Cold, but I don’t know yet how cold it will get, or how cold it got. It was 35F when I went to bed. It is supposed to be clear today anyway, and tomorrow as well.
Mostly spent yesterday poking at things. I did get to the grocery store, and noted in comments that there were big gaps in the shelves in several areas. Cat food and cold and flu OTC meds being the most prominent.
Today should be more auction and ebay stuff. If the weather stays clear I’ll go to my storage unit and clean and sort. If not, I’ll do some more ebay stuff here at the house. I’ve got stuff to test and clean and list. Last night I had stuff sell in the auction by the guy who changed his mind about taking all of my stuff. I think I did well with LPs and with books, of all things. There were a couple of collectibles that didn’t do badly, and there was some stuff that sold for $1, but at least it’s gone.
I hope he’ll be happy and take another load right away.
This afternoon and evening, my wife and D2 will be joined by the rest of her troop and they’ll be off to GS camp for a Gymkana, whatever that is. The hope is sports on horseback, and related to horses. Hard to be sure from the GS description. Friday and Saturday night away, home Sunday afternoon. That leaves me with D1 and a bunch of work to do. We’ll see how that goes. Cookie season is in a week or two, so the last bits have to be out of the house to make way. Of course that was supposed to have already happened, but … plans vs reality.
While I was at the grocery, I did add a flat of canned peas to the stacks, 6 pounds of bacon, and some pork chops and loin. Beef was in short supply and none was on sale. A little voice keeps poking me to add alternatives to fresh milk. I have a bunch of Lido powdered full fat, and we don’t use as much as we did a year ago, but I think I’ll add more. It keeps fairly well. I should open an old can and see how it’s doing. For science or something. But seriously, when I get little pokes from the universe like I’ve been getting about the milk, I ignore it at my peril. YMMV but I’ll be checking the old and adding some new.
Anyone else getting weird vibes or feel short of something?
If you do, stack it up.
nick
BTW, I’ve now been doing this officially for 4 years ( a bit longer if you count the days I was just filling in for Bob while he was sick), without missing a day that I can remember. Some days the end product was pretty weak, but at least the lights were on and the door unlocked. All y’all are the reason I do it, to keep this unique thing that Bob built alive. Thanks for sticking around and making this place somewhere I enjoy spending my time. And thank you Barbara for letting us, and Rick for making it all work. We’ve got a rocky road ahead, but we’re all better prepared for it than we were, and we will get through it.
n
36F and 64%RH at 6 am. Cold, still, not raining but there is still wet on the ground in places. I'm sure there are slippery roads.
Proto-teen girl is sure grumpy this am….
n
I doubt the trucks need a full charge every night. How often do you get gas? Once a week? 2 weeks?
Of course the demand will be high whenever everyone in the state gets home from work and plugs in the truck every night, just as the AC and cooking load hits. Someone was proposing that the vehicle charger and the house be separately metered so the smart grid can delay/stop the charging when the grid usage was high. More added cost and infrastructure.
One analysis put replacing cars with electric at 4TWh of demand, just about equal to the US power grid usage now.
The justification for getting rid of petroleum-powered cars, gas and propane stoves, and gas heat doesn't even stand up to casual scrutiny. Even if you think that the earth is warming and that this is bad and that cars and trucks and lawnmowers contribute significantly to CO2 in the atmosphere, the cars and all the rest don't matter. CO2 reflects photons only in a narrow energy band and the CO2 we have already reflects almost all that it can. Even a 10X increase in atmospheric CO2 will make only a negligible increase in greenhouse effect. Therefore, the call to switch over to an electric fleet and to stop burning coal and all the rest has nothing to do with science and everything to do with money and power.
But we knew that.
I would like to see an end to gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles, but dread carrrrrbon has nothing to do with it. I want the petroleum to be used in the chemical industry. It's too valuable to be burned up in getting some knucklehead from here to there.
A trades person hauling things to/from a work site is going to plug the truck in every night.
Beyond that, unless the power is rationed by a central authority, anyone who owns an EV is going to plug the vehicle into the wall every night. "The guidelines are for thee, not for me."
Human nature.
Yep, and we do appreciate it !!
@SteveF: Don't confuse the Climate Alarmists with facts. At this point, it's just hopeless. All we can do is keep waiting, and keep pointing out when their doomsday scenarios fail to come true. As we have been doing for 20 years now. Eventually, the *next* generation of young scientists will hop onto some *other* bandwagon, and the climate panic will fade away.
That said, there are genuine problems, most of which would be solved by a drastic reduction in human population. I'm sure you have some ideas about that…
That said, there are genuine problems, most of which would be solved by a drastic reduction in human population.
— whenever my daughter says this, I ask her Where? And how many would be a good number?
If we were willing to live at the same population density as New York, https://www.quora.com/How-much-room-would-the-entire-world-population-take-up-if-it-was-standing-side-by-side you could fit the entire world into Texas.
If you wanted to reduce population by half, you'd have to make sure the RIGHT half got fed to the shredders or you get no more doctors, no more scientists, no more 'all the folks who do technical jobs well to keep the technological society we live in going'.
Someone, Eric Raymond maybe? looked at the size of a population needed for x amount of this specialty or that…. and concluded that there are real limits on the down side that explain why africa isn't a tech powerhouse, forex.
n
And Sarah Hoyt makes an interesting argument that world population numbers are made up from thin air and WAY overcount, mainly because in most of the world counting the people is hard, and there are incentives for overcounting.
n
Cat food has been a problem at HEB since last February's freeze event.
My wife ascribes some of the stock problems at HEB to Curbside pulls from the selling floor without a fee or minimum order for the convenience. A lot of Industrial Engineering theory has yet to be written about virtual queues for limited availability items like TP or rides on the Baby Yoda roller coaster. HEB, Disney, and others seem to be making it up as they go along.
Nearly everyone will plug in every night. And that is good for the longevity of Li-ion batteries, since they really don't like to be fully discharged. That will cause a huge spike just as the AC's and cooking happen.
@Nick
Heartfelt thanks to you, Barbara, and Rick.
It’s a wonderful thing that we can do this virtually. If this was a neighborhood bar none of us would get anything done.
RIP Meatloaf. Bat Out Of Hell one of my fav albums.
32°F, overcast, no precipitation or wind this am in SA.
Yes, many thanks to Mr. Nick for running this joint. Also Mr. Rick and Barbara for letting us use it.
The solution to busting the grid charging all those EVs is simple. Everybody will have a gas gennie and 1,000 gallon tank in their backyards.
I've used ASRock for three AMD builds in the last few years without issues beyond a BIOS update in my kids game PC making the chip run hot with the stock AMD fan.
I wouldn't depend on the boards for mission critical work. Even my home server is mostly about storage for torrents.
DVI and VGA connectors are history. Physical DisplayPort will be around for a while because Apple still builds the Mac Mini with the connector type IIRC. The future is HDMI and DisplayPort over Thunderbolt/Lightning/USB-C.
If you need a DVI port, I have an inexpensive HDMI-to-DVI adapter that I use with laptops and a KVM switch in the corner of our bonus room. HDMI seems to be the one port to rule them all, which I suspect is because it probably still sends the most royalty checks to Los Altos/Los Gatos PO Boxes.
Which reminds me — the new new job has me reviewing design videos for the server management system for which I will eventually write code, and I've seen information on some interesting out-of-band video display capabilities present in the Intel CPUs/chipsets which provide conveniences but could also inspire a lot of paranoia. I'm sure AMD offers the same, but, so far, I haven't seen an AMD laptop which can plug into USB-C docks and offer video like mid-to-high end Intel road warrior machines.
We live in interesting times. I'll post any public sources I encounter.
Even more chilling, DARPA is ready to spend money on anyone coming up with a way to use 5G towers as RADAR to track people and objects.
Considering that 5G uses MIMO antennas, with beam forming and steering, it doesn't seem at all outside of possibility, maybe just a firmware update, and linking several towers. And by towers I mean a pole, usually one per block in urban areas, slightly farther apart in suburban areas.
also consider that FirstNet ™ the 5G network for first responders is managed for .gov's benefit already.
n
https://www.militaryaerospace.com/sensors/article/14213260/millimeter-wave-radio-waves-imaging-sensor
It takes a village:
‘We Have to Break Through This Idea That Kids Belong to Their Parents’ – MSNBC Anchor
ProgLibTurds are going full Commie. You will own nothing, have no kids and be happy.
RIP. "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad" just played on SiriusXM Ch.7 too.
California will require electric powered generators.
Echoing others – thanks to Nick, Barbara, and Rick for keeping the lights on. Especially to Nick – not missing a day for 4 years? That's tough, and appreciated.
@Nick
Heartfelt thanks to you, Barbara, and Rick.
+1000.
Ford will literally offer a gasoline generator option in the F150 Lightning, disguised as a tool box like you see in a lot of blinged out trucks. I'm sure there will be aftermarket as well.
It's too valuable to be burned up in getting some knucklehead from here to there.
— one of the central premises of the Laurence Sanders novel "The Tomorrow File". Petroleum is way more valuable as feedstock for plastics, fertilizers, and chemicals than as a fuel, IF it's scarce.
n
I've seen papers on doing passive detection of people in an enclosed space filled with WiFi bandwidth RF. We sometimes researched and spitballed schemes for vehicle occupant counting to catch HOV cheaters at the previous previous job.
State of the art in detection of HOV lane violators is still a cop on the side of the road or, as in WA State, the highway patrol’s "snitch" line … which is wildly popular BTW.
M&M Candy Characters Going Woke To Be Inclusive
Just when you think they've reached peak stupidity …
Some other interesting stuff from trade magazines.
Left unsaid, if you can spot it, you can learn to do it better yourselves. Also, if you can spot it, you can counter or suppress it.
n
@Nick
Trim the Chinese and Indians down to 300MM each. None of the latter within 1000 miles of Tibet, and make it an ongoing death zone for good measure.
Do away with all the Palestinians. They’ll be much happier
Cut 90% of the Moslems in any country that has persecuted their Christian minority.
Moscow Been an abomination for centuries Half the rest of the Russians
All the illegal invaders in the United States And all the NeverTrumpers and Kennedys
Everyone in the US that thinks the taxpayers owe them money
Half of the remaining LA, SF, and NY. Half of Chicago.
To start.
One of the weird things about trade mags for .mil is that there will be a very detailed, jargon and acronym laden piece followed by a bit of fluff where the author spells out stuff any reader would already know, like what SONAR is…
— I'm more convinced than ever that Starlink is a .mil system from the ground up, with the civilian internet access as a cover. How else would they get permission to FILL THE VISIBLE SKY with satellites?
–one of Larry Niven's books or short stories has a future US where aggression and any sort of violence is bred out or suppressed in the population. So what do you do if you start sending out space exploration vessels, knowing that you might FIND something? in the story I'm remembering, the alien telepath is mystified about how the pacifist humans, with no weapons, are killing him and his ship. He is suddenly concerned that the human ship is pointing its HUGE AND MASSIVELY POWERFUL communications laser at him….but it's not a weapon, it's just a comm laser….
"Free space optical communication" means LASERS pointed at telescopes. And Musk is putting them on satellites.
Add this from another article, same issue…
— Laaaaaassseerrrssss….. Consider “Death is a Ruby Light ” one of the earliest pron stories I ever read…. from 1974!
https://www.amazon.com/Death-Ruby-Light-Baroness-3/dp/0671777289
— interesting times indeed.
n
Half of California (they all live on the coast)
Who is left watching MSNBC? A decade ago, Oberman was cancelled with a 0.0 share, which means less than 50,000 people watched nightly.
One final bit from the same issue of M&A.
When CWII kicks off, if you key up, they will hear it.
From a picture caption (can't link due to the "magazine reader" format of the site) in the article about new faster storage technology… "The Mercury Systems model 2589 3.6-gigasample-per-second Ultra-wideband RF/IF Extreme half-ATR data recorder…" which means a radio that can snarf up massive amounts of data, basically listening to and recording everything on the air.
Or this one
n
Doctors and "scientists" have not been covering themselves with glory in recent days. Really, if the FDA didn't make it illegal for me to write my own scrips, my doctor hasn't contributed in any meaningful way to my health maintenance in at least 6 years. And I've been ignoring 100% of his new advice for that long. I'm not certain culling half the doctors wouldn't be a net improvement.
I've worked at 3 medical schools and around doctors for 14 years. As far as I can see, your average coder is smarter than your average doctor, and your average coder is not that swift.
Worldwide. Millions. Engineer a virus and let it choose…. oh… wait…. 🙂
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-21/louie-anderson-emmy-winning-comedian-dies-at-68
and Meatloaf. Who'll be number 3?
n
First, the problem that needs solved is that we occupy or use too much of the planet's surface, leaving too little space for other species. Disappearing species is a genuine problem.
Just as an example: when I was a kid and we went on long road trips, the car would be covered with squashed insects. That was already a lot less when I made trips myself in the 80's, and today seeing squashed insects on a car is pretty rare. Car aerodynamics have changed, of course, but that is only a small part of the difference.
There's a movement – I forget what it's called – that calls for a reasonable percentage of the planet to be left to nature. The chunks have to be large enough to be self-sustaining, and obviously have to include a distribution of all terrains. In some areas, this wouldn't even be difficult. Take the federal lands in the Western US: just stop renting them out as pasture. Turn them back to prairie, with the natural grazers on them.
Which populations get reduced? If I were dreaming, it would be "birth control by default". Only people who actually want kids, and who can support them, could become parents.
I don't doubt that there are inaccuracies, but the current population explosion happening in Africa is real, however you cook the numbers. It is fueled largely by Western good intentions: drop infant and child mortality, while doing nothing about the situations that cause women to pop out kid after kid, and no concern for the future of the societies whose populations are exploding.
The military doesn't need the communications capability as much as it does the launch-on-demand to low earth orbit, which will eventually become possible as the reusable booster fleet builds up inventory.
The Pentagon will never get what it wants from the usual contractor racketeers ensconced at Kennedy.
Not me, I'm 1 1/2 miles inland from PCH.
The problem I have with anyone saying there are too many people on the planet, is the same problem I have with the climate warmists…. none of their predictions have ever come true.
One of the saddest revelations I ever witnessed was a woman in my college degree program. She was a "returning student" meaning not a kid in college, but someone who had a life and job but changed to college student. She admitted that she'd bought into "The Population Bomb" and zero population growth, and had herself sterilized as a young woman. She was probably in her late 40s, early 50s at the time and PROFOUNDLY regretted not being able to have kids, because of a lie.
Populations are not growing in the first world. Westerners can barely achieve 'replacement' let alone expansion. China repealed it's one child policy FFS, and all US immigration policy is based on growing population thru immigration. Japan is collapsing under the weight of it's aging population, and they aren't the only ones.
When western civilization stops growing and can no longer subsidize their growth, the third world sh!tholes will collapse back into the subsistence savagery that has characterized most of their history.
Populations collapse when they exceed the carrying capacity of the territory they control and exploit. That's coming for a lot of people, just like it came for Rome….
n
I doubt the trucks need a full charge every night. How often do you get gas? Once a week? 2 weeks?
I last filled my pickup in March of 2020, and have driven it 98 miles since. Haven’t needed it. I do drive it at least 10 miles every three months to keep the tires round and the seals wet. I only mention this to show an extreme use case. I doubt an electric vehicle would be very happy in that use scenario. Imagine the cost to keep the propulsion battery charged. Also, keeping any EV in service more than ten years will be problematic.
Someone mentioned that lithium ion batteries like to be fully charged. That depends on their design and chemistry. Also, “fully charged” depends on the device and charger design. Some chargers limit the charge to prolong the life of the battery pack. Here is a somewhat comprehensive treatment:
https://batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-808-how-to-prolong-lithium-based-batteries
Battery University is a well written site, and I commend the author. It has two shortcomings. One is that some of the information is a bit old, not surprising as this is a rapidly changing field. The other is that, especially for Li-ion, many cell designs are closely guarded trade secrets, which frustrates learning about them. There is no such thing as a “standard” Li-ion battery.
Examples: I have a thirteen year old digital camera that has the original two batteries. I have no good way to test them, but they seem to be in good health. More importantly, replacements are readily available – for now. The camera body may be old, but I also have an investment in lenses. My last cell phone had removeable batteries, and I replaced them almost annually. I used them heavily, and suspect that the charge level was high to get the most capacity. I am in fear for my new phone, which will need a new battery sooner than I want to think. Seems a waste to replace such an expensive device instead of a relatively cheap battery.
The military doesn't need the communications capability as much as it does the launch-on-demand to low earth orbit, which will eventually become possible as the reusable booster fleet builds up inventory.
— I'll argue that they need both. Nothing in the modern military happens without reachback and oversight from the perfumed princes at home. I've built the rooms they use. They are dependent on really low bandwidth links and want to improve that to normal internet speeds.
Add the consideration of adversaries with satellite killer capacity, and you want a sh!t ton of small, distributed sats, linked in a self healing mesh so you don't lose the whole thing when the shiny light hits one or two, or the 'brilliant BBs' start smashing your big sats to space junk.
Add the desire to do location determination with that same mesh because you know the big GPS sats are vulnerable, and you can't do ANYTHING without some sort of wayfinding because you've become dependent on it and you get the trifecta for .mil. Bandwidth, survivability, and redundancy.
n
First, the problem that needs solved is that we occupy or use too much of the planet's surface, leaving too little space for other species.
— humans pretty much occupy the places we've always occupied. We spread out, then move, or contract, but humans like to be near coastlines and rivers.
Drive across the US, or Australia. The world is MOSTLY open space.
Species went extinct without our help for millions of years. Any dinosaurs walking around? The vast majority of the 'species' in the breathless doomporn are microscopic. The macroscopic ones get a lot of press, but can you name more than a dozen?
n
>> My wife ascribes some of the stock problems at HEB to Curbside pulls from the selling floor without a fee or minimum order for the convenience.
Target does the same, and not just for groceries. And since we know TNSTAAFL, somebody is paying for this service, that being all Target customers, even those that don't use it.
The problem is that HEB is the dominant grocery store in a large portion of Texas, on the level of Publix in Florida, possibly more.
>> I am in fear for my new phone, which will need a new battery sooner than I want to think. Seems a waste to replace such an expensive device instead of a relatively cheap battery.
Seems the more hardware they jam into these phones the harder it is to open them up, replace something (battery, cracked screen, etc.) and then reclose them to the manufacturers' specifications.
>> Chinese ability to use laser weapons to defeat GPS satellites a growing concern
Time to add one of these https://www.amazon.com/Rand-McNally-Large-Scale-Atlas/dp/0528023780/ to your vehicle preps.
Time to add one of these https://www.amazon.com/Rand-McNally-Large-Scale-Atlas/dp/0528023780//a to?tag=ttgnet-20 your vehicle preps.
Ooooh, I spent many hours with one of these, dreaming of where I wanted to go next or just getting familiar with places I had never been. I do the same with Google Maps and other electronic maps. I like both kinds for different reasons. I have watched as Etak and other GIS services have quietly revolutionized map utility. I marvel at how well routing works, having had close knowledge of early PC board auto routing. Different, of course, but no less challenging. We live in interesting times, and sometimes that is good.
I have noticed a conspicuous absence of reporting here on the stock levels of fresh fruit and vegetables when reporting on grocery store inventory. That is the first place I go when I go into the store. Everything else is secondary. Sure, canned goods and dry goods can be stored a long time, but my biggest eating pleasure is fresh stuff. Enjoy some at every meal.
I still remember visiting California and going to the store with my grandfather, who was a great cook (that gene did not pass to me.) I was amazed that the produce section was probably four times the size of the stores in Michigan, and we were proud of what we had. Many items were only available in season or very expensive in the off season in the Midwest back in the 1950s. We sometimes would get “care packages” of fruit from California in winter. It was during my lifetime that refrigerated rail cars became commonplace, allowing delivery East of the Continental Divide. Michigan had lots of fruit trees, especially apples and cherries. That was one reason I liked summer.
We visited China in 1990, and they were still mostly limited to locally grown items that were not transported across regions. Getting something from another region was a treat and costly.
I was at a WalMart in Sequim WA (Olympic Peninsula) last night at about 9pm. Few people in the store at that late hour.
Produce section was full (scored some seedless green grapes; a favorite around here; label says they are from Chile, which I think is common this time of year). Meat section was maybe 40-50% full of various things (perhaps because of the late hour). Grains were 5% full Crackers section about 20% full (but I did score a package of soda crackers, so now I can have some clam chowder soup). Chips full. Cookies 60%. Cereals full. Bread full. Deli full. Dairy OK.
Didn't do an extensive look at each aisle. And didn't buy any more plastic/reusable bags at the self-checkout. I just put my small group of items back in the cart, and used the bags I left in the car (where they usually are).
Did notice that prices seem a bit higher than in the past. No specifics – just a feeling.
I don’t buy a ton of fresh veg or fruit. Even with the kids, a pound of strawberries lasts past the point where they are mush and green. We eat asparagus when the stalks are big, brusselsprouts all the time, and broccoli and cauliflower occasionally.
My kids only like the broccoli stems, and my small HEB hasn’t had anything but crowns in months. I don’t buy them ‘cuz they won’t get eaten. I have a cauliflower in the fridge atm, but it is the first one in months that didn’t have brown spots even at the store.
Kid in braces means I stopped buying corn on the cob.
The green beans are usually to slimy or brown spotted to buy. I have some atm but only buy them if they are nice.
We eat about 3 apples a week, and if I get more I end up frying them in bacon fat to serve as a side dish with pork when they get soft.
My wife wants fruit in the house, but it almost all goes in the trash if I don’t rigidly enforce limits on how much we get.
The produce has been mostly in stock at HEB throughout the last two years, it just wasn’t the best quality.
Did I mention that ‘small’ avocados were 83c EACH this week? “large” are over a dollar apiece. When Mexican avocado growers went on strike with the US, I basically said, ok guess we won’t be buying avocados…. I do buy them though as the kids will eat them sliced as a side dish, but lose 2 of 3 to rot on average.
Losing so much to rot, I just cut way back on “fresh”.
n
Lots of surveillance ops on the scanner today. They are following them to arrest them today. Usually they just follow.
n
The speed of a laser, in vacuum, is the speed of light. The speed of RF in a vacuum is… the speed of light. You might be able to make the argument that the laser can have a higher symbol rate, but I'm not convinced that is true.
The beamwidth of a laser emitter is likely to be orders of magnitude smaller than an antenna and is therefor more power efficient and does not effect other receivers as much as RF. That's where the advantage lies.
Reporters, distorting facts since, well, ever.
The justification for getting rid of petroleum-powered cars, gas and propane stoves, and gas heat doesn't even stand up to casual scrutiny. Even if you think that the earth is warming and that this is bad and that cars and trucks and lawnmowers contribute significantly to CO2 in the atmosphere, the cars and all the rest don't matter. CO2 reflects photons only in a narrow energy band and the CO2 we have already reflects almost all that it can. Even a 10X increase in atmospheric CO2 will make only a negligible increase in greenhouse effect. Therefore, the call to switch over to an electric fleet and to stop burning coal and all the rest has nothing to do with science and everything to do with money and power.
But we knew that.
I would like to see an end to gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles, but dread carrrrrbon has nothing to do with it. I want the petroleum to be used in the chemical industry. It's too valuable to be burned up in getting some knucklehead from here to there.
I have actually been told by a Climate Justice Warrior that there is no such thing as saturation in chemistry. When I picked up my jaw off the ground I told him / her / it to run a simple experiment. Get a glass of water and add sugar until the sugar stops dissolving. He / she / it told me that did not count since water is a liquid and air is a vapor. I gave up at that point.
And most of our plastics are made with natural gas now just by extracting ethane from regular natural gas and then reacting it to convert to ethylene. Nobody makes ethylene out of oil anymore, you have to crack the carbon chains in the oil first (expensive).
P.S. I wanted to talk about water vapor in the atmosphere with he / she / it but, I gave up. Seeing that water is the fourth constituent in air and carbon dioxide is the fifth constituent, there being six times as much water in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth
Re: Boris Johnson
Omicron has peaked there, as it is in the US. I think he and his advisors realize that there is a huge amount of COVID fatigue, that everyone that is going to be vaccinated has been, the vaccines have worked to prevent severe disease/death, and that there is a substantial number of people that had undiagnosed/unreported cases of Omicron. So, time to treat it like flu.
I saw a funny TikTok to the effect of, "Being a parent means buying a bunch of bananas and the kids eat them all in a day. So, buying another bunch of bananas and throwing them away because they rotted untouched on the countertop."
Have you tried broccolini?
Nearly everyone will plug in every night. And that is good for the longevity of Li-ion batteries, since they really don't like to be fully discharged. That will cause a huge spike just as the AC's and cooking happen.
Fully charged to half charged Li-ion batteries need cooling. So your Tesla / Leaf / Bolt / Ford Lightning out there in the garage has an electric heat pump that automatically runs refrigerant through the battery pack to cool it down when it gets above 125 F ? 135 F ?
So when you walk out in the garage and the vehicle a/c system is running at 3 am, don't be surprised. That is, if you are brave enough to park your total electric vehicle in your garage. I sure would not park my total electric vehicle in the garage if my kid(s) slept in a bedroom above the garage.
A company called ID.me is the contractor for it.
I noted when we had a problem in our house at New Years securing enough oranges and lime juice to make an acceptable sour orange substitute to make Cuban roast pork.
Also, finding the pork itself required a couple of store trips away from our nearby HEB.
32°F, overcast, no precipitation or wind this am in SA.
Yes, many thanks to Mr. Nick for running this joint. Also Mr. Rick and Barbara for letting us use it.
The solution to busting the grid charging all those EVs is simple. Everybody will have a gas gennie and 1,000 gallon tank in their backyards.
Please make it propane tanks. My buddy sells propane separators for natural gas and is going broke because the propane market is saturated. He has built about 130 of the skids.
I wouldn't have wasted my time on him/her/it. I've experienced too many of that form of idiot. I'd simply have said "You're too stupid for me to waste my time on" and turned my back, hoping for a physical attack.
It appears that UPS lost my CPU heatsink/fan from Newegg. The company will send a replacement.
The last status from UPS about the location of the package was on 1/11. I placed the order on 1/5.
I wonder how many other packages got "lost" here in Austin.
The latest from The Zvi on COVID.
Wastewater data shows that Omicron has peaked in some areas. Hospitalizations and deaths are lagging indicators, so they may not drop much for a bit. Some areas may not have peaked yet as Omicron didn't hit everywhere at once.
COVID vaccine updates are going to be coordinated internationally, similar to the way flu vaccines are.
Vaccination is effective and reducing severity even if you get a shot at the start of an infection.
https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2022/01/19/omicron-post-15/
https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2022/01/20/covid-1-20-22-peak-omicron/
If you need a DVI port, I have an inexpensive HDMI-to-DVI adapter that I use with laptops and a KVM switch in the corner of our bonus room. HDMI seems to be the one port to rule them all, which I suspect is because it probably still sends the most royalty checks to Los Altos/Los Gatos PO Boxes.
I am going to buy a couple of DVI to HDMI cables
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B081CK677B//p?tag=ttgnet-20
and DP to to HDMI cables.
https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Basics-Uni-Directional-DisplayPort-Display/dp/B015OW3P1O//p?tag=ttgnet-20
I need to buy a spare 27 inch monitor. The last 27 inch monitor I bought was an LG. Maybe I’ll buy this one.
https://www.amazon.com/LG-27GL650F-B-Ultragear-Compatible-Monitor/dp/B07R7636MH/
"Rittenhouse seeks return of gun used during Kenosha protest"
https://www.chron.com/news/article/Kyle-Rittenhouse-Kenosha-gun-return-16792067.php
"The Illinois man acquitted of fatally shooting two men and wounding a third during street protests in Kenosha in 2020, is seeking the return of the gun and other property that police seized after his arrest."
Yes ! ! !
Probably a woman/minority owned small business farming out the work to the contractor racketeers.
When Shuttle was flying and still an active program, I interviewed with a body shop supplying contractors to ULA, the "hands on" contractor. During the interview, I learned that ULA received their money from NASA's budget via a Native American-owned small business which consisted of a couple of people in an office on a reservation somewhere shuffling money between accounts.
I thought the interviewers were kidding. I passed on the job so I never followed up on the story.
Um. Not so much according to friends that were at ULA. ULA was the prime and had a bunch of SDB subs at JSC, KSC, MSFC, etc. though. The scenario you outlined above wouldn't have counted – if an SDB subs to a big company, that counts against the SDB quota.
Maybe it was ULA to the company and back to ULA or a subsidiary. My point was the money flow was not as straight as I imagined.
I took the phone call, but I wasn't about to move to Titusville to work as a contractor. I either wanted a ULA badge or I was content to stay put.
Nope. Looks like it is all in house. 700 employees, $150 million in sales. That probably makes it too large to be and SDB. The founders are veterans, though.
@Rick H
I was at a WalMart in Sequim WA (Olympic Peninsula) last night
I visited Sequim several times to attend Chicken Training workshops conducted by Bob Bailey and hosted by my favorite fog training hero, Terry Ryan of Legacy Canine. Learned vast amounts about animal behavior, learning theory, and training. Very good experience and wish I could go again. I liked Sequim, very pretty and nice folks.
@nick
I’d love to pay a buck an avocado. We pay on the order of three – four times that. Usually rock hard at purchase, frequently go from hard to rotten without passing thru a tasty stage.
We eat a lot of apples and mandarins, bananas. In summer we gorge on blueberries and raspberries and I jam as much of the tender berries as possible. We have a locally owned shop that gets in dozens of varieties of apples in the fall and we go a bit nuts then.
Winter it’s apples / bananas / oranges. Other fruit is available but either poor quality or exorbitant .
Vegetables – a lot of broccoli and cauliflower, periodically green beans or asparagus though quality is highly variable. Carrots, potatoes, onions nearly always available. Recently the options have been sharply curtailed. Baby carrots in bags, no full size carrots at all. Sweet Vidalia onions, no white / red / yellow onions. Organic cauliflower at triple price of non organic. Stuff that resembles broccoli but fancier and more expensive. Bagged pre washed kale and spinach, none in bunches unwashed. And so in. Three or four varieties of apples at chain grocery, no organic bananas, one variety of oranges no mandarins.
Better than when my husband was an Alaskan kid however a sharp departure from pre-Covid.
Maybe it was dumped along the Union Pacific tracks in Los Angeles. You know the place. That fine bastion of civility and law abiding citizens.
Oh – and doe was pregnant and kindled yesterday. Baby rabbits! A mishap this morning, two babies drug out of the nest box when mama leapt out while they were latched on nursing. Rescued by spouse when I observed the problem via Wyze. I’ll shelve this litter and modify a cage this weekend. Modification will be cutting hole in floor of larger cage and bottom mounting a nest box. If mama drags out a baby they’ll have a chance to have gravity and wriggling get them back into the warmth of the nest. I need to view a few more YouTube’s to make sure my design is right.
I forgot about the veteran quota. My wife's J-school grad nephew has plans to leave the Army, get a professional development MBA on the education benefits, and become a project manager at a tech company in Austin or Seattle.
I'm starting to understand where he gets these ideas.
Unemployment ID verification. Geesh. For a while last year, the Texas Workforce Commission, who handle the unemployment claims in this state, simply stopped answering their phones for several months.
>> Chinese ability to use laser weapons to defeat GPS satellites a growing concern
Time to add one of these https://www.amazon.com/Rand-McNally-Large-Scale-Atlas/dp/0528023780//a?tag=ttgnet-20 to your vehicle preps.
Got one in each vehicle already.
I cannot believe that a 264 page book printed in COLOR retails for $13. That is an amazing price.
The package made it to Austin but disappeared waiting for handoff to USPS.
I was willing to accept the bargain basement shipping since I wasn't in a hurry. Postal Innovations? But 10 days for a handoff means it was stolen.
Whoever got the package will be sorely disappointed if they thought it was a CPU.
They are the ones I used to verify I'm a Vet to get the Lowe's discount.
I had a package go missing in a UPS to USPS hand off in San Berdo CA a year ago. Vendor replaced it but of course both ended up showing up. I'm sure it was sitting in a trailer that had not been picked up at the hub. Wasn't worth returning the duplicate according to vendor.
"Intel Reveals Plans for $20B Ohio Chip Factory"
https://www.pcmag.com/news/intel-reveals-plans-for-20b-ohio-chip-factory
"The new 1,000-acre manufacturing facility should be operational by 2025 and will employ at least 3,000 people."
I am seeing lots of notices for new chip factories in the USA in out of the way places. I wonder why ? Could it be that the USA is not a candidate for invasion like a small country next to the Formosa Straights ?
Dadgum, my Netflix investment took a shot last night. Down 22%
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/NFLX?p=NFLX
Yes, yesterday I bought some seedless red grapes from Chile at local Ralphs/Kroger. Looks OK, did not rot while aboard ship out in the Long Beach, Los Angeles, harbor for a month.
Ruh Roh:
‘27th conspiracy theory that’s come true’: CDC director says definition of ‘fully vaccinated’ is being changed
And now businesses will freak out with demand to see you "status". Seems like an area Congress should put its' stamp of "approval" on, not some rando's at the CDC. Still no word on how long your first two (one) shots are good for before you have to get a booster. If you wait too long, do you have to start over with two shots (one)?
factories in the USA in out of the way places.
— better quality workforce in those out of the way places. Mostly wipeepo, no unions, and you get a bit of a boost as a big local employer. If taiwan can teach peasants from mongolia to do it, certainly Jimbob can learn.
n
factories in the USA in out of the way places.
— better quality workforce in those out of the way places. Mostly wipeepo, no unions, and you get a bit of a boost as a big local employer. If taiwan can teach peasants from mongolia to do it, certainly Jimbob can learn.
n
Plus plenty of power and clean water. And no parking garage required since there is plenty of space to spread out on.
BTW, I have been getting weekly emails and phone calls from Ohio to move my business there. The governors staff is promising all kinds of goodies from moving assistance to whatever.
Looks like the time from conspiracy theory to press conference is dropping to <6 months.
n
BTW, saw a meme the the phrase "conspiracy theory" was promulgated by the CIA to discount any questioning of the kennedy killings narrative. Anyone know if that is accurate?
"True Dead (Jane Yellowrock)" by Faith Hunter
https://www.amazon.com/True-Dead-Yellowrock-Faith-Hunter/dp/0451488733/br?tag=ttgnet-20 />
Book number fourteen of a fifteen book urban fantasy series. I read the well printed and well bound MMPB published by Ace in 2021. I will purchase and read any future book published by the author as I enjoy her other two series also.
Jane Yellowrock is the dark queen of the vampires in the USA. Jane is a Cherokee shapeshifter merged with a female mountain lion around two hundred years ago, but not a vampire. Many of the vampires in the USA are having problems with this and are expressing their unhappiness in rather forceful ways. And the European vampires are looking for an edge to get back into the USA.
My rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars (2,752 ratings)
I don't know if is accurate, but I've heard that idea several times in many places on the net so it must be true. </
Wow, ERCOT hit 64,000 MW demand this morning at 8 am. The winter peak was 69,150 MW on Feb 14, 2021 at 6pm, right before everything fell apart later that night as the demand was heading for 85,000 MW and the available generation was only 45,000 MW.
https://www.ercot.com/mp
The current system-wide peak demand record for ERCOT is 74,820 MW set on Aug. 12, 2019.
The appalling ideology of diversity, inclusion and equity is demolishing education and business
DIE!
https://americandigest.org/long-read-of-the-weekend-jordan-peterson-why-i-am-no-longer-a-tenured-professor-at-the-university-of-toronto/
On the one hand, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10425271/Bionic-eye-implant-lets-blind-woman-see.html
On the other, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10426431/China-brings-anal-swab-testing-Covid-two-weeks-Winter-Olympics-begin.html
n
They tried to talk him out of being a terrorist.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10426155/US-synagogue-terrorist-Malik-Faisal-Akram-Blackburn-referred-UKs-Prevent-programme.html
n
And plenty of empty factories from the 80s. Assuming the buildings were maintained.
Kind of nice to be able to read the DailyMail links without being scolded for using an ad-blocker. But jeeeebus, That joint makes the Weekly World News from back in 1985 look like the Wall Street Journal.
You can't use those. Those textile and auto manufacturing jobs are coming back and they’re going to need their old buildings back! 🙄
My ISP sent an e-mail describing all the stuff they have planned for the next couple of weeks. Sounds good.
See, they have a North Network. And they have a South Network. They also seem to be growing an East Network. Not sure where that is attached.
The BIG DEAL is that they finally have fiber or perhaps fibre from Kempner (somewhere nor'east of Lampasas) to Burnet. So it's finally going to be one big network.
So things are going to burp for several days as they git 'er done.
The company is pretty much just three folks plus a guy that helps out a day or two every couple of weeks. Yeah, they are hiring.
Tax incentives. CGI in Belton was profitable more because of the incentives than any actual work done there. The tradeoff was having to cater to the various taxing entities' demands as part of the deal.
TSMC has a plant located not far from our old rental in Vantucky, but their presence had more to do with Shin Etsu's US operations being located nearby and a trained workforce courtesy of HP slashing their headcount in town — where the inkjet printer was invented.
You can't, but not because they'll be used for their original purpose. You can't build an industrial-scale chip fab in an old cloth-manufacturing facility. They're purpose-built from the ground up, with very finicky for structural stability, air purification, water purification, and probably a lot of other things I can't think of right now.
You might be able to build a research-scale fab in an unused factory, or maybe a small fab for limited runs.
"Picard" Season 2 has a release date. Woo hoo!
Whoopi is indeed back. Doh!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyuddrlFajs
Supposedly, Brent Spiner shows up as yet another Soong family relative living in the 21st Century.
Bob Wheeler? 🙂
(Points if you know the reference *without* hitting the Interwebs.)
Beer money.
The warning signs were there. NFLX spent most of December burning off all the support for the gains since the pandemic started.
On the upside, "Cobra Kai" is finally catching on and the "Army of the Dead" franchise is up to something interesting.
Above, that was supposed to be "very finicky requirements".
It's not conceivable that I made a mistake in writing my comment, not in this universe, so it must be enemy action, interfering with my commenting. Probably the NSA. I never did trust those guys.
Hmm. Something chinese doesn't actually work at all? Say it ain't so….
China's flagship Covid vaccine may offer virtually zero protection against Omicron: Two doses trigger 'undetectable' antibody levels
Always worth watching the video and wargaming your response…
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10425243/Road-rager-fires-gun-SIX-times-crowded-Tulsa-intersection-argument-driver.html
n
Well, wife and kids are on the way. Chilly willy out there, and they are headed north. 47F atm in Houston. They'll be in a cabin so they should be fine if everyone brought the recommended clothing.
Ordered chinese food delivered for the proto-teen and me.
n
"Picard" Season 2 has a release date. Woo hoo!
Whoopi is indeed back. Doh!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyuddrlFajs
Supposedly, Brent Spiner shows up as yet another Soong family relative living in the 21st Century.
Bob Wheeler?
(Points if you know the reference *without* hitting the Interwebs.)
Hopefully it will be better than Season 3 of Discovery. I barfed on s3e1.
Beer money.
The warning signs were there. NFLX spent most of December burning off all the support for the gains since the pandemic started.
On the upside, "Cobra Kai" is finally catching on and the "Army of the Dead" franchise is up to something interesting.
Not beer money, retirement money. And serious money. My AMZN is down 10% also.
I figure that I need low seven figures net wealth to retire at my current lifestyle. I am not there yet. Oh well, I am still surprised that I made it into my 60s with my heart problem, I do not expect to see 70. I do expect the wife to live in to her 90s.
Anybody want to start taking bets on when Social Security will be means tested ? Certainly before I turn 67 in 2027.
And when 401Ks / IRAs will be seized and reinvested in tbills ?
That can be postponed by reducing the numbers of the elderly and infirm. Gee, if only someone could create a disease which preferentially attacked the elderly, preventing them from drawing out from the system that they'd paid into for most of their lives.
I missed the chip fab comment. I was thinking in terms of bringing some manufacturing back. Trump had very limited success with that, and Xiden has completely dropped that idea, unsurprisingly.
Tariffs? That got a lot of bad press when Trump tried it, for the same reason.
I'd been really really hoping that Trump would tout the benefits of not mixing alcohol and opiates. All of the "right"-thinking people would screech that he's no doctor and doesn't know what he's talking about, and then all of the leftards would wash down a handful of Oxycodone with a fifth of bourbon. So many of the nation's problems could have been solved with one speech, but Trump didn't do it.
AMZN hasn't burned off all of its support yet.
The only one I'm really worried about is DIS. I have my own number for where I get out, and it keeps inching closer.
My tech is limited to MSFT and AAPL.
I prefer the Original Series:
https://treknews.net/2021/09/25/review-william-shatner-album-bill/
There were a lot of things he should have done but didn't.
To be fair, he was being destroyed by malicious, untruthful allegations. Trump/Russia collusion. Trump's server communicated with a russian bank. Tax fraud. etc. etc. All now known to be lies. That's how you steal an election.
AMZN hasn't burned off all of its support yet.
The only one I'm really worried about is DIS. I have my own number for where I get out, and it keeps inching closer.
My tech is limited to MSFT and AAPL.
McDonalds is the only stock that I own that was up today. I do not own any DISney.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/MCD/?p=MCD
McDonald's new McPlant burger made out of peas ?
https://finance.yahoo.com/m/f312b754-a005-309a-9811-899fcf352efc/food-mcdonald-s-prepares-its.html
WATCH: Matt Walsh Destroys Woke Gender Narrative With One Simple Question
By Megan Fox Jan 19, 2022 9:08 PM ET
https://pjmedia.com/culture/megan-fox/2022/01/19/watch-matt-walsh-destroys-woke-gender-narrative-with-one-simple-question-n1551089
6.0 out of 5 stars
Sorry, Sweet Cheeks, but you lost that battle when you invaded previously men-only spaces.
>> Not beer money, retirement money. And serious money. My AMZN is down 10% also.
Not to worry @lynn, as soon as this *transitory* inflation goes away your stocks will rebound.
Caveat Emptor
Save 85% on a lifetime of access to Microsoft's Excel, Word, PowerPoint and more for Windows
Skip the subscription. Get a lifetime license to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, Access and more on your PC for just $50.
https://www.cnet.com/google-amp/news/save-85-on-a-lifetime-of-access-to-microsofts-excel-word-powerpoint-and-more-for-windows/
Sorry, Sweet Cheeks, but you lost that battle when you invaded previously men-only spaces.
Oh man, here I go. The problem is, women are the weaker sex. They need protected spaces to nurse children or express milk. It is not unusual for women to be dragging children around the place who are extremely mobile and escape artists so they need to be able to lock children in an enclosed space with them.
I was at a Texans football game 4 or 5 years ago (back when the Texans were good). I joined the line at half time for the huge mens room with 6 or 8 stalls and 30 to 40 urinals along the wall (no stalls or partitions). I was taking care of business when two drunk women came in and appropriated the next open stall. They were laughing loudly as they both went in and closed the stall door, taking care of business. Not a single guy said anything to them, we just pretended they were not there. In other words, we gave them a protected space even though they invaded a men-only space.
I know that I am old fashioned (and old !) but that is the way that I roll. Of course, I was born and mostly raised here in the South where things seem to be a little different from the rest of the world.
Watched Big Trouble in Little China with D1, then, because I can't find Escape from NY, we watched Keanu Reeves in Johnny Mnemonic. She wanted to watch Keanu in John Wick. Nope.
I forgot how much I liked Johnny Mnemonic (based on a William Gibson short story, screenplay by Wm. Gibson.) Had Ice T and Henry Rollins in it too. Set in 2021 – global plague killing people, mask wearing rioters in Bejing.
"I had to give up a chunk of long term memory. My childhood…"
n
The taste of McDonald's hamburgers comes out of a chemical factory in New Jersey.
The McPlant will probably be similar to the fake Whopper — familiar but definitely soy.
If you are going to do "Big Trouble in Little China", next time, make it a B.D. Richter double feature with "Buckaroo Banzai"
And throw in "The Golden Child", the competition for "WTF?" movie that summer.
I saw the cat supply aisle issue at HEB first hand tonight.
No Purina One in my cat's preferred variety.
Fun's over, people. Time to get back to work.
Still no word at my new job when I'm even going to need a badge to enter the building. No one seems overly concerned, and there are three more postings to fill behind me.
I own McDonalds in a DRIP that I started with them 30 years ago at $250.
I haven't kept up with the accounting properly for the reinvested dividends, but the last time I did taxes, the accumulated shares were worth several grand.
I drove from Orlando to Portland in less than three days fueled on Chicken Nuggets and the extra rich mix of Diet Coke.
Buckaroo Banzai is on the list. Been thinking about it for the last week, but big trouble was first on the server….
Really good effects for the period, not the ending I thought there would be. I don't remember anything other than liking it from the first time I saw it.
Eventually, Repo Man. "Find one in every car."
n
I saw the cat supply aisle issue at HEB first hand tonight.
No Purina One in my cat's preferred variety.
Fun's over, people. Time to get back to work.
I bought the last Indoor Cat Chow Purina One sack at HEB last Wednesday night. Walmart had had some in the past also.
We have a 15 lb male Siamese. He gets fed about a half pound a day. I would hate to think what would happen if he had to starve a few days.
Wife had to get the large bag of chow for Zeus, the small bags were sold out at our specialty local pet supply store.
n
"Repo Man" and its Pacific Arts stable mate "Tapeheads".
Your family may question your sanity after the "Tapeheads" screening.
Awesome soundtrack, though. I have an uber rare copy of the CD.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emkef_SG0rs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9dBiw7xfVU
Yes, the “freaks” are indeed the Higgins brothers.
That’s two hours I won’t get back. Took kiddo to see Tiger Rising because it was PG and husband needed a kid break and there aren’t a lot of options at 7 pm.
stupid movie with malconstructed analogues and the requisite wise not white person.
bleh
Ob the upside it was fun hanging out with kiddo. AND there are eight baby rabbits. One is half the size of others. I’ll give it preferential access to mama but past experience says it’ll be dead in a week. I’ll try. Life is hard for tiny hairless babies.
Wow, watched the trailer for that movie. I better keep my tiger/big cat crazed 10yo away from it or I'll lose 2 hours.
n
Wow, watched the trailer for that movie. I better keep my tiger/big cat crazed 10yo away from it or I'll lose 2 hours.
n
Do you know what a 15 lb Siamese does with that half pound of food he eats each day ? He saunters right over to the XXXXL litter box we've got in the utility room and makes a deposit. Which, yours truly gets to clean out twice a week since his mistress hurls when she cleans the box. And my wife has tendonitis in her right arm since she over did it for Christmas dinner so she can't do anything strenuous for three months. Like pick up huge cat turds.
Plus I get to bring home the 10 lb box of fresh litter from HEB each week. Sometimes two boxes. That is NOT on my prepping list.