Cool and clear, sunny. Like yesterday, which was a beautiful day.
Spent the day doing pickups and a swing by the goodwill outlet. Scored some good stuff.
I’ve got a similar day planned today, pick up some stuff, sort some stuff, organize some stuff.
I need to quickly flip some of the stuff to pay for the rest… and maybe get some Christmas presents. I need to go through the present stash, and see where I’m really at. Found some stuff for my wife last night that I’d forgotten about.
Speaking of Christmas, I’m a bit worried that the world is just barely holding itself together to get through Christmas, and then it will all fall apart. Make sure you are ready. Take a good look at where your gaps might be. Fill them.
Stack stuff. Lots of stuff.
Get busy!
n
Putting the ladder over stairs is one of the intended uses. Ditto for working on sloped ground, though that tends to slope in multiple directions at once. And Lynn’s right: the ladder is very stable because of the extra-wide legs.
I have one of those style ladders. Very sturdy. Along with the use on the stairs, I have the model that has extendable legs. Works very well on sloping ground. The biggest issue I have with the ladder is that it is a heavy ladder. I have accessories, the platform that can be used between the two ladder portions when separated, the step platform for long-term standing, the utility bucket to hold stuff, and house stand-offs.
I got mine from Little Giant Ladder Company when they were offering special prices at Costco.
https://www.littlegiantladders.com/products/revolution-2-0 17 foot model.
Highly recommended for a ladder if you have stairs or sloping ground.
I have narrowed down the slowness on the MacBook Air with Adobe Lightroom. The images are imported into Lightroom as JPG. I used to use RAW but with newer cameras JPG is really good and the camera can denoise while the images are written to the card. Unless I need a lot of exposure latitude JPG is better than RAW. (JPG is 8 bits per color, RAW is 12 bits per color).
The slowness has to do with converting to another format. In this case I am having to convert to PNG and DNG. It takes a while to do the conversion. CPU load on the Air is only 40% during three conversions at the same time. It should be higher. On my PC the conversion is still much quicker and maxes out the 12 cores. On the Air the CPU is nowhere close to being fully utilized.
I suspect the slowness is due to Rosetta impacting the entire process. Probably single threaded in a lot of places even though Lightroom can easily multithread on the PC and the Air. On the PC there is no intervening layer such as Rosetta.
All those MAC fanboys that claim Adobe applications run better on the MAC are full of themselves.
For a while, it seemed like every movie in the 90s, even comedies, went to do audio mix in the big room at Skywalker Ranch. I wondered how much of that was serious tech or movie maker curiosity regarding the proprerty.
No word on where “Uncle Buck” went, but John Hughes had serious nerd cred by that point so the Lucasfilm people, no doubt, would have wanted in on the project.
BTW, another sly 80s casting reference in “Top Gun: Maverick” – Jean Louisa Kelly from “Uncle Buck” as Iceman’s wife.
Got mine from Costco too. Agreed it’s pretty heavy, but very sturdy.
When I go to paint our stairwell, I will either use it, or scaffolding. I have a section, and it is really handy to have. You don’t need it often, but when you do, you do. It just has to be really worth it for me to haul it down out of the garage attic.
I used little giant ladders professionally in many theaters with stepped risers in the audience area. I own one, and all the accessories, although I don’t normally USE the accessories. They are heavy, but VERY stable.
41F and 80%RH this am. Chilly but sunny and not a cloud in the sky. I better get a bunch of work done today….
n
(and I think that the HEB cinnamon rolls in a tube are BETTER than Pillsbury Grands…I won’t hesitate to buy them after trying them today.)
The HEB thin crust frozen pizzas are excellent when cooked on a gas grill with a pizza stone at exactly the right temperature. The end result is as good as anything from the trendy pizza take out restaurants like The Blaze.
We’ve done the frozen pizzas a few times since buying a second stone last year for the Christmas Eve deep dish pizza experiment and realizing what kind of temperature control is possible, even outside in cold weather.
It’s been a slow week, after a crazy November. But projects are being handed in, starting tomorrow, so lots of grading to do next week.
For those who like fun programming challenges, today is the first day of “Advent of Code“, which gives two programming challenges each day. The first ones are usually easy, but the later ones can be very time consuming. I don’t think I’ve ever actually solved all of them, what with real life also requiring time…
That was a fun movie to watch. However, one annoyance: did they have to steal the plot from the original Star Wars? Fly your fighter down this narrow trench, avoiding anti-aircraft fire, and land two shots in a ventilator shaft. Then run away fast, being chased by enemy fighters.
So far, no one else has remarked on this, but it struck me as really obvious.
The Houston area hamfest is scheduled for Mar 3,4 this coming year. They are specifically advertising “prepper supplies”. In the past, I’ve always gotten the feeling that old school hams were vaguely embarrassed by preppers… and all things “prepping” as a cultural phenomenon. This despite hams’ long time service during disasters, and the prepping that entails.
n
I’ve seen it commented on in various movie geek outlets.
There are several popular theories, but the one I like the best is Tom Cruise giving a middle finger to Disney by making a better “Star Wars” movie than anything they’ve done since buying the franchise with the possible exception of “Rogue One” and several episodes of “The Mandalorian”.
Steve Jobs often used the Picaso like “Good artists copy. Great artists steal.” Tom Cruise obviously believes the same thing.
Deliberate or not, Cruise destroyed Disney’s US box office for most of the year, until “Black Panther 2″.
On a related note, I haven’t seen the DVD to look more carefully, but I still believe that’s my OpenGL terrain rendering code in the briefing simulations of the attack. Not that I can do anything about it due to a complicated legal situation of being a grad student on a tuition waiver at the time I wrote the calculation model.
Jobs had very definite ideas about the way the world should work.
Pixar movies haven’t been the same since Jobs passed, and I would argue that the same is true for Apple products.
Given his long ties with Silicon Valley, I doubt Steve Jobs would have stiffed Intel so completely, and, regardless of power consumption, I don’t doubt that AMD Threadripper Macs would be available outside of Apple’s lab experiments.
Just like Avatar is a remake of Dances with Wolves, except on foreign planet with blue aliens.
Can you provide a cite? I don’t see it on their website.
Old school hams are fading away, and there have always been preppers in the background who know better than to advertise their preps.
From their weekly email…
Houstonhamfest mailing list
Houstonhamfest@houstonhamfest.info
http://houstonhamfest.info/mailman/listinfo/houstonhamfest_houstonhamfest.info
The issue is probably the instruction scheduling in the Adobe x86_64 code being targeted for real Intel hardware and not emulation. The threads are still there but not keeping the branch prediction pipelines full on ARM like they would on AMD or Intel.
Another issue would be offloading to the GPU. My guess is your Windows machine has a beefy discrete card, and even Firefox tries to take advantage of the capability. Adobe is definitely on the cutting edge there.
Adobe is probably testing updated Apple Silicon paths in their Universal Binaries now. Of course, the engineering costs will have to be sunk somewhere.
I am no Tim Cook fan, but Intels deliberate descent from being the pre-eminent chip designer in the world to an also-ran was pretty clear to any observer.
Apple’s success depends on this stuff, I suspect Jobs would have done the same.
“Education as a Battleground” by Larry P. Arnn President, Hillsdale College. https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/education-as-a-battleground/
“If you want to see the problem with American education, look at a chart illustrating the comparative growth in the number of students, teachers, and district administrators in our public schools in the period between 2000 and 2019. (See the chart below.) The number of district administrators grew by a whopping 87.6 percent during these years, far outstripping the growth in the number of students (7.6 percent) and teachers (8.7 percent).”
This cannot continue and must be fixed.
No, actually fairly plan. Does not require external power. The GPUs in the Mac probably have more power. I don’t play games so no need for a beefy graphics card.
Good luck with that. It will have to be fought on a county by county basis, and, for example, in our ISD, the complete slate of incumbent Trustees (school board members) were just reelected despite out-of-control spending and the stunt of having parents “disrupting” school board meetings arrested at home.
Local school issues will be a long, uphill fight.
So how’s that equality thing working out?
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/12/fair-us-womens-soccer-team-receives-6-million-us-mens-team-advanced-world-cup/
Git yer money for nuthin’ and give it to the chicks for free.
n
“Dr Jordan Peterson: ‘Stop allowing radicals to exploit you with guilt’”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/11/29/dr-jordan-peterson-stop-allowing-radicals-to-exploit-you-with-guilt/
I do not think that is a problem with this crowd. Except for the troll who keeps on showing up, they are obviously consumed with guilt and probably spend most of the day in the corner of their room trying to breathe shallowly and therefore exhale less CO2 (so they think).
This was actually one of the funnier things in the parts I watched…
Woke mob slams Tim Burton’s smash hit Netflix Addams Family reboot Wednesday for casting black actors as bullies and owner of PILGRIM-themed amusement park
Ask the woke mob, “so, are you upset because a black family owns a theme park or are you saying a black family can’t own a park about whites? And if so, how is that not racist?”
Ask the woke mob, “so are you saying that blacks can never be shown as bullies? Why not? And if it is just because of the color of their skin, how is that not racist?”
But I don’t think you’ll get an answer, only screeching.
n
I wonder if they capture all their farts.
I now have our biz Dropbox syncing to my Synology NAS with the Team Folder option. I did learn I should have made a Dropbox folder in the first file level for my personal stuff. Instead all the stuff synced at that level, and if I add the Team Folder, it will sync to my personal DB. Apparently, you can’t add folders at the root level, it is reserved for the NAS only. It does have a default “video” folder and I put the Team Folder in there. All is syncing without duplicates.
B.C.: Fire Ants
https://www.gocomics.com/bc/2022/12/01
Yes they do.
>> Jobs had very definite ideas about the way the world should work.
Pixar movies haven’t been the same since Jobs passed, and I would argue that the same is true for Apple products.
When my wife wanted an iPad I said go ahead but know up-front that if you have and problems with it you know where the Apple Store is and they can help you. Sorry but I just don’t “get” Apple products. Maybe because I’ve been using Microsoft since Win 3.0.
We’ll see what happens around here when the Orange Man pulls every trick in the book to get the Republican nomination and then puts Tulsi Gabbard on the ticket.
But I don’t think you’ll get an answer, only screeching.
Logic is wasted on the woke.
I’ll play along if I have the time. My Python skills have atrophied at the current job.
If it was the Fortran logo I‘d think this was Lynn 🙂
https://programmerhumour.tumblr.com/post/702294482657361920/how-do-some-of-my-coworkers-still-use-ml#notes
LOL Kalifornia:
Gavin Newsom’s reparations committee will recommend handing out $223,200 per person to all descendants of slaves in California for ‘housing discrimination’ at a cost of $559BN – in nation’s biggest restitution effort ever
Can’t make this stuff up.
How do I get my money? I’m sure I qualify somehow. Oh…. northern Germany towards Poland serfs don’t count? That’s Racist!
😉
“‘I did not know’: SBF statements highlight legal liability questions in FTX collapse”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sbf-legal-liability-ftx-collapse-143111216.html
“FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried told two media outlets this week that it was his mistakes and ignorance that led to the severe liquidity crisis that forced his $32 billion crypto empire into bankruptcy, comments that hint at his legal predicament.”
““I didn’t knowingly commingle funds,” Bankman-Fried said over an hour-long video interview from The Bahamas during the The New York Times’ annual DealBook Summit on Wednesday hosted by Andrew Ross Sorkin. Specifically, he said that a connection between FTX and his margin trading firm Alameda Research was “tied together substantially more” than he would have ever wanted it to be.””
The article does not talk about the $1 billion that FTX loaned him personally. Ponzi, Ponzi, Ponzi.
Good article on the railroad worker mess:
https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2022/12/01/is-that-light-the-end-of-the-tunnel-or-a-railroad-union-freight-train-n514755
>> Houston HamFest
Hams wear special clothing? Do tell…
>> (from Tuesday)
I know I can eliminate some wholesale, like any doctor who still works for Houston Methodist, since they fired all the ones who objected to the jab when they fired me. Indeed, the PCP I’m firing is one of them. A mask-wearing slave to his student loans, the drug companies, and Standard Of Care, who continues to push statins despite their proven hazards and increase in all cause mortality.
@lpdbw, cite for points you mention re statins please. Thanks.
“Nuclear’s aging issue”
https://www.asme.org/topics-resources/content/infographic-nuclear-s-aging-issue
The average age of the nuclear fleet in the USA is 41 years. Worldwide it is 31 years.
@Greg Norton
“On a related note, I haven’t seen the DVD to look more carefully, but I still believe that’s my OpenGL terrain rendering code in the briefing simulations of the attack. Not that I can do anything about it due to a complicated legal situation of being a grad student on a tuition waiver at the time I wrote the calculation model.”
It would depend on your IP. agreement.
If it’s a copyright issue, it may be considered a work for hire.
OTOH, if it is patented, things could be interesting. Patents in the U.S. are granted to individuals. As the inventor, your involvement in the application would be required. The IP agreement might require you to make an assignment of the resulting patent.
If a patent were applied for and granted to someone not the inventor, it w ould be fraud and grounds for breaking the patent. Probably $100k to get to the federal courthouse door, but certainly worth a conversation with a good IP firm if you have the documentation.
I’m missing something. Win11 build 22H2 for whatever that’s worth.
Phone does Bluetooth. I know it works because I can pair to the OBD gizmo for check engine lights. Phone does wi-fi, I don’t use that because I’m paying for the cell data and I’ma by golly gonna use that stuff. But it does connect to my home wi-fi system.
New PC acts like it does Bluetooth. It does do wi-fi. It’s actually a whore for wi-fi. Unplug the Ethernet cable or the ISP goes down and BOOM it’s on the wi-fi. That the wi-fi is the same network as the Ethernet doesn’t seem to register. I’m sure it’s a feature.
Kind of strange I think. I’m missing a step…. the wISP’s upstream provider had a cable cut today.
I turned Bluetooth on, on the PC. And on the phone. They never got happy. Did the same with wi-fi and it looked like they were connected but no Internet through the phone. So much for having a hotspot.
Hooked the phone to the PC with a cable to my little four port USB hub and that works. Just like it did with the old PC that didn’t have the hub.
It’s not a huge deal. It’s a puzzle. I thought I could tether the phone to the PC via Bluetooth or wi-fi. For silly things like pulling pictures off of the phone or using the phone’s internet connection. If I need the wire, I need the wire.
I’m missing that one little checkbox that is buried somewhere.
“Red Thunder (A Thunder and Lightning Novel)” by John Varley
https://www.amazon.com/Red-Thunder-Lightning-Novel/dp/0441011624?tag=ttgnet-20/
Book number one of a four book space opera series. I reread the well printed and well bound used MMPB book published by Ace in 2003 that I bought on Amazon since most of my books are boxed in the garage. In fact, I have read this book at least six to eight times. I have books two through four in the series and may reread them again too. Too bad the first and second books in the series are out of print.
I am a big fan of the Heinlein books, especially the juveniles. This book is extremely inspired by the Heinlein juveniles but it is not a juvenile. Somewhere of a cross between the juveniles and Stranger in a Strange Land and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. One note is that all of the characters in the book use names from Heinlein’s books.
The book is extreme hard science except for the squeezer that Jubal invents. Everything in the book is doable with today’s science and engineering, and will be done, if someone invents a cheap spaceship drive that can boost thousands of tons at one gravity from Earth to anywhere in the Solar System. Or, Alpha Centauri or anywhere else in the 5 to 20 light years away distance.
My review from the distant past: “What a book ! I grew up on Heinlein juveniles, this is great addition to that section of science fiction. The squeezer drive is a great idea and building the spaceship out of railroad car tanks is a great idea. The story flows well and was difficult to put down (I was 45 minutes late to work Friday morning because of it.”
The author has a blog and posts there fairly often.
https://varley.net/
My rating: 6 out of 5 stars (yes, six stars, I have 23+ six star books)
Amazon rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars (378 reviews)
I don’t think I’m being unreasonable over here. The new PC seems to be eager to share BT and Wi-fi.
I’m missing a setting somewhere because while I can see the Desktop shares on the other PCs and toss files there, on those PCs I can see the new PC but nah…. you don’t have permission to open that folder.
Maybe it’s a Win Home vs Win Pro thing.
I have yet to try scanning from the printer to the new PC. I just don’t feel like it.
Based largely on studies reviewed by others I trust, mostly Michael Eades. He’s just moved to substack last month so back issues of his newsletter are lacking history. I was receiving his weekly newsletter, The Arrow, for a few months before that.
Basically, he writes that statins do lower total cholesterol, and (from memory) MAY reduce heart attack risk a little. However, with the exception of one cohort, they have a negative impact regarding all cause mortality. In other words, you lower your cholesterol, you maybe lower your heart attack risk, but you die as quickly or quicker for other reasons. Thus, you’re trading one cause of death for another, without increasing longevity, and with the added expense and side effects. Some of the common side effects include muscle pain, cramps, and chronic weakness, so it’s a non-trivial tradeoff regarding quality of life. There is also some evidence for an increase in diabetes in patients taking statins.
The one cohort that has better all cause mortality is those who had a heart attack before reaching age 60. If I were in that cohort, I’d consider statins, but even so, I’d look at what the quantitative improvements were.
I spent one semester as a paid TA for the university before quitting the job in disgust. Compensation included the tuition waiver, and I took the Graphics class.
University property.
Political stunt. California doesn’t have the money, and no reparations will actually be paid. It will be the fault of the Republicans.
2024 has begun.
Newsom’s own in-laws moved to Florida earlier this year and wrote a $5000 check to the Friends of Ran DeSantis PAC.
@Lynn,
thanks for the pointer to the Varley books, I am on the road for a couple of days and needed something for the Kindle.
Microsoft has been trying to purge the Control Panel from Windows. It sounds like they’ve finally done it with Windows 11.
Clicking on the magnifying glass and typing Bluetooth doesn’t bring up a control with an on/off switch for the hardware?
@brad – As long as I’m keeping up with the calendar, my work will go here:
https://github.com/gsnorton/advent_2022
Just like Avatar is a remake of Dances with Wolves, except on foreign planet with blue aliens.
There are only seven basic stories. Everything is a copy of these.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Basic_Plots
Huh, I thought it was six basic stories.
Speaking of Christmas, I’m a bit worried that the world is just barely holding itself together to get through Christmas, and then it will all fall apart. Make sure you are ready. Take a good look at where your gaps might be. Fill them.
This is what the world has been like since the economic failure of the USA back in 2008. We are in time out right now. Whenever that time out ends, things will be spicy.
ICYMI
Milwaukee officially picked as host site for 2024 Republican National Convention
>> How do I get my money? I’m sure I qualify somehow. Oh…. northern Germany towards Poland serfs don’t count? That’s Racist!
Surely you can qualify for some of the Camp Lejeune money…hurry though, before it’s all spent on TV lawyer commercials.
Or there’s always the RoundUp suits or the talcum powder…
Huh. Covidiocy killed the Democratic convention in 2020, I thought.
For what it’s worth, that moron Yellen says that we’re seeing inflation now because people are spending too much.
Top
menagender blob-things, I tell you. Top.MenAgender blob-things.Pumping trillions of printed money into the economy won’t cause inflation. Inflation is happening because people are spending money.
I don‘t know what is more pitiful:
I think #3 bothers me the most. I don’t have an answer for it though.
I quit taking statins because of the muscle cramping. They can permanently damage heart tissue, among other things. For a couple of points on an arbitrary scale, it wasn’t worth ANY risk for me, let alone permanent heart muscle damage. (and I’m already at risk for that because I used to take VIOXX.)
A co-worker clued me in to the side effects. He’d had them so bad he was bedridden for a year before they figured out what was causing him problems.
n
People went to see Avatar for the (then) unique 3D experience.
The sequels may be it for The Mouse before something gives and non-core IP goes up for sale, starting with Fox.
Again, I don’t think it is an accident that the Magic Kingdom in Orlando has core IP and the Buzz Lightyear Spin train -er- stroller wreck.
MrAtoz notes:
Just one more reason that I am SO glad that we left Cacafornia in 2020.
Left Cali in 2003. Didn’t look back.
Unrelated, some official fedgov resources all linked in one place.
https://www.dhs.gov/ntas/advisory/national-terrorism-advisory-system-bulletin-november-30-2022
n
Looking for work, maybe they’ll learn to code.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11491797/CNN-fires-Chris-Cillizza-Alison-Kosik-Alex-Field-host-Martin-Savidge-Mary-Ann-Fox.html
n
So this morning, my daughter asked me what I was working on. I told her that I was converting our calculation engine from Fortran to C++. She said she had no idea what those were. I told her that probably was equivalent to somebody converting a book from German to English. There is a slight similarity in that both are Latin languages but not much more than that. Like the German word for window is fenster. And the German word for father is vater.
Then I told her that the size of the book was 3.5 million words. She got very impressed at that. She writes a lot of things, she knows what word count is.
Yeah, my word count is seriously down.
n
@Paul
Go to Windows settings, there’s a link called “Phone”. (link your android or iPhone).
The Windows app itself is called “Your Phone”.
Open it and click “add a phone”, it will walk you through the procedure.
Some Samsung devices have it installed as part of their system, otherwise its available from the PS.
It connects for SMS messages and photos etc.
And the revolving door keeps spinning…
DoorDash to lay off 1,250 corporate jobs, 6% of workforce (More)
Cryptocurrency trading firm Kraken lays off 1,100 employees, roughly 30% of workforce (More)
CNN begins layoffs (More)
RIP Gaylord Perry.
Master of the spitball, Hall of Famer, first pitcher to win the Cy Young Award in both leagues.
He was 84.
Tesla delivers first electric Semi trucks — three years late
What’s three years among friends??
“At the event, Musk clarified that the trip was accomplished without needing to recharge the battery.”
But he failed to mention that the 81,000 pounds of “cargo” was all batteries for the truck :O
Tesla delivers first electric Semi trucks — three years late
What’s three years among friends??
Wow, there is some seriously cool engineering going on there. The acceleration motors decouple as not to provide drag. And both axles on the back of the tractor are fully driven, nice, that 18 wheeler driver will have to work to get that one stuck.
So 81,000 lbs of cargo plus 30,000 lb tractor = 111,000 lbs. Very overweight.
And looks like Tesla is going to start buying natural gas turbines for their Superchargers. Nice.
And the revolving door keeps spinning…
DoorDash to lay off 1,250 corporate jobs, 6% of workforce (More)
Cryptocurrency trading firm Kraken lays off 1,100 employees, roughly 30% of workforce (More)
CNN begins layoffs (More)
Get ready for the Great Depression, part II.
12022022 today…
n
Bluetooth and wi-fi are both with the volume control next to the clock.
In Bluetooth & devices there is a thing called Phone Link and that wants you to sign-in to MS. I don’t use SMS enough to want to use it on my PC. It doesn’t seem to be what I want. So far.