Cold and damp, no rain though. That’s my best guess for today. It really got colder last night. Daytime temps were cool, but it dropped below 50F before I went to bed. My knees and hands hurt when it gets cold and damp.
Had a great time at my non-prepping hobby Christmas party. The food was awesome. Club provided meats, members brought dishes. I brought peach cobbler and sweet corn bread wedges. The corn bread didn’t rise, so fail there, but the cobbler got complements. Both from long term stores. For desserts there was a whole table of sweets, including two different pecan pies– both were deliciously sweet, the way they should be. I had two different sliced hams, smoked turkey, bbq meatballs, and some other pork. Then we did a ‘white elephant’ gift exchange. The ‘white elephant’ part is that the gift is silly, something you didn’t really want, and ideally humorous. It was also supposed to relate to the hobby. 43 people participated and for added fun, you could choose to ‘steal’ someone else’s gift instead of opening one. Then the deprived person gets to pick a new wrapped gift. Items could only be ‘stolen’ twice. Lots of fun and good-natured ribbing involved. Very normal feeling and great to see so many members.
Plan for the day is get stuff out of the house. Then finish outdoor decor. The kids and my wife should be home before I’m done with either of those. Puppy Zeus is supposed to get his incision looked at in the late afternoon, and maybe we’ll have time to get a tree. IF I get all the stuff cleared out.
Just another day in the life really. Stack up the good times as well as the good stuff.
nick
It goes in waves. “Full-stack development” is fairly hot. It shouldn’t be. User interface design and development needs a different approach and even a different mindset than back-end and business logic development. (With the note that business logic has been put into the UI for a couple decades for performance reasons, and the separate note that several front-end framework attempt to blur the front-back distinction by pretending that a web application is just a full-featured application hitting a database.) There’s also the problem that many languages and frameworks and libraries are very large, too large for almost anyone to be good at both the back-end language of choice and the front-end framework of choice. In practice, full-stack developers tend to be good at the front-end work (because that’s what users, managers, or clients see) and just good enough at the back-end work to get by.
Yep. That’s the real threat of the pervasive data tracking and retention. Many people have poo-pooed any concerns about your grocery store’s database of loyalty cards and purchases, and scoffed that Amazon can predict what you’ll be interested in but don’t have any police to make you buy things so they’re no threat, and waved off cell phone tracking as too big a problem for even the government to track everyone’s movements so what are you worried about. But that’s not the issue. The government (and Amazon, for that matter) do a terrible job at preventing terrorist attacks or other crimes, but they’re really good at finding some excuse to arrest you if you come to their attention for some reason. And practically every large corporation will turn over customer info on a simple request, not even a subpoena.
In the Delta Sky Club at the Atlanta airport. Get to relax for a couple of hours. MrsAtoz uses her Platinum AMEX to get us in (she’s free, charge for me).
Books sales were a bust at the convention. Total of 8 books sold. Cheapskates. We shipped 100 books to the hotel. They charged us $56 delivery fee. Pirates. At least the speaker fee was decent $7K.
Back to SA and drive to Vegas on Wed. Taking two dogs, leaving two with our niece to house watch. Gonna listen to the 2nd Ink & Sigil book on the way.
When I worked at the bank in San Antonio the main teller application was written by another company, Florida Software. I was down on the teller line fixing a terminal and when I was done I sat and watched the teller for about an hour. I noticed that when she put in money amounts into fields she always had to put in a decimal point. If more than 999.99 was involved she sometimes used a comma which got rejected. Some Florida Software fields had to be input left justified on some screens, others right justified with leading spaces. It was crazy.
So I developed some code to front end all the numeric entry fields. The code would find the number, remove commas, add decimal point if needed, then fill in the input field the software was expecting. Teller line productivity went up 25%, the tellers loved it. Florida Sofware wanted it, we said sure, $50K. Florida Software declined our offer. They never did install anything like what we had.
The term "full stack developer" is something I've noticed H1B labor is coached to put as a career aspiration by the placement firms. I don't think anyone has a clue as to what it means.
The only language platform that would come close to what is intended is JavaScript, using bolt-on GUI front end libraries in coordination with NPM/Node.js server processes running in layers of Docker containers.
If that is the future of the web, God help us all.
FlightAware isn't realtime, but ADS-B "Out" is relatively easy to receive and decode with cheap SDR gear.
I think FlightAware even provides "how tos" from their site. I believe they are using crowd sourced data to supplement other air traffic feeds.
I have all of the required gear, leftovers from my rejected thesis concept. Figure maybe $100 and you can have a portable rig that will serve a web page with realtime updates. Just find, as George Carlin put it, "Someone who is good with tools" (insert classic Carlin face gesture from the bit at this point).
You can even download my personal modifications to dump1090 from Github — nothing major, mostly just signal strength in the raw feed.
That said, I thought law enforcement helicopters were exempt from the "Out" requirement below a certain altitude to prevent people from doing exactly what I described.
Glad you had a fun time! I had the same trouble with stored cornbread mix about a month ago. I ended up frying the cooked failed cornbread pieces a la polenta or the old hot water cornbread we ate a lot when I was growing up. Mine didn't have sugar in it so that did a good job of rescuing it.
It's the baking powder that fails over time. The quick fix is to add about 1 1/2 tsp of fresh baking powder to the mix before adding the eggs and milk.
However, baking powder does not store well, and it degrades. Baking Soda, on the other hand, does not.
So the TEOTWAWKI solution is instead to add 3/4 teaspoon of Baking Soda to the dry mix. Then, add a teaspoon of vinegar (any kind) to the milk and stir it up. When you mix that with the dry mix containing the baking soda, it will rise fine.
OR one could also use a mixture of creme of tartar and baking soda in a ratio of 1/4 tsp baking soda to 1/2 tsp creme of tartar to equal a tsp of baking powder.
The street racers need to be aware that a rig costing just an order of magnitude more — law enforcement petty cash — can generate false ADS-B "Out" signals.
Countering that possibility in the air traffic control system was going to be the point of my thesis.
When ADS-B “Out” was created, no one gave any thought to civilians being able to muck about with transmitting in that part of the broadcast spectrum using the modulation techniques inoved, and while some thought was given to authentication, the capability is a bolt on to the specification and, of course, patented.
Eh, true, for a single language. Most of the headhunter spam for full-stack developers say that the back end is Java, usually with Spring, the front end is Node, React, or Angular, and REST is the communications channel. Which is all fine, but it's a lot for one person to hold in his head.
I suspect but can't prove that the Scrum mania in many large sites ties in with this. One of the Scrum guidelines is that the team should have all of the skills (and system permissions) needed to do all of the development and further that all of the team members should cross-train so anyone can do any task. The motivation for that latter part isn't a bad one: making sure that one person isn't a bottleneck and also getting more eyes on each piece, but in practice I've never seen it work out well and many anecdotes support my experience.
I wonder if part of the increase in street racing is being fueled by that show “Street Outlaws”.
Same as the number of “shiners” in my area being fueled by “Moonshiners”.
Quoting because it bears repeating, despite media and PR claims to the contrary. Quoted for truth, as SteveF says.
Today is the day before my colonoscopy. I qualify since the guidelines for the first check have been lowered to 45. Fasting? No problem. The prep drink this evening? Will probably suck, but I can deal with it. What is the absolute crime against humanity? No coffee mate in my coffee this morning.
NWS said 18F here in Brown County when we got up, 23F now, clear and sunny. The forecast was for a low of 28F. Our cold water in the kitchen is frozen up. The kitchen is the only thing that freezes, and it is on pex so no worries.
The pex is outside the wall which causes the freeze-up. It is on the east side of the house so thaws as soon as the sun hits it. Putting a bit of structure around it to protect and insulate it is on the list in my head, but I haven't yet moved it to any of the written down lists, as it is so seldom that it isn't much of a problem.
RIP Anne Rice.
@ITGuy1998
"No coffee mate in my coffee this morning."
Horrors! Will have to taste coffee!
About 20F in the California high desert this am.
Yesterday I covered the outside spigots, turned on the birdbath de-icer and brought in the hummingbird feeder. I did forget to plug in the heating strip for the faucet in the unheated garage, but that’s probably not an issue until the low teens.
When living in town I can recall hearing the occasional BANG as someone’s plumbing lets go on nights in the teens.
Getting that much fluid down is tough. I was all but a few ounces from completing mine. Don’t stray far from the bathroom.
After you wake up from the procedure the nurse will say it is OK to fart. And you will. Long and satisfying, as they have filled the void with nitrogen.
My experience with copper is that it slowly splits. No sound.
Posted on December 11, 2021
by Steven Hayward
A Modest Proposal for the Penn Women’s Swim Team
problem background:
problem solution:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/12/a-modest-proposal-for-the-penn-womens-swim-team.php
There is one additional element missing: a proactive legal challenge in the form of a federal Title 9 class-action lawsuit against any school that allows genetic males on their women's sports teams, and against any school that requires their women's teams to compete against such a team, and the conference apparachniks that require it.
ERCOT is the puppet of Oncor and, to a lesser extent, the power companies. They are *not* a part of state government.
Oncor is owned outright by Warren Buffett via Berkshire Hathaway.
Buffett is up to something in Texas. Fortunately when Warren corrupts the government process for his personal gain, he has enough of a "show ya" personality that he will brag about it in the vaunted Letter to Shareholders, even if, as was the case with this year's obviously hastily rewritten letter, you have to read between the lines.
Simple Homespun Wisdom (TM), Ghostwritten by Carol Loomis of Fortune.
(I think Loomis retired recently, however)
A lot of plumbing burst in Texas in February because no one was familiar with the concept of turning off their water at the main in the event of a power failure during a multi-day period when temps didn't go above freezing.
Like a lot of Texans in his situation, 8-bit Guy was still kvetching about the state's response when I passed by his booth at a retro game show in Austin in July.
His house did not flood because of anything the State of Texas did or didn't do.
His house flooded because he did not utilize what is a $5 tool at Home Depot.
To be fair, since the freeze, every week, when I mow, I make sure I can open the box and turn that valve if needed. However, I doubt I would have had an issue in February.
48F and sunny here. It was 48F at midnight and 46F at 2am.
New neighbors have moved in across the street. Saw the truck yesterday. Seller said “young couple, no kids”. Haven’t met them yet.
Need to get my day going so I can have a load in the truck, at least, when the girls get home.
n
His house did not flood because of anything the State of Texas did or didn't do.
His house flooded because he did not utilize what is a $5 tool at Home Depot.
— to be fair, there was a failure of messaging. The official (and unofficial) advice is/was/always has been to let the faucets trickle. When the water pressure dropped, that didn't work anymore and it was too late to drain your system.
If early messaging was "fill your tub" and make sure you have water to drink for the next three days then drain your system (with some guidance about doing that) it would have saved a lot of damage. Wouldn't help for people not in freestanding homes though.
n
I'd be willing to bet that the "trickle" advice wasn't followed either. A lot of people simply abandoned their homes in a panic.
The local Faux News was stirring the pot Friday night, with lows in the upper 30s predicted outside of town.
A lot of new Soy Boy apartment buildings in Austin were toast because the property management didn't have a clue and the infrastructure is all exposed if you ever take a look inside the parking areas. Four stories, ground floor retail, and parking — it is the same in Seattle in the high growth areas, but the parking is below ground.
Another difference from WA State is that all of the new construction seems very temporary in Austin and other places around Texas where the Locust Class have descended.
>> Many people have poo-pooed any concerns about your grocery store’s database of loyalty cards and purchases,
Never failed me yet that using the 'type in your phone number' option and using (local area code) 555-1212 works as someone else has already registered that number.
>> Many people have poo-pooed any concerns about your grocery store’s database of loyalty cards and purchases,
Never failed me yet that using the 'type in your phone number' option and using (local area code) 555-1212 works as someone else has already registered that number.
—gets you the card discount, but as soon as you swipe a credit or debit card, the system associates you name and number with that loyalty card, until the next user updates it. That's why you generally don't have to fill out a form to get the loyalty card anymore. They tie it to you on first use.
n
Yep, I use my main debit card at WallyWorld both in store and online. When I go online they have all my purchases at the store listed too. Don't really mind that but the connection was at first a little wierd. Walmart NM has been well stocked but oddly no heavy cream all week.
The stocker at HEB told me they were having trouble getting cream last week. And there was an article about a cheesecake baker that couldn't source cream cheese and had to cut back production.
n
From today’s FEMA brief….
Severe Weather and Tornadoes – Central U.S.
National Watch Center
Current Situation: Severe weather impacted the central U.S. on Dec 10 & 11; preliminary reports of 38 tornadoes, 258
wind, and 20 hail reports across several states. 18 counties in KY were impacted by tornadic activity and debris fields.
Lifeline Impacts:
Safety and Security:
▪ Damage to 2 nursing homes and some emergency response facilities in AR and TN
▪ Factory and distribution center workers trapped in KY and IL, search and rescue operations will resume in the
morning
Health & Medical:
▪ Fatalities/Injuries: KY- 40 confirmed fatalities, 50 unconfirmed fatalities or people unaccounted for, unknown
number of injuries; TN – 4 confirmed fatalities, 4 injuries; AR- 2 confirmed fatalities, 18 injuries; MO – 2 confirmed
fatalities, 2 unconfirmed fatalities, 9 injuries
Food, Water, Shelter:
▪ Shelters: KY-8/188, TN- 3/8
▪ KY: Water tower in Graves County destroyed, bottled water being delivered; substantial damage to water and waste
systems in Hickman County
▪ TN: Boil water advisories in effect in Gibson and Weakley counties
Energy:
▪ Power outages: AR – 5k (-7.4k) customers (0.4%) without power statewide; KY – 32.8k (-24.4k) (1.6%); TN – 25.5k
(-54.7k) (1.0%); minimal power outages in IL and MO (DOE Eagle-I as of 5.00 a.m. ET)
Communications:
▪ KY: 6 PSAPs down, 3 being rerouted, multiple tower sites on generator power; SatColt (satellite cell on light trucks)
and generator deployed to Mayfield
▪ TN: Lake County 911 system down; Obion County only has radio systems and limited cellular coverage `
State / Local Response:
▪ KY, TN, & AR Governors declared a state of emergency
▪ AR, KY, MO, IL, & TN EOCs at Partial Activation
▪ KY National Guard activated
FEMA / Federal Response:
▪ Emergency Declaration FEMA-3575-EM-KY approved; provides
emergency protective measures (Category B), for 15 counties
▪ Region IV RWC at Enhanced Watch; IMAT-1 deployed to KY
▪ NWC, Region V, VI, & VII RWCs continue to monitor
▪ National IMAT Blue deployed to KY EOC
▪ MERS teams and personnel deployed to KY EOC
▪ 20 IA House Inspectors staged at Paducah, KY
▪ Logistics: 52 generators to KY; ISB & SMT deployed to ISB in Ft
Campbell, KY; deploying Delta IRR commodities package
▪ USAR: IST Blue MRP and equipment cache deployed to KY EOC; NIMS
Type 3 task force (IN-TF1) deployed to Mayfield, KY
▪ USACE: Planning and Response Team (PRT) providing support
I saw a story recently that included a factoid about truck drivers needing an extra license to transport milk, which made the labor situation worse.
The actual topic of the story was a hack at a cream cheese manufacturer leading to mischief. My guess is that, once again, someone wanting to work from home without authorization breached security, either exposing RDP to the Internet via port forwarding or using a weak password on TeamViewer.
When my son was younger, we were checking out at Petsmart and the cashier asked for my phone number. I don’t normally give out my number, but there was a decent discount. I gave her 867-5309. He almost hurt himself trying to hold in the laughter. The cashier either didn’t get it or didn’t care.
@greg, before I forget…
wrt your comment that cops and other LEO are exempted from the adb-out requirement, they still show up on flightaware, it just doesn’t say HPD. The tail number comes back to a leasing company, and further search links to articles about the lease, or people who track those sort of things discussing them.
Since the LEOs are about the only ones with no ID, it’s easy to spot them, and if they have a tail number, it’s not hard to id them. The HPD choppers need to RTB fairly often for fuel, so it’s not hard to watch for vectors that point to their airfield. You can track the lifeflights the same way, just watch for flights originating at hospitals, and then follow them.
If you’re gonna be intelligence in the coming unpleasantness, you need to look for where things AREN’T, and other techniques. LEOs are almost the only ones who ‘orbit’ tightly around a fixed point too. Once you see that on flightaware you have them ‘made.’ (news agencies do much bigger orbits and their tail numbers aren’t obscured, or if they are leased, it says so. Also, very few traffic choppers left.)
Air radios aren’t encrypted, trunked or otherwise hard to listen too either. The majors use a text system to communicate but real time stuff going down suddenly uses voice in the clear.
In the case of the street racers it shows a better awareness of counter-surveillance than one would think, and much better than the narcos according to the LEOs I’ve asked. You’d think that with all the CIA and USARMY trained ex-soldiers working for the cartels, their counter ops would be better. (and maybe they are. Hard to see the thing that isn’t there. Maybe the big guys don’t get seen and only the lower levels who aren’t being careful get busted.)
n
That was the second 500 error this morning. The fema brief, and now this one ^. No pasted text in this one.
n
Everyone with an interest in EMgmt should look thru the brief I posted above. FEMA management is political, and their policy is too, but the boots on the ground have evolved DRAMATICALLY in the last 10 years.
Note the prestaged 'packages' being deployed. Several different categories are supported. Note the comms situation, what MaBell used to call a COW, (cellsite on wheels), is now something else, but still out there being deployed. Note the teams and personnel 'packages'. Very little of that used to exist, and certainly couldn't roll that fast.
n
FlightAware is on a 10 minute delay IIRC. Or at least they were the last time I looked at ADS-B in detail. If you think you are going to want the capability to exploit ADS-B “Out” signals to protect yourself, acquire the hardware and software now.
Just be aware that ADS-B is still a supplement, and the FAA still runs the radar tubes AFAIK. Law enforcement could turn that system off if necessary in an emergency. They could also drop $1000 bucks in hardware and cobble together a system that would make multiple LEO ghost helicopters appear all over the city to a nearby receiver.
Of course, a *lot* has changed with regard to both ADS-B and SDR in the seven or so years since my thesis idea was rejected and we left the Northwest. I have no doubt my thesis idea popped into someone else's head and was approved, proceeding to active research towards a Masters or even a PhD somewhere else.
My thesis advisor was a putz. After I left, he was figuratively frogmarched off campus at the beginning of the following Spring Break for something no one wants to talk about.
10 minute delay is nothing if you are planning to take over an intersection or move 100 cars to an industrial park. That takes a certain amount of time.
n
"Rain Caused Volcano to Erupt… Because Climate Change?"
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/12/09/rain-caused-volcano-to-erupt-because-climate-change/
"Please find a qualified geologist to take on this nonsense."
These climate change people are growing more and more desperate to get the rest of us to go along with their crazy schemes.
"The Best Postcyberpunk Books" by Dan Livingston
https://best-sci-fi-books.com/the-best-postcyberpunk-books/
"Postcyberpunk is just like cyberpunk (high tech + low life), but without a few of its tropes: you’re less likely to find an edgy loner stumbling through the rain, spitting out noirish one-liners. Postcyberpunk tends to be a little more playful, a little stranger. However, it’s still pretty ill-defined as a subgenre, so one could argue endlessly about what is and isn’t postcyberpunk. Or just read some of the books on this list and decide for yourself."
I have read "Rainbows End", "Beggars in Spain", and "Ware Tetrology" out of the 17.
I have "WWW:Wake", "Down & Out in the Magic Kingdom", and "The Diamond Age" in my SBR (strategic book reserve).
Street racing is a different scenario. I've seen that around Tampa, and they set up with pro-level video equipment in a few minutes.
The core of the original ADS-B "Out" standard just requires altitude and a unique transponder identifier that doesn't correspond to tail number since the hardware can be swapped out. If the FAA got serious about retiring radar, the standard would have advanced, but my experience is with the old docs and observing the data around Portland in 2013-14.
For a Graphics class project which came up while I developed the thesis, I created a 3D display of local airspace using an old topographical map standard and plotted the planes which volunteered information like lat/long and tail in addition to just altitude.
Tornados – I have to wonder why buildings in tornado areas don't have an intetior room with concrete walls and ceiling.
For a house, pour it just after you do the slab, let it provide the load bearing walls for the rest of the house. Total extra cost maybe 10k – and you have a secure shelter plus a safe room.
Now there’s an odd category.
I have read:
The Diamond Age,
Beggars in Spain (so long ago i’ve forgotten the plot),
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (same),
Halting State,
Rainbows End
I’d put Rainbows End and The Diamond Age on my re-readable list.
>> —gets you the card discount, but as soon as you swipe a credit or debit card, the system associates you name and number with that loyalty card, until the next user updates it. That's why you generally don't have to fill out a form to get the loyalty card anymore. They tie it to you on first use.
True, but at least they don't have my real phone number.
In Florida, where concrete is readily available and a lot of slab-on-grade happens, something like that would be a very pricey extra, easily $20k or more, and that would be part a custom home build, not a 3/2 stucco shack tract development, even in neighborhoods "starting in the low $500s", like where most of the tenbagger dreamers "invest" on the Peninsula.
Really uncommon.
And I'm guessing KY doesn't have a lot of slab-on-grade construction in the rural areas. Do they have basements?
Like everything, once .gov touches it, it gets more complicated. Some of you may recall the remodel I'm 10 years into and half done with- my master bath/closet.
My goal was to reinforce the space as a refuge from a hurricane.
Can't call it a Safe Room. That term has legal consequences and requirements. FEMA got involved. If you don't meet their standards, you can't call it that. The biggest hurdle is the door. The wall construction can be done, I've done 95% of it. I didn't add the layer of steel to the outside that keeps 2x4s, etc from being blown thru the wall. I've got brick veneer on two sides, and the other is interior to the house. The last side is a short wall, on the inside of the U shape of my house and thus somewhat sheltered. But the long and short of it is… it's stronger than most rooms, didn't cost THAT much extra, and gives me some peace of mind.
In serious tornado country, there are basement and backyard shelters.
They are overkill for most places though.
n
I've read all or part of 5 of the books. They are mostly older, back when I was able to spend the time.
Don't really remember much about any other than Diamond Age, which I've read several times. His older work is very good.
n
There is no such thing as a "low end" graphics card right now. A GT 1030, which I believe is the minimum for Windows 10 if you are going to do discrete graphics is a $150+ card.
Pre-covid, I spent $70 on the same card two years ago. $70 won't even touch a piece of junk like the GT 730 I run in my primary desktop, enough to play "Starcraft II", and I paid $40 ~ three years ago. EVGA too.
4 GB cards like the GTX 1650 should be $79 bargain bin items right now, but anything with that much memory justifies the marshalling process for data to/from the GPUs in crypto mining to see performance gains so $300 is pretty much the minimum and that’s from questionable manufacturers.
>> The stocker at HEB told me they were having trouble getting cream last week. And there was an article about a cheesecake baker that couldn't source cream cheese and had to cut back production.
The cream cheese shortage is a BFD in bagel and cheesecake craving NYFC.
https://nypost.com/2021/12/09/cream-cheese-shortage-forces-juniors-to-pause-cheesecake-production/
I don't know if Kentucky has basements, but Oklahoma and the parts of Texas I've lived in usually don't have them. Older homes had/have storm cellars (many of the houses/lots around us have them).
When I was a child, people shared with neighbors/relations. I remember sitting in them, along with the jars of canned goods and spider webs and all our kinfolk, with a kerosene lamp and the adults all smoking. 😀
New storm cellars are still available for installation at will. Modern ones are a self-contained buried edifice – usually in the back yard, like the old ones.
There's a recurring move to try to get schools in Tornado Alley to bury old school buses and use them to shelter kids in event of one, but it never gets traction.
At home, if we hear the freight train outside our door instead of a block away, we'd go into the bathroom or get under a mattress.
Any low spot, depression in the ground, a bar ditch, is what I would get into if one was immanent to hit my car. I've watched them as I drove before, but never had one close enough that we couldn't drive away from it.
In 2013, the last tornado that was actually seen to hit something came through our town of 400. We sat on the porch watching it come, and it hit the school a few blocks away from us. Providentially (as is often the case with tornadoes), school had ended for that day (although a few people were there,) and no one was hurt. The tornado continued to follow a dry creek out of town.
The last documented injuries here from tornadoes were in 1976 and 1982. Although several were injured, no deaths but they did cause a lot of monetary damage.
"They" think a tornado came through one night last winter, although nobody actually saw it, because several big trees were uprooted, and sheds demolished. The aftermath looked like a small one had bounced around.
Edit to add: Twister is one of my favorite movies. That’s what the storms look like, and the funnel clouds disappear as quickly as they come more often than not.
>> There is no such thing as a "low end" graphics card right now. A GT 1030, which I believe is the minimum for Windows 10 if you are going to do discrete graphics is a $150+ card.
Pre-covid, I spent $70 on the same card two years ago. $70 won't even touch a piece of junk like the GT 730 I run in my primary desktop, enough to play "Starcraft II", and I paid $40 ~ three years ago. EVGA too.
I paid $70 for this GT 730 a couple of months ago for dual monitor support for my new desktop PC. Sufficient for my needs as I don't do PC gaming.
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/GIGABYTE-GeForce-GV-N730D3-2GI-REV3-0-Graphic/dp/B07TZ4VFB6/ /a>
I'd recommend "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom", especially if you have a love/hate relationship with Disney like I do right now.
(And, BTW, The Mansion *is* perfect … but I do like the new OpenGL Hitchhiking Ghost gags in Florida.)
Doctorow's "Makers" is also good in that category.
Both are available for free, including EPUB files, from the author's site.
I settled Kharma by buying and getting autographed copies of both books from Doctorow when he appeared at C2E2 in 2019.
Yes, he is a Prog and a bit full of it when speaking to large groups, but, one-on-one, he is an incredibly nice guy.
Ironically, Doctorow was scheduled to hit Vantucky after C2E2. I warned him to get his shots, but he knew the area well.
DDR3. The card I currently have in the build project is a GT 640 which is about as fast, with the same amount of DDR3.
The improvement with the early 730 was that the GT 640 takes up two slots with its heatsink/fan where the 730 cards offered similar performance in a single slot width.
The 730 with DDR3 is still around for home theater builds since you can buy low profile cards without fans. For video playback and general business graphics use, the chip is a great improvement over integrated graphics, but $70 is still too much.
We’ll see how well the GT 640 works before getting hosed.
My last one was totally less uncomforting, called "Virtual Colonoscpy",
Nothing to gulp down the previous day nor discomfort doing the procedure. Over in about 10 minutes.
WRT 867-5309, when I call our forum member Jenny, I use 907-867-5309.
We have a full basement on our house. The bathroom in the basement is surrounded on three walls by cinderblocks with the ceiling being a slab of concrete. The construction of the house is brick. In a tornado I suspect the roof would be gone, the first floor heavily damaged. Maybe even a wall or two toppled. The main floor may even collapse into the basement. But I think we would survive in the bathroom and perhaps need to be rescued from the rubble.
Several years ago, I don't remember the year, a tornado passed within a half mile of the house. Took out electrical and a couple of houses in the area. No power for 8 hours which, considering the damage, was really remarkable.
I also suspect, unscientific, a Fauci-ism, if you will, that large quantities of aluminum used in mobile homes attracts tornados. It's like a tornado is doing it's thing, sees a trailer park, "ooh, trailer park" and makes a short diversion. Or maybe it is just mobile homes are not properly fastened down with roof straps, air can get underneath, and the meth has rotted the wood.
I also suspect, unscientific, a Fauci-ism, if you will, that large quantities of aluminum used in mobile homes attracts tornados. It's like a tornado is doing it's thing, sees a trailer park, "ooh, trailer park" and makes a short diversion.
STORMY Versus the Tornadoes
@pecancorner,
Could you get a few bales of hay or straw and pile them against the outside wall of your kitchen as temporary insulation? PEX will survive freezing, but it might be nice to have running water rather than frozen pipes.
@lpdbw, thanks for the thought and idea! 🙂 That would be a clever fix in some cases. And see? Since you asked, it made me think. For us, it would be as easy to put the problem on my written-down-do-it-within-the-next-month-or-two list and just build a little cabinet for the pex lines out of that 2" pink foam board.
Suddenly foam board is a thing for me, apparently. I need foam board to make a base for my little N-scale railroad before summer when the far-away little grands come to visit.
And I've recently taken up basket-weaving and think a piece of the stuff would be a good tool to attach the bottoms to while I bring up the sides.
So really, one sheet of the stuff might solve all my troubles… I just wrote it down on the refrigerator list. 😀
Tornados – I have to wonder why buildings in tornado areas don't have an intetior room with concrete walls and ceiling.
For a house, pour it just after you do the slab, let it provide the load bearing walls for the rest of the house. Total extra cost maybe 10k – and you have a secure shelter plus a safe room.
"The High Security Shelter – How to Implement a Multi-Purpose Safe Room in the Home, 5th Edition [2017]"
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0578118408//p?tag=ttgnet-20
Now there’s an odd category.
I have read:
The Diamond Age,
Beggars in Spain (so long ago i’ve forgotten the plot),
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (same),
Halting State,
Rainbows End
I’d put Rainbows End and The Diamond Age on my re-readable list.
"Beggars In Spain" was about group of people who were genetically engineered to never sleep. The author actually thought about the repercussions. Won both the Hugo and Nebula awards back when they were real. Highly recommended. The sequel books are about genetically re-engineering the human race.
https://www.amazon.com/Beggars-Spain-Nancy-Kress/dp/0060733489//p?tag=ttgnet-20
Just clicked on a video.
It immediately went to commercial: Video will resume in 73 seconds.
LOLGF
buh-bye
>> STORMY Versus the Tornadoes
Speaking of Duntemann, he has an interesting take on the Omicron variation…
http://www.contrapositivediary.com/?p=4621
REVEALED: A third of America's 43 Omicron COVID cases had their booster shots as Fauci says he's 'continuing to evaluate' whether two shots are sufficient to qualify as 'fully vaccinated'
— 43 cases. All this and for 43 cases?
n
That looks like an authentic re-creation of crew quarters on the USS Defiant.
What's the problem?
Oh, right. Star *Wars*.
https://www.sfgate.com/disneyland/article/Backlash-grows-to-Disney-Star-Wars-hotel-16695226.php
Not pictured here is the bar, which looks so much like Ten Forward, you expect to see Whoopi, wearing one of those funky hats. pouring the drinks.
Jack Posobiec: Alec Baldwin has still killed more people than Omicron
I don't know if Kentucky has basements, but Oklahoma and the parts of Texas I've lived in usually don't have them. Older homes had/have storm cellars (many of the houses/lots around us have them).
When I was a child, people shared with neighbors/relations. I remember sitting in them, along with the jars of canned goods and spider webs and all our kinfolk, with a kerosene lamp and the adults all smoking.
Our first house in Norman, OK had a 10 foot diameter, five foot deep storm cellar in the back yard. It had concrete walls with a sheet metal roof and a sheet metal door. It always had two feet of water in it though. We lived there from 1963 to 1967.
The problem with current and recent disney management and creatives is that you have to LOVE the product. Not feel warmly about it, or charmed by it's 'kitschy' nature, or as some seem to feel, embarrassed by it.
You can't half-ass it. You can't want to change its basic nature.
You can't sell it out with a nod and a wink like the horrible Disney Plus "Plusaversary Crossover" short. Whoever authorized that should be marched to the door, and their stuff tossed after them.
They are infected with snark and it is poisonous to the brand.
n
I don't think I ever lived in a house in the US that didn't sit on a slab. If it doesn't have a basement, what *else* is it sitting on? Um…I'm not sure I want to know the answer to that question…
Let's just say: crappy construction standards are a lot of the reason for the massive damage that tornados cause. Stop with the 1.5"x3.5" sticks on 2 foot centers. If better construction was standard, it wouldn't even cost much.
Sometimes it works. The "Vanellope meets the princesses" scene in Ralph Breaks the Internet was a hilarious surprise. https://youtu.be/kRQcE30Jmew
Out of how many sequenced cases? If it's out of 100 cases, that's scary. If it is out of 1000, it's concerning. If it is out of 100,000, we need to keep an eye on it.