Hot and humid. It’s been getting over 100F in the afternoon for several days now. The humidity, while high, seems like it’s maybe a bit lower lately? Dunno, the sun roasting my head had me soaked in sweat in only a few minutes.
I was up early yesterday and still spent all morning at the computer. Spent almost all afternoon doing pickups too. Not quite, I was home by 3pm and did some domestic bliss, cleaning, and sorting. Still, not the most productive day. Did meet another auction buyer that I had a nice chat with about real estate and Houston neighborhoods.
Today I’ve got to do a bunch of stuff around the house. I don’t think I’ll be doing pickups but who knows for sure. There are a couple I could do, but at least one seller will wait until next week.
I made a little progress organizing and putting stuff away. Very little.
I did pick up a couple of audio book CDs. Jack Reacher short stories, and Prince Caspian. The last time I listened to the Narnia books it was the set produced by Focus on the Family – fully produced and voice acted, not ‘abridged’ as much as ‘adapted’. This version is just a single female reader and unabridged. I like it. Language in common usage sure has degraded. And so has Jolly Olde… as both boys were waiting for the train back to school, and they both have pocketknives.
I’m not going to the BOL today, D1 asked to stay home so she can babysit, and I agreed. We’ll go up Saturday morning. W and D2 will head up tonight. That’s the plan anyway. We know about plans…
I’ve got a whole load of stuff to stack at the BOL. Make sure you have stacks somewhere besides your home, if you can swing it.
nick
@Lynn: Sorry for the mess that you’re in with your dad’s computer stuff. In the digital age, even with good documentation, it is always going to be hard for heirs to find things. But did you say…$1000 a month in digital subscriptions? That’s crazy talk!
I mentioned that I have all my passwords and such in an easy place to find. I think my important files are organized, but that doesn’t mean that my kids will think so. Worse, if something were to crash, and they had to rely on backups? They would have to know that the files are in Owncloud, which stores them in an Apache directory, on the unassuming microserver that might well get overlooked entirely.
I read about that. Wonder what the cause it – that’s a pretty dramatic failure!
I wonder what the is happening with Starship? They has a couple of amazingly good launches, but the new, extended Starship seems to be having a lot of teething problems. When is the next launch? I want it to work!
Modern gas cans. Super safe, except when in actual use. Why, exactly, did they remove the vent hole?
Anyway, for me, the trick is to pour sideways (no spout, directly from the can). The point is to prevent “glugging”. This only works if the gas can is not full – I never fill mine more than halfway. But then, I don’t use a lot of fuel – most of my stuff is electric.
– – – – –
After all the predictions of a hugely hot summer, we are in our third week of cool, rainy weather, as is most of Western Europe. Next week will be more of the same. But the climate alarmists keep trying: now it’s august that is supposed to cook us alive.
If they keep trying, eventually they will get a prediction right. Then they won’t let us forget it, but they will quietly ignore all the failed predictions.
Here’s hoping that the cool weather continues through August…
What is your ILEC (local phone company) history.
Verizon re-acquired the Frontier territories they shed as part of unloading legacy GTE.
“Getting the band back together” now that the Boomers are purged from management in Stanford.
Of course, the Boomers retired on the job young in the “merger of equals” 25 years ago in order to count their option vesting bonanzas, but I digress.
AT&T recently bought CenturyLink’s fiber/Internet operations, possibly telegraphing what will happen in Monroe within a few years, when AT&T simply buys CenturyLink — my prediction — or, as we called the legacy CenturyTel at GTE, The Ol’ Plantation.
The patent expired on the last “new” design.
I use a cheap pump from Harbor Freight to move gas from a full can into anything difficult. I also replace the spout and add a vent.
Even with a spout, 5 gallon cans are awkward and heavy. FAR too heavy for my wife and kids.
—————
Stayed up reading so slept late.
Mid 80sF so far with light overcast.
Breakfast is down the hatch. Coffee is in the mug.
—————-
Looks like I have one pickup later this afternoon.
n
– so it’s already happening.
n
The US is going to end up hosting the data centers because the utility companies and all levels of government will throw the population under the wheels of the bus to “get them jerbs”.
Spinal Tap II: The End Continues – Official Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70DDf9OXsFA
Just when you thought it was safe to take the Marlboro filters out of your ears…
Dems blow own keister off, reload, and blast off the hanging bits:
https://hotair.com/david-strom/2025/07/25/what-an-epic-self-own-democrats-n3805124
Grocery inflation record:
Trump 45: 100 to 103 (48 months)
Biden 00: 103 to 125 (48 months)
Trump 47: 125 to 125 (6 months)
Elementary education is in the hands of people who cannot read a graph–what makes them think they can teach it. Nice Yoonyun card you haz there.
Some top secret Gov test??
After all, it’s who Tony built it for, right?
Pick up copies of appropriate road and street atlases when you come across them at the thrift stores. Or for free if you’re a AAA member.
Can anyone under 40 read a map?
Let’s just say: if the government didn’t grab the opportunity, they’re idiots. I assume there is a secret, higher priority military mode.
Which is fine. I am less thrilled at the near certainty that the NSA has unconstitutional taps in place.
Lotsa peeple saying Obama has immunity.
Step 1: Get him under oath to show why he needs it.
Step 2: Use his fallacious belief that he’s the smartest person in any room to perjure himself as an ex-president who no longer has immunity.
never noticed how great those jeans are…
https://x.com/ClayTravis/status/1948471600808083792
Can anyone under 40 read a map?
– doesn’t matter to me, I’m over 40. And I have maps. US atlases should be in each vehicle, but D1 cleaned out mom’s car, so IDK if the book is still there, and W1 moved some, but maybe not all of the kit to her new car.
—-
started raining lightly here. Gah.
—
I’m only speculating. Every RFP or request for white papers in my contractor mags insists whatever they’re asking for still works in “a GPS denied environment”. There have been reports of projects that use Starlink to provide time/location/routefinding services at least as proof of concept.
The outage might have been the intern pushing a commit without enough testing, but it’s much more likely that it was a massive upgrade/reboot or the result of some sort of attack.
— –
Cable cutting and the GPS going down with be the balloon going up on the wider conflict.
——
How does the outage match up with china flexing off the coast of Taiwan?
n
how great those jeans are
— I like skinny girls, but the current trend putting skinny girls in oversized jeans doesn’t do it for me. It does make them look even skinnier, but there is a boxiness or harshness to the resulting straighter lines that isn’t appealing.
n
Could be an attack: does Starlink use SharePoint (stories are getting worse & worse there)?
Or an unexpected interaction in the comm stack with the big iPhone rollout.
I’d be astonished if Ukraine wasn’t looking very very hard at using the Starlink system as a GPS, the Russians have been pretty successful in spoofing the US GPS and European Galileo (and I assume, Glosnass).
My nephew totaled the old Mercedes diesel sedan tonight that my parents gave him. He was going down a FM (farm to market) road. He missed the first cow but got the second. Popped the air bags and shattered all of the glass on the passenger side. Probably bent the frame.
I got a picture. Whoof. It looks like the cow tried to come back through the passenger side windshield. The car is definitely totaled.
@Lynn: Sorry for the mess that you’re in with your dad’s computer stuff. In the digital age, even with good documentation, it is always going to be hard for heirs to find things. But did you say…$1000 a month in digital subscriptions? That’s crazy talk!
USA Today, Epoch daily, two loaves of sourdough bread a week, etc, etc, etc.
IIRC most phones using google maps also use google’s map of access points to further refine location. You accept that as part of the EULA at some point.
I suppose you could put up wifi beacons all over a battle field or any other area and use purely wifi triangulation. Of course anything active like that could take an anti-radiation homer up the backside, but maybe you could use beacons like they use for differential GPS that are outside of the contested area?
You can’t just blanket jam or your own stuff doesn’t work. I guess that is the cat and mouse game the counter/counter/ counter guys play out.
Flood the area with cheap wifi beacons, let the adversary spend a bunch of expensive anti-radiation homers on it, fight a war of attrition. JerryP and others writing milfic have covered similar scenarios in various stories.
The basic problem is the one GPS solved, if your beacons are accessible, they’ll be attacked. Now the GPS constellation is accessible, so… and that problem is part of why Starlink’s “internet in space” is mesh and multitudinous. Musk even alluded to it pretty specifically in an interview.
——–
time for me to get some stuff done.
n
BTW, it can’t have escaped the major powers’ notice that SpaceX and the .mil plan to be able to deliver a package of supplies to any point on earth in 90 minutes is SpaceX with intercontinental ballistic missiles… they don’t HAVE to slow down and land gently at the end of the flight.
Tony Stark is a world power if someone gives him the payloads.
n
I’d bet that half the people here, and ¾ of anyone with the financial means has $1000 a month in subscriptions.
n
added – and that’s leaving off healthcare and other insurances.
My gas cans have vents – with buttons that you have to press and hold. That’s why you need three hands to pour gas from one.
Not me. Even if you count Xfinity, and my iCloud storage, I am still way under $250.00 a month. Eliminate Xfinity and I am at $2.99 a month.
Currently at Red River Gorge in Kentucky. 50 year anniversary is tomorrow so we are going kayaking in an underwater cave with water at 50F. It should be interesting.
Stainless steel rods with a bursting charge on the payload container would work for many situations without involving Special Munitions.
From the little bit I read, it sounded to me like they had a DNS problem. A server puked.
BTW, it can’t have escaped the major powers’ notice that SpaceX and the .mil plan to be able to deliver a package of supplies to any point on earth in 90 minutes is SpaceX with intercontinental ballistic missiles… they don’t HAVE to slow down and land gently at the end of the flight.
Tony Stark is a world power if someone gives him the payloads.
The payload can just be a can full of metal. That is a kinetic penetrator.
>> never noticed how great those jeans are…
https://x.com/ClayTravis/status/1948471600808083792
Mustang? What Mustang??
From the little bit I read, it sounded to me like they had a DNS problem. A server puked.
Since every DNS server has a backup, I’ll bet that the backup server puked also.
I guess those DNS servers are in space to cut the traffic down ???
Currently at Red River Gorge in Kentucky. 50 year anniversary is tomorrow so we are going kayaking in an underwater cave with water at 50F. It should be interesting.
Happy 50th Anniversary to N !!! Like me, you were just along for the ride.
And that sounds like fun. Don’t fall in !
“I Tested T-Mobile’s Cellular Starlink Service in the Middle of Nowhere: Is it Worth $10 Per Month?”
https://www.pcmag.com/news/testing-tmobile-satellite-cellular-starlink-remote-area-is-it-worth-it
“I drove to a remote area south of San Francisco to put the T-Satellite beta to the test ahead of its official launch on July 23. Here’s what it can do now and what’s on tap for the future.”
“I’m standing on a beach about 50 miles south of San Francisco—no cars, buildings, or people in sight. Only sand, trees, and blue sky. It should be a cellular dead zone.”
“But in my pocket, a Samsung phone alerts me to arriving texts, even though there’s no cell tower nearby. The messages are beaming in from space thanks to a fleet of Starlink satellites orbiting more than 300 miles above, designed to connect to ordinary smartphones like mine.”
Soon, there will be no place that you can hide from the digitals.
I was floating down the Missouri River in remote Montana in May, getting texts at odd places in the river.
I wish. But nope. My math, by what I get with SS and my $800 after taxes from the 401k, I have almost $100 a day I can spend.
About $37 each for cell and dental. $120 for Starlink. Mush around in the bills and round it up and call it $175 for electricity on two meters. About $400 including a 30 of Miller High Life.
No subs. No Sling or DirecTV. No Big River Prime.
I can and do plan for property taxes. House and car insurance blow the numbers out to Saturn.
The House insurance statement arrived a few days ago. Yeah, but no, $2300 for a year ain’t gonna work. Yes, I understand your math as you explain it. Please understand my math: If this house that you have never inspected, is damaged enough that it is actually going to cost your claimed $480,000 to rebuild, I DON’T care. Because all of my stuff, everything, is gone and I’m not going to rebuild at my age. I’ll scrape the splinters of the house onto a burn pile and have a mobile home hauled in…. the well and septic system are already here.
So. I’m thinking. I’m thinking I need some kind of policy to cover a-holes trespassing and trying to sue me for the love a rattlesnake gave them.
I have a metal roof. Thick gauge, too. Oh, hail. I don’t know.
The House insurance statement arrived a few days ago. Yeah, but no, $2300 for a year ain’t gonna work. Yes, I understand your math as you explain it. Please understand my math: If this house that you have never inspected, is damaged enough that it is actually going to cost your claimed $480,000 to rebuild, I DON’T care. Because all of my stuff, everything, is gone and I’m not going to rebuild at my age. I’ll scrape the splinters of the house onto a burn pile and have a mobile home hauled in…. the well and septic system are already here.
A lot of Texas counties, especially those within three counties of the Gulf of America coast, are now banning mobile homes due to hurricane winds and other such threats.
I dunno. But it really seems that the insurance company can raise rates or valuation of the house every year, same thing actually, and I’m to give them almost a month of income per year. How often have you ever filed a homeowner’s claim?
Yeah, it’s always the friend that says “She’s not my type” that ends up with the girl.
Wonder what her mom looks like?…
okay, okay…
Grandma.
I dunno. But it really seems that the insurance company can raise rates or valuation of the house every year, same thing actually, and I’m to give them almost a month of income per year. How often have you ever filed a homeowner’s claim?
New roof, twice, for homes due to hail damage.
Repair of water heater split in main office building.
Repair of water line split due to freezing in small office building.
“Americans Are Losing: Millions of Foreigners Are Given Work Permits but Jobs Aren’t Keeping Up”
https://thelibertydaily.com/americans-are-losing-millions-foreigners-are-given-work/
“In 2024, while the U.S. economy only created 2.2 million new jobs, the federal government approved over 5.56 million employment authorizations for foreign nationals. That’s more than twice as many workers added to the job pool than jobs created.”
“And it wasn’t an isolated year. From 2022 to 2024 America issued over 18 million work permits through a patchwork of visa programs, asylum cases, student extensions and executive actions. During that same three-year period, only 9.7 million jobs were created.”
“Millions of hardworking Americans, just like the laid-off parent, the young graduate and the mother returning to work, are entering a job market that’s already saturated. Not because of natural supply and demand, but because the government is flooding the system with foreign competition.”
Why ?
Because a bunch of billionaires are not willing to pay their wage slaves a going rate for their work ?
There are advantages to having jeans that don’t require a sewing machine to put on and a crowbar to get off.
I didn’t know who this person was so I went and looked at the ad. I don’t think it’s the skinny parts that are paying her bills.
In any case, if you don’t like the current styles just wait six months … but don’t wait 30 years, because that’s when they’ll be back in style.
I’ve been walking around. Sometimes with Buddy on his leash. I’ve decided.
I don’t want $480,000 coverage for total replacement coverage. $200,000 is perhaps more than enough. At my age I’m not rebuilding this house. Coverage for idiots that think petting the cows (ok, steers) is cool and get stepped on would be good.
Yep.
Californian’s would kill to pay that.
That’s less than my (mandatory) car insurance.
I believe my last house initial quote was for over 1/4th of my yearly SS, closer to 1/3rd.
( California has been shearing us sheeple for years, with the Pacific Palisades fire rebuilding scam they’ve begun the butchering. )
So. Keep the trailer trash out? Keep out the cheap houses that are easy to replace when a hurricane spawned tornado takes a house away?
Makes a lot of sense…. gotta keep the house valuations up to be able to collect more property taxes.
Dunno. Skin tight bell bottom jeans…… with a wiggle shimmy as she walks…. dude. 1976 was awesome for me.
“Fearless (The Lost Fleet, Book 2)” by Jack Campbell
https://www.amazon.com/Fearless-Lost-Fleet-Book-2/dp/0441014763?tag=ttgnet-20/
Book number two of a six book military science fiction series. Plus several sequel series consisting of fourteen books total. I read the well printed and well bound MMPB published by Ace in 2007. I have purchased the four sequel books in this series and plan to read them soon.
I did not know John G. Hemry was the real name for Jack Campbell as I purchased the Stark series quite a while back and enjoyed it also.
The Alliance sent a war fleet into the Syndic home star system via the new FTL network to defeat the Syndics once and for all. However, the Syndics knew that they were coming and destroyed many of the Alliance space warships. Now the Alliance warships need to leave or be destroyed one by one.
The Alliance admiral left Captain John “Black Jack” Geary in charge of the Alliance fleet before he and his staff were murdered by the Syndics in the negotiations. Captain John “Black Jack” Geary was found by the Alliance fleet on their way to Syndic space, in stasis in an old emergency pod. A hundred year old emergency pod. Captain John “Black Jack” Geary may be a hundred years out of date but some things like tactics of war spaceship fleets never go away.
Captain Geary is leading his fleet of warships and supply ships through old wormholes, trying to anticipate Syndic attacks and gather raw materials and feed his crews. But a group of the warships mutiny after rescuing an Alliance POW camp and head off into Syndic space, trying to get directly home.
The author has a website at:
https://jack-campbell.com/
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars (4,420 reviews)
Lynn
Makes me think of this scene from the movie A Bridge Too Far: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/FiAC-DI_R2o
@Paul: You mentioned awhile back that the rug in your spiffy new hall floor wanted to wander around:
Veken 5×7 Rug Pad Gripper for…
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07P17ZD84?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share&tag=ttgnet-20
Keeps my L/R rug nailed to the vinyl floor…
Co-star of the most successful Shakespeare film adaptation in history.
I will save you two and a half hours. This is the most entertaining part of the film, right before the credits roll.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnbyBawSfXY
Sony is so shameless. The movie has been out for nearly two years.
BTW, if you wonder what kind of straight man chooses that track as his “serenity” soing, I have my own copy of the album going back to when it was new *20 years ago*.
I don’t feel too bad on my insurance prices. I pay $4200 a year for full coverage maxed out on two vehicles. The new pick-em-up truck being the most expensive. The house is $480K, full loss replacement cost plus 25%, a rider for camera equipment items in the amount of $20K, agreed upon price, $1 Mil liability, and travel trailer. I pay just once a year.
In 50 years of marriage I have had one homeowner’s claim for a dishwasher that leaked and damaged the kitchen floor. I have had one automobile claim against un-insured motorist.
If you really want a shock go online and get a copy of your LexisNexis (I think that is the name). They aggregate information on each individual that has lived on a property, along with all information on the property, individuals that have had insurance on a vehicle, information on the vehicle itself.
I got my report, almost 200 pages of information, and large chunks of it inaccurate, other chunks no longer true. Insurance companies use the information for rating people and property. All the information from public sources and put all together seems to be a massive invasion of privacy.
If “subscriptions” is autopay, then I have less than $100 (Prime & Netflix, etc), if you include Verizon and Starlink then add a bit under $200.
Utilities are paid online, but manually: my sister once had $1800 instead of $180 mistakenly deducted by the electric company, and had to wait a couple of weeks to get it returned. Similarly once Frontier (hawk, spit) took two months to return an overpayment … by paper check.
—–
What do I spend my vast savings on, you might ask?
Well, just today, I bought a Dymo labeler. The manual kind, I’m not made out of money you know.
I have plans….
@EdH, labeling is like power washing, it’s hard to stop once you start.
n
I have Netflix. My wife has Disney/Hulu and Prime. Maybe $50/month.
No cable TV or satellite radio.
Off the top of my head.
ATT Fiber
ATT Cell
Tmobile Cell
2x some other cell plans for the kids
Netflix
XMsirius, x2
Prime
Google play -storage
Kindle unlimited x2
Remote access to my NVR
Yearly web hosting, email, domain names
credit card membership x2 just for me
Costco
Kid has pandora
I’m fairly sure there are more.
n
That’s a pretty broad definition of “subscription”.
I thought you meant streaming services … or things like OnlyFans.
Well, the credit card fees are a stretch but everything else is either a monthly, yearly, or recurring fee, ie. a subscription to a service.
n
I think the 20- 30 something crowd probably has a dozen monthly service fees for content, and service. They are heavy users of apps and their recurring revenue model. Financial sites, payment sites, content delivery, plus they have gym and spa memberships too.
Instacart, doordash…
n
Flooded roads in NE Houston.
https://x.com/StormChaserHTX/status/1948904968649671068
“Turn Around, Don’t Drown!”
After a few calls… Verizon is being s(h)irty today with cell service for some reason.
USAA says they can not insure my house for $200,000. They have rules and go by market prices. Yet, they have never seen my house…. Ever.
Huh. Sweet Summer Child here. I figured I could buy the amount I wanted.
Best they can do is a $325,000 valuation they get from scammers like Zillow and that’s dropped down from the “market” from Zllow,etc for $480,000 so… $2700 a year. Yeah, “there was a rate increase”.
I got as far as having the deductible up to the max of $8500 to drop the bill to $2100. Still too much.
I think I don’t need to pay them anymore. I just need some kind of policy for idiots that come to the house and discover a biting snake.
.
Hey, some disaster comes by and at my age, and all my shit is gone so I have to start over….. I think I’m just going to bank the premiums for a bad day.
Uh. I have money in Savings. I have a decently huge (to me) amount in t-bills. Something , some storm, comes through and wipes my house away….. I already have a plan for rebuilding.
Maybe I should stop acting like a pussy and tell the insurance company to eff off. I don’t need them.
I’m pretty grouchy right now.
@paul, see if you can get an umbrella policy for liability, and an inland marine policy for stuff. You might need some sort of general coverage first, IDK, but it might be possible to get what you need without the homeowners.
n
Cut-offs frayed up so there was only an inch left in the middle.
Tube top.
BNPL everything.
Satellite photos. Maybe the last carrier used a drone to get detailed aerial shots.
Massie, Johnson Plan to Call House, Senate Into Session Every Five Days During August Recess
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/saraharnold/2025/07/25/massie-johnson-plan-to-call-house-senate-into-session-every-five-days-during-august-recess-n2660975
Not sure what is going on here, but Trump should order the GSA to save the taxpayers money by turning the a/c off in both buildings.
Flooded roads in NE Houston.
https://x.com/StormChaserHTX/status/1948904968649671068
“Turn Around, Don’t Drown!”
People are nuts.
And they expect you to come in the flood and rescue them.
My monthly service fees are much more than I thought: monthly total $440.
Four categories:
ISP , Cell phone, YouTube
Intapundit VIP, Strategy Page, Glenn Reyolds, NFL , Peacock, (Dan Patrick Show)
Simply Safe, Consumer Reports
Internet Archive, Patreon, X (Twitter)
Does not include my web site, Domain Name, etc.
Sitting at the window table of our local Thai restaurant last year, I didn’t see a single vehicle pulling into the Doordash parking spots which cost less than $40k new.
I wondered if the F150 Lightning (!) doubled as a Turo rental.
>> That’s a pretty broad definition of “subscription”.
Which helps explain the inundation of these commercials:
https://www.rocketmoney.com/
Is Rocket Money a subscription?
n
I’m headed to bed. Hopefully to sleep, but certainly to read for a bit.
n
“Rocket Money” has a free version that will analyze your spending looking for subscriptions, etc. You have to give them access to your accounts, though. They have a premium version that has more features. Reviews have been mixed.
This is what DuckDuckGo’s AI said about it (a composite of published reviews):
The DDG-AI (“Assist”) included a comparison chart of free and fee-based features.