kid is like me, likes to own books. I just like to buy them cheaply. She likes them crisp and unread.
Lots of baking on the agenda for today, followed by a visit to relatives. Cousins for the childers to spend some time with. Family. Well, relatives in any case.
Local newspaper is interesting. So many half truths, appeals to authority, and all the rhetorical tricks for any story outside of this little town. Editorial imported from the Chicago Tribune, that flat out lies about the Rittenhouse case. One letter to the editor mocking a pro- Bidn piece. Small town news. Newspapers aren’t dead everywhere but they are headed that way. This one seems to have taken the advice to focus on the hyper local to heart, and it worked so far. They are still around.
We’ll see if I can avoid politics for the next two days. Seems unlikely. Funny that FIL who is a Kennedy lefty, anti Bush, anti Trump, has Fox News saved to a preset on his car radio. I don’t know anyone on the right who listens or watches much anymore, but the left does…
Speaking of FIL, they’ve got a small chest freezer now and have a few more things stocked… not anywhere near enough for even small interuptions though. JIT at work in the home.
Makes me nervous as heII. Stack some stuff. Seriously.
nick
The Fox affiliate is probably the big AM Clear Channel (or whatever they call themselves now) "blow torch" radio station in the area, like 970 in West Central Florida or 1200 here in Central Texas.
I’m guessing a high power transmitter in NW Massachusetts aimed in a 90 degree pattern covering Boston around to the CT suburbs of New York City.
Chilly and clear this am.
I'm convinced that the Sleep Number bed just allows you to put a number on your discomfort. I have never found a setting that didn't hurt my back, or roll me around.
N
@Nick
Sorry to hear that it wasn't just pure decadent slothfulness.
I hope that was at least two books.
Rittenhouse to 5M viewers: My prosecutors were corrupt
https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2021/11/24/rittenhouse-to-5m-viewers-my-prosecutors-were-corrupt-n431192
"Binger and Kraus are in for a public beating, at least for a while. And they deserve it."
The beating, of course, being rhetorical. Big Whoop. They need to be charged and put on trial.
Yep, one hardback, one trade paperback, one bookmark.
And the soft touch got her two additional trade paperbacks.
N
Just 4-1/2 more weeks of lectures before Christmas. I always run out of steam around this time in the Fall, because this is when I have the most lectures, plus having to prepare the Spring courses. I'll take two weeks off over Christmas, then its exam and project grading season.
Somewhat annoying: I completely revamped our intro-to-programming course, to use a book written by one of our faculty members. He's a good teacher, and the book is ok. As a first edition, though, there are some problems that need to be fixed. However.
He decided he wants to do more research, so he resigned and moved on to a research-oriented university. Which means he won't be updating his book. Which means that I get to re-do the course again next year, to use a different book. Grumble…
from John Kass, former Chicago Time columnist until the woke mob forced him out:
https://johnkassnews.com/who-will-apologize-to-kyle-rittenhouse-biden-the-media-dont-hold-your-breath/
Reading the above, in the middle of his essay, I thought he was going to make the obvious point, but he did not:
They can't be allowed to get away with it. If they get away with it, they will be emboldened, as they have been by every half-ashed response to all the lies and deceit promulgated for the last five years.
The avenue for accounting is prosecution of the prosecutors themselves, who blatantly entered into a conspiracy to railroad a young man who defended himself well within the boundaries of the law of self-defense. Judge Schroeder let them walk away. I doubt that two Republican prosecutors trying to railroad a progressive who had defended himself against deadly attacks from a mob of rednecks would have made it out of the courtroom except in the clutches of a couple of bailiffs.
Justice wasn't served here. It was assaulted and barely made it out alive, and the perps walked free.
Yeah. Imagine the next one is your son or daughter.
@Nick
If she likes her books new, does she have her own bookcase to take care of them?
Good father-daughter project there.
@Brad
Would it be easier to become a co-author?
Or at least not much more work?
Does the book have “good bones”?
When I take my daughter and her friends to the bookstore I know it's going to hurt in the wallet. Still, it's hard to fault them all for being avid readers. It could be worse. We could be at Sephora or Ulta buying stupid sh_t for ridiculous amounts.
My job always has the HSA/high deductible plan. My wife gets the real insurance, currently from the Feds.
Has anyone else received calls from an over-the-counter pharmacy scam? They always claim that they were contracted by my insurance provider, but they can never name my carrier or my wife's. This morning's call caught me on PTO so I gave the woman a lot of cr*p just to see how much she would absorb.
The accent was vaguely Minnesota-New York-ish, but the cadence was Subcontinent, especially when she was trying to stick to script while catching verbal abuse from me.
Once I started to ask about her "fresher" status, she broke script and said that I had a "weird energy".
Subcontinent must be getting accent lessons. Whoever is providing the training needs to work on names — the dead giveaway was how the girl pronounced my wife’s name.
Pfft. Try "Mac Makeup" for double of those. Only one daughter went for that. That shite is expensive.
Subcontinent must be getting accent lessons.
the more expensive the product, the better the call center.
I’ve been getting medicare, solar, and pre-paid funeral plans.
I tell the insurance and burial guys I’m 89 and dying from cancer. That gets rid of them and they don’t put me on the ” harrass this guy” list. The solar guys gets told I already have solar. Obnoxious ones that still try get asked if they are a fresher. Often that gets me some obscenities in return 🙂
n
Male Subcontinent does not like to be called a "fresher". I had one "IRS agent" tell me that he was going to drive to my house and shoot me in the face after I dropped the word.
LOL! There is no end to the Lame Stream Media's lunacy and shilling for plugs:
‘The result of brainwashing, or lunacy?’ Reaction to suggestion on CBS Mornings for making Thanksgiving Covid-safe ‘tells you everything you need to know’
Asinine.
I had to drop a box at the PO today. I see they changed their "mask required" to "please wear a mask". Of the 15 of us in there, one person was wearing a mask. Except for the employees who all wore masks.
Sleep Number beds; I've had one for 16 years, and I love it. I'll never buy a different brand.
I sleep great on anything if I go to bed half drunk, but that's a dangerous road to start down. 🙂 We have a king-sized extra firm Zinus mattress and like it a lot.
@nick, don't give up hope, there's gotta be another one hiding out there…
https://news.artnet.com/market/four-years-ago-massachusetts-man-bought-drawing-30-estate-sale-may-authentic-durer-worth-eight-figures-2037727
Dilbert: 90 Minute Meeting
https://dilbert.com/strip/2021-11-24
Wow, is that ever true. Meetings with remote attendees fit this book perfectly.
https://www.amazon.com/Death-Meeting-Leadership-Solving-Business/dp/0787968056//p?tag=ttgnet-20
>> The avenue for accounting is prosecution of the prosecutors themselves, who blatantly entered into a conspiracy to railroad a young man who defended himself well within the boundaries of the law of self-defense.
Yeah…but…prosecutorial immunity.
Zoom is especially bad. The tradeoff for Teams is that the company is paying for the surveilance.
Plus, people try to get away with not wearing a headset, but the headset is often the key to hearing them speak properly.
Wasn't aware of DAOs (Distributed Autonomous Organizations) until I saw this…
https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/18/22790452/constitutiondao-loses-auction-for-rare-us-constitution-copy-sothebys
"Tesla drivers left out in the cold after server outage, but what actually went wrong?"
https://www.techradar.com/news/tesla-drivers-left-out-in-the-cold-after-server-outage-but-what-actually-went-wrong
Do I have to say it ? Do I ?
If you rely on the cloud to unlock your vehicle, your house, your refrigerator, etc, you are in sad shape the day the internet fails you. My Dad and I are having this discussion right now as he has installed a Google Nest front door lock on his house. BTW, when you go outside, it automagically relocks the deadbolt after 60 seconds if you did not lock it. He likes that feature, I find it scary.
>> Plus, people try to get away with not wearing a headset, but the headset is often the key to hearing them speak properly.
I always went with the in-the-ear style, less obtrusive than the type with the headband.
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003Z6QH44/https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003Z6QH44//a/p?tag=ttgnet-20
>> If you rely on the cloud to unlock your vehicle, your house, your refrigerator, etc, you are in sad shape the day the internet fails you.
From what I understand there's a physical key backup but apparently many people don't bother to carry it.
The keyless entry for my Leaf requires a key fob which also holds the backup key.
>> I'm convinced that the Sleep Number bed just allows you to put a number on your discomfort. I have never found a setting that didn't hurt my back, or roll me around.
Aren't Sleep Number mattresses just glorified air mattresses?
Apparently the dementia may be contagious…
So just a 'dog and pony show' to try and fool the masses.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/media/biden-energy-granholm-us-oil-barrell-50-million
Tony is getting into the insurance biz. What happens if you don't pay your insurance bill on time one month?
Or Tony doesn’t like the way you drive the vehicle.
https://www.tesla.com/insurance
What happens when you’re late with a mortgage payment and an obscure piece of paper you signed at closing allows Google to turn off access to your house?
Batteries in the key fob for my Highlander died the other day. Took out the key inside the fob and opened the door. Keyless start would not work because the fob was not detected. Solution to that is to hold the fob on the start button for a few seconds. Some sort of RFID will be detected, the system lights up, and the car can now be started.
My son has automated locks on his house. The backup is the key code that is punched in manually. Backup for the automated lights is to press a button on the switch. Backup on the thermostat is to use the thermostat.
Backup on Tesla is UBER.
Aren't Sleep Number mattresses just
glorifiedexpensive air mattresses?Yes, after I fixed it for you.
Good to know. The fob battery for my wife's car died once while away from home. We didn't have to walk because I had the other fob with me, but another means of rescuing oneself is good to know. (I also put a spare battery in the glovebox, for the next time it happened, but it apparently was used and not replaced when I thought to check, maybe a year later. -shrug- I did my part. If she gets stranded sometime, it's not my problem.)
Replace the battery or it will happen when you are riding in the car with her.
Never fails.
I went with an August e-lock that fits over the inside of the of a MUL-T-LOCK deadbolt. Just the same deadbolt on the back. Keyed alike with a key hidden somewhere on the estate for emergencies.
My Subie manual says if the key fob battery dies, you can also hold it next to the start button and start the car. RTFM.
>> My son has automated locks on his house. The backup is the key code that is punched in manually.
@Ray, correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't manually punching in the key code depend on the batteries in lock not having died?
Of course there's always the last resort backup – the 'rock through the window.'
Ax-Wielding Antifa Member Attacks GOP Senator's Office, Dems Give Him Money, FBI Returns Ax…
After Having It Cleaned and Resharpened, and Cutting a Check to Pay for His Axe Rental …
and the Democrats Gave Him a Pass and a Map of GOP Offices in the Senate Office Building
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/kevindowneyjr/2021/11/23/ax-wielding-antifa-member-attacks-gop-senators-office-dems-give-him-money-fbi-returns-ax-n1535869
@Alan
Nope.
>> My Subie manual says if the key fob battery dies, you can also hold it next to the start button and start the car. RTFM.
So the fob performs two functions: (1) transmitter to unlock the doors, this requires battery power, and (2) holder for the transponder chip that allows the car to start. The transponder chip can work either actively, using the fob battery, or passively, using the RF energy sent out by the antenna inside the dash. In active mode, the fob can be in your pocket, but when the fob battery is dead it's in passive mode and needs to be held next to the start button. In pre-key fob cars, the chip was in the head of the key and was always in passive mode.
Our partisan FBI failed again, costing taxpayers $130 million (and 17 innocent people their lives)
By Pete McArdle November 24, 2021
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/11/our_partisan_fbi_failed_again_costing_taxpayers_130_million_and_17_innocent_people_their_lives.html
Dismantle the FBI.
Unless the FBI leaderships' retirement accounts were zeroed out, "the FBI" didn't pay anything.
Exactly. The taxpayer shouldn't have to pay more for FBI fcukups. Take their retirement and fire them without benefits. Every other penny comes out of their annual budget with no increases. If not that, prosecute each and every one involved on murder charges.
Embrace the power of "and".
Note also that every FBI manager and agent has a heart, liver, at least one lung, at least one kidney, and so on. And that there is always a shortage of donor organs. The US has gone far down the road to commie totalitarian hellhole, thanks in no small part to the members of the FBI, so we should take the small, further step of harvesting the organs of inconvenient people.
When they run around with guns arresting innocent people and throwing them in jail for their political masters, they are more than just inconvenient.
When they breach the constitution and leak stolen documents to political enemies, they are more than just inconvenient.
When they act as agent provocateurs and kill people to further the false narrative, they are more than just inconvenient.
When they do these acts in violation their Oath of office to God and Country, the Country needs to strip them of power and make their remaining time on earth a living hell, so the Almighty God can consign their souls to Hell in the afterlife.
@SteveF
You forgot skin. Plenty of need for lampshades.
Just checked the battery. #2032), for my Jeep GC 5.7L Hemi's key: 3.08 V.
Yes. At that point there is the physical key. The backup to the backup. Your solution is the backup to the backup to the backup.
Dadgumit ! My new Windows 10 Pro x64 PC at the office has a noisy bearing in the WD 8 TB drive that I shucked from a WD external USB hard drive. Enough so that it is annoying me. Looks like I get to buy another drive.
My Ford F-150 still works that way, passive something in the key. The key works the ignition as usual but also provides security information to the computer. Without that information the starter will turn, noise will be made, but ignition will not happen. I think all current model cars without keyless systems work the same way. Anti-theft system mandated by the insurance companies.
Does Best Buy still stock hard drives?
I imagine other places will be open Friday.
What motherboard did you buy again?
My daughter wants a desktop for Christmas, but I'm going back and forth as to whether to build or buy. Graphics cards are unbelievably expensive right now, and once the crypto fad crashes, the cards will be on EBay cheap.
Buy used from Craigslist? At least around here, there's always a lot of decent machines for cheap. This includes everything from low-end laptops through high-end-but-not-cutting-edge gaming machines.
Over the Summer I bought my wife a laptop via Craigslist. (Because she'd taken to taking my daughter's laptop to do her banking and such on, and the kid was complaining that the machine always came back greasy and smelly.) (Hand lotion, that is.) It's a very good machine, better than was described in the listing, new or practically so, and worth much more than the $200 I paid for it. Yep, I'm pretty sure I purchased stolen goods. In my defense, I booted it up and did some basic checks before I paid for it but didn't realize that it was an i7 rather than an i3, nor that it had a BluRay drive, nor that the screen is very high resolution.
Does Best Buy still stock hard drives?
I imagine other places will be open Friday.
WD 10 TB hard drive is $256 on Big River.
https://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-10TB-Internal-Drive/dp/B08TZPS4QQ//p?tag=ttgnet-20
Buy. Most motherboards in purchased systems support on-board graphics, more than good enough except for some games. Warranty is not a pissing contest between vendors as support is single sourced.
Consider a laptop with USB-C port that will support an external monitor. Get a USB-C to HDMI for about $13.00. With a laptop you will not pay much more than a desktop and have something that is portable and dual monitor (laptop and external).
My last system I built because I wanted quiet, water cooling, and some very specific requirements that purchasing pre-built did not offer. I have owned four desktop computer systems over my life and only the first was pre-built. A Gateway 386-DX with 4 meg of memory, 14″ monitor and a 100 meg hard drive. I was in hog heaven.
I'm trying to convince the girls to go shopping on Black Friday. The benign interpretation is that they should witness the frenzy of unhinged pointless consumerism, selfishness, and stupidity at least once in their lives. The malign interpretation is that for the low, low price of $100 cash for each, they could disappear into the mob at the mall and never be seen again. Cheap at twice the price!
(Why, yes, teenage girls are extremely annoying at times. Why do you ask?)
That was my first desktop PC, too, though with 80MB drive. My coworkers rolled their eyes and told me I'd never fill that much drive space and that I'd wasted the $500 extra to bump the RAM from 1M to 4M.
I would second that opinion. Seems like you got a good deal. With my luck the machine would have phoned home and the next day there would have been 13 FBI agents, four black suburbans, two police cars, one news crew, busted door frame and hogged tied on the floor while the house is ransacked.
What motherboard did you buy again?
My daughter wants a desktop for Christmas, but I'm going back and forth as to whether to build or buy. Graphics cards are unbelievably expensive right now, and once the crypto fad crashes, the cards will be on EBay cheap.
MSI MPG Z390 GAMING EDGE AC
https://www.amazon.com/MSI-MPG-Z390-AC-Motherboard/dp/B07HM3MD1D//p?tag=ttgnet-20
Intel I7-9700K LGA 1151
https://www.amazon.com/Intel-i7-9700K-Desktop-Processor-Unlocked/dp/B07HHN6KBZ//p?tag=ttgnet-20
WD 1 TB Black M.2
https://www.amazon.com/Black-SN750-NVMe-Internal-Gaming/dp/B07M64QXMN//p?tag=ttgnet-20
Corsair DDR4 3600 Mhz 32 GB in 8 GB sticks (2 packages)
https://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Vengeance-PC4-28800-Desktop-Memory/dp/B07RM39V5F//p?tag=ttgnet-20
Antec P101 Quiet Case
https://www.amazon.com/Antec-P101-Silent-Performance-Pre-Installed/dp/B07LBXP8KZ//p?tag=ttgnet-20
Antec 650 Watt power supply
https://www.amazon.com/Antec-EarthWatts-Cooling-Modular-Warranty/dp/B077G9V84S/
I am using the Intel cpu to drive my 27 inch and 19 inch monitors so no graphics card.
Amazon has an 18TB external USB3 hard drive for $380. https://amzn.to/3nNobno
I think you can take out the drive from the enclosure and connect to your hard drive controller?
My daughter wants a desktop for Christmas, but I'm going back and forth as to whether to build or buy. Graphics cards are unbelievably expensive right now, and once the crypto fad crashes, the cards will be on EBay cheap.
Graphics cards are unobtanium right now. And most of the graphics cards on ebay are demo models so Nvidea or AMD may reach out and snatch them from you. At least that is what my Maximum PC magazine says.
http://mos.futureplc.com/Maximum_pc_landing_page_updated.html
You know, I may have ordered with 2 meg and upped it to 4 met later. 30 years ago is a long time to remember. I paid almost $3,200.00 for that machine in the spotted cow boxes. I later upgraded to a 486 with specs I don't remember. I did have 3.5" and 5.25" floppy drives. I did spring for a 340 meg hard drive that set me back $540.00. That system was custom built.
My next box was a pentium system of which I have little memory except getting a 17" monitor and slicing my hand badly on a really poorly designed case with razor edges. I did take everything out of the case and filed down all the edges. Cooling was a simple heatsink and small fan that made a lot of noise.
Next was a state of the art at that time I7 machine with 16 gig of memory and a 1TB hard drive. Cost a lot of money. That was the start of having to have significant cooling on the CPU that was reasonably quiet. Had that system for almost 10 years before the recent build. Which is sadly probably my last computer build. If it lasts 10 years I will be too old to want another system nor care.
Truth be told my first computer system was a Heathkit H89 with 16K of memory and one 100K hard sector floppy drive. Courtesy of the Bell and Howell schools (lots of orange binders) that was paid for by the VA. That system was significantly upgraded by increasing the speed between the motherboard and display board to 19,200 bps, added 48K of memory, a soft sector disk controller, two soft sector disk drives that stored 340K, new memory mapping chip so I could run CP/M, increased case cooling fan, a Z80A chip for more speed.
Because…Florida…
https://www.foxnews.com/us/university-of-florida-students-say-no-renaming-black-friday-origins
Our country's future!
Now Winders 10 Pro x64 wants to upgrade me to Winders 11. I think that I am going to wait on that.
I probably shouldn't post this, because I don't keep up, but what the heck.
I have had good success with two desktops from MS certified refurbishers. Cheap price, excellent condition, OEM Windows without crapware. However, that was five years. ago, so not sure about today. I would check prices and reviews.
…Or…
I bought my wife her notebook, a medium range Dell, for half price on black Friday at a Microsoft store, also about five years ago. Came with crapware-free Windows 10. Works great. Impulse buy. I literally checked reviews while in the store, and they were good. The same computer was available from multiple sources for higher prices. Whodathunk.
I also salute SteveF for using black Friday as a teachable moment, but it could. backfire.
I'd recommend this article and watching the video:
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2021/11/24/nyt-video-democratdominated-states-are-the-problem-n2599632
I paused the video at the point where they talked about Cook County having educational disparities largely because they had 140 school districts. Population 5.1MM/140 = 36,000 people per school district.
Nearest metro county to me is 93,000 per school district. Another area that I'm somewhat familiar with is 73,000.
36,000 seems very small.
In all cases the core city is the largest school district with smaller populations ringed about, so getting more data on gross population and student population would be needed to really crunch numbers.
But the bottom line is the classic: the blue shiite-hole cities point, but three fingers point right back at them.
I'd like to see a performance ranking of large urban school districts with attendant data on tax base, expenditures per student, etc. Are there any large blue state urban school districts that do a good job teaching and graduating students?
Added…
I have built my share of systems, but did have some struggles. I recommend the experience, but also recommend refurbs. It is possible to get some quality stuff at good prices, plus a short guarantee. I would not have guessed until I tried.
Meet the archetype of the progressive district attorney:
https://freebeacon.com/democrats/meet-progressive-da-behind-waukesha-bail-catastrophe/
Someone needs to tote up the butcher's bill from 15 years, put it before the voters, and see if they're happy with it.
Stuffed full of good food and good times… I'm going to sleep. Happy Thanksgiving Day, y'all
N