At least for me. And I expect to have thunderstorm cells moving through Houston, pummeling some people and ignoring others. Like yesterday and the previous weeks. I can’t remember weather quite like this in the last 20 years.
I had a frustrating day Friday. The weather clobbered me a couple of times, leading to slowdowns and wrecks on the highways. On a day with as much driving as I was supposed to have, that really blew my schedule. Fortunately, I didn’t wreck, although there was one near miss at a traffic light. Google maps put me right into several slowdowns, one lasting 20 minutes. I got out a book and read. The last one I should have ignored and gone my own way. I’ve tried to beat google’s directions many times, but only done it once or twice. Yesterday probably would have added a couple more wins for me. It couldn’t have been much worse.
The upshot is I couldn’t even try to get 3 of my pickups. I’ll shift one to Monday but the two at opposite ends of town will both have to happen today, after my hobby meeting. At least it’s good stuff.
This morning, I’m off to spend time in meatspace with my fellow hobbyists. Get out there and engage with the world around you. It’s a good counterbalance to the black pill online doom and gloom, and a good reality check.
Stack stuff too, of course…
nick
NordVPN probably installed a shim driver between the ethernet card and the IP stack. Uninstall may have messed up something putting everything back.
Try a USB ethernet or Wifi dongle, something generic which won’t require Windows to load a driver.
Up and moving. Head feels weird. I might be getting another cold. That’s a problem with meatspace, people are disease bags.
Coffee is brewing and I’m moving so I’ll check back in a couple of hours.
n
I have an old Plugable USB 2.0 gigabit ethernet adapter going back to my time at the tolling company. It doesn’t require external drivers under Windows 10 or Linux.
That usually stays in my “road” laptop bag out of habit.
Damn hot yesterday at 103F and suppose to be 104F today. 6:30 this morning and the thermometer on the patio is reading 80 and the air feels heavy. Strictly stay inside or in the pool day. Tend to continue for next several days.
Another day in Las Vegas. We did the big wheel, it was so-so. Today is the fountains and the sphere. We got back to the hotel at 12:15 and there was still a line of 50 or so people checking in to this hotel. Long checkin lines seem to be common at most of these places.
Of course we have to walk through the casinos. A lot of people throwing away a lot of money. A circuitous path, on purpose, no sense of time or direction as there are no reference points.
Our guests, if you will, wanted to visit Hoover dam and take the tour. We did. That is still one impressive engineering project that has paid for itself by selling power.
Our guests leave tomorrow morning early. We have the day to ourselves. We may walk the strip a little bit, we may stay in the hotel room. We do have to go somewhere to eat that is cheaper, probably the McDonald’s or Panda Express that are reasonably close. We fly out on Monday.
On the 25th of July we head to Kentucky to kayak in a cave on the 26th. That will be our 50 year anniversary and we thought we would do something different.
Then three weeks after that we head to Germany for three weeks. It has, and continues to be, a busy summer with traveling.
A little day trip yesterday.
Went and looked at a used travel trailer yesterday (astronomy club outings are getting a bit tedious when sleeping out of the back of a pickup truck). Sadly, not in as good a shape as I hoped – I really don’t want to “work” on one. My mechanic friend came along and did a thumbs down as well.
It was JimB’s neck of the woods, so we stopped by Olvera’s for lunch and got a couple of their “76” burritos: 16″ long, pork in one portion, chicken in second, steak in a third. Delicious! Most of mine came home in a doggie bag.
Went through Randsburg on the way home, my friend marveled at the antique cars, we passed “The Joint” & I thought of Cowboy Stu.
A nice little trip, if a bit warm.
Pictures from the trip so far, unedited, straight from the iPhone.
https://www.raymondthompsonphotography.com/Vegas
Waste some time today.
The only scenarios that come to mind: 1) both engines caught fire, the emergency procedure would be complete shutdown, then maybe a restart. 2) both engines flamed out, ie, a compressor stall, emergency procedure is a restart, both throttles off, then to idle for the restart procedure. 3) one pilot wanted to kill all and the other didn’t, but you would just nosedive or crash into something.
During my time, the Blackhawk engine start was, go to idle, then back off just below the detent, hit the start button, when it looked like a good start, ease the throttle just past the detent to lock it.
Let’s see what the investigators decide was the cause.
BTW, the Blackhawk throttles are overhead, which is why the aircraft requires two pilots to execute some emergency procedures (you have to take a hand off a flight stick). The UH-1 Huey has a motorcycle throttle on the collective (as is the start button) and a single pilot can execute all emergency procedures, albeit with difficulty.
When you look at the 1,300 State Department fires, you just know the guy who gets coffee and donuts for everyone, has two assistant gofers. There are still 79,000 teat-suckers at State.
When I was assigned to a new ORSA slot at the Pin-Head-Agon, after two days I knew anybody with a calculator and stubby pencil could do the job. More Iron Rule of Bureaucracy.
Friday night. People from LA.
Re: gov firings. Sure, weeding out civil service is always a good thing. Not a lot of money is saved in the long run though. Contractor labor swells to take over a lot of the lost functions of the departed civil service. We have been seeing that over the last year with the initial round of “voluntary” retirement buyouts. Heck, many times a contractor moves into the same seat as the now departed gov person, often while it’s still warm.
If there was an emergency before this it would’ve been caught on the cockpit voice recorder and the other telemetry, and the Indian NTSB would have mentioned it.
Someone mentioned “the dog that didn’t bark”: no facesaving PR leaks from Boeing or GE who would’ve had representatives on the investigation board.
There is pretty much no way that a pilot or co-pilot would (legitimately) set those switches to “off” without calling it out aloud before or during that.
I hate to say it, but (3) is looking more and more likely. But it seems a little elaborate since pushing down just after wheels up or putting the plane into a steep bank at low airspeed would be easier. Strange.
Cure all DMSO:
https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/how-dmso-cures-eye-ear-nose-throat
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When I was the owner’s rep for several hundred HUD Section 8 units, we were all, effectively, government contractors. I saw actual HUD employees once in a 2 year period. There were contractors for REAC inspections, rent subsidy evaluators/setters and pretty much any other government related function. The auditors checking occupants’ qualifications were state of Wisconsin employees. REAC was a physical plant inspection. Very fussy. There, the contractor’s incentive is to find something objectionable to justify their existence.
Firings only nibble around the edges of the FedGov budget.
Social Security, Medicare, and, increasingly, the VA are the big kahunas which we won’t be able to do much without Congress rediscovering intestinal fortitude.
The $350 billion+ VA budget, as part of the Constitutionally mandated national defense expenditure, doesn’t even get touched in the event of a default on the debt.
4) Both pilots were from higher castes or placed through set asides, lied about qualifications for training, and cheated their way through flight school, bribing and/or coercing the test examiners for various certifications involving government entities.
Of course, no one is going to talk about (4), especially if the opportunity is available to lay blame on the American company, Boeing.
Americans are polite and believe in things like rule of law. Suckers.
LOL tRump never fails to entertain:
Trump threatens to revoke Hollywood star’s citizenship branding her ‘threat to humanity’
I doubt he could get away with this. If Rosie had any spine, she’d revoke her US Citizenship. She won’t though. She’s holding out for the PLTs to come back and reverse anything tRump does. She may die in Ireland (maybe at the hand of the Irish).
>>I think that we have managed to frag my dads windows 10 pc. His ipv4 address is weird, I will change it tomorrow to a standard address. I uninstalled NordVPN off his pc and rebooted to still no ethernet.
The internet to the house is working via my phone wifi. So the problem is the pc. And he has stored most of his files on onedrive in the cloud. O begged him not to use the cloud but…
@lynn, can you access his OneDrive files via booting up with a self-contained Linux install all pull all his data? I would guess once you had all the data you could wipe the PC and install a clean version of Windows and go from there?
Any chance data was backed up to your Mom’s PC/OneDrive?
Good luck!
I only know the login password to Dad’s home pc. I do not know any of the cloud services that he uses nor their logins nor their passwords.
I am really stuck here. Luckily Mom has checks to their IRA account and debit cards to that account. But she does not know their pins. But everyone seems to allow you to bypass the pins except for getting cash.
@Lynn – I suspect your Dad, like many, has used the password saving feature of his browser. Those logins (name and password) are easily accessible via the browser’s menu bar. And most browsers let you export a CSV/Text file of those password entries. That will give you the site’s login URL and user/pass so you can log into whatever sites have been saved.
I also suspect that he has a browser History that hasn’t been cleared out. That can also be exported to a text file.
Those entries should allow you to get into his ‘cloud’ or other accounts.
Since most sites are now two-factor authentication, any access for password reset will be tied to his email and/or phone for texting. So keep the phone and email accounts active so you can change the email/phone number assigned to each account. It’s a big hassle to change the authentication phone number or email on various sites if you don’t have access to the current phone number associated with that account. So make sure you keep his cell phone account active until you have updated things.
Lynn if you have access to his email and/or cell phone you can just try ‘Forgot password’ and reset it.
Also Chrome lets you access saved password if you know the computer pass. Firefox if you know the FF user pass.
I have my primary bank account’s debit card locked down to being a traditional ATM network card, but the default in most cases is for the card to be a Visa/MC account drawing directly on the checking, requiring a PIN only for cash.
Once you have copies of the death certificate, a lot of legal doors open as long as you know where to look.
That was the reason for the question about funeral expenses. Under Texas law, the “informant”, the party paying for those expenses, has certain legal rights, including the ability to obtain copy of the death certificates without the will executor’s knowledge or consent.
Since the law in Texas drifts back and forth on various probate issues, including nurses collecting patients’ life insurance, something forbidden in most states, controlling who gets the “informant” privilege is important.
Section 8 housing is an interesting beast. I had to take a 3 day seminar to interpret the 800 page binder of subsidy calculations and physical plant requirements. In fact, applying for a Section 8 apartment required a thoroughly detailed exposure of all income sources and owned assets of any kind. Baseball card collections, antique auto, whatever. The more destitute the better.
The company I worked for focused mainly on independent living elderly complexes but did have some “Family” places, too. The buildings were 100% Section 8 apartments, no vouchers, no market rate occupants. Applicants needed to have never been legally evicted, nor felony convictions, a 600 or better FICA score. We took 30% of the resident’s gross income, adjusted for medical or some other reasons specified in the manual. You could become a “zero renter” if enough of a sad sack. We rarely had a vacant unit.
HUD subsidized the other 70%. The rental amount per unit was supposed to be comparable to non Section 8 market rate nearby complexes. In practice, that threw off a truly stupendous income for the owners/developers.
There was no real security deposit, no real notice to vacate necessary. In fact, turn around would be 100% subsidized up to 60 days for repairs and rehab. All maintenance, and I mean ALL, was done by licensed, insured, bonded contractors to avoid liability concerns.
Ugly behavior, ugly conduct, unauthorized occupants were a constant refrain, particularly but not necessarily, in the “Family” buildings. Hoarders made for laughable photos. It is not possible to evict anyone, as the judges regarded Section 8 housing as the last step before homelessness. The judge might strongly suggest voluntary removal. I have stories. 😛
The senior citizen, elderly buildings were 2 story, all electric, non elevator joints. The ground floor was the most desirable, with a waiting list, as mobility became an issue. Heat is not included with the rent. There is a thru the wall opening, but the A/C unit was not supplied. Unlike the Family buildings’ Armstrong beige vinyl tile floors, the apartments had carpet and window blinds.
Paperwork is a bureaucrat’s heaven. We kept 50 fireproof cabinets in a studio unit. Subsidy recertifications are required at every income change, incident reports, invoices, maintenance requests.
Single moms are trapped. Any job that had a social security number attached meant an income recertification and rental recalculation for that 30% gross. Child care and transport expense will eat up the rest. One entrepreneur suggested to ME, the owner’s rep, that she start a cash child care business in her unit. Had to stick my fingers in my ears. Any other adult occupant would have to qualify themselves and sleeping arrangements would be a consideration.
Fun times.
Tolls. A dirty secret of the expressway authorities is how many of the frequent users of “Lexus Lanes” are actually parents desperately trying to avoid the fees at the daycare for early drop-off and/or late pick up.
Since most sites are now two-factor authentication, any access for password reset will be tied to his email and/or phone for texting. So keep the phone and email accounts active so you can change the email/phone number assigned to each account. It’s a big hassle to change the authentication phone number or email on various sites if you don’t have access to the current phone number associated with that account. So make sure you keep his cell phone account active until you have updated things.
I dont have his phone pin so his phone just sits there buzzing. I dont even know the service other than it sucks.
Costco pack of Charmin Blue was $30.89 today.
Silver closed above $37/ounce this week, but Costco went for shrinkflation instead of the price increase, decreasing the roll count from 32 to 30.
@lynn, is it a smart phone and does it have a swipe or pattern for the pin?
If so, I’ve found that leaving the phone in my sweaty front pants pocket, and walking around will eventually unlock the phone.
Have you tried guessing if it’s numbers? most people use birthdays in some combination, usually kids.
My dad wrote his down, and they were very complex, using a system that made sense to him, but he never threw out the old notes so we had dozens of passwords to try for the stuff that wasn’t saved in the browser. I still have his computer on my desk and occasionally check his yahoo account. I long ago added myself to some of his accounts as an alternate log in.
For my own stuff, I’ve got a little moleskine type notebook tucked into a spot on my desk to write down log ins.
n
Another hot day in Las Vegas.
We went to The Sphere. That is an absolutely awesome experience. Incredible images and really immersive. I have updated the pictures at the link I provided in an earlier post.
@lynn, is it a smart phone and does it have a swipe or pattern for the pin?
Yes. Smarty. Googlephone. 4 digit pin. The input is locked for the pin since the power ran out in the hpspital and it restarted.
I think it will brick after 10 failed pins. I have tried 2 pins so far.
My dad wrote his down, and they were very complex, using a system that made sense to him, but he never threw out the old notes so we had dozens of passwords to try for the stuff that wasn’t saved in the browser.
My Dad never wrote anything down. Eiditic memory until he was gone.
@lynn …. I had an issue with my phone – the pin for it didn’t work. Took it to the T-mobile place, and they did a factory reset then synced the phone with the backup in their ‘cloud’. (Samsung Galaxy S2 4+).
After less than 10 minutes all of the phone apps/data was back on the phone, restored from the T-mobile backup. Same phone number.
If the phone provider doesn’t have an automatic backup process, assuming the phone didn’t have any important data, a factory reset at minimum will get the phone working again, with the same phone number, so that all of the on-line accounts that use 2-factor authentication (2FA) will be able to authenticate a password reset with the code they send to the phone number on the account. That will give you access to on-line accounts with the ‘lost password’ process that sends a verification code to the phone number.
There should be a process to factory reset the phone even if you don’t have the PIN access to the phone. The googles can help with that process if the phone provider can’t do it.
@MrLynn.. Try browsing the forums. There might be some info there.
https://xdaforums.com/c/google.11976/
I’ve been sitting by my water feature with a tiny little fire and a book, but now it’s time for bed.
n
FWIW: Lynn’s experience shows how important it is to ensure your heirs have access to stuff. I have my important info written down on a sheet of paper in our bank’s safe deposit box: the password to my password manager, my phone PIN, etc. The kids know this exists (though I should probably remind them periodically).