Warmish and getting warmer. It was almost 70F yesterday morning and it got into the low 80s. The humidity was crazy high, and the short time I was working outdoors, sweat was running down my back. The sky was nice and blue with fluffy clouds… and I expect the same today.
Actually got some stuff done yesterday. Not as much as needed to be done, but more than some days. I did domestic bliss, getting a load of washing done. I made a crock pot pot roast. I got two of my cams back on line. One was a bad port on the switch, one was config issues, after I moved it 5 feet to get out from behind a tree. Thankfully I had the slack in the attic to move it. I also added a mic to the cam for the front porch, but haven’t tested or configured it yet. I have to print a different sticker for the front door to include audio recording.
In most states, audio recording is covered under wiretapping and eavesdropping laws, and can have very strong legal restrictions on use. This is why most surveillance video doesn’t include audio by default. No matter the legality, I’d rather have the audio, I just hadn’t taken down a cam to add a mic. Since I had the cam apart to troubleshoot, I added a mic.
I got some other small things done too. Fed the sick kid soup for lunch. She was feeling better at dinner time. Not sure if she’ll be back at school today or not. She’s not a shirker so I’m inclined to keep her home if she says she’s not feeling well.
Oh, and I put 50 pounds of flour into 5 gallon buckets, 25 pounds per bucket. That job has been sitting around waiting for far too long.
Today should be more of the same with an emphasis on cleaning up and putting away.
There’s always more to do, always more to stack. Stay busy.
nick
Newt Gingrich
– yeah, that’s who I was thinking of.
————————–
Keeping D2 home a second day. There isn’t anything that really only lasts a day, except food poisoning, so she gets another day of sleeping.
————————
69F, we’ll see about the sky when the sun comes up.
—————-
Yum, coffee…
n
Another RINO with feet of clay.
Gingrich never stood a chance with BJ.
Trump’s bold proposal to ‘take over’ the Gaza Strip and rebuild it into the ‘Riviera of the Middle East’ draws outrage from Washington to Rafah amid fears it will lead to bloody US occupation
———–
what’s the other hand doing?
n
My cataract surgery was done about 20 years ago. Technology has improved a lot over the years. I would opt for the LAL adjustable lenses had they been available.
Conflicting terms in my opinion.
Yes, they do. But the general consensus among Medicare experts is to avoid those plans. What they actually pay/cover has limits and not as all-encompassing as the ads indicate. There is also limited doctor selection as the plan is basically an HMO. To see a specialist, it is necessary to go through several layers of visits and consultations. Pre-existing conditions, sorry, you’re going to die. Medicare part B and a supplement, plan G is the recommended way to handle Medicare. I have both, the wife adds part D for prescriptions.
In my state recording is legal as long as one party consents. It can be the recording party, or the recorded party. There have been a couple of instances here where police were recorded on a traffic stop and the cop demanded the recording be terminated. In one instance the person being recorded got arrested and the officer was eventually charged with false arrest. In the other instance I know about the small-town officer removed the memory card from the camera and kept it. That officer was charged with destroying evidence. Word quickly spread.
Twice removed, but H/T to Peter…
Wednesday, February 5, 2025
The chaos deepens, and the panic spreads
n
Overcast with light misty drizzle. Yuck.
n
Well, that didn’t last long. Sun is trying to poke thru, and the mist went away.
Goofy weather.
n
Outrage at Trump’s prposal from the usual morally and intellectually bankrupt crowd that want to destroy Israel and her people.
May a tireless rabid donkey breed them and their entire families.
I’m going to guess 100% of these kids say they are “trans” because it is a cool thing to say. I’ll also guess Nixon hasn’t talked directly to her sister’s/friend’s kids, but was told they are trans. Also, she’s a commie and a lesbian. Her ex-husband turned her gay. She is pushing the Rainbow Alphabet “Signal”: we are all trans, nobody is heterosexual.
Publicity stunt for the “Sex In The City” revived series, which alienated their original audience but managed to cling to life and get renewed twice.
The series returns this year.
WarnerDiscovery is $40 billion in the hole.
But I thought nixon declined to return?
n
Now it’s 77F with sun and clouds.
———-
Not getting much done, unmotivated.
n
You are thinking of Kim Cattrall.
Nixon is an Executive Producer on “And Just Like That …”
And even Cattrall’s exit may not be permanent.
This is crazy:
Are Taxpayers Keeping POLITICO Afloat to the Tune of MILLIONS? Sure Looks Like It – We Have the Receipts!
How did tRump find out about USAID? It is clear USAID is the Dumbo slush fund. I don’t think there is one thing USAID funded that benefits us dirt people. Shit-can the DOE next. Investigate the IRS to death. tRump said he might send all those IRS hires to the border. Genius.
tRump should sign an EO “Every Federal employee back to the office by next Friday or you are FIRED!”
Super Micro shipped Blackwell chips first.
My employer and the other vendors are still working out issues and have yet to announce a date.
Politico parent Axel Springer has long been associated with the CIA.
The troll was fond of Insider publications IIRC.
Business Insider pretty much blew their credibility “leaking” DeSantis wedding pictures during the Florida beat down of Disney in 2022.
>>I ordered two packages of 2 each of:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01H74VKZU?tag=ttgnet-20
If interested, I will report if they work fine.
@lynn, yes, please let me know how they work out for you. If so, one item I can cross off my to-do list. TIA.
Installed and the TP-link AV2000 ethernet over powerline units work fine out of the box. I bought four units (two to a box) and used three. I did not use the encryption mode. With our monthly power losses in our neighborhood, I would be perpetually doing the turn encryption mode on dance. My wife says that the new units are faster than the old Netgear units which were 85 mbps. We have a 300 mbps Infinity cable line WAN to the house.
The new units are much more bulkier than the old Netgear units. But, they have a passthru power outlet which really helps. And they have a second ethernet port should you need it (I did not).
The ethernet power and busy lights are on the side instead of the front. That means that they do not light up the room in the middle of the night. Nice.
Highly recommended.
Freefall: Uniform Failure
http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff4200/fc04175.htm
Florence needs a tail hole or a tail sleeve.
Yum, coffee…
Today was a two cup day. In my two cup five gallon Blood Center mug making that four cups.
Oh, and I put 50 pounds of flour into 5 gallon buckets, 25 pounds per bucket. That job has been sitting around waiting for far too long.
How are you going to keep the weevils out after a year or so ?
My wife opened a bag of flour at her father’s place a year or two after her mother passed away in 1993. It was full of weevils. I had to make an emergency Walmart run.
tRump should sign an EO “Every Federal employee back to the office by next Friday or you are FIRED!”
I believe that Trump did sign an EO stating all federal workers must be back in their offices by Feb 7.
https://www.newsweek.com/federal-workers-return-office-deadlines-2025788
Trump’s bold proposal to ‘take over’ the Gaza Strip and rebuild it into the ‘Riviera of the Middle East’ draws outrage from Washington to Rafah amid fears it will lead to bloody US occupation
———–
what’s the other hand doing?
n
Department of Education.
Well, that escalated quickly. In a good way.
We found out one of our former exchange students is taking a trip out west. They will be in Las Vegas for three days and we asked if we could join them. They thought it was a good idea. Let the planning begin. July 9 through July 14. It will be hot, hot, hot.
We will both be staying in the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas. I have stayed there before. A nice place. Room rates are all over the place. Saturday night is $119. Sunday night is $17. (Seventeen). The annoying part is the $45.00 a day resort fee. Which is typical for Las Vegas. We booked the hotel for five nights.
Then came the flights. I prefer Delta because I earn miles, the entire goal of the program is customer loyalty, and it works on me. Plus, Delta is really convenient in the area that I live. So off doing a bunch of research on flight options.
I have enough miles for a round-trip Comfort+ ticket, the wife does not. If we add the two accounts together then there is enough for both of us with 78 miles to spare. To transfer miles on Delta would cost me $200.00 and the closest transfer I could get was 20K miles. Which left the wife about 58 miles short of getting a Comfort+ ticket. If I waited to book the flights until after the cruise in May, there would be enough miles but would still require a transfer fee of $200.
The strange part is that Knoxville is usually several hundred dollars higher than Atlanta. It was not the case for traveling to Las Vegas. Atlanta was about double Knoxville. OK. So, let’s book the flight from Knoxville. Hmmm, we change planes in Atlanta and would get on the same flight that would cost double out of Atlanta.
I decided to just pay dollars for the flight rather than mess with the miles. Since we have two additional trips on Delta this year, one of 2.7K miles in 1st Class so 5.4K miles each way for a total of 10.8K miles for that trip. Then we have this trip to Las Vegas. About 1.7K miles each way and will earn another 3.4K miles for each of us. Then there is the trip to Germany. That is 4.7K miles and will give us another 9.4K miles added to each of our accounts. Almost 20K miles will be added to the accounts this year.
“BOMBSHELL: Trump Kills Biden’s AI Order”
https://thelibertydaily.com/bombshell-trump-kills-bidens-ai-order/
“Donald Trump just overturned Executive Order #14110…
A piece of legislation Joe Biden signed to limit AI in the U.S.
By overturning this law…
Trump has now opened the floodgates.”
AI is not what it seems so far.
Well, that didn’t last long. Sun is trying to poke thru, and the mist went away.
Goofy weather.
Standard weather in Texas. Been hot, cold, hot, cold, etc, etc, etc all my life. Oklahoma is worse.
“North Texas faces deep freeze as cold front targets state”
https://www.chron.com/weather/article/texas-cold-front-freeze-20146436.php
“Near record heat across the Lone Star State will give way to a stark drop in temperatures this weekend.”
They are now arguing how far south the arctic front is coming. I say The Gulf Of America.
I hope that you did not remove your freeze protection.
“Warren says Trump was ‘on to a real problem’ when he blasted BofA for debanking customers”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/warren-says-trump-was-on-to-a-real-problem-when-he-blasted-bofa-for-debanking-customers-162323188.html
“The Democratic senator from Massachusetts outlined her support for the issue known during a Senate banking committee hearing Wednesday when she commended the president for confronting Bank of America (BAC) CEO Brian Moynihan last month.”
Whoa.
Home AI servers are coming.
$3000. Arm CPU. Nvidia GPUs.
A reference design from Nvidia from all the usual suspects at first.
The catch? Linux only.
What was the ad inside the PC Magazine cover 25 years ago?
“Learn PowerBuilder or lose your job.”
“Trump 2.0 – The story so far”
https://ombreolivier.substack.com/p/trump-20-the-story-so-far?r=7yrqz
“OODA loops, Target Rich Environments and more”
“We’re in the third week of the political tsunami that is Trump 2.0. The DOGE boys are getting access to systems and turning off the money flows and the DC swamp creatures are panicking. I think they may be mistaking what happens now for about as bad as it can get, while actually what we have now is that moment when the sea retreats abruptly from the beach and poor widdle crabs and fishies are left flapping in pools that are too small for them. Although the FBI agents and DoJ
persecutorsprosecutors who were involved in the Jan 6 investigations and the Jack Smith fishing investigations are probably feeling the wave coming down on them. In particular I would very much not want to be the agent who pawed through Melania’s underwear.”The swamp massacre is just starting. This will continue for years. Wait for the courts to get involved. The DC courts in particular will rule against the USA Constitution every day of the week.
Ah, the current target is not DOE, it is SBA. Everything in the federal government appears to have been politicized and/or weaponized.
This will be going on for the rest of our lives as new administrations take power.
And just like that, Politico got $10’s million from the goobermint.
Karoline Leavitt Just Delivered a Costly Message That Politico and Other Media Outlets Will NOT Like
All of them Dumbo agent provocateurs. It is easy to now see why the Dumbo’s are crying tears of pain. Their shadow political agents are dead in the water.
Dang. I’ll be on the family Alaska cruise during that time. I’d like to see you again, Mr. Ray.
There are vids on YT where people are stacking four M4 Mac Minis and running some type of AI system on them. There are enough Thunderbolt ports to direct connection four of them.
“This is Criminal”
https://areaocho.com/this-is-criminal/
“Here are some things that your tax dollars have been paying for:
1. National Squirrel Census $2.3M
2. Federal Committee on Sandwich Standards $5M
3. Bureau of Uneven Sidewalk Awareness $1.8M
4. National Soap Carving Championship Grant $700K
5. Bureau of Left Handed Scissors $250K
6. National Moth Appreciation Day Initiative $250K”
And many more ridiculous items.
A tranny musical in Ireland: $70,000
I had a laugh at a DM article where the author referred to people on OnlyFans as “models”.
Sure, “porno” models, mainly.
“BREAKING: Trump signs executive order banning biological males from women’s sports”
https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-trump-signs-executive-order-banning-biological-males-from-womens-sports
“The war on women’s sports is over.”
About time !
“Schadenfreude at Its Finest: Climate Grifters Cry Over Trump’s Grant Freeze”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/02/05/schadenfreude-at-its-finest-climate-grifters-cry-over-trumps-grant-freeze/
“Let’s set the scene: Trump waltzes back into office and, in a move that should have shocked exactly no one, hits the brakes on the Biden-era climate boondoggles like the Inflation Reduction Act (which, ironically, reduced inflation about as effectively as a gasoline shower puts out a fire). Millions of dollars in grants—aka your hard-earned money—suddenly vanish from the pockets of climate non-profits, academics, and other assorted grifters who had built their entire existence around government handouts.”
“Bloomberg describes this as “confusion and panic.” Oh no! You mean these self-proclaimed geniuses who claim they can control the global temperature to within a fraction of a degree 100 years from now couldn’t foresee a Trump policy move that was as predictable as the sunrise? Not so bright after all, are they?”
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
A quick(ish) trip to Costco … $236 for a basket of stuff. Granted, their baskets are big, but still.
And now I hear my father’s voice: “Everyone knows a coke is a nickel and a gallon of gas 11¢ .”
The original promise of Grand Central Dispatch on Mac OS X was segments code and data being shuffled across the Thunderbolt connection to execute on other systems seamlessly. I don’t know what became of that.
The NVIDIA “Project Digits” box will let developers experiment and build software on a desktop machine which will scale to the larger, more power-hungry Blackwell boxes for production. $3000 buys the base model – one Arm CPU, one GB10 GPU, and 128 MB of unified memory.
NVIDIA definitely took some system design queues from Apple Silicon machines.
Tails can be awkward:
https://megatokyo.com/strip/1615
“Fmr. Air Traffic Controller: DC Crash Was 100% Controller’s Fault – Updated 2-4”
https://www.independentsentinel.com/fmr-air-traffic-controller-dc-crash-was-100-controllers-fault/
“Update: Current information from NTSB on February 4 at 6 pm: the plane likely tried to avert the crash one second before and pointed the nose to the sky. General Holt said the helicopter didn’t flinch as it dove into the plane. He points to the problem as something with the crew on the helicopter.”
“A knowledgeable former air traffic controller named Michael Pearson told Greg Kelly on his show last night that the D.C. crash that killed 67 people was 100% the fault of air traffic control because he gave incorrect instructions.”
“Mistake 2”
““Not only that,” Pearson said, “you have to have a means of separation ensured both before and after the application of visual separation; they had none. They should have kept that helicopter at least 500 feet or a mile and a half longitudinally from that airplane.”
It is Obama’s fault for making the federal government into a diversity campaign.
Wow. I know leaving Texas is difficult and time consuming, but I thought heading East would be different.
It’s 5 or 6 Hours North to get out of Texas from Houston, and a very long day’s drive (or more) to the West, but I thought going East would be quick.
Three and a half hours to Louisiana. Four hours through LA. I’m in Mississippi and Pensacola is still 2 hours away.
FML.
“BREAKING: New AG Pam Bondi FREEZES all federal funding to sanctuary cities”
https://therightscoop.com/breaking-new-ag-pam-bondi-freezes-all-federal-funding-to-sanctuary-cities/
These new Trump people do not screw around like that Butt guy who took his first three months off without notice for family leave.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bondis-day-one-doj-directives-renew-focus-death-penalty-combat-weaponization-justice-cartels
and
NYT, BBC, and AP
https://legalinsurrection.com/2025/02/politico-new-york-times-bbc-received-usaid-funds/
They are paid propaganda organizations.
No more payments, no more access to the White House until the heads have been called before Congress to explain exactly what was being bought.
I’d be surprised if there weren’t half a dozen FOI requests filed tomorrow asking for all communications. If any of them whine about cost of compliance the reply should be “We already paid for it.”
Then you still have the Florida Panhandle to Lake City (four hours) and down I-75 to Wildwood (two hours).
Once you get to Wildwood, you’re an hour from Orlando on the Turnpike.
A whole lotta nothing in the Panhandle. Boredom is the biggest problem.
Fixed it.
You are engaging in “Gish Gollop” (troll term) questioning the finances, however.
Well, finally, we did something that’s at least a LITTLE “prepping” related. I bought a couple of shelving units from Amazon and set them up in the garage, and now we can finally unload all the paper grocery sacks. Next project? Sort everything and LABEL THE SHELVES.
I called my bride out to the garage and she said “It looks like we’re preppers!” I said “We have been for five years already.”
Actually, the NEXT step is “Take advil!” because my back is killing me. I’ve been a slug for too long, and I’m just not used to actually doing any WORK.
Vitamin M!
Bummer. The decision, and the planning, was done within the time frame of 20 hours. The flight took the longest online. We will see the former exchange student in July in Nevada, then again at the end of August in Germany. Makes a person appreciate how small the world has become.
We chat regularly which in itself is amazing. It is mind boggling that we can use video calls for no charge. Something that was science fiction 50 years ago. And that 50 years ago was black and white. Today it is in full color HD.
The ability to use the web to find flights, get information, do reservations, all without interacting with a human is amazing. But also troubling as I sometimes miss dealing with a human. Except Comcast. I despise dealing with them; human, chat, or their website which is intentionally designed to confuse, obscure, and be slow all at the same time.
Currently it costs a lot of money to use my cell phone in Europe unless I get a new SIM and number. I can use WiFi calling on my phone to call anywhere in the U.S. from Germany at no charge. People cannot call me. The wife will use that feature to call her brother and a couple of friends while we are in Germany. Just amazing.
Does Google Voice still hand out numbers?
I prefer gnip gnop… but then I am a child of the 80s.
n
I don’t know. And really don’t care. Google is all about data. I had a Google phone number at one time. My biggest concern was Google tracking my calls. Or maybe scanning the calls for keywords. I avoid using Google as much as possible and use other search engines.
No, not 100%.
The helicopter was high. No matter what ATC did or did not do, it was high. That’s the PIC’s fault.
Had it been in the corridor below 200′ everyone on the two a/c would be alive today. It was high.
Anyone who has ever done VFR under the “upside-down wedding cake” of controlled airspace knows that they should be doing their instrument scan and watching the altimeter like a hawk when not looking for traffic. It was high.
There are contributing factors, there always are, but they were high.
even 200 feet is crazy close and would be a near miss, with the helo down in the wake turbulence … they were too close together.
Why were they that close?
n
It will be interesting to hear the initial report. And to be clear, the Warrant Officer was the PIC.
There are going to be a ton of contributing factors.
The funniest arm-chair pilot thing I’ve heard so far is “why wasn’t the helo crew chief held responsible? He’s the chief of the aircraft.”
I use other search engines and limit exposure to the FAANGs’ data mining, but I have a Samsung tablet with all the Google toys so I keep Voice active on that device.
“Surprised by President Trump’s quick actions after inauguration?”
“If you were paying attention, you shouldn’t be surprised. A plan was in place, and Trump said he was going to aggressively deport illegal aliens and impose tariffs during his campaign. Although he denied knowing about Project 2025, it was created to be a blueprint for his first 180 days in office, and he’s following it. You can download it for free at https://www.project2025.org/playbook/. To be prepared for what’s coming in the days ahead, study the playbook.”
From:
http://www.taxtrimmers.com/bottomline/news.shtml
Shoot, it is a 922 page PDF book written by hundreds of people !
There generally are multiple factors in any air crash. Multiple failures in a combination of human and mechanical.
>>I believe that Trump did sign an EO stating all federal workers must be back in their offices by Feb 7.
All these (nonsensical) DOGE protests are inadvertently getting more people back to DC.
Who holds the keys to the (data) kingdom?
Trump White House just made a crucial move to ensure it’s FINALLY in control of the executive branch
>>“Donald Trump just overturned Executive Order #14110…
A piece of legislation Joe Biden signed to limit AI in the U.S.
By overturning this law…
Trump has now opened the floodgates.”
AI is not what it seems so far.
Please don’t hurt the monkeys…
>>Home AI servers are coming.
To do what with? Am I missing something?
>> A quick(ish) trip to Costco … $236 for a basket of stuff. Granted, their baskets are big, but still.
And now I hear my father’s voice: “Everyone knows a coke is a nickel and a gallon of gas 11¢ .”
“No Pesi…Coke”
even 200 feet is crazy close and would be a near miss, with the helo down in the wake turbulence … they were too close together.
Why were they that close?
There should have been at least a mile horizontal distance, several miles would have been way better. That plane was going around 250 mph, 4 miles a minute, and was dropping altitude quickly as it was landing in a couple of miles. The plane had probably already dropped its flaps all the way down and flared for landing, a very vulnerable position.
Yeah, it’s a red herring. Even if the helo was 200 ft out of place, how is it possible for that to be considered OK? 200ft is way too little separation isn’t it? That would have been a near miss under any circumstances wouldn’t it?
n
More retail closing…
Forever 21 is next .
n
Yeah, it’s a red herring. Even if the helo was 200 ft out of place, how is it possible for that to be considered OK? 200ft is way too little separation isn’t it? That would have been a near miss under any circumstances wouldn’t it?
n
I seem to be remember that a half mile of vertical separation and five miles of horizontal separation are minimums. I am probably wrong.
>>“Fmr. Air Traffic Controller: DC Crash Was 100% Controller’s Fault – Updated 2-4”
https://www.independentsentinel.com/fmr-air-traffic-controller-dc-crash-was-100-controllers-fault/
Read the full article, along with the comments, for varying “expert” opinions as to who’s at fault.
Also found the apparent reason that the CRJ was asked to change runways…
>>Wow. I know leaving Texas is difficult and time consuming, but I thought heading East would be different.
It’s 5 or 6 Hours North to get out of Texas from Houston, and a very long day’s drive (or more) to the West, but I thought going East would be quick.
Three and a half hours to Louisiana. Four hours through LA. I’m in Mississippi and Pensacola is still 2 hours away.
FML.
We did the full East to West transit when we bailed on Florida in the middle of Covid. A few stretches were very desolate, no other cars for hours. Only once did we almost run out of gas. Luckily we found a 24 hour pump right off the necessary exit. Not staffed, just a credit card reader.
I been spending time, ( a lot actually), in using AI to repair/restore some old family photos. So I was looking forward to the release on the new RTX50 series . Not sure what the allocation was for Oz, but like most places, gone in a flash.. Now the prices have just gone up as well. This makes the top tier cards approx. AU$5K, just over US$3K roughly.. As expected, many heads are exploding… 🙂
I think I’ll stick with my 3090 until the dust settles. Crazy times.!!
And it’s a pleasant 28deg, (82F), @2.50pm here in the land of sand.
>>Does Google Voice still hand out numbers?
They will pull back the number if it’s unused for (iirc) 60 days.
I hope that you did not remove your freeze protection.
– one of the things I did yesterday was put my sprinkler system back together. Even with draining the vacuum breaker, one of the valves now leaks. I guess I better drain it again.
———
there’s a guy on youtube running the china AI on razzberry pi at home.
——–
I think the 5 hours of music here are AI generated or manipulated…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6M_EeSS4n8
Sounds very good, but after a while, it’s somehow tiring to my ears.
n