Hot and humid. It’s more natural this way. Some people in Houston and surrounds got rain yesterday. Depended entirely on where you were. Some had a sunny day, some not so much. With all that variability in one city and one day, how does anyone really think they can measure and record “truth” with one or two numbers?
Did my stuff. Spent half the day driving. Went up to the Woodlands, and down to League City. Swung through Laporte and Pasadena on the way home. Lots of driving. Some rain, some sun.
Then I got home, made brats for dinner, and spent the rest of the day in front of the computer. Exciting stuff.
I did get word from my neighbor at the lake that my dockhouse was dry. That meant I could sleep in Houston. The water level has gone down since, removing any urgency I felt earlier about going there to clean up. I’ll monitor and maybe get up there later in the week.
Plenty to do in town here, though. I’ve got one pickup later today, and a bunch of stuff to move, clean, fix, or otherwise mess with. Call it improving my situation.
Call it prepping. I’ll call it “life” as that’s what prepping has done. It’s moved from ‘something I do’ to ‘the way I live’. I may be prejudiced, but I think that’s a worthy goal.
Stack it all!
nick
When I lived in San Antonio, well actually Live Oak, Northeast of SA, there were several low water crossings that always flooded during heavy rains. We call the rain events “frog stranglers”. These crossings are clearly marked with warning signs and water depth indicators. It was not unusual for some of these crossings to go from an inch of water to three feet in less than 10 minutes.
Almost every time it rained, someone would try and cross one of these locations. I suspect there are still stupid people doing the same thing.
Pokemon is hot?
The retro game show in Austin at the end of July will be overrun with civilians again on Saturday morning.
In the last couple of years, the morning rush was about N64 cartridges.
They’re called Californians, and, yes, more arrive in Texas every day, especially this time of year, between Memorial Day and the start of the school year in August..
Fortunately, the rains will end soon. At least, in a normal year they would.
The same Fulbright, avowed segregationist, who, with Albert Gore Sr., led the charge against the Civil Rights act, forcing Johnson to cut deals with Republicans to get the bill through Congress?
Yes, the board certainly has the moral high ground representing the organization.
“They’re called Californians, and, yes, more arrive in Texas every day,…”
They have activated the natural defense mechanism of the State of Texas. Hasten the process with some signs:
“California Immigrants Forbidden to Cross Here”
@Jenny: Thanks for your comments about cheese-making. My wife tried once, and it was pretty gross. I’m pretty sure she’d like to try again, so I’ll probably get that book for her birthday.
Living in a rural village, it seems likely we could get milk from a local farmer. I will have to figure out who to ask…
I Convinced HP’s Board to Buy Palm for $1.2B. Then I Watched Them Kill It in 49 Days
https://philmckinney.substack.com/p/i-convinced-hps-board-to-buy-palm
I took Phil McKinney 15 years to break his silence.
It’s about as useful as the real story behind Studebaker’s fall.
And his refusal to make the obvious judgement about the HP board–incompetent–further impugns his viewpoints.
The problem is that no other plane taking off there experienced this.
None of the theories make much sense right now.
Now, there was a case some years ago where a jet liner out of Florida, I think, had an issue with oil leaks in the engines. The pilot realized what was happening, shut down all the engines, glided back to near the airport and restarted the engines just in time to do a powered landing.
Maintenance error caused that,, but there are no reports of this a/c just coming out of a maintenance shop.
These guys didn’t have that sort of altitude, in any case.
They did not try to turn, which was smart, those turn into stalls almost always.
One scary possibility is a hack of the fly by wire system. I haven’t seen it mentioned anywhere but it’s something that will eventually happen somewhere, to somebody.
If suddenly at 500′ the engines were set to idle, and the pilots locked out of the control system, this is what we would see.
Good for you Mr. Ray.
MrsAtoz and I are and have been in Priority Group 8 since we retired. PG8 are retired Vets with no service related disability and income over VA standards for the area you live in. It is not even worth going through the hassle of “space available” for VA care. Medicare is working fine (we have to make max payments to Medicare, also). The Army at the time told me “you’ll get healthcare for life if you make it twenty years” which is 1% true. I can’t imagine the hassle MrsAtoz would have gone through for gallbladder removal by the VA. With Medicare we picked the best hospital in SA.
Bird strike took out one, or even both engines?
Honestly, it sounds more like sour grapes. The guy was really invested in the Palm takeover. He complains that, while he was out sick, the device was released way too early. But hardware and software like that isn’t built in weeks, or even months. If it was overpriced and under-developed, that will have been the case even before the takeover, and he should have seen it.
Buying Palm was a stupid decision for HP. The devices were ridiculously hard to program and required an expensive development toolset.
Android used Java at the core of its API and enabled sideloading of apps without a cumbersome screening process.
Apple offered easy porting of C/C++ business logic and a $99 annual developer license.
Apotheker was a moron, but his predecessor, Mark Hurd, was another Boomer who couldn’t keep his sex drive under control on the job. Apotheker’s successor, Meg Whitman was even dumber than Apotheker.
We won’t even get into the iCarly era which started the company on the path to the present state.
Lots of mistakes at HP. McKinney was as dumb as the execs he’s criticizing in opting not to sell his shares.
I don’t use my money to buy shares in my current employer and unloaded the Death Star stock in my 401(k) plan as soon as I was able to do so.
When I left GTE, I cashed out my options with the equivalent of VZ at $78. Look where the stock is now. Friends thought I was crazy to vote against the “merger of equals” and sell the stock.
Some really questionable decisions got made by Mark Hurd after he went to Oracle, especially moving HQ to what was effectively a new hire/intern training facility here in Austin located within easy walking distance of the 6th Street nightly bacchanalia.
I’m not going to say it was a good think Hurd passed when he did, but …
@brad
My wife tried once, and it was pretty gross. I’m pretty sure she’d like to try again
The paneer (not in the book, very easy) is a quick way to find out if the milk will work for cheese making. Bring the milk to boil, point of boil, dump in an acid (lemon), when curds form pour through cloth. Twist curds into a ball in the cloth and squish between two plates overnight in the fridge. Something to catch the whey.
if the curds don’t form pretty quick, that milk doesn’t work.
It took me several attempts to make a successful cheddar. There are a bunch of steps and it’s a finicky cheese. Bucheron and chaource are mold rind cheeses that are fairly simple and yield a satisfying sense of accomplishment. Feta is very forgiving to the beginner cheese maker.
I find mozzarella tasty but harder to make than the books or internet say.
I made blue cheese once. It aged in the fridge for months. I couldn’t bring myself to eat it, or even unwrap it. The recipe calls for piercing with wood skewers to give the mold a path to travel. I couldn’t get out of my mind the thought that it also gave bacteria a path to travel.
I’ve had a couple times where the curds got foamy and smelly within a brief period. Foamy is rarely good. Those got dumped.
The equipment and surfaces need to be clean. It’s easy to thoughtlessly contaminate. I drop my cloth in boiling water to sterilize. The longer a cheese ages, the more care you take with cleanliness to the point of sterilization. When I make cheddar I clean then rinse with a sterilization solution, and sterilize surfaces. Then keep everyone out of the kitchen. Because I’m aging that sucker for months.
The book is a lovely read, even if she never makes a single cheese from it.
It’s not an accident that Palm and Blackberry were both destroyed.
HP board doesn’t have a track record in choosing CEO’s.
The “try something new” urge seems irresistible sometimes.
——-
poured down rain earlier today, but sunny and moist now. 80F. Coffee is brewing.
n
[Minnesota] Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman, husband killed; Rep. John Hoffman and wife also shot
https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/speaker-emerita-melissa-hortman-husband-killed-rep-john-hoffman-and-wife-also-shot/
Early report did not identify the victims, and my first thought was that the progs June 14 festivities had started early. Wrong. Both are Democrats. This week Minnesota finished special session to pass the budget. Free health care for adult illegals was removed and the progs are bitter.
https://alphanews.org/just-five-state-democrats-voted-to-repeal-taxpayer-funded-healthcare-for-illegal-immigrants/
I’m not going to bet on a coincidence.
Perp was dressed as law enforcement, had a vehicle with a pusher bumper and red/blue flashers. Described as white. A lot of planning.
A lot of planning.
– lot of prepping. Just needed a target. One other suspect in custody.
Lists ARE being made. By all the sides.
Lot of old grudges settled when the sectarian violence kicks off.
n
Blackberry was not destroyed by external forces. Blackberry committed suicide.
Blackberry was supported as long as they were willing to support strong encryption and ignore government desire for backdoors.
Once they broke that rule, there was much less desire for their existence, iirc.
Probably why apple continues to claim that they will not break iphone encryption for LE.
n
My employer offers a stock purchase plan. They’ve upped the discount to 7%. It isn’t worth the hassle for the small amounts I would theoretically be willing to buy. Those who have the money to make it worthwhile tend to get stocks as compensation and don’t need to buy them. The company pushes hard twice a year during sign-up windows. The only company stock I own is via total market index fund.
Think you’d see this response for a shopkeeper?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14812401/Minnesota-Democratic-lawmakers-targeted-shootings.html
n
Bad criminal, bad! NOT OK!
FFS, “not ok”. The Mayor is probably just fine with official state violence “against other people”…
n
Bit more infor here on the situation in Minnesota:
https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/manhunt-underway-for-man-possibly-posing-as-law-enforcement-in-brooklyn-park/
KSTP is reporting that the response to the Hoffman house in Champlin, MN prompted someone torealize that Hortman lived a couple miles away and send officers o check. They arrived and found the perps vehicle with lights flashing parked in the driveway, and enchanged fire with hm when he came out the front door. He retreated and they believe he ran out the back of the house. The residential area is a golf course development and has been cordoned off with shelter in place orders and people advised to call 911 if someone knocks on their door. Officers are working in pairs, so a single person dressed as an officer will get immediate scrutiny.
Law enforcement has the vehicle and recovered what the local police chief described as a “manifesto” with a list of targets. Latest report is that U.S. Senator Tina Smith (MN-D) is allegedly on the list. No word on Gov. Tampon.
Have not seen a report of anyone in custody.
I think the way to break Apple encryption would be to copy the entire state of the device, create a virtual device from that, clone a few million times, and use a brute force attack to see if you can access via the six or four digit encryption pin that most people still use. This might take several minutes.
Maybe.
Cops really don’t like impersonators, he imperils their lives and their authority. Unless the perp lays down flat on discovery (and maybe not even then if they are like SoCal sheriff’s) he’s going to end up perforated.
Shares as compensation via RSU grants are not that lucrative if the stock is flat because the vesting grants’ cost basis is taxed like ordinary income in the year they are received.
You can get creative with the cost basis on the taxes with most plan administrators leaving those fields blank on the 1099, but that’s assuming you aren’t at risk for auditing.
Congress either outlawed or severely restricted options after Enron and the bursting of the Internet bubble.
When I worked for CGI, my “member” manager – I refer to him here as Cop Army — was retired military 20 years who then did a minimum stint as a police officer to qualify for that pension, maybe another 10 years. He was roughly my age. His working the Vet/race quota job at CGI was all about the employee discount for the stock, which he maxed every year.
Since you work for a defense contractor IIRC, I’m sure you have people like Cop Army who are there for the stock in return for their Vet quotas.
CGI flat out hid the 401(k) plan details from us which is a shame because, when I finally made the right phone call (!) to get enrolled, I learned the administrator was T. Rowe Price and not Vanguard or State Street in Fidelity drag.
Blackberry had excellent crypto. Management made the deliberate decision to give away the signing keys for the certificates protecting the email servers to state level actors, nominal allies with authoritarian governments like the Saudis.
Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft do it too, but you have no expectation of privacy with those companies “free” services.
MN update from John Hinderaker at Powerline:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2025/06/legislators-shot-in-minnesota.php
It is 90F at 10am here, humidity flirting with single digits, ugh. Might get ugly later.
I have a few (dozen) outdoor projects, but most will wait.
Misters for the tomatoes and chihuahuas should get priority, install their new nozzles and get them emplaced and turned on.
The 3-Letters probably already do this. Also, if you are worried when you travel, turn off your biometrics and go with a 6-digit minimum alphanumeric PIN on your iPhone.
“Also, if you are worried when you travel, turn off your biometrics and go with a 6-digit minimum alphanumeric PIN on your iPhone.”
First, consider not traveling with your personal cell phone.
Unlike PSION, a superior product, IMO, that was killed by the Symbian adventure. I still miss my Psion, which had the best real keyboard of any portable device. It was stolen off my office desk when I stupidly neglected to bring it with me after working late one night.
I still hope that someone will resurrect those elegantly engineered PSION keyboards as a modern input device option.
I must have my digits with me at all times.
Bah. Critters chewed through another soaker hose.
I am trying to replace them all with solid PVC, but it is slow going.
I wonder if the age of conventionally armed ballistic missiles as a serious threat is over?
They did not work for the Nazis, they don’t seem to have worked for the Russians, and the Iranian versions aren’t anything but a nuisance for the Israelis.
The implications of successful ABM defense, for nations relying on a small submarine nuclear deterrence force, are also pretty staggering.
Symbian’s API was worse than Blackberry’s.
Once Apple introduced the iPhone 4 with enough memory to cover developers’ sins and iOS 5 with Automatic Reference Counting managing the memory at the View-Controller interface, the Posix C API was the “killer app” for third party developers.
Apple was also early with C++11 support in the runtime, which I think is still key to their internal development efforts.
Closures with libxml was a gift from the programming gods.
@denis:
Somebody has – Planet Computers, with their Gemini, Cosmo and Astro. They engaged Martin Riddiford, the Psion designer, to repeat his work on the 5.
Not entirely successfully – I have a Gemini, and the keyboard is not as good as that on my Psion 5MX. That said, I have owned 2 Psion MXs, and the second machine’s keyboard is not as good as the first one. There seems to be a consistency problem, like with the “little girl, who had a little curl”.
G.
Closures with libcurl too.
Plus unique FILE* pointers.
Todays episode of “Chihuahua’s Always Rule” is “Angel’s Big Breakout”.
In this episode our spunky heroine spies a momentarily open gate and rushes out and towards freedom & traffic.
At high noon, gasping and wheezing in the dirt road behind her is the old dog sitter, without a hat, trying to chase, keep his pants up and call out, all at the same time.
It all ends in a touching manner when she stops to sniff at a well watered tree on the other side of the paved street and they are re-united.
Tune in tomorrow for the next episode: “Tastes Like Chicken!”
Chihuahuas, the biggest little dogs on the planet.
n
Buying homes in Gary Indiana. FFS. Gary is on again off again the murder capital of the US. Gary is a place you don’t drive thru, in case your car breaks down during that 10 minutes. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/real-estate/article-14750561/gary-indiana-housing-market-cheap-ramshackle.html
– additional costs like security and private school. Gary has a casino, which contrary to the political spew, didn’t uplift the city. Gary has a regional airport that never really caught on. Gary’s biggest problem is who moved in to work for peanuts in the mills, and then descended into violence and anarchy….
Gary is an example of why we can’t have nice things. It was nice at one point… well, nice-ish.
From “The Music Man” – “Gary Indiana”
n
Pictured: Mother-of-two who helped run global monkey torture network as more sickening details of her crimes emerge
– WTF? Global monkey torture?
Bring the cleansing fire.
n
So now the crumbling POS in the sky is a “beacon of hope” since the african american has pointed out the truth…
Elon Musk calls for America’s $150 billion beacon of hope to be terminated
n
Well, Musk is right.
I suppose you could design some sort of strong back that ran through the Russian module and connected to the existing airlock hatches at the ends, and then add another airlock of some sort on either side for isolation, but it’s probably not worth the trouble.
The idea of 30 years without serious structural inspection and maintenance would be laughed at in any real world engineering scenario, be it civil, naval, or aeronautical.
It is rather criminal that we don’t have a replacement already up and running, but that’s the NASA and Presidents and US Congress that we have had to work with.
Medicare is working fine (we have to make max payments to Medicare, also).
Ah, good old IRMAA. I think that we are getting IRMAAd also.
https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/insurance/medicare/what-is-the-medicare-irmaa
>>Perp was dressed as law enforcement, had a vehicle with a pusher bumper and red/blue flashers. Described as white. A lot of planning.
Wouldn’t surprise me if he picked up a well-worn surplus PD vehicle at a county or state auction. Necessary holes already drilled for lights and sirens. Lightbars in the correct colors from eBay.
“Celebrate – CO2 Levels Just Hit 430ppm”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/06/14/celebrate-co2-levels-just-hit-430ppm/
“The gas of life is greening the deserts, contributing to rising agricultural yields and making the far North more habitable – but you would never learn this from mainstream media.”
Yes, our CO2 is greening the deserts.
Fun fact, your lungs won’t work under 130 ppm of CO2. Photosynthesis of plants has trouble working under 150 to 200 ppm of CO2.
@Alan
>>Perp was dressed as law enforcement, had a vehicle with a pusher bumper and red/blue flashers. Described as white. A lot of planning.
“Wouldn’t surprise me if he picked up a well-worn surplus PD vehicle at a county or state auction. Necessary holes already drilled for lights and sirens. Lightbars in the correct colors from eBay. “
Perp has been ID’d. Worked for a start-up security company, and one site had a photo of their vehicles. Assuming the graphics were skinned on, it wold be easy to peel them off and create a generic unmarked police vehicle.
Latest here:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2025/06/legislators-shot-in-minnesota.php
indicates that he evaded the police cordon and was seen far away early this morning.
Given the similarity of names, I wonder if the guy killed both couples because he wasn’t sure which one was the right target.
n
“Iran fired some 200 ballistic missiles at Israel in several barrages since last night, IDF says”
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/iran-fired-some-200-ballistic-missiles-at-israel-in-several-barrages-since-last-night-idf-says/
“Most of the missiles were intercepted by air defenses. The military says that around 25%, less than 50, were not intercepted “according to protocol,” allowing them to strike open areas without causing damage to any critical infrastructure.”
At some point, the Israelis are going to say screw it and send real ballistic missiles with nuclear payloads to Iran.
I hope the Israelis target the Iranian Islamic leaders soon.
You can bet those guys are deep underground…
n
I’ve scanned almost $300 pokemon cards so far. Still have about 50-75 left to do. No big payday yet, most are $1 cards. Still, considering I grabbed the box of them at Goodwill for a couple of bucks, even getting a dime a card would be a nice profit, with the chance for a treasure hunt too.
———
Just finished watching Ghostbusters with the kids. D2 thinks all the older actors were hot. Oy vey. The kids find most of the cast familiar, but couldn’t place them… they do look so young compared to later in their careers.
Wife wanted to watch Romancing the Stone, and I wanted Ruthless People, but Ghostbusters was on the server.
——–
Time for bed. I’ve got waffles and crawdads to eat tomorrow, although hopefully not at the same time….
n
Look at the grab bag of signs and protests at the “no kings” nonsense.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14813255/man-arrested-driving-crowd-protesters-no-kings-day-rally-virginia.html
Everyone is out for their favorite thing, no matter how tangential.
And I love the “Trump has a mug shot, my parents don’t” sign. Your parents are breaking the law every day since the first day and don’t have mug shots because they haven’t been caught, not because they haven’t done anything wrong, chica… while the deep state got what they wanted, the mugshot and arrest to use as a bludgeon.
n
– It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.
n
And wasn’t she already married to Weiner boy?
Geoff, thank you very much indeed for the pointer to Planet Computers’ Psion-like PDA/phones. I will definitely take a closer look. I am glad to hear that the wonderful keyboard design was not entirely lost. I hope they can work out the quality consistency issue.
https://www.www3.planetcom.co.uk/home
>>And wasn’t she already married to Weiner boy?
Abedin started dating then-U.S. Representative Anthony Weiner in 2007,[58] and they were engaged in 2009.[8] They were married on July 10, 2010, with former U.S. President Bill Clinton officiating the wedding ceremony.[59] In December 2011, Abedin gave birth to a boy.[60] On August 29, 2016, Abedin announced her separation from Weiner after new sexting allegations were made against him.[61][62][63] In early 2017, Abedin announced her intent to file for divorce with sole physical custody of their son.[64] On May 19, 2017, after Weiner pled guilty, she filed for divorce.[65] Abedin and Weiner withdrew their divorce case in January 2018, stating that they decided to settle privately in order to spare their son further embarrassment.[66] As of November 2021, their divorce was reported to be in its final stages, although they raise their son jointly.[58] Abedin remained legally married to Weiner as of July 2024.[67]
In July 2024, Abedin announced her engagement to Alexander Soros, the second youngest son of George Soros.
At the time of her engagement announcement, her divorce from Weiner remained unfinalized.[71] The pair wed in June 2025.[72]
Muslim ceremony vs. civil? Unmarked envelope for AW to get things finsihed??
>> It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.
Club size…
In 2025, the world has over 3,028 billionaires. Forbes says their combined wealth is $16.1 trillion. This is the largest number of billionaires ever recorded in a single list according to Forbes. The United States leads with the most billionaires, followed by China and India, according to Forbes.