Cool and overcast, possibly wet… some chance of rain today. Yesterday ended up kinda cloudy, not really overcast, but pretty grey later in the day. No rain though, and the temp was very nice. Today should be comfortable, but wet.
Did my pickups. It’s been a while since I bought anything from the city surplus warehouse, but I got something I’ve wanted for a long time. It’s a bit of infrastructure that could be used surreptitiously around town. I intend to use one at the BOL, and sell a bunch. I also had a good chat with my other auctioneer, the one who wants to start prepping. Gave him some links from the old MD Creekmore site, and from his current site. Had an issue with pointing him here, as that would out me to him and I’m not sure I want that, at least not yet. While I was there he sold me a Renogy flexible solar panel. I won two more in auctions last night, so I’m spending money like crazy (and saving it too) but I’m advancing my solar project. I’m buying it when I see it.
As you can imagine, I’ve got a mish mash of panels, charge controllers, inverters, and batteries. I think I’ll end up with a bunch of small systems rather than one big one, but I’m not ruling it out yet. I just think it has to be easier if they are all similar panels, which is not what I’ve got.
One auction had a match to my Honda I3000 inverter gennie. I really wanted it so I can slave it to the other, and get 240v from the pair. Unfortunately, someone else wanted it more than me. I dropped out at $1k. IIRC I paid $500 or $600 for the first one, and put a couple hundred more into it to get it running. After buying the panels, I didn’t think I wanted to go higher than $1k for an unknown quantity.
I’m doing what I can to get my own infrastructure together, at least at a minimal level. You guys should be thinking about it too. One of the signs of the decline is that formerly reliable services become unreliable. Any armed strife, or terror act could add to that.
I think we’ll see both, for whatever it’s worth.
Get your ducks in a row, they’re tasty!
Stack like your life depends on it.
nick
My brother had a system when he lived in Victorville. He has since moved to Idaho as CA taxes were getting annoying. If I remember correctly, he did not have an option to not connect to the grid. If a house connected to the grid, then any solar system had to connect. CA said that sun striking his roof belonged to CA or some such nonsense. He was also charged for the power he generated. It was at a significantly reduced rate. His utility said the utility needed to be compensated for maintaining the infrastructure. That may not apply to all of CA and was maybe just his utility company and was many years ago. That may have all changed.
With the upcoming out of support for Windows 10, I have taken my first steps to migrating my Windows 10 environments, for myself and family, to Windows 11.
My daily use system has been for many years Ubuntu based, with my personal W10 use largely limited to specific applications I use to watch Soccer (Windows support only).
Yesterday a took delivery of second hand, but excellent condition and well priced and specced, Windows 11 desktop – with fresh install.
Oh what a dreary experience the Windows 11 Pro experience was – trying to avoid all the spying and bloatware. (When compared with the simple straight forward installation of Ubuntu.)
Even the Pro version insists that you connect to the web to install with a Microsoft Account! Ok, I got round that by immediately creating a new local account and deleting the installation account. I found this easier to do using Control Panel Account Management features (I think they look the same as Windows 2000) and avoiding the fancy Windows 11 interface options (I couldn’t figure out how to do this simple task via the fancy interface).
Then there are all the widgets – removed – and then the mess that is Edge, which requires messing around with to make it functional, and not an advertising tool. (I also installed my preference, Firefox – with Ublock Origin.) Also removing Skype and Onedrive, as I don’t use them and they can impact performance – but I didn’t get an option not to install in the first place.
Window 11 feels to me like a Microsoft marketing interface, layered on top of the more solid underpinnings of Windows 2000 or Windows 7. Amazing that when things get detailed, I have to go into the old interfaces that are still there, to avoid the confusing and lacking in function Windows 11 presentation.
I accept I am an anti Microsoft bigot – but I have to live with it at times. I am much more comfortable in Linux which all seems more ‘honest’ to me.
Just thought I would share!
Texas has complicated rules about selling back to the grid IIRC.
The utility business here has “moats” in Buffett-speak. The Gecko himself made a run at buying Oncor, the company which runs the grid in the state, and he has a new surplus-funded generator slush fund to play with building on the supply side of the grid, with no actual power delivery required until 2029.
The Lt. Governor was Buffett’s point man on the generator issue.
It is a big club … and you aren’t in it.
To me, Windows 11 feels like Redmond is chasing IBM/Red Hat with the interface, particularly recent versions of Fedora.
I don’t believe Microsoft would give up their “moat” of WHQL-signed NT kernel drivers, but an immutable OS platform similar to IBM’s ongoing Fedora Silverblue experiment wouldn’t surprise me.
At some point, I have to resume my Docker experiments on Windows.
Ground Hog Day again!
https://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2024/02/02
That shouldn’t be the case. If so, the regulators need to step in.
Putting solar on the roof in Texas should be a no-brainer for anyone building new, or replacing a roof. I just wish the house batteries were priced more reasonably. The market seems to be “stuck”, in the sense that prices have not dropped as they should have over the past 5 years or so. To buy the amount of battery in our car, to put in the house, would cost as must as the car. That makes no sense, especially since house batteries can be heavier (cheaper) technology.
Iger doesn’t know when to quit.
DeSantis has three years left on his second term.
This sucker is going down.
75 PE.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/disney-appeals-dismissal-of-free-speech-lawsuit-as-desantis-says-company-should-move-on/ar-BB1hCRZH
Little bit of sun poking thru… shirtsleeves weather. Probably high 60s F at the moment. Little bit of haze this morning, but that’s burning off too.
I’ve got pickups to do today, and some other errands, like grocery shopping. New sale flyer for Costco started a couple of days ago, but there really isn’t anything on sale this time that I usually buy. That’s a bit concerning. I’ll probably stop in for M&Ms and maybe take a look at the meat prices.
I REALLY don’t want to “upgrade” to win10, and since my hardware is almost all old, wont’ be changing to win11 either.
n
When engineering an off grid whole house solar electric system for a single family home, the typical thought is to eliminate or drastically minimize high draw loads such as HVAC, water heater, stove/oven, well pump. Propane or wood can fuel some of these appliances, but… You’d even want to select a coffee maker without the hot plate/warmer or favor a gas stove top percolator. Lighting and electronics are the most cost effective uses but you won’t be happy without the other systems.
I just looked to see sunfrost.com ‘fridges are no longer in production. They made highly insulated fridge/freezer machines promising 80% less demanding, more efficient appliances. Pity. http://www.sunfrost.com/R19_efficient_ac_dc_refrigerator.html
Snark mode on: https://youtu.be/Mw_AJOYzt0w Nice shack, bit pricey.
Snark mode off: A backup / supplement system(s) for fridge/freezers shouldn’t be too $wild$. My 5 cu ft bedroom fridge only takes 150 watts after startup. In the early 60’s my dad cut through the wall of the master bedroom to install an A/C for upstate NY summers. Didn’t let me sleep there though, when the heat was a constant envelope.
Had to laugh last year when I visited the Chicago Architecture Center’s “Green Future” display of o-so-clean heat pump dryer and water heater. See, coal and a bit of nuke powers that town. The river tour of famous skyscrapers was fun and informative.
High end LDS BOL.
The site of the Trump building in Chicago is hilarious if you know a little history of entertainment and politics in the city.
We didn’t take the skyscraper tour in 2019, but we went to the Museum of Broadcasting and the Billy Goat Tavern on an SNL/”Caddyshack” themed day.
The kids were fine in the Billy Goat. The Tribune building was being gutted for condos upstairs so the old crowd is long gone.
Dunno what that part of Chicongo is like now. The point where Michigan Ave. crossed the river seemed like it was ground zero of “safe” back then.
I see that’s in October 2025, so that means my company will begin its rollout of Windows 11 in September 2025. It’ll be a clusterf*ck and a mad scramble. The new rollouts will be missing key drivers, DSNs, and whatnot. It will be realized that some key piece of software used by a department everyone forgot existed isn’t Win11 compatible. So, they’ll contact the vendor for an updated version and be quoted a price that breaks the budget and blame the vendor instead of their own lack of planning. They’ll end up hiring contractors to assist with the Win11 rollout to get it done before the deadline. No lessons will be learned (none were learned from the Win7 or Win10 rollouts either). Good times! 🙂 lol
We were in Chicago last Summer and did a Chicago River Boat Tour. One of the first things the boat went past was the Trump building with the name Trump large and clear plastered on it. People were pointing and taking pictures. lol
In 2013 I took the version of that tour that included going through the lock and briefly out into Lake Michigan, enjoyed it all very much. Recommended.
That’s sounds like the same one we did. Very cool. It was also nice you could bring outside food and drink onto the boat. The locks were cool and I also got a kick out of seeing those water cribs on the Lake Michigan. The Chicago city skyline looks amazing from the lake. Maybe it’s because we live in a land-locked flyover state, but anytime we’re by one of the Great Lakes or the ocean we end up doing some sort of boat tour. We’ve done a few rivers and the Louisiana bayou too.
I have locked through Fort Loudon dam twice, in an 18‘ boat. Felt quite small. The lock master did not do a full flow fill as he said it would cause problems for my boat. He did hold a full barge load of 8 barges and a tug until I returned. They will not allow small boats at the same time as barges or large boats.
It was amazing still to drop, or raise, sixty feet in 10 minutes. That is a lot of water. All pumps, no gravity.
All at zero cost to myself.
“All at zero cost to myself.”
Don’t worry, they got it somehow
RE: Houthi D-Bags
How in a heavily-surveilled area like the Middle East are we not detecting the launch point of missiles and sending a cruise missile of our own there within seconds to take out the launcher and crew?
Huh. Are you sure? I have never encountered one like that, only the gravity-flow kind.
Glue – what types, if any, are best suited for long-term storage?
W2 cracked off the corner of a glass picture frame and asked if we had any super glue. Fortunately the box labeled “GLUE” was where it was supposed to be in the stacks. Unfortunately, most of what I had was either dried out or blocked by a cloged nozzle. Ideas? What’s in your stacks and when have you last checked if it’s usable?
I would venture to guess that the unopened glue that comes in metal tubes with a metal sealed top that has to be punctured are best. I’m guessing it’s the slow permeation of oxygen through plastic tubes that ruins many glues. I suppose you could vacuum seal the glue in an airtight contain (glass, metal, mylar, or PET) with some oxygen absorbers. Almost like you’d store food. You’d have to reseal and replace absorbers anytime you tapped into your supply though.
Hmm, AMC is running some Bill Murray movie over and over today…
“Ghostbusters”?
No. That was HBO in the 80s. Hmm… I may need a hint.
Basic cable is running on fumes these days.
Yes, according to the lock master as he said they pump the water. Whether that was just his term or actual pumps, I can only guess pumps. The fill, or drain, rate becomes too slow the last few feet. They need to get barges through quickly. An 8 barge tow requires 15 trips through the lock, 8 down and 7 up. At 20 minutes each fill and discharge the time would be over 300 minutes, not including the time to move the tug and the barges in and out of the locks. Barges need to be secured before and after locking. A tow of 8 barges can take as much as eight hours to complete according to the lock master with whom I talked. That is why he held the barge tow for about 30 minutes until I returned. The lock master had asked how long I was going to be downstream from the dam.
I would suspect “Groundhog Day”…today.
From CNN, and multiple stories elsewhere. (link)
We are the Red Coats. The sun doesn’t set on American bases.
We’re attacking Iran everywhere but in Iran and that’s on purpose.
Getting ready for a night of high school theater. Hope my earpro is good.
N
Four is two, and two is none?
“I would venture to guess that the unopened glue that comes in metal tubes with a metal sealed top that has to be punctured are best. I’m guessing it’s the slow permeation of oxygen through plastic tubes that ruins many glues. I suppose you could vacuum seal the glue in an airtight contain (glass, metal, mylar, or PET) with some oxygen absorbers. Almost like you’d store food. You’d have to reseal and replace absorbers anytime you tapped into your supply though.”
For long-term storage it’s a matter of packaging or chemistry:
“unopened glue that comes in metal tubes with a metal sealed top that has to be punctured”
Which includes a lot of automotive products. Solvent-based adhesives that have good screw-down caps (eg Permatex) can last a long time. For things like super glue it can be a crap shoot, but if you stash a number of them in a mason jar and back-fill with dry nitrogen the survivability should be good.
If you don’t have dry nitrogen, put the mason jar in a 1-gallon freezer bag with the lid loosely in place. Add a couple O2 absorbers and seal the top after squeezing out most of the air–you want about 50% more volume than the jar. After the O2 absorbers have done their work the volume will be reduced 28% (air is roughly 72% N2 and 28% O2. You should have enough room to manipulate the lid through the bag and screw it down tight. No need to leave the bag on. Picking a winter day with low-humidity is ideal.
Professional PVA glues have better packaging that school glue and can last for years. Storing a sealed gallon of woodworking glue is a good prep. Woodworkers will tell you that an opened gallon can last for years if resealed.
Also on the woodworker’s shelf is traditional hide glue that comes dry in pellets and has to be mixed with water and heated. This is probably the oldest adhesive known, discovered by accident when processing game and someone left a spoon in a nearly empty pot and allowed it to cool.
There are lots of adhesives in caulking tubes that will last for a long time. One-component RTV silicones cure with moisture from the air, so sealing them with a minimum of dry air will keep them indefinitely.
Two-component adhesives in good packaging have a long shelf-life. Some of the automotive and woodworking adhesives (silicones and epoxies) come in two tubes that must be thoroughly mixed.
I’ve mentioned the Hardman Double-Bubble adhesive packs in the past:
https://www.ellsworth.com/globalassets/literature-library/manufacturer/hardman/hardman-selector-guide—double-bubble-high-performance-adhesives.pdf
There’s an assortment which is a great resource even before TSHTF:
https://www.coleparmer.com/i/hardman-double-bubble-epoxy-and-urethane-adhesive-assortment-kit-in-tool-box-200-kit/0877830
But it appears to be discontinued.
I have a number of epoxies and other two-part adhesives and potting compounds in metal cans that are 20-40 years old and perfectly good.
If mixing components is required make sure you have the tools. An inexpensive gram scale, plastic containers, and stir sticks. Eating healthy yogurt and saving the 16-32 ounce containers with lids is a double-prep. Buying containers and lids of similar quality will cost you a buck apiece. For small amounts the disposable condiment cups and lids are good. A box of craft popsicle sticks are good for stirring and can be wiped, allowed to cure, and re-used. Lots of other uses, too.
“Never underestimate Joe’s ability to f*ck things up”
–Barry Soetoro
Prepping for Pyros:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpVUkmbgupg
Schumer And McConnell Want Senators To Pass Their $106B Border Bill Without Reading It? Hell No
https://thefederalist.com/2024/02/02/schumer-and-mcconnell-want-senators-to-pass-their-106b-border-bill-without-reading-it-hell-no/
Senator Lee should have made one other observation: Speed advancing this train wreck is absolutely essential to preventing the public from reviewing the bill and letting their elected representatives know their opinions. In other words, the timeline is designed to prevent democracy from working.
Our present immigration law is irrelevant. The problem is that one political party in toto and many members of the other party have conspired to open our southern border and destroy our nation’s sovereignty. If we had a functioning democracy to president would be impeached, convicted, and executed for treason in short order, along with 30-40 senators and a like proportion of congresscritters.
We don’t need a law to change immigration.
We need to close the border with Mexico:
Shut down illegal invasion. They don’t get in.
Shut down tourism.
Shut down commerce.
Shut down the flow of money.
Shut down the flow of drugs.
Fentanyl kills 100,000 Americans every year, most of it from China via Mexico. Tell the Mexican government that henceforth all fentanyl is going to be weaponized to an aerosol and loaded on drones for delivery back to Mexico. Start by spraying the trafficking routes and expand to a solid east-to-west band of fentanyl south of the border. Spot treat the palaces of the drug lords, We also know where the corrupt Mexican officials live, and we know where Mexico City is, if they need more convincing. If Mexico doesn’t like it, they can declare war and formalize what they are already doing.
Ugly weather headed to Houston. We had heavy rain pass overhead really quickly over the last hour.
@drwilliams, thanks for the detailed reply, a lot of good information to digest.
I wonder if food grade vac sealing bags with O2 absorbers would be a viable option.
Target pulls Black History Month product from shelves that mixed up three civil rights icons
https://www.foxnews.com/media/target-pulls-black-history-month-product-shelves-mixed-up-three-civil-rights-icons
Exam questions:
1. Fully steeped in woke Target management purchased BHM materials from:
a) a white conservative company
b) a woke liberal company
2. Materials were produced:
a) Here in the USA
b) China
3. The proof was correct, but:
a) aliens messed it up
b) Chinese are alien
c) all of the above
Forbes was once “a capitalist tool” and has become just another woke rag, so they had a DEI expert Shaun Harper chime in:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/shaunharper/2024/02/02/target-fumbles-black-history-month-pulls-offensive-product-from-stores/?sh=17f2e0715660
First, I would tell Dr. Harper that if the American public school system has a problem teaching Black History, he should look in the mirror and ask himself whether people that look like him and vote like him have control of the public schools in the Blue Shiitehole Cities of America.
More than fifty years ago I read W.E.B. DuBois, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Dick Gregory, and other black authors before I finished high school. If that is not the case now, it is his fault and the fault of people like him who are controlling the curriculum.
If, after fifty years, I can’t necessarily identify photos of some famous Americans on his list, I’m not going to worry too much. Chances are good that he couldn’t identify some on my list, either, including black inventors.
And why is it if I put a certain six-letter word into amazon search it denies the very existence of any books with that word in the title until I add an author’s name (Gregory, Conrad, etc.), but that same word is prominent in the daily playlist of every urban drug and violence glorification radio station in every BSCoA? And why is it that the preferred label would have been an insult to Dr. Harper’s ethnic group 100 years ago? Is someone playing games with language, Dr. Harper?
Modest 6kw DIY off grid power system runs “normal” house:
https://youtu.be/w9nUskuwupA
Test it and let us know the results.
Probably half a dozen samples, opened at six-month intervals, would give the needed info. Each sample bag gets an unopened tube of superglue, an opened tube of superglue, an unopened metallic tube, an opened metallic tube, and whatever else you can think of.
I was thinking about the glue issue last week? The week before? Basically some things “kick” while still in the packaging and would be unobtainium in a long term major crash.
Crazy glue is one, silicone caulk is another, as is RTV silicone, and a lot of two part epoxies. I don’t even stock most of those things for my normal use, as they are dead by the time I need them.
I stopped stocking most spray paints because the cans or pressure seals fail over time. One or two years is the max.
Spray foam insulation, and Liquid Nails type products fail too.
n
Rain has just started here with distant rumbling. We got a sprinkle around 6, but it didn’t turn into anything.
—————–
The axil ear pro proved its usefulness again. Spent most of the show with it set to a mild boost, but rode the levels all night, turning the active part off a couple of times when it got crazy loud, and turning up to hear some dialog.
—————-
Rumbling is closer already. The highway hazard signs were warning about heavy rain this weekend.
—————–
Oooo lightning.
n
I will add to the comments above a word of wisdom I recall from RBT, that a 10C drop in storage temperature roughly doubles longevity of items.
So, a dedicated long term freezer might help, but should be designed to stay cool with prolonged power outages.
Whew, it’s coming down now! Rain is lashing the house…
Weather radar looks like it should blow thru fairly quickly though, it’s a fairly narrow band, with nothing behind it, and is moving pretty quickly.
Hammering down at the moment though.
n
Here, the utility separates its charges into two parts: an infrastructure charge and a charge for the actual power you consume. It’s roughly half-and-half. To simplify numbers, say we pay 10 cents for the infrastructure and 10 cents for the power.
When we consume our own power, this doesn’t run through the meter at all. No payment and no charge, because the power company never sees it. It would take some weird wiring for it to be any other way – they would have to wire the solar power to a separate connection outside of your meter.
When we have excess power, they buy it from us for about 3/4 of the amount that we would pay for power, so about 7 cents.
Our only complaint about the power company is that some of their people are incompetent. For example, our builder ran our power connection where they told us to. They mismarked this on their maps by 3 or 4 meters, so when a neighbor was digging, we had to tell them: nope, *that’s* not where you need to be careful, *this* is where you need to be careful.
Funny, it seems like I hardly ever need glue anymore. So the stuff in my “glue” drawer is ages old. I needed to glue something last week, threw away a tube that had dried out. And another one that hadn’t even been opened, but was still hardened in the tube.
I resorted to the epoxy, but: it didn’t harden in the usual few minutes, instead it took all night, and I’m still not so sure about the bond. Huh. I figured two-component epoxy would store basically forever.
FWIW, wood glue seems to keep forever – I’ve never had a problem with that. But it is obviously pretty limited in applications.
So, no answer I’m afraid. Maybe we should go back to boiling hooves…
I’ve said it before: The only way to really close a border is to make the people stop coming. The only way to make them stop coming is to make it dangerous. A fence or a wall can be climbed or cut through. To prevent that, you must be willing to defend the fence or wall using force. You must be willing to injure or kill people. Otherwise, they will just ignore you and cross the border anyway.
The ones who do make it in? They must be immediately and forcefully deported. If you cannot identify where they came from, then you pay some unpleasant place to run a refugee camp, and ship them there. Make it easy to leave, who cares? What you cannot do, is allow them to stay in the country indefinitely, while people waffle about what to do with them.
Unfortunately, I doubt that the public will tolerate the necessary measures. And I haven’t heard any politician even willing to discuss these issues, neither there, nor here in Europe.
Thanks for the adhesives info. I have kept PVA wood glue for years. Same with quality epoxies in cans. Don’t forget hot melt glue sticks, which don’t seem to deteriorate at all. I have some sticks and joints that are at least 40 years old.
I have bought some urethane glue a couple of times. They were in what appeared to be PE bottles, and hardened while still sealed at about a year. Never got to use the stuff.
Re Illegal immigration:
The only way to stop it is to physically harm the invader. Maming or death so they won’t try to enter. Our goody-goody liberals won’t allow this, so what we have won’t change.
Poland does not allow any Muslims to enter without prior prepared and approved visas, etc. Attempts to enter are met with force and immediate expulsion. If the invader is unconscious body is ejected back into the country it came from. (I have been told this by recently retired US military personnel who witnessed this. )
Where the government won’t act, the people will. The pot’s not quite boiling yet, in part because TPTB are stirring the pot to keep the factions from working together, but it’ll boil over when things get a little bit worse and certainly when people start missing meals. (If you’ll pardon the mashup of several pot and boiling idioms.)