Hot and muggy, getting hotter throughout the day… Probably. Wednesday was like that. 102F in the shade. Not much breeze and plenty of water suspended in the air.
I did get out of the house for a while. Went to meet with the neighbor at the rent house. My renter gave me a heads up that the guy wanted to see me about the overhanging trees. OK. Well, he’s cut them back to the lot line. Not much for me to do at this point. He keeps repeating himself and acting oddly. I have my pole saw and volunteer to cut what few branches remain on his side of the fence but now he doesn’t want me to. And he wants to put pickets on his side of my rotten fence. So I’m confused, because he seems to want something and I’m not giving it. He’s been living in Vietnam for 30 years so maybe there is a cultural thing I’m missing. In any case, I get out of there with minutes to spare picking up D1 at her camp gig. Weird. And a couple of hours out of my life.
Didn’t get to my secondary so I have to go there today and get the stuff I promised to bring to the meet tonight.
Since my day was shot, and I had the saw, I took some time and trimmed up my big live oak. Every year or two I cut about 6-8ft off everything I can reach. That really lightens the branches, and gets it away from the roof of the house. There’s a big pile of small branches now waiting for heavy trash day. Did I mention it was hot? I was soaked to the skin and starting to feel the heat.
Roofs, saws, and feeling overheated don’t mix. The tree has been trimmed as much as it will be this year…
And more stuff gets pushed to a later time.
I took a few minutes after dinner to make cables for the swim timing system. Simple coax with BNC ends, and a barrel to join with the existing cables. I made a 6ft and a 30ft extension. Now if they work, the timer will be able to reset the deck clock himself if they don’t have someone to do it after every race. That’s what I’ve been doing as my volunteer job, standing next to the clock to push the reset button. And you have to stand, because the cable is only 2ft long. Tonight I’ll be able to sit… or move more than a foot from the machine. Assuming the proprietary system isn’t doing something funny to force you to buy their cable. Just nuts that all that seems to be needed is $5 in cable and a joining barrel. I hate vendor lock-in by custom connectors or other foolishness. I’ve mentioned my sewer camera before, obsolete because they used a niche video display with custom connectors. It’s the opposite of ‘green’ or ‘sustainable’.
Sustainable and repairable are very important to the prepper, and lots of other people benefit from them too. It’s not just a declining society that can make getting replacements difficult- location, supply chain issues, suppliers going out of business, all are arguments to be able to fix things locally with commodity and common parts.
If you have a choice between two mostly identical items but one uses common parts and is easier to repair, that is the one you should get. Oh, and avoid the soft plastic overmold that seems to be on everything nowadays. When it fails, and it will, you are left with a sticky mess. Think hard about multi-purpose items too. If you are actually using it in multiple modes, you lose all the functions if you lose the use of the item. If it’s critical, it should do that one job well, and not be used for anything else. And you should have spares.
So stack up some spares, stack some tools, stack some know how, and chose simplicity over complexity.
nick
Cell phones. Yes, they replace a whole pile of separate gadgets. But we all know someone who was completely helpless when she lost her phone: wasn’t able to contact anyone because she didn’t know their phone numbers or email addresses or facebook names because she didn’t have to remember them. Couldn’t pay for anything because “Venmo, duh”. Couldn’t even find her way home from ten miles away because she used GPS and because she talked while driving and didn’t pay attention to landmarks or street names.
Of course, half of those problems come from relying on gadgets rather than one’s own knowledge and abilities. That’s a separate issue.
Coffee consumed. Eggs eaten. Child awakened.
Headed to first appointment of the day. 86F in the shade and damp.
n
26C/80F and 40% here in London, UK, in late afternoon. Temperatures have been at about this level all week, which isn’t too bad. If it gets above about 30C, I start wilting.
G.
@stevef:
Haven’t they heard of plastic money cards? Or are those irredeemably obsolete? I carry 2 Android phones on the same account – albeit one doesn’t have a SIM in it (trivially fixable) – and several money cards. And even (shock, horror!) cash. Besides, my memory is still reasonably good, despite 0x4A years, so I still have some contact numbers, names, and even addresses, in wetware, so I’m not irredeemably screwed if I lose my main phone (or it breaks. And eventually, it will break).
G.
But 0x4A years is probably why I still remember things, without technological assistance. When I was young, there were no such aides memoire, so it was your unaided memory. Or, at most, a notebook.
G.
The agenda in the US is to make cash obsolete. I doubt that will happen, but they try.
Kinokuniya, the Japanese book chain, was growing like mad here in the US pre-pandemic thanks to the poularity of Manga, but, when Covid struck, the stores adopted a strict no cash policy and enforced masking well into last year.
Someone was paying attention at Barnes & Noble, however. They expanded their Manga offerings to the point that the sections are larger than Sci Fi in many stores, and that may have been enough to save the chain from oblivion. Certainly, they put the hurt on Kinokuniya using the same distributors.
Brick and mortar retailing. In Barnes & Noble’s case Manga … and Harry Potter.
Plastic is not going obsolete anytime soon in the US. Many banks stopped issuing their own ATM cards and simply send Visa debit by default.
My fisherman buddy is convinced that the US will force a move to central bank digital currency. It would take a civil war to sort that out.
And the 50 million illegals aren’t getting state id cards.
Even in the most repressive places cash still was used.
I’ve made the case several times to get started using cash in the secondary marketplace.
n
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12190239/The-REAL-reason-inflation-remains-high-flour-stubbornly-expensive-cost-bacon-falling.html
–only because it was high last year. Gas here is up 20-30c in just a couple of weeks.
n
– that’s not why energy dropped. There is nothing cheap about renewables.
n
No, dude. Gotta lighten the load. Carry the phone (of course! would die without it!) and a key ring for the car and apartment keys. Don’t want to carry cash or cards because that’s too much clutter.
Of course, these same people also have three pounds of makeup, a hair brush, and who knows what else in the purse. The claim of not wanting the weight and bulk and bother of an envelope with cash seems to be something other than the complete truth, or else they’re imbeciles unable to think rationally.
I’m so old that I remember when gasoline prices went up 120% in just a few months.
The claim of not wanting the weight and bulk and bother of an envelope with cash seems to be something other than the complete truth, or else they’re imbeciles unable to think rationally.
Embrace the power of “and.”
I’m so old that I remember when gasoline prices went up 120% in just a few months.
I’m so old that I remember when a gallon of gas cost 25 cents.
I remember when opposing corner gas stations would drive the price down to .10 per gallon.
Can’t say I remember .10, but I do remember less than .20 in San Francisco ca 1970.
I go back further on gas prices. I remember $0.17 as normal in 1967 when I started driving. On the farm we spent $0.09 a gallon as there was no tax on farm gas. Supposedly the gas was not used on the road so there was no need to pay road taxes. We were not supposed to use the gas in the cars, but we did anyway. Unlike some states that put green dye in the gas and the state highway patrol can legally inspect the fuel system for the green dye. Oregon did not dye their farm fuel. Diesel was even less and I think we paid $0.05 a gallon in 1966.
During the summer we would go through 500 gallons of gas a month, diesel about 250 gallons. We had regular delivery of fuel.
>> Plus, new/interesting streaming service content is pretty limited right now between Hollywood labor unrest and Disney figuratively (literally?) flipping over sofa cushions in Burbank and Orlando looking for spare change.
Of course Disney denies the rumors…what would they need a billion dollars for?
https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/28/entertainment/queen-music-catalog-sale/index.html
Hurricane season. We’ve already seen one named tropical storm in the Gulf, and water temps are warm in the common track areas.
Comcast wants to exercise the buyout clause covering their one-third stake in Hulu.
The street value of the stake is zero, but The Mouse could be faced with a forced payment of anywhere between $10 and $20 billion by the end of the year.
Disney’s current cash reserve is estimated at ~ $200 million, and the first year payment on commercial paper for that much money covering a worthless asset would be more than that number.
Only since it’s been in the news lately…
>> @mratoz and @ray, oh thanks, now I’ve got that image in my brain! Gahh, where’s the brain bleach when I need it?
Ask Cankles. Or substitute this. YMMV.
>> Roofs, saws, and feeling overheated don’t mix. The tree has been trimmed as much as it will be this year…
Plus working over your head is taxing. Of course, finding one of these in an auction would be a handy addition. May not go over so well with the missus though.
Early 60’s it was 35 cents but that was for an imperial gallon. The US and imperial ounce is about the same but an imperial quart was 40 ounces and the imperial gallon was 160 ounces. Going metric has eliminated the confusion around quart vs quart and gallon vs gallon.
“Texas AG sues Biden administration over Title IX interpretation”
https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/texas-attorney-general-biden-title-ix-18153877.php
“State law that limits transgender student athletes’ participation in sports runs afoul of the updated federal civil rights law.”
““Trans kids deserve to be respected in schools. Kids having their pronouns respected is a basic human right that cis people take for granted. Does the AG really want to tell Texas children that some kids deserve their teacher’s respect and others do not?” Johnathan Gooch, communications director for the LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Texas, said in a statement to The Texas Tribune.”
Sorry, trans kids do not have special rights just because you say so.
My fisherman buddy is convinced that the US will force a move to central bank digital currency. It would take a civil war to sort that out.
And the 50 million illegals aren’t getting state id cards.
Even in the most repressive places cash still was used.
I’ve made the case several times to get started using cash in the secondary marketplace.
What is the secondary marketplace ?
>> “Donald Trump arrested: Special counsel Jack Smith confronts former president in courtroom”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/courts/donald-trump-arrested-jack-smith-confronts-former-president-miami-courtroom
According to even some of the LSM, Trump was not “arrested” on Tuesday.
– that’s not why energy dropped. There is nothing cheap about renewables.
The estimated maintenance requirements of the renewables was about ½ (SWAG) the actual required maintenance. Solar panels need cleaning at least once per week. The windmill gearboxes are failing at a very high rate due to uneven loads and lubrication problems. The ocean turbines do not even last a year. The biofuel plants have an obscene amount of landfill requirements on a good day, bad days are unreal. Etc, etc, etc.
Hurricane season. We’ve already seen one named tropical storm in the Gulf, and water temps are warm in the common track areas.
The refiners had to switch to the low vapor pressure gasoline on June 1 to meet EPA requirements. The additional refining cost is about 10 cents per gallon. Then there is another cost (SWAG 10 cents/gallon) of the patent charge for whoever owns the old Unocal patent now on mixing gasoline to get low vapor pressure so that the gasoline does not evaporate in the summer heat. This is tens of millions of dollars per year and has been extensively litigated.
>> Roofs, saws, and feeling overheated don’t mix. The tree has been trimmed as much as it will be this year…
Plus working over your head is taxing. Of course, finding one of these in an auction would be a handy addition. May not go over so well with the missus though.
Outriggers are your friend. Of course, do NOT hit anything going up or going down as that will tip you over.
https://www.winsim.com/lynn_replacing_warehouse_top_light.jpg
Gas was around $.90/gal when I started driving in 1988. I don’t remember that, I had to look it up.
Driving to South Texas last Summer on I-69, we saw at least one windmill with lightning damage.
@ Lynn, secondary economy is yard sales thrift stores bodegas auctions estate sales that sort of thing.
N
Wind turbine gear boxes get eaten up by Eddy currents and the bearings get pitted from stray current it’s a major issue.
N
“EPA could set tighter NOx limits for new gas-fired power plants under proposed consent decree”
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/epa-nox-limits-nsps-new-gas-fired-power-plants-sierra-club-edf/653066/
“The standard for new gas-fired power plants hasn’t been updated in more than 16 years, so it no longer reflects achievable emission limits, according to the Environmental Defense Fund and Sierra Club.”
Here we go again. Running a selective catalytic reduction system is expensive. And high maintenance.
The Geico Gecko failed in his quest to get the gas “backup” generator subsidy passed by the Texas Legislature. I don’t think it is unrelated.
Things that make you say “Hmmmm….”: Lt. Governor Dan Patrick was evidently the Gecko’s point man on the issue and wants the subsidy addressed in the next special session.
I heard Patrick on the radio this morning while driving back from a doctor’s appointment downtown.
When Texas goes “blue” it will go fast.
“No More i3, i5, i7? Intel’s Overhauling How It Names Its Desktop and Laptop CPUs”
https://www.pcmag.com/news/no-more-i3-i5-i7-intels-overhauling-how-it-names-its-desktop-and-laptop
“Don’t expect CPUs called ’14th Gen Core,’ and say bye-bye to the old ‘i.’ Intel simplifies its iconic Core brand, starting with upcoming ‘Meteor Lake’ processors. Will it make understanding its CPUs easier, or murkier?”
How about a “duh” moment? You know how you can ctrl-roll mouse wheel to resize icons in Explorer? You can do the same on the Desktop in Win11.
I just found you can do that in Win7. What the heck?
The new Moa is running fine. My PC is running fine. Just one more pushing eleven years old PC to deal with. So I need to either replace the keyboard and mouse or get the gizmo that lets you connect two PS/2 things to a USB port. I have the gizmo on my PC, works fine. But it was $3 and now it’s $12 for the same thing.
It’s not just about the money. Although Mr. Buffalo will disagree. It seems wasteful to toss a working keyboard and mouse into the trash.
I’ll probably buy new and save the old stuff for spares.
My shopping list so far is another PC, a 500GB WD Blue stick, an Orico case for it, an Orico case for the existing 1TB WD Blue SSD, and (if the gizmo is still high priced) a mouse and a keyboard.
Why a 500GB WD stick? He has a 1TB SSD now and is using /almost/ 180GB.
Oh. And the gizmo that lets you use a SATA DVD burner and connect it via USB. Cheaper than a pure USB DVD burner. Not as pretty but “waste not, want not”.
Plans. I have one.
The little PC will be mounted to the back of his monitor. Because “flat surface” and hey, “I’ll put my kindle here”.
A bit more. We have Gateway i5s. The new PCs are “Intel(R) Pentium(R) Silver N6005 @ 2.00GHz” and while pissing around with a prog called “Core Temp”, it does crank up to 3200MHz but generally seems to loaf at 778 MHz.
Snappy for everything I do. How much of “snappy” is the CPU and how much is Win11 Pro, err…. I have no way to tell. I’m too lazy to try to install Win7, nevermind the dealing with video drivers and all of that.
I got my drivers license in 1961 when I was 16. In SE Michigan, gasoline usually cost about $0.30 per US gallon, except during gas wars when the majors tried to drive out the independents and lowered the price to about $0.20 per US gallon. I made about a dollar an hour, actually pretty good at the time. So, filling up my ’57 Plymouth cost about five hours of my labor.
By the time I graduated college, filling a similar size tank cost me a little more than an hour of my labor. It fluctuated over the years, and I would have to look up prices and my wages to plot it. Might be interesting.
Another thing I have mentally kept track of is how much a new car battery cost in terms of a gasoline fill-up. Back in the 1960s it was about 12 tanks. Bought a new battery a few months ago, and it cost about two tanks worth. Batteries reached their cheapest in dollars back about the year 2000, when I bought two for $26 each. Name brand, not on sale. Each battery cost about one tank’s worth of gasoline.
Fun with numbers. It would also be possible to use CPI corrected numbers, but whose CPI? A rich guy who used to appear on Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser made his own CPI. It had about a dozen items, and included the price of a Rolls Royce and a martini at his favorite bar in Manhattan. He argued that these were things important to him. He didn’t include the cost of housing, because he said he had a wonderful house that he intended to die in. He probably got his wish. I wish I could remember his name.
I agree, and like the term snappy; I occasionally say crisp or responsive. My benchmarking has always been to just do things that are normal for me. Over the years, I have learned a lot.
I found that some applications, particularly word processors, are an order of magnitude faster than others. That was especially true for spell checking. Back in the hoary olden days, I used an “executive” word processor called PFS Professional Write. It kept the whole file in RAM, and was lightning fast, even on an 8088. Of course, it was limited in the size of files it could handle. Also didn’t do graphics. About the same time, I used WordStar 4.0 because my office used it. I didn’t like its UI at first, but I grew fond of it later. It was fast, and could page large files in and out of RAM.
All of that ended with more powerful processors and more capable word processors.
As for computers, I often used two very different ones side by side, Jerry’s definition of multitasking. Sometimes the differences were astounding, particularly graphics (PowerPoint) handling.
Also, loading large files, whether word processors or spreadsheets. One of the biggest reasons I left Linux was Libre Office. It was actually a pretty good implementation of word processing and spreadsheet, but the speed, particularly with large files, was glacial. The developers admitted it, but pleaded lack of resources.
Speaking of applications, I have a friend who was a devotee of OS/2 Warp. He thought it was a very good OS for its time, but it lacked application support. Moot to me, but no OS can succeed without good apps. That’s why I am back to Windows. After a couple of years, I don’t miss anything I had on my Linux box. I do turn it on occasionally, and do like some things, but overall, my desktop is owned by M$. I do wish it was better, but I also wish my car could go faster and be invisible.
Got $1,500,000 ? “A wheel-y steep price tag! Inside the $1.5 MILLION motorhome that boasts ‘spaceship interiors’, a wine fridge, massage chairs – and a GARAGE for a car”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-12191497/Inside-1-5-million-motorhome-SPACESHIP-interiors.html
I think that I would actually be able to stand up in the shower in that beast.
I highly doubt the 10 to 11 mpg. My uncle had a diesel pusher with a CAT V8 and a 6 speed Allison that got 6 mpg.
I got my drivers license in 1961 when I was 16. In SE Michigan, gasoline usually cost about $0.30 per US gallon, except during gas wars when the majors tried to drive out the independents and lowered the price to about $0.20 per US gallon. I made about a dollar an hour, actually pretty good at the time. So, filling up my ’57 Plymouth cost about five hours of my labor.
I just put 24.5 US gallons of regular unleaded in my F-150 4×4 for $72.50. $2.959 / US gallon.
I got 17.0 mpg on the previous tank. I am driving across south Texas tomorrow so I will probably get 20 mpg on the new tank unless I don’t keep it below 80 mph.
Snappy for everything I do. How much of “snappy” is the CPU and how much is Win11 Pro, err…. I have no way to tell. I’m too lazy to try to install Win7, nevermind the dealing with video drivers and all of that.
I have read that Windows 7 will not install on any newer Intel cpus and motherboards than the 6th ??? or 7th ??? generation. I have Window 7 x64 Ultimate installed on my Intel I7-2600K with a Gigabyte Z68K motherboard.
Newer AMD too. Microsoft bribed the vendors to stop making drivers for newer hardware and then handed out free Windows 10 licenses to all the resellers of hardware coming off of corporate lease.
There really isn’t any technical reason the OS couldn’t run, but Redmond wanted Windows 7 gone.
Purging Windows 10 will be tougher since Windows 11 requires the TPM 2.0 module and an EFI file system.
Registry hacks during install will bypass the checks, but, without a TPM 2.0 module, you won’t be able to update. I have first hand experience.
“Saudi Arabia Sought to Push Oil Prices Higher. Markets Had Other Ideas.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/saudi-arabia-sought-to-push-oil-prices-higher-markets-had-other-ideas-30583af6
“Higher-than-expected production and worries about slowing demand are weighing on crude”
The summer is not over yet.
Hat tip to:
https://www.drudgereport.com/
Speaking of applications, I have a friend who was a devotee of OS/2 Warp. He thought it was a very good OS for its time, but it lacked application support. Moot to me, but no OS can succeed without good apps. That’s why I am back to Windows. After a couple of years, I don’t miss anything I had on my Linux box. I do turn it on occasionally, and do like some things, but overall, my desktop is owned by M$. I do wish it was better, but I also wish my car could go faster and be invisible.
I wish my truck would fly with controlled (soft) landings.
I have a Pentium of some kind in my “road” laptop.
My big gripe about the system is the artificially limited memory capacity. 4 GB. This is on a system which was produced within the last five years.
Fedora Linux runs kinda sorta, but that’s probably a good thing since I can’t do any work work on the machine beyond memory leak checking snippets of code with Valgrind.
This is really a downer of a trip. I thought there’d just be a few loose ends to tie up on my brother’s estate, and yesterday I got a load of boxes dumped on me. Cremains of 2 of his wives, and boxes of photos, mostly unlabeled fuzzy snapshots, of children from his wives’ prior marriages. File folders full of report cards, crayon drawing, and stuff you send to grandma. Photo albums full of old B&W pictures of people who are no relation to me.
The most recent one died 8 years ago, and no one ever reached out to us to get any of this stuff back. I’m going through it all, but to be honest, I douby anyone really would want it back.
I have to go through it all because I honestly do believe there are some things I’d like to keep, like photos of my children I sent him through the years.
By the way, UPS can’t ship cremated remains. You have to use USPS and you have to use registered priority mail. A bit of news I hope you don’t ever need to use. As of next week, I’ll have 3 boxes of cremains in my home, and no clue what I’m going to do with them.
Shark Tank had a feller that will turn cremains into a pile of smooth white stones, albeit for a price.
Nick, re disposal of your concrete waste, ask around if someone wants to build a berm for shooting.
@lpdbw
“By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” –Genesis 3:19
Check the local regs on scattering ashes. The trace elements belong back in the soil.
If the regs don’t permit. a bag of Sakrete and a stepping stone form will take care of it.
Speaking of applications, I have a friend who was a devotee of OS/2 Warp. He thought it was a very good OS for its time, but it lacked application support. Moot to me, but no OS can succeed without good apps. That’s why I am back to Windows. After a couple of years, I don’t miss anything I had on my Linux box. I do turn it on occasionally, and do like some things, but overall, my desktop is owned by M$. I do wish it was better, but I also wish my car could go faster and be invisible.
I wish my truck would fly with controlled (soft) landings.
Like the flying Delorean from the second Back To The Future movie, “Back to the Future Part 2 (1/12) Movie CLIP – We Don’t Need Roads (1989) HD”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCjsUxbNmIs
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Mark 10
lpdbw said:
A raised bed planted with flowers. That’s what will happen to my wife and I, I hope.
Alternatively, last year I and my siblings scattered my father’s ashes offshore of Marathon Key, Florida. It was a place he loved.
Disneyworld has very strict rules about it, ie. it’s not allowed AT ALL, but part of dad is there anyway. Part of him is in a lot of places around the world that he never got to visit while alive.
My wife’s beloved uncle is on a number of golf courses all over the US and the world.
I’ve made my wishes clear, WDW, the Pacific ocean, or Lake Michigan. Or all three. Easier to visit that way. Of course, no one in 150 years will be cleaning off my stone, or taking a grave rubbing, wondering who I was and how I lived and died. There is a sort of immortality in that…
n
We won our meet, cables worked, it was crazy hot until the sun went away, and merely unpleasant after that. Kid swam well, still needs work on her kick turns. Oh well, done for the year now…
and off to a shower and bed.n