Cool and humid. Warming later, but not getting as hot as last week. I think Fall has finally started and the trend in temperature will be down overall. A couple of years ago I needed the Mr Heater while handing out Halloween candy. Last year it was warm. This year should be cool if the trend continues.
So I didn’t go to the BOL. I slept late, and my whole body core was stiff and sore, so I decided to stay and do stuff here. Mainly that meant working in the yard. Since it was just sitting there, mocking me, I took down the kids’ play structure. It was a big and expensive cedar thing, with swings, a small climbing wall, a second level, and originally a spiral slide, although that was removed a couple of years ago.
I’d painted it and replaced worn and rotted wood a few years back, but it was in poor condition. The thinner boards used for the roof and side walls were the worst, but anything that touched the ground was also damaged. Honestly it was no longer safe to use, although I had a heavy bag hanging where one of the swings used to be, and that was kinda useful. I’ll have to figure something out for the bag in the future.
Anyway, I cut and broke it apart, stacked the pieces for heavy trash pickup, and cleaned up most of the area. That led to trimming the trees along the back fence to keep them away from the utility lines. Which in turn meant another big pile for heavy trash. With better access to the fence, I decided it was time to install the anti-bird spikes. I’d purchased them some time ago and forgotten them, but I saw the box when I was moving stuff on the patio. I don’t care about the birds, everyone knows birds aren’t real, but I’m hoping to disrupt the wildlife that uses the top of the fence as a nighttime highway.
The possums in particular drive my dog NUTS when he catches them on the fence. Since they freeze when confronted, he’ll bark his half chihuahua head off and jump at them forever. NOT what I want at 3am. If they just kept moving, they’d be out of sight in minutes and away from the threat, but they aren’t smart. They freeze and he has a target for his outrage until someone comes with a stick and moves the possum along – forcefully. We’ll see if the pokey metal wire spikes deter the stinky beasts or not.
Today I have a couple of pickups to do. Small things, but some for the house and some for the BOL. I should be able to loop several pickups into one trip. Then I will continue making progress on stuff around the house. I’m not selling anywhere near what I need to, but I’m the little pebble that hopefully starts an avalanche. The mental logjam is still there, but it’s starting to break up.
If I can start getting rid of stuff, and get some money coming in, then I can do some of the prepping stuff I have been putting off, like the solar project. I can also do some of the many maintenance and remodeling things on the list. It’s a big list. But the journey of miles starts with a single step. Whether that’s picking up a few extra cans of food to start an emergency pantry, or buying night vision scopes for your zombie rifle, STARTING the journey is critical.
Start. Stack. Survive. Thrive.
nick
Some survival strategies seem…counterproductive. There’s a walk we do about once a week with the dog. There is one particular bush, about a meter up a steep slope, where something lives. The dog would never notice it – apparently, the scent doesn’t interest him. But whenever we walk by, whatever lives there makes a panicked rustling sound. If it just stayed quiet, the dog would never notice, but that rustling sets him off.
– – – – –
On the AI front: last year, I subscribed to ChatGPT, because I really do use it a lot, and the free limits were a problem. That subscription ends in a couple of weeks. So now comes the question: do I extend by another year? Or do I subscribe to a different AI?
ChatGPT does pretty well, but others (Gemini, Grok, maybe Claude) are also up there. My only real problem with ChatGPT is the fact that it self-censors. Ask anything about a politically charged topic (example: illegal immigration) and you get a lot of moralizing, or it may simply refuse to answer. That’s annoying, but hardly a deal-breaker.
If I were to change to a different one: I object to Gemini because it is Google, and Google has become evil. Grok seems like a decent candidate. Claude I haven’t used enough to know.
FWIW I use the AI for IT technical stuff, from obscure Linux commands to prepping my courses. I also use it to proofread and correct texts on a variety of topics, in English and German. My wife uses it to prep her (technical English) courses.
What do y’all think?
53F at 0600 at the airport. Probably a couple degrees cooler at my house, as it almost always is. Not bad, comparatively. A few weeks ago it was about 40F just before dawn.
I took down ours two years ago. I gave away to a guy my brother works with, who mix-and-matches beat-up old play things to make good structures and gives them to relatives and neighbors. He was happy to get this one because it was in decent shape, with minimal rot and other damage despite being 13 years old. Relative to Nick’s it probably helps that we don’t get rained on every other day. Relative to the others that this guy picks up, it certainly helps that I painted it with waterproofing every other year and replaced the swings and ropes if they got questionable. He pulled up with his full-size van and trailer, we got to work, and in about an hour the thing was broken down so he could take it away. Kind of annoying, to be honest, considering how many hours it took me to put it together.
Ask ChatGPT what it should be replaced with and to explain its reasoning. Should be good for a laugh if nothing else.
64F this morning. That is chilly and a significant amount downward…
@steve, not just a day or two to assemble, but the cost too. The kids just didn’t use it that much and really didn’t use the spiral slide. I’d recommend a simple swing set now.
—–
n
IIRC, ours cost about $900 including tax in 2010. (“Free” shipping, which of course just means that the shipping is included in the price.) Three swings, a slide from a “tree house”, a tire swing underneath, a rope ladder, and a monkey bars thing off to the side. A lot of components for the money.
We got a lot of use out of it for years, between The Child and the various friends who came over for an afternoon or a week. Part of this was because few of my wife’s friends’ husbands are at all handy, so we had one of the only play areas. We also got a small pool, only thirty or forty square feet but a lot of fun for four-year-olds.
(Pause the narrative to deal with a chicken break-out. I’d put them in the garden, two jumped out to go back to the run to lay, and several others jumped out to wander around.)
And don’t forget the “giant rain forest” and “giant river” (ie, a creek about ten feet wide and eight inches deep at most) behind the house, though there were a number of freak-outs, not only by the children, when sneakers got muddy. Overall, lots of fun for preschoolers through early teens.
More political hijinks in NYFC…
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/eric-adams-drops-out-nyc-mayoral-race-mamdani-gains-ground
I help build one of those structures years ago, I think there was a minimal amount that was bought on craigslist, the legs & platform, to which we added various things. Old swings, parallel bars, etc.
The most popular addition was a very very old playground slide that was laying on the sidewalk for trash pick up somewhere.
It (the structure)never got vast amounts of use between the two kids, but it did distract them & neighborhood kids for eight or 10 hours a week my friend said, and so well worth it for a few dollars in rehab.
Their kids were homeschooled so any respite for mom was nice.
@nick, re: exercise stuff
None of your links really address what I use. I tried to model it after the “official” X3 system. Look at some of the YouTube vids to see it in action. I had to buy the bar, bands, and board components separately off Big River.
The foot board part is really simple. You stand on the board, and the rubber band goes under the board. There are feet on the bottom or a channel so the band is not squished against the floor. Without the board, you have to stand on the band with your feet, which is less secure and may lead to sudden accidental release of the band. That would be bad. I made my board from this cutting board and these feet. Other, handier people make them from wood or plywood.
The bar is just a bar with means to attach bands at the ends. There are arguments for narrow bars and wider bars. The particular bar I use is no longer available.
The bands are just bands. I use these. I have no reason to think they are better or worse than other, similar choices. They sell similar at Walmart and Academy.
For squats, split squats, curls, and overhead press, you loop the band through the ends of the bar and under the board. For deadlift, calf raise, and bent row, you double the band under the board. Different bands give you different weights, and you can combine multiple bands (I’m told) if you outgrow the biggest band. Or buy a bigger set of bands.
Sarah Hoyt is interesting today, but I think she misses a distinction between ‘terrorism’ or ‘insurgency’ vs ‘war’.
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2025/09/29/the-face-of-war/
n
Night vision development and mechanics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrD6OB4DwfE
Sarah Hoyt is interesting today, but I think she misses a distinction between ‘terrorism’ or ‘insurgency’ vs ‘war’.
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2025/09/29/the-face-of-war/
A comment:
“Northern Ireland would be the good scenario”
“I’m more worried about a Yugoslavia disintegration scenario”
We have been living in the Northern Ireland scenario for quite a while now.
Yugoslavia disintegration scenario may be coming.
This was interesting to read:
https://arkhaven.substack.com/p/book-discussion-the-mote-in-gods
On the AI front: last year, I subscribed to ChatGPT, because I really do use it a lot, and the free limits were a problem. That subscription ends in a couple of weeks. So now comes the question: do I extend by another year? Or do I subscribe to a different AI?
ChatGPT does pretty well, but others (Gemini, Grok, maybe Claude) are also up there. My only real problem with ChatGPT is the fact that it self-censors. Ask anything about a politically charged topic (example: illegal immigration) and you get a lot of moralizing, or it may simply refuse to answer. That’s annoying, but hardly a deal-breaker.
I have serious trust issues with Grok. I asked it the same question thirty minutes apart and got two different answers. The question was “what is the mass of insects on Earth compared to the mass of humans”. I have been told that the mass of insects is 100X that of humans on Earth. Grok’s two answers were humans were 15X and 1.5 X that of the mass of inserts. Both explanations contained at least one math error, 100 trillion was put as 10e19.
In fact, I have serious trust issues with all AIs. I am skeptical by nature and these things are not natural.
If it works for you, awesome. I would trust and verify anything and everything.
“Scott Adams chats with Greg Gutfeld and Dr. Drew, coffee 9/28/25”
https://www.youtube.com/live/jgNupqGNajs
The three amigos, all with black plastic glasses. Nerds !
Sounds like Scott Adams hormone treatments for his stage 4 prostate cancer are working for the moment. He does not have a long term faith in the treatments though.
No. During the Troubles, the police opposed the terrorists.
Treat answers from LLMs as if they came from a Wikipedia entry (which is appropriate because Wikipedia is one of the main training sources for most publicly-available LLMs). It’s ok as a reminder of things you know. It’s ok for lookup of programming function use and such, as you can quickly verify if it’s correct. Use it as a starting point for looking into a topic you don’t know much about or for calculations and analyses. In the latter case, don’t trust it at all unless it provides references or shows its work.
Asking the AI is like asking some rando online. They make stuff up, because people do to.
n
Scott Adams house is beautiful. I am envious. Kind of Spanish Modern.
Just a data point.
Pioneer brand Sweet cornbread muffin mix isn’t good 4 years past best by… It’s edible, not even bad, but does taste “old” and doesn’t rise at all.
n
Vac pac. Freeze. For bugs. Then on the shelf.
Works for me.
Pioneer brand Sweet cornbread muffin mix isn’t good 4 years past best by… It’s edible, not even bad, but does taste “old” and doesn’t rise at all.
Did you have it in the house in a controlled temperature dark place ? Or in the hot garage ?
Scott Adams house tour:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43oV01a6qY8
Quite luxe.
Sigh.
Trying to install Fedora 42 … downloaded the utility and ISO … supposedly installed it to the USB … now the Beelink Mini isn’t seeing the USB driver in the boot order … and then right in the middle of messing with this and doing reboots the fracking Win11 install decided to update and I don’t dare interrupt it.
I often forget how much I loath dealing with computer setups, but no biggie, something always reminds me.
Quoted for truth.
I don’t mess with dual booting. Too many things go wrong, especially with Windows installations actively working to make them go wrong. I keep a handful of handful of spare drives and SSDs (somewhat reduced at the moment; I need to get some more once the monthly cash flow is less negative) and just pop one in if I need to turn a Windows computer into a Linux box.
The muffin mix was in a sealed factory plastic bag. Another mix in the same bin was in the foil coated paper bag, and it had hundreds of tiny holes eaten into it. Or eaten out of it. The bin was full of loose mix from that bag.
The bin lives on shelves on the covered patio. Shaded from direct sun, but still gets sunlight as the UV is breaking down the plastic bin. 4 years of temperature swings.
the foil coated bags, like what the Korr pasta meals come in, fail to tiny pinholes and little critters. Dunno if they are inside the bag or outside but given enough time, those waxy paper foil lined bags will fail.
I guess I should mention the bins are translucent plastic, with lids.
n
I found that I rarely used the dual boot setups I had created. They take time and effort and unless I had a real need, the additional friction isn’t something I need in my life.
The little atom lappy I got from my buddy is dual, win7 and the linux you could start from inside windows. That is probably way out of date now, and I will probably wipe that partition to get more disc space. I think that lappy will either end up attached to a laser engraver or a 3d printer, or it will be dedicated to ham radio.
n
@SteveF, @Nick: Yes, you are both right.
I forgot for a bit and was just trying for the ‘easy way’, despite getting burned before with dual boot.
I forgot for a bit and was just trying for the ‘easy way’, despite getting burned before with dual boot.
No more dual boots for me either. Swapping boot hard drives is the only way to go.
Of course, all of the big servers are going with linux, unix, or windows and multiple virtual machines. One of these days I need to try that again.
My dedicated web server just got moved to a big server with FreeBSD Unix and lots of cores and drives. Works well so far. It only pretends to be a dedicated machine now.
Restocked my Gold Bond Medicated Powder and the same thing happened as with the deodorant. They changed the formula and packaging, and when I chose a seller, I chose the one with pictures of the old product.
I got the new product. I consider that a bait and switch.
The main change is cornstarch for talc. The minor ingredients have changed order a bit, so I think they played around with formulation too.
I like talc. And I don’t think cornstarch smears and lubes like talc. Plus, I use talc to fill my pores in my arms, face, neck, etc when I’m doing work with fiberglas. That way you don’t get the tiny little needles itching you. I suspect that cornstarch won’t be the same.
The new formulation smells different… so I believe it IS different. WTF can’t they leave well enough alone?
n
“Corvus (Frontlines: Evolution)” by Marko Kloos
https://www.amazon.com/Corvus-Frontlines-Evolution-Marko-Kloos/dp/1662524897?tag=ttgnet-20/
Book two of a two book military science fiction series in the Frontlines Universe. I read the well printed and well bound trade paperback published by 47North in 2025. There are eight books in the main Frontlines series of military science fiction, I will read any of the new books in the series.
https://www.amazon.com/Terms-Enlistment-Frontlines-Marko-Kloos/dp/1477809783?tag=ttgnet-20/
The year is 2126. The author has previously noted that the Earth is home to 100 billion humans in 2120, most eating flavored soy to stay alive. All burials are now cremations with the results either scattered or temporarily buried in a 10 cm (4 inch) by 20 cm (8 inch) plot. I worked my own math to see what rate it would take to get there. The current population of the Earth is 8.1 billion. First, the current rate of growth of the Earth is 1.09% according to:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_growth_rate
Using the current planetary growth factor of 1.09% is (1.0109)^95 * 8.1e9 = 22,686,301,033 people. Now using a planetary growth factor of 2.7% is (1.027)^95 * 8.1e9 = 101,783,448,408 people in 2120. So, the 100 billion people in 2120 is achievable but people are going to have a lot more babies.
Humans are in a desperate battle against the Lankies, 120+ ton advanced space going dynosaurs. When the Lankies found our distant colonies, they took them one by one, terraforming them to their hot CO2 atmospheres. When the Lankies invaded and took Mars, the Russians joined the North American Commonwealth to expel them from Mars. Meanwhile, the Lankies started invading Earth to the receipt of crew served weapons on top the PRCs (Public Residential Complexes) where most of the NAC residents live.
This is the story of the battle to retake the colonies from the Lankies.
The author has a website at:
https://www.markokloos.com/
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.7 out of 5 stars (1904 reviews)
Lynn
I think i’ll blow Win11 away.
It is pretty but the obnoxiousness is just another level beyond that of Win10.
After rebooting multiple times it is now running multiple instances of copilot 365, and using vast amounts of Wi-Fi to telemeter something to … somewhere.
I haven’t used it for anything at all, other than to try to create a bootable USB for Fedora.
So I’m not sure what it’s tattling about.
It really really wants me to use Teams.
And it has suggested that I give it access to my Gmail account.
And it has suggested that I give it access to my Gmail account.
– not just no but HELL no.
Bad enough that google has access to your gmail…
n
>>The main change is cornstarch for talc. The minor ingredients have changed order a bit, so I think they played around with formulation too.
I like talc. And I don’t think cornstarch smears and lubes like talc. Plus, I use talc to fill my pores in my arms, face, neck, etc when I’m doing work with fiberglas. That way you don’t get the tiny little needles itching you. I suspect that cornstarch won’t be the same.
And always way too much cornstarch on the bottom of Domino’s pizzas.
The main change is cornstarch for talc. The minor ingredients have changed order a bit, so I think they played around with formulation too.
I like talc. And I don’t think cornstarch smears and lubes like talc. Plus, I use talc to fill my pores in my arms, face, neck, etc when I’m doing work with fiberglas. That way you don’t get the tiny little needles itching you. I suspect that cornstarch won’t be the same.
The new formulation smells different… so I believe it IS different. WTF can’t they leave well enough alone?
Isnt somebody getting sued for women putting talc on their privates and getting cancer ?
Yup.
https://www.drugwatch.com/featured/talc-ovarian-cancer-crisis/