Hot AND humid! We got both kinds of misery. And I had to spend the day in it. Well it went very slowly. But it’s Houston, it’s summer, and OH MY GOD THE WORLD IS GONNA BURN!!11!!!1!! Or maybe not just yet. Gonna be hot for a while yet too. I was busy working in it so I didn’t get a high temp yesterday, but I haven’t got much doubt it was in the low 100s in the sun. On the roof, it was certainly that.
Spent the day working at the rent house. It’s looking good, and is just about ready to rent. Needed paint, some maintenance, and a few style upgrades. LOTS of cleaning. There are a few things left to do, some inside and some out. The fence still needs repair. The parking pad needs some work, and there is a trench drain for the driveway that has been sitting around for a year or more… waiting for someone to dig a trench. I’m trying really hard to not be that someone. We put off some upgrades because they would be disruptive to the tenants, so now is the time. The main thing is to get the inside done so the pix can be taken and the listing put together.
I don’t want to drag out the other stuff though. I’ve got plenty of open projects at the BOL and here as well. Time to be done, and back to earning money on the place. And back to work on the other places.
———————————————————————-
Given all the stuff I’ve got on my plate, I guess I can be forgiven for not paying any attention to the hurricane season. We’ve had a couple of ‘invest’ systems identified, but nothing has really developed, and I’m glad for that. While we could use the rain, I’ve already got a full dance card. Very different this year though, without me mentioning anything for a month. Bigger fish to fry I guess.
———————————————————————
Plenty of small fish to fry too. One thing that is starting to worry me wrt stacking- it’s been a while since meat was on sale enough for me to buy any. I’ve been working out of the freezers, and we’ve got plenty, but plenty is reduced by one with every meal. Sometimes, if we have an extra child, plenty gets reduced by two…
Time to add some protein to the freezers. Tri-tip and brisket are still reasonably priced, I think I need to try my hand at cooking some. And put whatever IS cheap in the stacks.
After all, rice doubled with one announcement from India. That can happen with other foods too. A mad cow outbreak would send beef sky high, as would bird flu for chicken. Piggies get sick too. There is chatter about deflationary trends in some items, but I’m not seeing it in food.
So stack it while you can,
nick
“One thing that is starting to worry me wrt stacking- it’s been a while since meat was on sale enough for me to buy any. I’ve been working out of the freezers, and we’ve got plenty, but plenty is reduced by one with every meal.”
Food inventory can save money.
After several years of “shortage”, Sony crushed the Playstation 5 arbitrage market this summer.
Perhaps they did. Perhaps this wasn’t their first robbery?
You ever work at a store, minding your business, and a brother causally comes to the counter as says something like “Excuse me sir (as he pulls a pistol fro his waistband) but this is a stick-up.”?
I have. The Austin pigs did nothing. Oh, I had just cleaned the glass countertop so they had full prints of both hands. The store had video tape. They caught him and charged him for something else, they wouldn’t tell me what. I said some bad words when the cop told me this and he said I don’t need to use that kind of language. I replied “I’m the one that had a gun pointed at my face, not you!”
I’m not exactly a fan of almost being shot dead for $62 cash.
The guy beaten with the stick walked out. No broken bones. They didn’t beat him enough. Seriously.
Easiest way to cook brisket: Rub with salt and spice. (I use a jar labeled specifically as brisket rub, which The Child and I like. I can go look at it to get the brand if you wish.) Plop into a large crock pot and cook on low for four hours. Cut white onions, carrots, celery, and potatoes into large chunks and plop them on top of the meat and cook on low for another six hours. Pull out the vegetables, then the meat in one big piece if possible (this is the hardest part of the entire operation), let cool a bit on a cutting board, and slice. While it’s cooling, make gravy from the liquid.
This is easy and almost impossible to get wrong and requires no attention during the cooking periods, so it’s good when you have eighteen million things to do.
@paul
This was reportedly the same person who had robbed the store twice previously.
Austin PD is useless. We purposely avoided buying a house inside the city.
Lately, however, since the Wilco Sheriff was deposed by the Travis County DA in 2020, effectiveness of law enforcement in the unincorporated area where I live has drifted in the direction of APD.
The “heroes” have been running inspection sticker traps near my house all summer since the main roads through our neighborhood is a major commuting route for Dell and HPE from points north.
Meanwhile, daytime break-ins have spiked in the homes within a few hundred yards of where the trap sets up in the morning.
The weekend project was getting the right screws and other hardware to mount the license plates on the Jetta. My son wouldn’t even drive the car yesterday out of concerns about being Hut Hut Hut-ed by the heroes for the Florida plate with a new Texas title as of Friday.
A sous vide machine is amazing with tri-tip. Put it in and take it out perfectly cooked. It is in a bag, so no stove or range or pan to clean. It does look prettier if you sear it, but it isn’t required and tastes just the same, superb.
My network, and access to the internet was getting slow. Some sites loaded normally, particularly those that don’t serve ads. I figured it was the ad servers. I had ad blocking software on all my devices. Somehow the ads are still getting by on some sites. Out of a SWAG I decided to reboot my modem. Speed is back to normal on all the sites. I also restarted my mesh network.
I am running a modem that has never been released to retail. I was a tester for the Netgear CM3050V cable modem. All the testers said the price was too high ($350.00) and there are physical problems in the case with light bleed from the LEDs. Same physical design as the CM2050V so the LED light bleed may have just been from whiners. I have been on the modem for two and it has never been released for retail. The highest-level modem from Netgear currently offered is the CM2050V, my former modem. Xfinity does support my modem. If that ever drops, I can go back to the CM2050V.
And in other news the wife’s e-bike is no longer charging beyond 50%. We have had the bikes 6 years and I think the batteries are shot. The company that makes the bikes will no longer sell in the US market so the chance of getting a new battery pack is zero. I cannot have the batteries purchased by a friend overseas and shipped because the shipping costs are huge. And being lithium batteries must go by ground transportation. A ship, which would take months, if not a year. I checked the cost of the physical batteries and the cost is about half what the bicycle cost. Even I could get the battery pack.
People with electric vehicles are going to be in for a rude shock when their batteries need replacing.
So off today to explore a replacement bicycle. My wife wants a three wheeler.
True. He should have at least had a couple of broken bones. Preferably a leg so could not walk. Lacerations most certainly. Thugs that attack or rob other people should be dealt with severely, painfully, multiple times if necessary.
Heretic! Burn him at the stake!
The more “out there” claim from my wife’s contact inside Toyota is that, absent a truly economic means to recycle the cells, Tony is simply hiding warranty replaced batteries at the Gigafactory here in Austin and, eventually, will do the same at the big facility announced in Monterrey, Mexico.
I don’t have any reason to doubt the claim, but I’ll wait to see if his prediction about the real street price of the Jesus Truck being $100k delivered will turn out to be accurate. We will know that soon.
GM already had to back track on delivering the Blazer EV at $40k, but who wants a Blazer, even the “affordable” IC version?
Chevy pickups and SUVs are very popular with the ‘recent immigrant’ crowd. On any jobsite, it’s a pretty clear divide between brown skin/chevy-GM and white skin/ford (or dodge).
No idea why, just an observation.
85F at 9am, and rising. Not a blazing sun yet…
Thru a paperwork mixup (electrons actually) D1 was not registered to start highschool in 9 days. She and the wife had to get up pretty early this morning to clear that up.
I’m off to a slow start. Back was sore from being on the ladder, I guess. Most of the rest of what I did was well within my normal range. Hands are stiff and sore. That’s been more of an issue these last few months than ever before. Doing more and getting older, so it could just be that.
Time to get moving though, that house isn’t going to get itself ready…
n
Almost four decades ago, I had a part-time job driving pizza for Domino’s. One night I was robbed at gun-point. They got two large pizzas and $17 (it looked like more because it was mostly ones, and the stack was folded over from being in my pocket).
They let me walk away. I got to my car, drove across the avenue to a fast-food burger place where I knew there was a pay phone. I called my store to report the robbery, then called 911.
It took 20 minutes for the police to arrive. They had no interest in seeing where the robbery had taken place. They took my statement. We went to the store, where I checked out ($17 short) and clocked out. I went home. They stayed at the store to talk to the manager.
The next day, the manager told me that the police had spent twenty minutes with him, trying to convince him to agree that I had filed a false report. My manager backed me up.
I’m still bitter.
Their goals are not your goals.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/tyson-foods-plunges-earnings-fall-short-amid-waning-meat-demand
— demand for chicken is up, so let’s reduce supply and improve margins…
– I guess technically it’s waning demand, but it’s really “we’d still like to eat meat but can’t afford it so we’re buying less…” ie. REAL demand, not economist speak, is still there.
n
Pre-pandemic, the big Chevy dealer in town advertised 90 month Ally loans on the $40k POS Silverado pickups which mated the 10 speed transmission with a turbo-charged 4-cylinder engine to serve strictly as people and light cargo haulers.
I don’t know if Chevy still makes that combination. The trucks look the part of manhood expression until the engines go splody, and they were common rental car fodder at the Austin airport in 2019.
At the Ford dealers, base F150 with two doors and a traditional truck cab is $40k if you can find one outside of a Fleet deal, and Ford Credit is not writing 90 month loans. However, a base F150 is not an impressive look or much of a people hauler.
As for SUVs, before the Exploders shifted to the body on frame rear wheel drive platform used for the current model years, the vehicles were big sellers and hard to buy cheap. Plus police departments used them to replace the Crown Vics.
Ironically, I beileve the new Exploder platform was supposed to also be a new Crown Vic until Trump was Impeached.
Despite the problems we’ve had, I will concede the front wheel drive Exploder is a very useful vehicle, comfortable, and handles well. They’re starting to disappear prematurely, however, because the $3000 water pump replacement job is not going to be something a lot of people can rationalize moving forward, as used prices head into the mid-upper four figures.
Going up to Belton and back on Saturday, I coaxed 28 MPG out of the Exploder, which has true third row seats if needed and a decet cargo capacity with the rear seats folded down.
I guess it could be worse. One of my wife’s friends is very fond of Nissan Rogues for the cargo hauling capacity, and she’s on her third one in a decade.
Ham Radio Enthusiasts vs. High-Frequency Traders: A Battle for the Airwaves
“She Who Must Not Be Named: Seattle Museum Scrubs Author JK Rowling From Harry Potter Display”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/08/she-who-must-not-be-named-seattle-museum/
Wow, author of the second most popular books in the history of mankind. She revived the fantasy genre all by herself.
For those interested, the first most popular book in the history of mankind is the Bible.
Vehicle life probably reached a maximum and has been falling for the last ten years.
@Nick
That’s “Chebby”.
I just spent the last 45 minutes in the 101 F heat cleaning the house septic tank and restocking it with chlorine. That was a blast. A blast of heat that is.
The guys are almost finished installing the new house sprinkler system. Just in time for our Stage 1 voluntary water restrictions.
The “mPop” or whatever they call it this week isn’t nearly as important as the staff believe it to be.
We went once when we were up there to see the “Battlestar Galactica” exhibits, but we never went back.
The museum was a hobby run by Paul Allen up until he died and is largely a reflection of his views and tastes in sci fi and music.
I’m so confused. I want to buy a truck for light hauling and occasional trailering of yard/garden/construction materials, and maybe to play with a light camper trailer, but I’m not a recent immigrant and I’m frankly scared of turbochargers self-destructing.
It looks nigh onto impossible to avoid 10 speed transmissions, and difficult to get normally aspirated V8 engines. All the makes are pretending a 6-cylinder will do “just fine” towing, and turbos are the new normal.
I’m not a fan of diesel, but that may be my only road to a “real” engine these days.
It used to be easier.
Coincidentally, I started pricing rentals of camper trailers. Just the daily rental is as much as I used to pay for hotel rooms, and that doesn’t account for the rental fee at RV parks and campgrounds.
OTOH, it might be cheap on the “try before you buy” basis, to convince me not to invest money in a camper at all.
If you are in Seattle and want a cool museum experience, skip the mPop in favor of the Museum of Flight, about 30 minutes south of downtown but it might as well be on another planet in terms of being less “woke”.
You can order an F150 with a V8 which is not a manhood expression, but Ford is all about selling garage queens right now so it will be difficult. Ford will horse around with you about the trim level vs. deliver dates even if the dealer is willing to make the order.
You might get a deal on a Titan with a V8. Those were getting long in their release cycle, and Nissan just announced that they will give up on the model in light of 2035 58 MPG CAFE making any potential refresh of the pickup unprofitable.
“She Who Must Not Be Named: Seattle Museum Scrubs Author JK Rowling From Harry Potter Display”
JKR should file a copyright infringement suit.
The novel theory would be that by intentionally denying authorship, the museum is attempting to weaken her copy rights to the works and characters.
And the question that she should pose to a top-notch IP firm is whether she has tp file in Washington State, or whether the museums international presence on the internet makes it possible to file suit in Great Britain, where the books were published and where the copyright issues.
If suit in GB is possible, then libel should be explored under their laws.
Most SUV’s have a towing capacity of 5K pounds. A light trailer hauling should work with that. There are even some smaller RV trailers that are around 3K GWVR, so can hold an additional 1K of ‘stuff’ and still haul well. You won’t be a speed demon up the hills, but the vehicle will handle it. You could also easily pull a small to medium tent trailer. A Ford Ranger has a towing capacity of around 7K, as does the Toyota Tacoma.
My 2019 Highlander has a GWVR rating of 5K pounds, so could haul a lightweight RV trailer with the factory standard tow hitch. The Highlanders come with extra cooling (radiator and oil/transmission) standard.
A smaller RV trailer would have a smaller queen bed (sometimes a pull-down), a small kitchen, small eating table/booth, and a small (sometimes combo) toilet/shower. The booth converts to a small bed for kids.
Most SUV’s have a towing capacity of 5K pounds. A light trailer hauling should work with that. There are even some smaller RV trailers that are around 3K GWVR, so can hold an additional 1K of ‘stuff’ and still haul well. You won’t be a speed demon up the hills, but the vehicle will handle it. You could also easily pull a small to medium tent trailer. A Ford Ranger has a towing capacity of around 7K, as does the Toyota Tacoma.
My 2019 Highlander has a GWVR rating of 5K pounds, so could haul a lightweight RV trailer with the factory standard tow hitch. The Highlanders come with extra cooling (radiator and oil/transmission) standard.
The new Highlander original / Grand models now come with a turbo 4 cylinder. They are 3,000 ??? lbs towing now. The V6 is gone. Still an 8 speed auto.
I have now replaced my GFCI in the garage and have pulled all of the plugs downstream of it and inspected them. Somewhere I have a fault as the new GFCI keeps on tripping when I connect the other plugs.
And the GFCI is no longer tripping. The plugs are 25 years old and corroded as all get out. But they still work.
Good night, it is hot out there. 103 or 104 F. Hotter in my garage. I have the double and single front doors open and the back door open but there is no wind.
lpdbw, see if you can get an old Army deuce-and-a-half. Lousy fuel economy but it’ll tow anything you’re likely to want and you can stick an thumb in the eye of the watermelons when you blow an enormous cloud of black smoke at every opportunity.
Not according to the Toyota website:
https://www.toyota.com/grandhighlanderhybrid/grandhighlanderhybrid-features/comfort/
My F-150 is the V-6 with dual turbos. My trailer is about 7K pounds and the truck pulls it just fine. Mileage drops to the 8 to 10 range which is fairly common. Diesels don’t do a whole lot better and are much more expensive to maintain. Injectors are matched and must have all replaced if one fails, about $8K just for the parts.
This is all based on our experience with our travel trailer.
The fold down beds suck. The mattress is not comfortable and the space is limited. The places where the table, or love seat, converts into a bed are even more uncomfortable. Kids can tolerate the bed but adults are looking for a night of misery. Making up the bed every night, then taking down in the morning is not fun.
We removed one of the cabinets on one side of the bed and increased the size of the bed frame. We then purchased a much better quality mattress, one of those purple thingys, and we both sleep much better. A king size mattress.
The love seat that converts into a bed was removed and sold. It was replaced with two powered recliners. I had to run power to another outlet to accommodate the chairs. Much better than the love seat.
The table that converts into a “bed”. Yeh, right. Kids only and even they would complain.
The mattresses provided in an RV when the sale is made are some of the worst mattresses ever made.
I’m not exactly a fan of almost being shot dead for $62 cash.
My brother-in-law was shot in the back for $65 in cash back in 1982. They will kill you for looking wrong at them. They are animals.
7-11 used to have the shotgun squads in Houston and Dallas back in the 1970s and 1980s. Those people robbing 7-11 never walked out alive.
I’m so confused. I want to buy a truck for light hauling and occasional trailering of yard/garden/construction materials, and maybe to play with a light camper trailer, but I’m not a recent immigrant and I’m frankly scared of turbochargers self-destructing.
It looks nigh onto impossible to avoid 10 speed transmissions, and difficult to get normally aspirated V8 engines. All the makes are pretending a 6-cylinder will do “just fine” towing, and turbos are the new normal.
I’m not a fan of diesel, but that may be my only road to a “real” engine these days.
Do not buy a diesel built past 1995 or so. The EGR (exhaust gas recirculation) system soots up the intake and has to be cleaned every 100K miles or less. The nitrous oxide catalytic converter last 100K miles or so and uses 1 gallon of DEF (diesel exhaust fluid) for every 100 gallons of diesel. It will shut you down if the DEF tank runs empty. The exhaust soot burning system only last 100K miles and plugs up as raw diesel using wide open exhaust valves burns the soot out at 1,500 F. All of my numbers are SWAGs and are way worse than what the EPA will tell you.
My F-150 is the V-6 with dual turbos. My trailer is about 7K pounds and the truck pulls it just fine. Mileage drops to the 8 to 10 range which is fairly common. Diesels don’t do a whole lot better and are much more expensive to maintain. Injectors are matched and must have all replaced if one fails, about $8K just for the parts.
My 2019 F-150 4×4 is the V6 ecoboost too. The V6 with the dual turbos have more torque than the V8 motor. I have 36K miles and I drove it like I stole it as I am on my 3rd set of tires now. It is incredibly powerful and gets 16-17 mpg in the city and 20 mpg at 70 mph or 18 mpg at 80 mph. Pretty good for a brick with a four inch lift kit. I paid $39K plus TTL for my XLT in 2019, the going rate now is around $65K or so.
I always get the max tow package in my vehicles now. That gets you 13,000 lb trailer, all four trailer plug scenarios, a built in frame trailer hitch, the 5 row radiator instead of the 3 row radiator, a third electric radiator fan, and a 36 gallon fuel tank instead of the 26 gallon fuel tank. Oh yeah, and the weird little two inch steering wheel on the dash that I am not smart enough to use for going backwards.
My buddy has the Limited 2019 F-150 4×4 with the Raptor V6 ecoboost and full time 4WD. He chipped his motor to boost it from 18 lbs of boost to 25 lbs of boost. He spun all four wheels in my driveway. He has 160K miles on it now (he is a plumber and drives all over Fort Bend County every day). Still going strong.
>> waiting for someone to dig a trench. I’m trying really hard to not be that someone.
Home Depot “temp agency” curbside pickup?
@Lynn
Are the receptacles 15A or 20?
Are they connected with pigtails or daisy-chained?
Continuous ground?
Metal boxes and conduit?
Holy wheel rims Batman. I have 128K on my truck and I am on my second set of tires. The OEM tires lasted until 82K.
Dude. Maybe buy tires from somewhere else than Pep Boys?
About JK Rowling…
That would be easy for JKR. IIRC, UK copyright law includes a moral right for authors to assert their authorship.
I pushed the math around and to install a 5th wheel hitch in Blue Dodge was a couple of grand by time you figure in taxes and shop rags and stuff.
Add on tires and inspection for the camper and all that BS.
A couple of grand is a lot of nights at mom and pop motels. So we sold the travel trailer. Then the stupid truck did some kind of head gasket leak on cylinder #2 thing…. but you can’t fix that w/o replacing the engine for some reason. I gave the truck to a friend. Bought an almost new Nissan Frontier.
I have a smallish truck that can tow 6000 pounds or so and seat four with 4×4. I’m good.
People with electric vehicles are going to be in for a rude shock when their batteries need replacing.
People are already in for rude shocks. Apparently if you ever use the Supercharger, your battery warranty is void. I know a guy with a six year old Tesla S (the expensive one) with the standard battery that his battery is gone at 61,000 miles. Tesla wants $13K for a new battery. And I know of a guy with a year old electric F 150 with the big battery that his battery failed at 30K miles after towing his race car on a trailer. Ford wants $big bucks for a new battery.
I towed an overloaded 20′ Air Stream all over CA including the Grapevine, etc. with a ’76 Land Cruiser (old Chevy straight 6, modified), and then a 1992 and 2002 Explorer V-6) with no troubles. Didn’t break any speed limits on the passes though.
I see a lot of Model X around here, rapidly replacing the X5 purchased at the factory as the Grocery Getter of choice. AWD configuration, which is $120k IIRC.
Why does Tony keep building the Supercharger stations if that voids the warranty. Even one use?
I know Ford repeatedly cautions against using Superchargers in the owners manual and monitors telemetry of every charge, even those done at home, but their Jesus Truck hasn’t been out long enough to generate any class action lawsuits.
Tesla, on the other hand, has plenty of vehicles out in the field.
I note that today is the late Jerry Pournelle’s 90th birthday.
RIP.
I wonder what he would have thought of the antics at Boca Chica.
Fixed:
I wonder what he would have thought of various current antics.
We caught some favorable winds on the flight to Cancun from San Antone. Only 2 hours in the air. The resort is huge and reminds me of Jurassic Park or Camp Cretaceous. Disney style wristbands to access the room.
We are going on a walking tour of some ruins in Tulum tomorrow.
RIP Dr. Pournelle.
Are the receptacles 15A or 20?
Are they connected with pigtails or daisy-chained?
Continuous ground?
Metal boxes and conduit?
15 amp. Daisy chained. Continuous ground. Plastic boxes. Conduit, are you kidding, this a residential garage.
The GFCI circuit goes through the garage door openers and garage lights first. Isn’t that special.
I wonder what he would have thought of the antics at Boca Chica.
Highly approving. He was a big fan of continuous improvement and SSTO (single stage to orbit). Starship is a DSTO (double stage to orbit) but I suspect that he would approve big time. Especially since it is being done by D. D. Harriman instead of government bureaucrats.
Continuous improvement means testing to continuous failure. After all, you don’t know what to fix if you don’t break it.
Well, almost the same, but I live in Huntington Beach town in CA near the Bolsa Chica beach area.
A starship without the booster was on the pad when we drove out to look a few weeks ago. SpaceX is still trying to replicate where DC-X was before NASA blew it up.
At least, what was left of the pad.
New data show temperatures above 86F begin a precipitous decline of EV performance
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/08/new_data_shows_temperatures_above_86_f_begins_a_precipitous_decline_of_ev_performance.html
A temperature range of 27°F.
A modern IC engine will reliably run in a temperature range at least 4X greater.
Brief recap:
EV’s are much more expensive, have drastically narrower temperature operating range, restricted mileage range, take longer to refuel unless you want to void the warranty, and effectively must be towed if you run out of charge. The batteries are unrepairable, replacements are unaffordable, they are more likely to catch fire, more difficult to put out, and the insurance risk for the vehicle and associated liability are certainly elevated but have not been quantified to allow true cost of ownership to be computed. The manufacturer’s will monitor every aspect of your usage and can void your warranty for using the very chargers that they manufacture. And there is no end-of-life recycling or disposal that is economically viable.
In addition, the infrastructure to charge them, including the service station locations to do so and the electric generation to power them, will require billions of dollars in investment, much of it taxpayer-funded.
To top it off, there is no realistic environmental analysis that takes all these factors into account and can show any benefit.
Finally, there is one more consideration: The damn things are mobile terrorist wet dreams. Sooner rather than later there will be an attempt to hijack a small number and use them as weapons.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Holland-Tunnel
@Lynn
Check polarity and ground on each box if you haven’t already done so.
Consider running a separate circuit for the receptacles if you use them for any stationary power tools.
Replace the 15A receptacles with 20A (if code allows–it’s 14-gauge Romex, isn’t it?) and use pigtails.
“Conduit, are you kidding, this a residential garage.” Yeah, but the owner is an engineer.
Meanwhile, in Jacksonville, FL …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIpXkQhq1ps
Dealer loaner vehicle, parked in the garage.
Jacksonville isn’t the Gulf, but the house isn’t far from the Atlantic.
>> Given all the stuff I’ve got on my plate, I guess I can be forgiven for not paying any attention to the hurricane season. We’ve had a couple of ‘invest’ systems identified, but nothing has really developed, and I’m glad for that. While we could use the rain, I’ve already got a full dance card. Very different this year though, without me mentioning anything for a month. Bigger fish to fry I guess.
“jinx” verb, to cast an evil spell on.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/08/new_data_shows_temperatures_above_86_f_begins_a_precipitous_decline_of_ev_performance.html
Ok, over the last 34 years from 1989 to 2023, I have experienced temperatures where my home is at from 6 F to 113 F. A spread of 107 F. I expect any vehicle to easily go 20 F below that range to 10 F over that range. Which, can be experienced here in Texas over a period of several years. In fact, I expect my home to be able to withstand that temperature range also.
These people are nuts if they think that they can reduce the temperature usability of any vehicle by a factor of 4X.
>> After several years of “shortage”, Sony crushed the Playstation 5 arbitrage market this summer.
Of course, the riot a few days ago in NYFC was over free PS5s to be given away…
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/04/nyregion/union-square-kai-cenat-twitch-giveaway.html
When I put in or replace wiring, I prefer to overdesign or overspec. Yes, it’ll cost more for materials but that’s a small fraction of the cost of my labor plus the cost of an inspector. (Plus the cost to consult with a real electrician if I’m not sure of something.) The peace of mind was worth it, and separately the convenience of more outlets and a 240V line and more lighting fixtures and a few exterior outlets was worth it.
This is for work for myself or helping out friends and relations. This approach wouldn’t work if I were a hired electrician under pressure from the general contractor to pinch every penny.
I helped with wiring a pole barn to be used as a workshop. Had to convince the guy to put an exterior outlet on each wall, plus set up capacity for twice as much overhead lighting as he thought was needed, plus put in a bigger breaker panel than he planned on. Years later he admitted that I was right. How unusual!
>> Thugs that attack or rob other people should be dealt with severely, painfully, multiple times if necessary.
They should be dealt a severe case of “lead poisoning”.)
Only if they start shooting the perp starting at the knee and work the way up slowly ending at the left testicle. Pain is a powerful motivator.
Home and fed, showered and in my jammies…
Didn’t quite get everything done. Have about 15 ft of fence still to repair. Have one security light to change out for the driveway. The current light works, but it’s a 150w incan on a motion sensor and it looks old and tired.
It was hot. The back yard where I’m working got zero breeze even thought the front yard got a nice cool-ish steady wind with some bigger gusts. Soaked to the skin again. Still peeing and it’s not orange, so I think I stayed ahead of it. On the other hand, I was slowing down at the end. That might be pain though. Mostly several hours of bending and squatting…
I was replacing the lower horizontal rails and adding another above them. That let me cut the rotten bottoms off the pickets. I added a horizontal 2×4 to give something to screw to at the bottom of the pickets and the top of the new additional ‘rot rail’. It’s a bit cheesy, but it’s straightforward, and will only cost a couple hundred bux instead of thousands for new. Looks ok and will keep the neighbor’s dogs in his yard.
Realtor came by and she thinks the rental market for small old houses is softening, so we probably won’t be bumping the rent this time around. There is a shocking amount of new construction in the Houston area. Unless you WANT a freestanding house, with some “charm”, there is plenty of other stock to choose from.
We’re getting better at turning the place around for new tenants. This is the shortest time we’ve ever spent. Go team!
Helps that we weren’t redoing the kitchen or bath or replacing the water damaged living room ceiling this time.
I’m bone tired though and not looking forward to going back over to finish up.
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You are forgetting “market adjustment”.
Ford is trying to make up the EV losses selling statement trucks, but most people cannot afford $60k+.
I saw a video on YouTube recently where a used dealer went through a new lot in North Carolina and the F150s were plentiful but priced at $80-100k.
>> Ham Radio Enthusiasts vs. High-Frequency Traders: A Battle for the Airwaves
Non-paywall version…
https://www.arrl.org/news/commercial-interests-petition-fcc-for-high-power-allocation-on-shortwave-spectrum
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36708723
“China Abandons Paris Agreement and Makes Others’ Efforts Even More Futile”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/08/07/china-abandons-paris-agreement-and-makes-others-efforts-even-more-futile/
“So, while the US is busy imposing billions of dollars of costs on its citizens to reduce emissions and pushing stringent policies like the proposed tailpipe rule by the EPA, which would require 60 percent of new vehicle sales to be battery-powered electric by 2030, and the proposed power-plant rule, which would require most power plants to sequester, or bury, 90 percent of their carbon emissions or go out of business by 2040, China is effectively doubling down on its reliance on fossil fuels.”
I saw a video on YouTube recently where a used dealer went through a new lot in North Carolina and the F150s were plentiful but priced at $80-100k.
Eventually they are going to have to sell their trucks. That is why I paid $39K for a $54K MSRP truck in 2019.
I’m in the middle of mechanical work on my disabled GMC 1500. Preps, of a sort. It stopped running a few weeks ago, and I thought it was the starter at first. Nope, just a demonstration of the incompressibility of water, since a cylinder full of coolant will not allow the engine to turn. After several ‘one quick run for parts/tools’, I have the head off and the gasket out for inspection. Yep, cracked and otherwise in poor shape. Tomorrow should see the reassembly and hopefully I’ll have my backup vehicle running again.
>> For those interested, the first most popular book in the history of mankind is the Bible.
But who collects the royalties??
>> Replace the 15A receptacles with 20A (if code allows–it’s 14-gauge Romex, isn’t it?) and use pigtails.
Using 20 amp outlets on a 15 amp circuit (#14 Romex) is not allowed under the NEC.
>> When I put in or replace wiring, I prefer to overdesign or overspec.
Yes, but…working with #14 NM is faster than working with #12.
>> Nope, just a demonstration of the incompressibility of water, since a cylinder full of coolant will not allow the engine to turn. After several ‘one quick run for parts/tools’, I have the head off and the gasket out for inspection. Yep, cracked and otherwise in poor shape.
@Gavin, any recent over-heating that might indicate a warped valve cover or head?
@alan, I had an overheat over the winter, but this has been demoted to backup vehicle, so while I’m going to check the head with a straightedge, I’m willing to accept a marginal result. Eh, we’ll see.