Cooler but warming later. Some chance of rain. Maybe clear later. Yesterday was nice and hot, sunny too. D1 had a good time at the beach.
I was looking for a safety monitor to watch out for me in the attic at my client’s place. It was REALLY hot in the attic. Fortunately I did all the hard and sweaty crawling around last time. All I had to do was enter, and connect cabling. Still, last time I measured the attic temps in summer, I got 142F iirc. I might take a thermometer back with me on Monday or Tues. just to see. In any case it was dangerously hot.
I didn’t get any one thing done over there either. Got the camera rebooted. Tried adding the new cam, but firmware and OS on the NVR were too old. I’m replacing it all next week anyway so I didn’t update anything. Did some maintenance on the ubiquiti Cloud Key appliance that works as a manager and dashboard for the system. Didn’t update any firmware in the system either, as I didn’t have time to recover if anything broke. Did get new hardware added.
Got the NanoStation 5AC loco added, and configured as an access point. I confirmed there is signal at the gate opener and keypad. If I have to, I can add the other one, a switch at the gate, and config it all as a wire replacement. More gear, more time, more effort, so I’m hoping that I’ve done enough with wifi coverage. I couldn’t quite finish, as I needed to locate a PoE injector in the attic, and I didn’t have what I needed with me to plug everything in. I’ll bring that back next week and finish that.
And I got the control gear installed, the piece I had to wait most of a year to find on ebay as normal channels are dry. It’s configured but not complete as the controls programmer hasn’t done his part yet. He wants me there when he connects and sets it up. I’ll need to test it in any case.
So a lot got done, but nothing got done.
Today I should be doing more cleaning, and taking stuff out of the house and to storage. It’s piling up while waiting for an auctioneer, but it needs to be out of the foyer and living room. I’ve been doing other stuff, and making the piles higher as I organized. If it isn’t raining, today is the day that organizing will bear fruit as the stuff goes away.
Oh, all the normal weekly domestic bliss needs to happen too. Joy.
It’s a great life, if you don’t falter.
Stack something, even if it’s a small stack.
nick
Good on ya.
My experience is that they won’t want to talk about it, not until they’ve been around you for a long while, but they’ll watch and listen. Just go about family life. Mention your thoughts on raising kids or as a working adult or whatever as they come up. I treated the stay-overs as one of our kids in the sense of discussing what to have for dinner, involvement in chores, voting on what movie to watch, and so on; that seemed to work best in making life seem normal and calm-ish.
Foundation work is Jericho. Cost is $500/pier for edge piers. My office building was 10 piers. My house was 17 piers. They know what they are doing. Takes a month to get a quote. Takes 4 to 6 months to get work done. They do what they say and the work is excellent. They are very busy.
If you need piers inside then the cost is much higher since they have to jackhammer.
Of course, the real critique of work is 30 years. Ask me then.
“Of course, the real critique of work is 30 years. Ask me then.”
It’s a deal. No Ouija boards.
Having been from an abusive environment in my much younger years, your statement is generally true. It took me years, way into my adult life, to be able to talk about what happened to me as a child. The neighbors, the school teachers, all knew something was not right. They were powerless to do, or say anything. This was in the ’60s and times have changed, but not so with the mental state of the abused. It is difficult to admit as the individual thinks it is their fault.
What finally helped me was after my abusive aunt and uncle died. I sat down over the space of a couple of weeks, in spurts of writing, to produce a document that detailed the abuse that I endured. The memories of that do not fade over time and, in my opinion, are surprisingly accurate. I produced about 50 pages of documents.
When I completed the initial document I sent copies to the prior neighbors, family members, (aunt’s sister, brothers and son), one of the surviving teachers, and a couple of former classmates. It helped explain to them why I was the way I was in school. Wearing long sleeve shirts when it was hot, to cover bruises, which subjected me to ridicule in school. Staying after school in the library to keep from having to go home. Sometimes I was afraid to get off the bus. Yes, there were a lot of issues.
I have still not fully completed the document. I will remember something that needs to be added. I have also added some pleasant memories to the document so that it is not all gloom and doom.
In spite of the abuse from my aunt and uncle, I was better off with them in Oregon on the ranch than with my mother in California. My parents really did not want me and this entire scenario to let me live with my aunt and uncle served two purposes which benefited both parties. My aunt and uncle got child labor; my parents got rid of me. I did go back to live with my mother after she divorced my father. It was clear she would rather chase men and screw them on the living room couch than have kids to worry about. I went back to the aunt and uncle where I at least had meals, clothing, supervision, and someone around.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but the neighbors did help. It was a place I could go to spend a day working, having meals, or go to when the abuse got bad. I never told the neighbors the real reason I would spend time at their place, but they knew something was not right. It was not much help, but it was enough.
So Mr. Nick, keep doing what you are doing. Don’t invade, don’t intrude, just be supportive. Treat the additional child almost like your own. You may not see a reward for doing so, but the benefits to the child are more than you can really know. Years later it will pay huge dividends.
Good morning intarwebz!
Sunny, not super hot yet. Gentle breezes.
Bacon is cooked. Cinnamon rolls will be ready in 5 minutes. D2 and W1 are at swim team, X1 and D1 are still lounging…
I spent about one hour too long in bed, and my back is telling me so. I need to get moving and do some stuff, maybe it will settle in.
————–
wrt foundation… because of soil conditions I needed a technical solution. It was about $1200 per helical pier, more than 27 in total, along with a couple of trad concrete piers where the soil and depth allowed it. No floor breaking for internal piers, they injected foam to “float” the interior of the slab. See also “mud jacking” for similar. There are a lot of fly by night companies doing foundation work. There are at least 2 common franchise, rent a brand, companies in the space. Their lifetime warranty is for the lifetime of the company and lasts for a few years if you are lucky. texaspfs.com did my work and I’m still happy…
————–
thanks for the advice about X1. That’s what we’ve been doing so far.
n
I put the following in a comment at Aesop’s regarding direct action and the need to protect yourself from observation.
Some of you will recognize that I’ve mentioned parts of this before. I’m putting it here so I have a copy.
Some more things to consider.
Your face covering should include something to break up IR (like glued in pieces of foil, maybe) as some facial recognition uses IR mapping of facial structures and not visible light. Those systems use bone measurements and distances between features for mapping, as well as ‘heat maps’ that reveal underlying structure. A hat with mosquito netting might offer some additional protection.
Houston police have used sneakers worn, and unique wear/creases/distressing on jeans to identify perps in smash and grab gun store robberies. Thrift stores are your friend.
There are databases of peoples’ tats, make sure you don’t have any visible distinguishing marks.
Regarding plate readers and vehicles, it’s not just plates.
Many widely deployed systems also identify and track make and model, presence or absence of roof racks, bike racks, spare tires, absence of plates, paper tags, and other characteristics that taken together might uniquely identify your vehicle. See ‘flock safety + hoa’
Also there are a sh!t ton of privately owned ANPR systems deployed and they often share data with the popo. Parking lots, apartment complexes, HOAs, and shopping centers all use ANPR.
Popo in many places log every single plate that enters or exits or transits past a certain point. Natural chokepoints like tunnels and highways are very common. Georgia caught a fugitive when he crossed a county line on the freeway. DEA and others in the Houston metro will get “hits” on certain subjects when they pass the Montgomery County ANPR on I45… near exit 100.
Your tire pressure management system uses low power radio to communicate with your vehicle. People have demonstrated receiving it from a distance, and they are all unique. I am not aware of anyone using it to track or identify vehicles in the wild, but it’s possible.
You modern vehicle has bluetooth broadcasting a “here I am, connect to me” all the time. Texas uses bluetooth readers to track speed on surface streets and highways. Other jurisdictions probably do too. Look for “patch” antennas, white squares about 6-8″, on poles beside the roadway, flat surface pointed to the roadway.
Toll tags can also be read remotely. Look for big patch antennas, or smaller yagi antennas, particularly on bridges and overpasses at points where main arteries enter the city.
Vehicles with Onstar should never be considered for any questionable activity. TPTB can turn on the in-car mic and remotely disable the vehicle.
Never carry a phone. Which also means, you need to establish alibi times when you don’t carry a phone. Poker night. Walking the dog. Going out for a smoke. Otherwise, leaving your phone at home or breaking your normal usage patterns will be just as damning as carrying the damn thing. You probably also have bluetooth turned on. MANY MANY private companies log every wifi and bluetooth transceiver their systems see. They all have unique numbers associated with them.
No fitness tracker. If you wear one, see above about alibis.
NO SOCIALS. Social media exists as a tracking and influencing tool, as well as providing a wonderful way for people to self-incriminate. EVERYONE is in your socials, even down to local law enforcement. They keyword scan, run facial recognition, and once you are identified as a subject of interest, they will use AI and contractors to monitor and review. Plus all that sh!t is logged and saved forever and WILL be used against you.
Ring camera owners can choose to participate in networks that are accessible to LEO. Sometimes it happens without permission. Ring cams will capture and save traffic passing on the street, including you and your vehicle.
end of part 1
nick
May 11, 2023 at 7:09 AM
nick flandrey said…
Part 2
Some additional observations from scanner monitoring.
The popo will use the classic “box” techniques for following your vehicle. Classic countermeasures will fail some of the time because they also use fixed wing aircraft flying much higher than you would expect. The plane has cameras and recording equipment that can get identifying photos of you, although sometimes not good enough to id you solely from the pix. Using evasion techniques will raise a huge red flag.
The GPS trackers phone home every 15 minutes or so. They often lose track of subjects because you can move a lot in 15 minutes.
The air assets CAN and DO get permission to surveil you even in restricted airspace, ie. driving thru the airport isn’t enough to shake them.
Canopies, carports, and covered walkways are your friend.
They will use “pole cameras” to remotely surveil you. These pole cameras are often unreliable, locking up and needing frequent rebooting. They never sleep though, and are monitored by staff in a remote location that spend all their time monitoring. The field agents can access the video on their phones.
The popo use whatsapp and other comms tools to avoid using radio or other observable means of communicating.
They use undercovers (UCs) and confidential informers (CIs). If there is a woman in a role where you would expect a man, consider that the popo often use women as UCs specifically because people don’t suspect them or think them capable.
Get a scanner. Home Patrol II works well. Listen to it all the time you can. Find the channels where the locals set up their surveillance or tactical comms (usually ‘interop’ channels). Listen and learn. Digital doesn’t mean encrypted, and even the popo forget that. And even encrypted can give you information about the pace and frequency of ops, who is active, etc. You can learn a lot about major stuff happening in your neighborhood.
nick
Anyone gonna hold obammma at least partly responsible?
n
Any “Open Road Tolling” using an optical based system will record length, width, and height of the vehicle as well as speed, but classification based on that data at the plaza is strictly car vs. light truck vs. heavy/commercial vehicles. A competent vendor would be stupid to attempt to sort to make/model in real time, which would require CPU capacity and a database with associated admin costs, and that is left for later data mining, which was rarely done by authorities when I left the industry three years ago.
If you don’t see physical dividers between lanes in a plaza, they’re using ORT. Otherwise, it is a combination of treadles (those hoses across the road) and magnetic loops to record vehicle dimensions (mainly length), speed, and count axles,. Both technologies are hideously unreliable, and, in the case of magnetic loops, increasingly unmaintainable because the people who know the tech are literally dying off.
Zelensky meets with Modi and European leaders in his first hours on the ground at G7 summit as Biden caves to pressure and green lights F-16s for Ukraine
n
“Daddy, How did World War 3 start?”
https://www.flocksafety.com/articles/hoa-security-license-plate-reader-cameras-reduce-crime
Flock is just the company that is deploying all over my neighborhood and surrounding areas. They specifically list the capability to differentiate and search based on those other vehicle characteristics.
Other companies do it in surveillance systems at the VMS (video management system) level or more frequently as AI gets pushed to the “edge” ie. the cameras, they do it in the cams themselves.
n
Oh look, one quarter of Americans have a heart condition they didn’t know about! It’s NORMAL.
Bodybuilder who had strokes at 28 and 33 thought he was partying too hard- now he’s warning others about little-known heart condition that caused them and affects a QUARTER of Americans
n
Beau … Beau … Beau…[click]
Like Abrams tanks, the only way F16s get fielded quickly is with US or other NATO ally pilots flying the planes.
anyone else looking at the bidden earlobe thing?
biden + ears
n
Some time ago I asked the group if anyone recalled a scifi book series about a hospital in space… turns out it was the Sector General series by James White which Drwilliams suggested. Found one at goodwill this week.
It’s dated, but I’ve still enjoyed the first 100 pages. Very fragile, acid burned pages. Even in physical form, a lot of media was produced cheaply and isn’t holding up well. Better than bit-rotted old CDs and files in unreadable formats will, I fear. Anyone got any way to read files from Q&A Write? It’s only 35 years old. (I can read the hard copy, but not the disks, college work.)
n
Which suggests that printed on paper is the lowest common denominator for anything you want to last.
n
Re-read this post looking for something else.
https://www.ttgnet.com/journal/2020/09/16/wed-sept-16-2020-nobody-knows-the-trouble-ive-seen/
still evergreen, 2 ½ years later.
n
(although biddn has hung on longer than predicted.)
>> voting on what movie to watch
I know a guy who knows a guy that can get you some *cough, cough, extra ballots in case you don’t want to watch “Frozen” for the 12th time.
>> So a lot got done, but nothing got done.
So a lot got done, but nothing got finished.
How’s that?
Uhh, how about boycotting the entire event next time…
https://www.foxnews.com/sports/transgender-cyclist-stands-alone-at-winners-podium-after-first-place-finish
Hmm, I wonder if the IOC has anything in place regarding trans athletes?
Nick Flandrey says:
I’ve been saying for 3 years now that some of the videos of “Joe Biden” have been of a body-double, because Joe Biden has detached earlobes and the double’s earlobes are attached. And Biden’s chin isn’t the same as the impostor.
I think that the Ian Fleming novel “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” had that as a plot point.
Some prepping comments before RBT really started prepping…
https://www.ttgnet.com/journal/2012/11/14/wednesday-14-november-2012/
note especially “Don Armstrong” near the end of the comments.
n
– I went with the slightly awkward grammar/phrasing thinking it was funnier…
I TRY to be interesting…. or clever…. or something…
n
(ok, that is weird, the editor normally replaces three periods (full stops) with the ellipsis when you type them, but it only did it for the first two in that last line. I couldn’t get it to do it again… weird.)
(and yes, I do use it improperly to indicate “trailing off” rather than replacing words, or as a super long “pause for effect”. Like the the Oxford comma that RBT used to bust my chops about, it’s probably not going to change… )
I think that the Ian Fleming novel “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” had that as a plot point
– there is also the movie “Dave” which along with “Wag the Dog” should be required viewing.
n
Those are some attractive images.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12090679/This-perfect-man-woman-look-like-according-AI.html
–emphasis added because OF COURSE that’s the only reason possible. Couldn’t be that people on the internet (where source training came from) actually prefer those things…
– and why would those features be highly coveted and often imitated if they were NOT what people like?? This is the definition of cognitive dissonance.
n
I think we are closer to living “Star Trek” “Patterns of Force”, with a body double propped up for speeches instead of a drugged Fuhrer.
In either case, we aren’t going to be saved in the final reel by the meat puppet waking from his stupr at just the right moment and deciding to do the right thing even though he knows it will be at the cost of his own life.
Does he work for Perkins Coie?
LibreOffice doesn’t import the files?
I remember Q&A Write being on the shelves of the Egghead Discount Ponzi well into the 90s, and Dr. Pournelle used the word processor for many years IIRC.
Do a hex dump of the file and see how ugly the text looks. You might get lucky and extraction would be fairly straight forward.
I remember that we actually sold copies of Q&A at the Ponzi in 88-90 time frame when I worked there on and off. We never actually sold a copy of Office so I became a pro at re-shrinkwapping the 1’x1’x1′ cube, which always got returned — Egghead was effectively a software lending library which disguised the real purpose of the chain.
Symantec held the copyrights until the plug got pulled.
LibreOffice doesn’t import the files?
–you think it might? They are really some sort of flat database disguised as a text editor… the searchability was a main selling point iirc. Seem to think JerryP used to recommend it.
I’d have to find a floppy reader that still worked to even try reading the disks. IBM single density 3 ½”, I think, and then hope the disk is still readable. That’s vs using my eyeballs to read the daisy wheel or dot matrix printout, which I’d have to have and find, granted. Problems with both ways of storing the data (my assignments), and the question of who would WANT to read them anyway, but I think the printout will survive long past when the disk is accessible.
n
In my non-prepping hobby, a lot of historical knowledge comes from old ads and catalogs, but also from hand written documents, like account ledgers, company records, and estate sale inventories. If that stuff is digital, it just won’t be there for any future researchers.
USB 3.5″ floppy drives still exist, and those work under Linux.
The big problem reading 30 year old floppy disks is the binder chemicals generally weren’t spec-ed to last more than a decade. However, if you bought quality disks, you might get lucky.
The free disk from Egghead Discount Ponzi store openings? Yeah, those were probably toast around the time the stores closed.
@Nick
“Very fragile, acid burned pages. Even in physical form, a lot of media was produced cheaply and isn’t holding up well.”
Which printing do you have? The early Ballantines tend to hold up pretty well, so I’m guessing a Ballantine/Del Rey ca 1979?
Paper from wood pulp–the “pulps” of the early 20th century–runs a wide range of quality. Newsprint is the low end, intended to last a few days and doomed by the high residual acid when exposed to humid air and sunlight. At the other end are the “slicks”, still wood pulp, but pH balanced and coated, easily capable of lasting for centuries.
I have several books of WWII vintage when paper was in short supply that are actually bound with signatures of visibly different quality paper.
Those are some attractive images.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12090679/This-perfect-man-woman-look-like-according-AI.html
An image caption in the article:
“The results skewed overwhelmingly white with only a few examples of people of color and adhered to what could now be deemed as outdated beauty standards”
Are Whoopi and/or Lizzo the current standards?
Lord, take me now.
@drwilliams, it is a Ballantine from the 1970 second printing. Pages are orange. I can still bend them without cracking but it’s close. The cover is flaking.
@mediumwave, yes to Lizzo… she “flaunts her fabulous curves” often enough in the DailyMail. Of course, just scrolling down the page, and watching the right side, you can easily see the truth of what their audience likes, and the AI seems to be right on target.
n
Pregnant Race Hoax Victim to Sue for Defamation
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/benbartee/2023/05/20/pregnant-race-hoax-victim-to-sue-for-defamation-n1696862
Sue. Them. All.
“Urban youths” aka YUDS (Youth Urban Dipshits)
What’s not being mentioned is that they were attempting what’s called “strong arm robbery” in Texas, ie, robbery by threats or intimidation.
n
Thanks to some guy on youtube, I got an expensive coffee maker fixed for resale…
D1 had hair that is approaching its original color.
D2 is at a friend’s for sleepover.
W1 is home and had a glass in her hand.
Might try to watch a movie…
n
@Nick
“@drwilliams, it is a Ballantine from the 1970 second printing. Pages are orange. I can still bend them without cracking but it’s close. The cover is flaking.”
Not normal aging for the product. Sounds like it’s been cycled through a few Houston summers in a garage.
I have a first and second printing of Ringworld from the same year that are not quite pristine. For those not familiar, the first printing contained an error–Louis Wu was traveling the wrong way around the earth to extend his birthday.
Famously, the MIT contingent at Worldcon had run some sims and greeted Niven with the chant “The Ringworld is unstable! The Ringworld is unstable! ”. In the sequels the existence of attitude jets was revealed.
Patriot Front with D.C. Police running interference:
https://twitter.com/amuse/status/1657476866184282113
https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/13ioe6e/patriot_front_returning_from_a_dc_march_to/
FIFY
I missed this last week:
“Do You Know Anything?” – Hack Journo Gets Destroyed by Sen. Cruz
https://rumble.com/v2nfbls-do-you-know-anything-hack-journo-gets-destroyed-by-sen.-cruz.html
How can someone who has no capacity for shame be ashamed of himself?
Counter-question should have been:
Q: How long have you been a journalist?
A: You’ve never been a journalist, you’re an echo chamber for Democrat lies.
was
revealedinvented.– and the distraction of searching for the transmuter and control room then takes up several books…. or seems that way.
Still, one of my favorite series. used louis wu as a pseudonym for a while, back in high school.
n
I spent 8 hours driving a big circle doing drive-by lookie-lou’s of properties for sale for my BOL.
Some of them were an hour-and-a-half North, some were an hour-and-10-minutes West, the rest were in that triangle somewhere.
Lots to think about. One of the things I noticed: Neighbors matter. If your nearest neighbor hasn’t patched his roof, and leaves the blue tarp on for months on end, it’s either because he can’t afford it, or can’t be bothered to fix it or get it fixed. Either case could be a problem down the road.
I don’t want to be “that guy” in the neighborhood, I don’t want to be the “rich guy” (it’s not like I could), I don’t want to live too close to “that guy”, either. Grey man would be middle, average, but could be neat and tidy, too.
Off to bed for me now. Driving that much takes a toll.
Well, not precisely normal, but it’s not new, and doesn’t usually cause problems. I’ve heard of it for decades: the foramen ovale is a hole between the two sides of the heart which is totally normal during fetal development but often fails to close completely. Blaming that dude’s strokes on it is, well… it can contribute if there are clots circulating in the bloodstream: they’d normally go on to clog and kill parts of the lungs, but a patent (i.e. unclosed) foramen ovale can let them through to the other side of the circulation where they can clog and kill parts of the brain. But the real problem is the circulating clots. (Also not a new problem, though a rarer and more serious one.)