Hot and humid of course. It was smoking hot when I left my BOL, and pretty freaking hot when I got to Houston. It started blowing and raining shortly after I got home, and that helped for a short time. Still hot.
Got everything buttoned up, and finished cleaning up some of the mess from all the grading and excavating I did last month at the BOL. It wasn’t on my list to clean the driveway but after seeing it through fresh eyes, it had to be done. It was also the coolest thing I could think of to do in the morning. I’m glad I did it too, as it made a huge difference.
That and putting everything away took most of the day. I left for Houston, did a stop for gas and to pick up some auction items, and eventually got home.
Where I discovered some computer issues. We had a power outage and things didn’t come back up. Details are in yesterday’s comments, but the takeaway is- be sure your electronics are on surge protectors and UPSs, not just ‘power strips’. Even good power strips with metal cases, aren’t necessarily surge protectors. My main PC is one month shy of being 10 years old. It still works (other than this new power supply issue) well for everything I need to do. I have a software environment that I like, with everything saved and auto-filling what needs to be filled, and don’t want to change or re-install a bunch of software. Besides that, it offends my soul to get rid of something that is working well.
So I’ll try a new psu and hope there wasn’t any damage to motherboard or other components.
Today I’ve got stuff to take to my auctioneer. I’ll try to make a couple of trips if I can. One pickup in the afternoon, and IF there is time left after that, I need to go by the rent house and see what my part of the ‘getting ready to rent to new tenants’ clusterflock will be. I’m thinking fence repair, porch floor repair, and ceiling drywall repair, just from what I already know. My wife will be cleaning and painting and doing any small wall repairs. Thank gnu we only have to do this every few years. Five years in this case. I would not like to do it every year.
It’s a busy time of year and the rent house changeover isn’t helping. We’ve got to hit it hard and get the place rented again. There’s no rest for the weary, or the wicked. Take your pick. And stack something.
nick
Erf… My office is in a large room where maybe 20 other people also have desks. Since Covid, it’s mostly empty. During the semester, I’m there about 2 days a week, and I’m one of the more frequent users.
So, no surprise, the school has decided to move to flexible desks, and fewer of them. Only: I have a lot of reference books. A docking station and monitors that suit my particular laptop. The prof. across from me uses a Mac, so he has a very different setup. The prof behind me has yet another different setup. So how, exactly, are communal desks supposed to work?
Zero information available, and the guy responsible is on vacation until mid-August. But we should please all pack up our personal effects by the end of the month. Two weeks for the rearrangement to happen, and then: who knows what we’ll find? I am very irritated…
@Nick: Replace the CMOS battery, that little coin cell. If there is one. If that battery dies strange things can happen. My $0.02.
This year, when we went for our annual look, I definitely felt the pressure that they didn’t want anyone poking around the site, even on the public right of way.
The Border Patrol checkpoint upped their game with occupancy detection cameras and more scrutiny of the vehicle.
Of course, with the road torn up, it limits the Tonymobiles heading out there. The parking lot was all big Toyota or Ford trucks.
Are the proprietary power supplies still in the junk the warehouse clubs sell?
Are they putting in USB-C/Thunderbolt docking stations for the laptops?
My guess is that they will deploy a reservation web page for the desks, securing space for a day at a time
Below a certain age here, management doesn’t understand the concept of paper books or reference materials. Hot Skillz usually don’t involve a book.
@Greg: Of course. And, to be fair, I rarely use the books, because almost everything is online. I’ll probably throw a lot of them away rather than pack them up. There is no information on docking stations, but I currently have a USB-C/Thunderbolt one. That may be what they are planning.
Also true: management itself is not hot-desking with anyone.
Back in the 80’s one management fad was Ken Blanchard’s “One Minute Manager”. His style was “management by walking around”
our mgr at the time was a proponent of a variation we called “Management by screwing with people”
No, we didn’t call it exactly that.
Where I currently work, sales and marketing are not hot desking, but you don’t have those in a university environment.
I’ve heard stories from people who worked for CNN ~ 25 years ago about Ted Turner living in the penthouse of the CNN center and walking the halls at night in his bathrobe.
From what I understand, Turner also lived at “The Plantation”, Turner Broadcasting’s legacy HQ pre-Time Warner buyout which was an old country club in Atlanta with an antebellum mansion as a centerpiece.
I still like to keep paper copies of Josuttis’ C++ Standard Library text and various O’Reilly books around and bookmark them with post-its.
However, I haven’t had a real, permanent space in 13 years, since I left the Death Star.
Neil DeGasbag Tiresome:
Neil DeGrasse Tyson says biology is insufficient at explaining gender ideology – and teen detransition activist Chloe Cole rips his claims
He has become Bill Nye “The Douchebag Guy” 2.0 His video flounders around trying to justify wokeness. He isn’t that smart.
Plain old pandering for clicks and bucks. Sad, really, modern science isn’t science.
DeGrasse Tyson was annointed by the Sagan Concubine as the ideological heir to Mr. X’s legacy.
Did anyone watch the new “Cosmos”.
At least Sagan’s brain farts could be explained by his tendency to be stoned all the time, even in public. He occasionally did meaningful work, whether in astronomy or science writing.
The explanation of Special Relativity in the old school “Cosmos” is still a genius piece of science communication.
I knew a couple of EMT’s that cautioned us on Electrolyte drinks/Gatorade. (I am not a doctor, don’t play one on TV, and didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn Express, so…)
The concern, as I understand it, is that you can actually do real harm if you drink them after you are already badly dehydrated/depleted. These drinks are designed to be used before/during the event, not as recovery after. They recommended cutting the strength in half. Alternating ORS with plain water would do the same, I suppose.
Just something to be aware of, not saying to avoid them.
Are the proprietary power supplies still in the junk the warehouse clubs sell?
– that is my concern, with no easy way to tell if it is, that I remember. I looked at the processor in the much more modern PC I use with linux as the NVR, and it’s “Kaby Lake” so only works with win10. I considered moving to it if this one is hosed. Yeah, no real interest in that. (there are ways to do reg editing to get win7 running on it, and it has “limited” support for win11)
@rick, good idea about the coincell. It’s still holding memory for date and settings at the moment.
I can’t recall if this PC was a Costco special, or if I bought it from Dell small business. That is what I used to recommend to people who didn’t just want the cheapest, just do what I need this year, computer. Those PCs were much more solid and expandable, and built to last longer. It’s an XPS 9600 series.
————————
Time to get some wake up juice and some chicken and pig in me. Looks hot already, and sunny. I would like to get one storage unit open before noon…
n
Quoted for truth.
It doesn’t just apply to affirmative action scientists these days. It seems anyone with a white coat fits that model.
Tyson was good as a science popularizer and explainer, back when he talked about astronomy and cosmology and touched on fundamental physics. Once he became a celebrity and started weighing in on topics outside of his expertise, and with strong social influences, he beclowned himself. No longer worth listening to on any topic, including astronomy.
Windows 11 will tolerate lack of EFI/GPT drive partitioning but isn’t happy without the TPM.
IMHO, 11 was all about making Hollywood happy.
I’m trying to wind down the dependencies on Windows 7 around my house. I regret upgrading to 7 from XP on my kids’ old machine because now I can’t get that to reinstall on a clean disk using the same hardware from original discs.
XP was the last release where Microsoft would hack the kernel to get legacy consumer applications running such as games, and it didn’t have the security mess.
Randomly related: I did some soldering on the weekend. Then yesterday I read an article about an open-source firmware (IronOS) for soldering irons. WTF? Modern soldering irons have/need firmware? Seriously?
I saw a link to that on a site somewhere recently (Lobsters or yCombinator?), but thought it was probably about stations for small businesses?
I’ve never watched Alone, but some here do, so I thought I’d pass along an opportunity from the San Luis Obispo Botanical Garden (someone signed me up for their newsletter, never been there):
I was once familiar with most versions of Windows, but actually used 2, 3.11, NT4, 2000, and now 10 for production. I had test setups of most other versions except 7. The gap between 2000 and 10 was my misadventure with Linux. I tested too many distros to remember without a dive into my logs, but only used various versions of about three. Oh, I supported XP as a volunteer, but the OS really didn’t need any support.
The only problems I ever had with Windows was hardware failures. Linux was the opposite.
Windows may not be perfect, but it sure feels like a comfortable pair of shoes to me.
I change CMOS batteries as cheap insurance whenever I open a case on a production box, which isn’t often. As someone said, there can be subtle failures, even if the clock and settings seem OK.
Connectors… major failure point. RAM and bus in particular. Cleaning has always fixed ’em. Don’t recall any internal cable failures. Given the complexity and all the precision stressed parts, PCs have remarkable reliability.
The article about IronOS was on yCombinator. Apparently it is used especially on the small soldering irons that can be powered by USB, not least because USB requires negotiation.
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2023/08/an-amazing-photograph.html?m=1
Rule #3: Be there.
Soldering irons in a modern factory setting might need to track number of uses, time, temperature, etc. to avoid any down time due to unexpected failure or quality issues caused by incorrect technique.
In contract assembly, the rework area could serve many customers, and the time would have to be billed accurately to the respective account.
There might also be ISO-9000 audit requirements to track time/temperature during application of the iron to the board which weren’t around during my brief stint working in a factory making circuit boards, which ended 30 years ago in May.
Stabilant-22 is a good option. Jerry used to recommend the product. I have used the product for many years and yet to have a connection on the MB go wonky. The stuff is expensive but goes a long way and a small bottle will last a very long time.
I am running W11 on both of my machines, a desktop with major performance (64 Gig of memory, two M.2 2 TB SSD, Intel I9, sucker is fast) and my Surface Pro 3 laptop. I have some minor issues, usually related to some software that installs junk in the startup that I don’t want. Adobe is particularly bad about doing those chunks of code. ACD Systems is another violator. No, I don’t need a program to start up every time and check for updates. There is a lot of information on the WEB for solving such problems.
Generally speaking, W11 has been one of the more stable offerings from Microsoft in my environment.
I am also using MacOS on a MacBook Air with the M2 processor. There have been some quirks there. Fortunately, there is a lot of information on the WEB about the problems and fixes.
I really don’t like the MacOS ignoring the CTL-? key combination. MacOS uses Command-? instead and that key is not in a place on the keyboard that lends itself to easy use with one hand in conjunction with X, C, V, A. Mac fanboys claim Apple was the first with shortcut keys. Not true based on my early experience with a PC and DOS 1.0 (if my memory serves me correctly).
I don’t like that MacOS does not have a delete key operation like the PC. There is a delete key but it deletes the character to the left of the cursor and moves the cursor left. That operation on the PC uses the backspace key. The Delete key on a PC deletes to the right of the cursor. There is no Backspace key on the MacBook Air. A difference that sometimes trips me up.
File operations from Lightroom are three times as fast as my PC. Deleting 1,000 images in Lightroom takes about a minute on my PC. On the MacBook Air that same operation takes about 20 seconds. Importing pictures seems a little fast on the MacBook Air.
I have tried to buy it a few times, but never did. I was usually led to some Canadian mom and pop site, where it is hard to order. I just searched, and found several sources. Guess I will have to finally bite the bullet.
I see there are even kits to mix your own. Hmm, I will have to do some shopping. Need some round tuits.
Anyone have some recent ordering experience?
Don’t do it! They’re trying to trick you into making meth at home.
Ray, your experience with benchmarking parallels mine. Just do normal things. It is remarkable how some setups seem snappier than others.
I remember an old book called Windows Annoyances, probably back in the 3.11 days, or something like that. The author said he only documented things for which he had found alternatives. He had a lot of stuff not covered anywhere else that I found. I see there are some similar articles now. I should take a look.
Really?!
On second thought, do you have any bridges for sale?
I was able to buy a bottle some years back at my local VW dealer here in San Antonio. Worth a shot. I now use the DeoxIT products. I get it on the ‘Zon.
Dr. Pournelle cited NAPA Auto Parts as his source on more than one occasion.
The ZON has Stabilant-22. Stuff is expensive.
Thanks. I found some of those, too. I have put it on my to do list.
Pearls Before Swine: Timmy Tardigrade
https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2023/08/02
Five mass extinctions, huh.
Asking for a friend, aren’t they suppose to collect R-22 when they put in a new system ? Or does everyone blow that off ? Literally.
And they just cut the Comcast cable at the house putting in the new sprinkler system. Comcast (Xfinity) will be coming out Friday morning to fix it.
Apparently the cable marking was off by about six feet or so. How do you miss the internet cable by six feet ?
Recovered freon is very valuable to the AC guys. I paid $700 for four pounds last year.
I don’t miss Kabletown.
Was your neighborhood built during the time in the early 2000s when what is now Comcast was part of legacy AT&T pre SBC buyout? 2000 would have been a strike year.
I have holes in at least one sprinkler line created by a combination of a fence contractor drilling last week in a place where a sprinkler line was “bent” into position by an equally bonheaded sprinkler contractor at some point.
No one from the fence crew knocked on the door to let me know they struck water drilling the holes. I guess they figured that they didn’t have to bother since I waived the sprinkler coverage thinking that the lines couldn’t possibly run through that area. I think that decision is going to cost big money.
“FLASHBACK: Rush Limbaugh predicts Dems would try to indict Trump to prevent him from running again”
https://thepostmillennial.com/flashback-rush-limbaugh-predicts-dems-would-try-to-indict-trump-to-prevent-him-from-running-again
“”They can’t separate you from Trump. And more importantly, they can’t separate you from the ideas,” Limbaugh went on speaking to his viewers. “If they somehow make Trump look bad, make Trump look like a reprobate, embarrass you, they can’t do it because you came before Trump.””
Was your neighborhood built during the time in the early 2000s when what is now Comcast was part of legacy AT&T pre SBC buyout?
My house was built in 1998. Services here are dicey because the smallest lot is 1.0 acre, our lot is 1.2 acres. I have both Comcast and AT&T wiring. We do not have a house phone connected to AT&T.
“McDonald’s Bankruptcies Soar 40% and Now Thousands of Stores Are About to Disappear”
https://discern.tv/mcdonalds-bankruptcies-soar-40-and-now-thousands-of-stores-are-about-to-disappear/
“For about 40% of franchisees, McDonald’s new financial requirements may end their years-long leases because the company’s rising expenses are not allowing these stores to hit profit targets. Simply put, these franchisees may have their contracts canceled, losing all of their investment if they fail to meet corporate expectations. In other words, one in four McDonald’s operators is at risk of going bankrupt due to the actions of the company itself.”
Are you kidding me ?
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
“BEST VIDEO EVER! Store Owner Beats Daylights Out of Looter”
https://www.toddstarnes.com/crime/best-video-ever-store-owner-beats-daylights-out-of-looter/
The Caspers family in Tampa bailed on McDonalds recently, forcing the parent to buy them out, which was really surprising news to me when I read it.
Caspers Company was one of the original franchisee operations and set the standards for those that followed.
A new McDonalds just opened near my house. Even though it is only a couple of miles from the store out at the Interstate, the location will eventually be a key choke point for commuters driving from the new developments north and northwest of us down to Dell and HP Enterprise.
Indians generally want new houses.
McDonalds will survive. The one that has essentially vanished from the area is Burger King.
My current favorite guilty pleasure TV returns tomorrow night.
It looks like that will be quite a show.
https://www.eonline.com/shows/botched
I thought McDonalds (corporate) was now a real estate company?
I just had a thought.
Why do bathroom sinks have an overflow and any kitchen sink I can recall does not?
Nice and sunny here. A little bit of breeze. Looks nice. Need rain, I prefer green grass and weed to brown. 107f so far. It was 81f at 6am this morning.
Home. Made two trips to my auctioneer’s place and he’s ok with more stuff tomorrow too. Talked with the owner by phone and he’s recovering. I would like to take advantage of his misfortune and move a bunch of stuff… helps him too, he’s got staff and they gotta eat.
D2 is smack talking with her girlfriend playing some video game, where they are in a reverse deathmatch. Each is trying to die 5 times before the other does. It’s loud in the house 🙂
Need to figure out something for dinner.
Have an extra child tonight…
n
It is, which made the Caspers Company deal even more interesting.
Maybe management was afraid that the Orlando franchisee behind the store on I-Drive would buy Caspers Company.
The Orlando franchisee does whatever he wants because he holds what is possibly the most valuable restaurant location in the city. Olive Garden #1 used to be located across the street.
The new North 4 ton Ruud a/c (heat pump) at the office has got us down to 76 F. It was 78 F this time yesterday. It is 100 F outside. The old South 3.5 ton a/c unit will be very happy in a while when it gets to shut down for a while. It was 85 in the second story with the guys trooping in and out of that nice toasty attic.
Toss some chicken parts on the gas grill. Get the rice cooker going. If you insist on veggies, use the nuker to heat a can o’ whatever.
Easy.
I’m skipping the veggies.
“U.S. Credit Rating Down Graded—Trump Indictment is Distraction From Economic Upheaval”
http://capoliticalreview.com/capoliticalnewsandviews/u-s-credit-rating-down-graded-trump-indictment-is-distraction-from-economic-upheaval/
“At the exact same moment, within minutes, of the newest election interference by the Biden Crime Family announcing the indictment of President Trump, a REAL story broke.”
“Fitch Ratings downgraded the credit rating of the U.S. on Tuesday, saying the country’s growing debt and repeated standoffs over the borrowing limit make it less trustworthy then before.”
“Fitch downgraded the U.S. from a rating of “AAA” to “AA+” after several years of high-risk partisan battles over the debt limit. Those battles, Fitch said, have led to a spiraling national debt and a lack of faith in the U.S. government to handle it.”
Dat not good.
Also
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2023/08/the-full-faith-and-credit-of-usa-is-bit.html
Comcast was part of legacy AT&T briefly in the 90s until Wall Street lost faith in CEO Michael Armstrong’s plan to revive “Ma Bell” on coax and fiber, forcing a corporate divorce which almost caused ‘T’ to be delisted until the management engineered a reverse split and started talking to the remaining Baby Bells about being bought out.
What is now AT&T CLEC in Texas is legacy Southwest Bell.
AT&T Fiber is technically another company under the agreement with the State of Texas under which the state sold its soul to get fiber Internet service. Otherwise, AT&T was going to keep pretending Uverse bonded DSL was the future and continue to blight entire neighborhoods with those ugly beige boxes where the signals for the TV service were actually terminated, within a few hundred yards of the set top boxes.
>> Lesson learned. I thought it was on the UPS. I meant to put it on the UPS. But I didn’t.
Sounds like maybe you are…
https://youtu.be/lFQKvtbD6Kw
🙂
The projection is $1 Trillion in Treasury auctions this quarter. Not all of those will get bought, of course, so the Fed will absorb the rest.
Gotta keep the housing market going into the election year. Texas is doing its part with the property tax “reform”.
>> So how, exactly, are communal desks supposed to work?
They work fine when the corporate Real Estate drones (perhaps wearing yoga pants?) present the plan to senior management…fancy PPT slides showing mock-ups of the “to be” arrangement.
In reality, at least with my colleagues at a different location where it was first deployed, people (especially the early-birds) just staked out their desks, enforced by subtle messaging, and when necessary, by reserving a specific desk week by week in the on-line reservation system. And strangers were occasionally chased for ‘squatting’ outside of their neighborhood.
Fortunately they didn’t get started at our campus until during Covid and I never was back to the office before I was retired.
>> Are the proprietary power supplies still in the junk the warehouse clubs sell?
https://www.dell.com/community/Desktops-General-Read-Only/proprietary-psu-s/td-p/751131
https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/how-can-you-tell-if-your-psu-is-proprietary-or-a-standard-one.3488882/
More specific info can be found searching with the PC’s model number.
Hope this helps.
@alan , thank you that was helpful and saved me doing the looking. Seems like I’ve got a standard ATX so I have at least one spare new one in the stacks. Just have to find it…
Made steak for the family. Got two sirloins from the freezer. One dated 9/21 and one dated 10/22 both were tender and delicious. Vac seal, deep freeze, no defrost cycle, and you are good to go. I added canned borracho beans (with extra saute’d onion and bacon chunks) and I smashed up a boiled cauliflower, added garlic powder and a packet of cheese mix from Kraft macaroni and cheese, with a little bit of heavy cream. Got compliments for all of it. Extra kid wiped her plate with the naan bread (from the freezer, heated on the grill- love naan bread, keeps well, easy to cook, perfect when you just want a little bread with a meal.)
Still 93F in the shade.
It was ‘cook your brain’ hot at my storage unit. I’m still thirsty and I was drinking all thru my time there.
n
Nah. Yoga pants are a staple of HR droids’ wardrobes, along with a Columbia quarter zip fleece.
And, to recap, Athleta is the yoga pants brand of choice of the student in your CS class who will not only cheat but be the ring leader of an organized cheating ring running in the program.
Lest anyone think I’m sexist, I’ve seen Athleta on men as well as women.
Real Estate will be an older woman wearing Chicos. Sue me.
I’ll concede a man *could* wear Chicos, but that’s a lot more rare than a guy in a fleece from the Athleta “Tall” collection.
And they just cut the Comcast cable at the house putting in the new sprinkler system. Comcast (Xfinity) will be coming out Friday morning to fix it.
Apparently the cable marking was off by about six feet or so. How do you miss the internet cable by six feet ?
Figured out what went wrong with the cable marking. The marker dwonk only marked the first cable that they came to. However, there are 4 cables out there. Every time there is a problem, Comcast throws a new cable out there.
>> “FLASHBACK: Rush Limbaugh predicts Dems would try to indict Trump to prevent him from running again”
Run…umm…steamroll is more like it, at least in the Republican primaries. After that, well the stakes get higher. Plugs, not having a clue, will go all in holding deuce-seven off-suit…
>> “BEST VIDEO EVER! Store Owner Beats Daylights Out of Looter”
Owner should have been insured by “Smith and Wesson.”
No dock to sit on and unwind, but I don’t have to dither about whether to spend the time, or go right to bed… so it’s off to bed I go.
n
>> I just had a thought.
Why do bathroom sinks have an overflow and any kitchen sink I can recall does not?
Double bowl sink was my first thought…more here: https://www.sfgate.com/homeandgarden/article/Kitchen-sinks-lack-overflow-protection-2591526.php
Always bugs me that my Dad passed before the Internet – he would be lost for days on end (his birthday was a couple of weeks ago.)
>> I’ll concede a man *could* wear Chicos, but that’s a lot more rare than a guy in a fleece from the Athleta “Tall” collection.
Now that you mention it, ours was an older Italian guy who relocated to FL rather than “retire early.” Khakis and a plaid sportcoat with elbow patches IIRC.
Serendipity! Some problems resolve themselves 😉