Tues. Jan. 21, 2025 – actual snow. And a new President.

Well, IDK what it’s going to be like today. Real snow started at about 2am, and I went to bed. The forecasts are all suspect, so I’m going with “temps around freezing” with some precipitation. I don’t really expect there to be much accumulation when I get up today. I could be wrong. We’ll see. And I have no idea at all what to expect today and tonight, except that it’s about 90% certain to be less than what was predicted.

Spent yesterday buttoning up the BOL, driving home, and then doing a couple of small things to “get ready” for the snowpocalypse…. Mainly doing something to protect the hot water heater on the side of the house. I insulated all the lines last time it got cold. That has worked fine. I put a 100w flood light under the unit by the lines and valves, and put a metal screen over the whole thing to block some of the wind. Hopefully that will be enough. Turns out, putting the water heater outside the conditioned volume of the house is risky. I won’t be doing that again.

My doctor’s appointment for today got cancelled so I’ll probably just stay in and do some cleaning/organizing and some computer work. Maybe I’ll get the wifi changed over to ubiquiti WAPs like I’ve been planning. It would be nice to get a pi-hole set up too, although I’m not ready for that. I should really pull some backups too.

There’s always more to do. Always be working…

and stack some good stuff…

nick

49 Comments and discussion on "Tues. Jan. 21, 2025 – actual snow. And a new President."

  1. drwilliams says:

    Temps are at or near bottom and will roll up like s window shade over the next 24 hours. It will be 30-40 degrees warmer tomorrow morning. Bless the plumbers and give them coffee. 

  2. Ray Thompson says:

    @Ray, time to dust off those coding skills…

    @Alan: you funny. My coding skills are in the dumper and rustier than the fungus infested snatch of the Humper. (Now get that out of your brain, you can thank me later).

    Seriously, it is amazing how much I have forgotten and even more amazing how much the technology in “hot skillz” have advanced in just nine years. While I enjoyed coding, starting with IBM 1401 Assembler, up through various languages, even developing my own compiler for a very specific language, and ending with sophisticated Web applications that would have been considered magic 30 years ago. It was a good ride for 47 years and a career I enjoyed. The growth in technology has been amazing.

    Now it seems it is mostly dealing with libraries, objects, procedures, properties, and just calling some chunk of code that someone else wrote, and few understand. The ability to look at a problem, understand the problem, develop a solution, still exists. The ability to follow logic, understand the logic, is still valuable. The underpinning code not so much anymore.

    At one time there was pride in making compact code, minimal use of memory, accomplishing a task in as few lines as possible. Making that code run fast with few wasted cycles. With the CPUs of today a million or so wasted cycles is no big deal along with a hundred megabytes of memory is considered the norm.

    It has, or had to, come to that as people are expensive. CPU cycles and memory are cheap. It is now quicker to just throw something together and if it works there is little concern for the resources that are consumed in the process.

    Maybe I am just a jaded old man who misses flogging the bits.

  3. Ray Thompson says:

    Single digit temperatures here last night and will be tonight. Many schools are closed because of the cold. The schools don’t want kids standing in the cold or riding a school bus where the heaters are woefully inadequate. Some kids in the area don’t own heavy coats because the parents waste the money on drugs, booze, and cigarettes.

    In Knoxville, in 1985, the temperature dropped to -24F, the coldest spot in the nation. Just keeping the pipes from freezing was a major chore. I have not seen the temperature below 0F since I have lived here. We are having 90+ hours below freezing which is unusual. Normal high is 48F. This global warming is really cold.

  4. ITGuy1998 says:

    It was 20F on my drive in to work this morning, and it isn’t supposed to get much warmer at all today. Tonight the prediction is for 8F. 

  5. EdH says:

    18F here overnight, but the high winds went away with the sun yesterday.

    Today and tonight are predicted to be nearly a repeat.

    8F is the lowest this California boy has ever been out in (skiing).

  6. Nick Flandrey says:

    Well…. 27F here, overcast, and the ground is covered in white stuff.    1 ½” on my truck.   Looks like a bit more in the back yard.   Kid2 has the dog out walking in it.   He’s low enough that his junk might drag in the snow.  “What sort of animal makes tracks like these?  Two rows of paw prints with a  continuous line between them?”

    Roads in the subdivision are covered in snow too. 

    Definitely time to not be driving.

    n

  7. Nick Flandrey says:

    Meanwhile, use the distraction…

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/yourmoney/bank-closures/article-14298375/us-bank-branch-closures-umb-wells-fargo.html 

    Major US banks closed more than 110 branches over the holidays… is yours on the list?

    Bank of America closed the most locations of any bank, shuttering 132 between January and September. 

    U.S. Bank followed swiftly behind, having closed 101 of their own branches. 

    Wells Fargo closed 92, Chase 90 and TD Bank 52 in the same period.

    The worst hit state was California which saw 86 branches close across the state. 

    New York saw 64 closures in the first nine months of 2024.  

    Other badly hit states include Pennsylvania, 47, Texas, 46, Ohio, 45, Florida, 43, and  New Jersey, 41.  

    n

  8. Nick Flandrey says:

    All the lying chinese  products– I’m looking at TV antennas and they are selling “3000 mile reception” antennas.  So I can watch every single tv station in the entire US…   sure I can.

    n

  9. Greg Norton says:

    All the lying chinese  products– I’m looking at TV antennas and they are selling “3000 mile reception” antennas.  So I can watch every single tv station in the entire US…   sure I can.

    If you need a TV antenna, call Antennas Direct. The girls who answer the phones will not sell you more antenna/amplifier than what will truly work for your location and placement.

    Hecho en China, but domestic sales and product support.

    I use an Antennas Direct model to watch “Star Trek” reruns from a Waco station, but I would say that is the realistic limit for TV reception in North Austin/Round Rock.

  10. drwilliams says:

    https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2025/01/21/what-trump-says-v-what-happens-when-he-says-it-n3799017

    Trump just kneecapped UN plans to put themselves in charge of $60-150 billion per year in carbon tax levies .

    All for our own good, donchano. 

    I’d like to see the doc that shows how they were going to distribute those fees, after their skim. 

  11. EdH says:

    I noticed a fair amount of “clinkers” in the pellet stove pot this morning.   I had noticed a less energetic flame last week, so there is probably some ash buildup in the exhaust.

    It has been a relatively warm winter but I have been using it more than in the past, so I guess I need to move my mid-season cleaning and checkup frim February to the middle of January.

  12. MrAtoz says:

    Maybe I am just a jaded old man who misses flogging the my bits.

    FIFY

  13. Nick Flandrey says:

    Roads and driveways are melting, when it refreezes it’s going to be treacherous.

    n

  14. Greg Norton says:

    Roads and driveways are melting, when it refreezes it’s going to be treacherous.

    “Black” ice. The problem is really bad in the Northwest, particularly along the coast in Winter.

    My car line mommy friend in Vantucky slipped and fell on a patch of black ice which led to her “it” moment about the place, to the point that she abandoned her husband and kids to move back to Florida.

    Sooner or later, everyone has an “it” moment about Vantucky unless they’re born there.

  15. lynn says:

    I drove home last night at 2am in 4wd in the sleet.  Today we have 3 inches of snow on top of 1 inch of ice.  

    My neighbors are going nuts.  One of my neighbors is telling people to get their kid’s Imperial Walkers off the levee.

  16. Jenny says:

    Brrr – you guys are colder than Anchorage. We’ve had a ridiculous stretch of temps near and above 32°F. Sometimes well above. 
    much of the snow is melted with disastrous ice left behind. 
     

    @Ray – I too miss the bad old days of tightly written code and careful management of resources. 
     

  17. Ray Thompson says:

    I too miss the bad old days of tightly written code and careful management of resources

    Yes, it was really fun when dealing with 24 pocket reader/sorters for check processing at the bank. There was a finite number of microseconds between the time the item was read and the pocket had to be selected. So much so that the program would enter a state called “control mode” where the program was given dedicated control of the computer with no interrupts from other peripherals until the mode was closed. During this time the MICR data had to be decoded and the pocket select command given to the sorter.

    A lot of effort was made to minimize delays and the addition of a couple of instructions may be enough to miss the time slot. That code was finely tuned by many people, but mostly myself as I had the best knowledge of the system of any of the coders in the bank. I was sometimes hired out to other banks to resolve timing issues in the check processing programs.

    @Mr. ATOZ: Flogging the correct bits in the proper order was really important. (Pervert 🙂 )

  18. drwilliams says:

    Zero registers before using them. 

  19. Ray Thompson says:

    Is it just me or does Trump’s border czar look like a mafia hit man from the old Superman TV shows?

  20. Bob Sprowl says:

    LIfght snow just started here – 10 miles north of Montgomery AL.

    Temperature is 28F.  No reason to go out and since I live in a cul-de-sac with steep uphill s-curve entrance road I probably won’t be leaving for a day or longer.

    I will be walking my dog in before it gets dark but I have a nice warm snow suit.

  21. Bob Sprowl says:

    RE tightly written code.  The limited resources of the computers we coded on in the ‘60s and ’70s are completely foreign to 99.998% of todays  programmers.  

    I suspect there are a few at Intel, AMD, and Google, etc, who write tight machine code to optimize some routines.

    Maybe a few a writing code for War Drones also.

  22. EdH says:

    LIfght snow just started here – 10 miles north of Montgomery AL.

    Temperature is 28F.  No reason to go out and since I live in a cul-de-sac with steep uphill s-curve entrance road I probably won’t be leaving for a day or longer.

    Lynn’s neighbor’s use Imperial Walkers apparently, I guess that is one alternative to wheeled vehicles.

    My friend in Plummer ID says the California imports living up on the hill behind him leave their cars at the bottom and use small tracked vehicles to get up/down during really bad weather.  i’m not sure if that means snowmobiles or old tractors…

  23. Nick Flandrey says:

    All the kids on the street have made snowmen.   Big ones too.

    Streets are pretty much clear now that the sun came out. 

    n

  24. Greg Norton says:

    RE tightly written code.  The limited resources of the computers we coded on in the ‘60s and ’70s are completely foreign to 99.998% of todays  programmers.  

    I suspect there are a few at Intel, AMD, and Google, etc, who write tight machine code to optimize some routines.

    Maybe a few a writing code for War Drones also.

    Certain three letter agencies concerned with making sure that instructions and data run out of cache as much as possible are also fond of tight code

    As I’ve noted before, they are responsible for keeping the x32 ABI alive on Linux.

  25. EdH says:

    Well, pellet stove maintenance is done for a couple of months, probably.  

    The clean-out tee was full, unusual, but the circulation passages behind the firebrick were also nearly full, so maybe it is the year+ old pellets. I am on my last three bags of those.

    In any case there is a good  strong flame and no immediate sign of clinker formation now.

    I might borrow my neighbors flue cleaning kit and give the upper part good scrub.

    Not today, my back says “done”.

  26. Greg Norton says:

    Lynn’s neighbor’s use Imperial Walkers apparently, I guess that is one alternative to wheeled vehicles.

    Kids channeling Irvin Kershner.

  27. Nick Flandrey says:

    I’ve been getting a lot of similar vids in my “recommendations”.   they are all clip show/compilations of women on tickytacky moaning about “where are all the good men” while at the same time demonstrating why no “good man” would touch them.   The channels are aimed at men, as a warning and social commentary on the current state of relations between the sexes.

    They are sort of “explainers” about what is wrong with young and not so young women seeking to date.

    It’s horrifying to me.

    Jebus H

    n

    BTW, the best indicator of why you should stay away is that she’s on ticktock in the first place.

  28. Lynn says:

    I am the Last Man Standing.  No one else came into the office today.  I put my truck in 4WD and drove in through the ice and slush from the other vehicles that preceded me.  Of course, I did not have any bridges up in the air to drive over, that was not happening.  My home is only four miles away from my office building.

  29. PaultheManc says:

    @Ray

    Which cheque sorting machines were you working on?  I was involved in installing IBM 3890 cheque image processing systems in the 90s.

  30. Nick Flandrey says:

    Took D1 to the school parking lot to do some  defensive driving practice.

    Streets were dry whereever the sun hit them.  Parking lot was dry.  No donuts or slippery driving.

    We did hard braking, object avoidance, and steering while braking.

    I have three big orange delineators I set up.    Crushed one in the braking exercise.   They recover though.

    Kid learned some good lessons.

    n

  31. Greg Norton says:

    Gotta catch ’em all!

    https://www.tmz.com/2025/01/17/pokemon-cards-costco-fights-los-angeles-store/

    Trump needs to get the delinquent student loan enforcement cranked up ASAP.

  32. Nick Flandrey says:

    Took a walk with the wife and dog.  Lots of snowmen in the greenspace. Lots of dog poop too.

    Got cold when the sun set.

    n

  33. Greg Norton says:

    Brrr – you guys are colder than Anchorage. We’ve had a ridiculous stretch of temps near and above 32°F. Sometimes well above. 
    much of the snow is melted with disastrous ice left behind. 

    Austin temperatures will be almost identical to Portland through Saturday.

    All the snow melted today, however.

  34. drwilliams says:

    President Trump Orders Immediate Halt on New or Renewed Offshore Wind Leases

    • A comprehensive assessment of the wind industry’s impacts on the economy and environment.
    • Withdrawal of all waters in the Outer Continental Shelf from wind leasing access.
    • A review of existing wind energy leases to identify potential grounds for termination or amendment.
    • A study to assess the environmental impact and cost of defunct and idle wind turbines.

    Digging into the whitewash of the whale deaths is likely to yield a nice list for termination. Repudiating green-weinie driven government economic studies will extend the list.

  35. drwilliams says:

    About That Fauci Pardon…

    The reason why Fauci got the pardon that he did, or perhaps we should call it plenary immunity, is because his lawbreaking goes back to 2014, when he violated the Obama-era policy of not funding gain-of-function research. The very research that almost certainly led to the creation of COVID, and to the debarment of Peter Daszak and the EcoHealth Alliance from getting any funding from the federal government. 

    In other words, Fauci conspired to circumvent administration policy in order to experiment with what amounted to biological weapons

    https://hotair.com/david-strom/2025/01/21/about-that-fauci-pardon-n3799034

    Still Hope: Despite Biden Pardon, Fauci Still Faces Legal Perils

    Despite reporting that Trump is bent on revenge, the appetite among MAGA appointees for holding Fauci accountable hasn’t been particularly vocal. But former Senate investigator Jason Foster, who now runs the whistleblower nonprofit Empower Oversight, says that Biden’s pardon creates new legal jeopardy for Fauci. Sen. Rand Paul has vowed to continue investigating the COVID origins question, and sources tell RealClearInvestigations that Sen. Ron Johnson and House Republican investigators plan to do so as well. When testifying in those inquiries or answering written depositions, Fauci will be unable to dodge questions by invoking his Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination. “They can ask him if he lied before, replough old ground,” Foster said. “And if he lies about any prior lie, he can be prosecuted for that or held in contempt.”

    https://hotair.com/headlines/2025/01/21/still-hope-despite-biden-pardon-fauci-still-faces-legal-perils-n3799020

    They need to do the Fauci investigation early, to deliver a horrible example:

    Simply make it known to several nations, including, say, Russia, and Haiti, that the U.S. would be amenable to extraditing Fauci for prosecution of crimes against humanity. Have a section in the room roped off for international observers, put a washable seat cover on Fauci’s chair, and see how long it takes his attorney to try to cut a deal. Hint: We don’t need no stinkin’ deal–my vote would be Haiti.

    Package deal with Peter Daszak, and throw in the board of EcoHealth Alliance for good measure.

  36. drwilliams says:

    The New York Sun reported that incoming press secretary Karoline Leavitt “foresees a briefing room makeup that features more independent and non-traditional organizations, including internet personalities that don’t have a print or TV presence,” presumably meaning independent podcasters, journalists and the like.

    Hence, the WHCA, which essentially represents the legacy press, may no longer have the access it always did to smear President Trump and his administration, as it did with every Republican administration before it. 

    https://townhall.com/columnists/jeremyfrankel/2025/01/21/trump-white-house-press-room-changes-are-long-overdue-n2650894

  37. drwilliams says:

    Jake Sullivan Allegedly Ordered NSC Staff to Sabotage Second Trump Term

    In a shocking revelation, sources claim that former President Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, instructed National Security Council (NSC) staffers to “hold over” into the second Trump administration, allegedly to spy on and sabotage President Donald Trump’s presidency. This reported intent mirrors similar tactics used during the early days of Trump’s first term, raising questions about the lengths some in the government may go to undermine the transition of power.

    https://townhall.com/tipsheet/saraharnold/2025/01/21/jake-sullivan-told-nsc-staffers-to-hold-over-to-trump-white-house-to-spy-on-and-sabotage-trump-n2650918

    Treason.

    In Jake’s case and several others, including FJB himself, I’d recommend doing a full inventory of classified docs and pulling search warrants.

    I saw something over the weekend that indicated that the Biden-friendly folks at the National Archives were going to be checking what FJB took from the White House, just in case there was anything headed for the Corvette.

    Note that any new charges related to classified documents would not be covered by any pardons, which can be retro-active but not post-active.

  38. Ray Thompson says:

    @PaultheManc:

    Which cheque sorting machines were you working on?

    Burroughs machines. The biggest reader/sorter they made. I don’t remember the nomenclature. We had three of them. Each hooked to a separate mainframe. Those machines ran about 18 hours a day with the holding company clearing a billion dollars in checks during the oil boom in the early ‘80s. The late ’90s saw the decline of the holding company which eventually got taken over or would become insolvent.

  39. drwilliams says:

    One of the many things that needs to be done by the Trump Dept of Energy is promulgating uniform accounting rules for utilities to calculate and transparently disclose the true costs of wind, solar, and other forms of “green” energy.  Any electricity user in the United States should be able to open their bill and see the rates they are being charged for electricity from the various sources.

  40. Lynn says:

    Now it seems it is mostly dealing with libraries, objects, procedures, properties, and just calling some chunk of code that someone else wrote, and few understand. The ability to look at a problem, understand the problem, develop a solution, still exists. The ability to follow logic, understand the logic, is still valuable. The underpinning code not so much anymore.

    You forgot to mention that the languages are constantly changing and the compilers are following those changes.  Code that worked fine in older compilers will no longer compile in new compilers.  And older languages like Fortran are converting from professional languages to hobbyist languages.  There is lots of old code written in them but no new code.

    I am slowly converting my Fortran to C++ but there is no guarantee that C++ will undergo the same transition from professional languages to hobbyist languages.

    And it is becoming way past obvious that Microsoft is getting ready to fork Windows and convert to the ARM cpu.  Intel is conducting a circular firing squad at the moment.  Apple has swapped cpus three times now and it has not affected their market so Microsoft feels that they can jump cpus without much market upset.

  41. Nick Flandrey says:

    MS should fork windows between professional users and consumers.   If you are using it to do work, you can’t tolerate the ads and spyware and insecurity for convenience, nor the constant updating.

    If you are a consumer, you don’t care about the OS as long as you can get to the software that lets you consume your favorite media.  You choose win or apple or android based on what you already have learned or what your support system will support.

    The “consumers” are by and large moving to tablets, and tiny tablets (phones) and don’t care about the OS.  Or they are using GUIs on a TV via a set top box (or stick, or even the “smart” tv itself.)

    Of course, if you are an “OS” company, having consumers become OS agnostic isn’t a good thing.

    n

  42. Nick Flandrey says:

    And as an office productivity suite company you are faced with the conundrum.   Anyone can build a suite now, and dozens of companies have.   We’re way past the point where there are more features and complication than 99% of users can use or need.

    And the landscape of computing has changed.   Business users are now a minority of “computer” users.  What does MS offer the consumer of media?

    n

    4
    1
  43. Alan says:

    >>And as an office productivity suite company you are faced with the conundrum.   Anyone can build a suite now, and dozens of companies have.   We’re way past the point where there are more features and complication than 99% of users can use or need.

    I’d guess more like 95%. I’ve seen complex Word, Excel and PowerPoint files that fail in Libre Office and similar non-MS products.

  44. Lynn says:

    I’d guess more like 95%. I’ve seen complex Word, Excel and PowerPoint files that fail in Libre Office and similar non-MS products.

    Multiple sheet XLSX files have problems in Google Sheets.  I have seen this be a problem several times.  This is one of the reasons Google tried to hire me 20 years ago.

  45. Lynn says:

    “Trump orders federal workers back to office 5 days a week”

        https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-orders-all-federal-workers-back-to-office-5-days-a-week/

    I am hearing that 94% of federal employees are remote.  So all we need to do is fire all the remote employees.

  46. Lynn says:

    MS should fork windows between professional users and consumers.   If you are using it to do work, you can’t tolerate the ads and spyware and insecurity for convenience, nor the constant updating.

    MS already did that.  Nobody bought the machines since they could not run any existing Windows software or games.

  47. Lynn says:

    BTW, during this entire Winter Storm Enzo, ERCOT has not had to start the gas turbines.  The solar and wind has been a constant 20,000 MW to 30,000 MW of the 50,000 MW to 70,000 MW demand.  Amazing.

       https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards

    ERCOT was paying zero for power earlier this evening since they paid to force every steam unit on the system online as most of the steam units take 3 to 7 days to startup.

    I am wondering if all of the new wind turbines in Texas have heaters in them.   There is 29,000 MW of wind generation alone right now.

  48. Lynn says:

    “Emily Damari Breaks Her Silence After Surviving 471 Days in Hamas Captivity”

       https://pjmedia.com/sarah-anderson/2025/01/21/emily-damari-breaks-her-silence-after-surviving-471-days-in-hamas-captivity-n4936228

    There are still Israeli hostages alive ?  Unreal, I figured that they would all be dead now. Good for her to never give up.

  49. brad says:

    MS should fork windows between professional users and consumers.

    I’m not up on Windows anymore, but: don’t they have “Home” and “Pro” versions?

    My wife just bought a new laptop with “Windows 11 Pro” on it. While the setup was annoying, there don’t seem to be any ads popping up. Although we run a PiHole, so maybe that’s the reason?

    The push to kill Win10 seems pretty dumb on Microsoft’s part. Maybe they don’t make money on their OS anymore, and just want out of the business entirely?

    I’d guess more like 95%. I’ve seen complex Word, Excel and PowerPoint files that fail in Libre Office and similar non-MS products.

    Excel and Calc can swap data, but the macros are very different. PowerPoint and Impress can only swap simple stuff. However, Writer is near 100% compatible with Word.

    Anyway, it’s actually not a huge problem. My employer has Excel sheets for certain things, so I work with those online, using the Office365 license that they provide. That only happens a few times a year. All of my own stuff is in LibreOffice.

    Moving Office online must have been a huge effort! It has also got to be part of the reason that Windows is struggling: Office was the major application that required you to use Windows.

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