Cold again, and probably overcast too. Maybe even some misty moisture from the sky, because that’s how yesterday ended up. I expect more of the same.
I did my pickups and chatted with a couple of my auction guys. The generator I picked up is worn but they are usually straightforward to fix. More than once it’s just been low oil cutoff that was the problem. The guys are amazed that new players keep joining the auction resale business. It’s tough, even for established players. New guys don’t stand a chance in this environment.
Hope springs eternal and reselling looks like easy money from the outside. We’ll see if they learn as they go and make the changes they need to make. I doubt it, based on what I’ve seen over the last few years.
I got a couple of decorations out last night, before full dark. I’ll try to get a few more out today, but my main goal will be pickups, and if the rain holds off, loading the truck for a trip to the BOL. I scored a couple of auto darkening welding helmets for $5 each from one of the new auctions. One was a Harbor Freight model, but the other was Lincoln Electric (ie. real welding company). They tried to not include them on the invoice, but I called them on it. They sent a new invoice with the helmets included, and the oscillating tool that they also took off the original invoice.
Sometimes stuff doesn’t sell for what it should, especially for a new auction house. That’s how auctions work. It could have been a mistake, but that’s a whole lot less likely than they just didn’t want to give it away. Sorry but the business doesn’t work that way. It will be interesting to talk with them today and see where their heads are at.
If the weather is good, we might head to the BOL tonight. If not, then tomorrow. I haven’t been up in too long, and I’d like to get the Christmas decorations and lights set up there too. It looks good to be part of the community, and it lets us have two trees. The tree at the lake is entirely decorated with glass ornaments that we don’t have an emotional attachment to. The one at home has all our fun and precious ornaments.
Taking the time to build the memories and find joy is important.
It’s just as important as stacking up stuff.
nick
Friday. Good morning!
Half a day’s work done already. Have just enjoyed porridge, and am pondering what to have with my morning tea. I have some Italian Coppa and Swiss Gwitterchäs, which would make a nice savoury sandwich, or there is a barín breac crying out to be cut. First world problems. Maybe I will have both and call it lunch.
Nick, I admire your tenacity with auctioneers. I am afraid I regard them in the same category as estate agents and used car salesmen. Necessary, but evil, and certainly not to be trusted.
I bought two new-in-box expensive Italian rifles for a ridiculous no-reserve price at a respectable gub auctioneers in the UK, and they tried to stiff me on both purchases, and actually managed to stiff me on one of them, claiming the offer of two “identical” items was a clerical error. That could have been true, had the “identical” items not had individual serial numbers, visible in the catalogue photos. I will never do business with them again.
Wishing you all a beautiful Saturday eve!
Give them to a 60+ year old Hardy Boy book fan!
I got tired of moving my library. When the Kindle Paperwhite made eBooks viable, I got rid of all the novels, and kept only those reference works that would not display well on an eBook Reader, or to which I need hands-on access. Even the remainder is more than a full wall of shelving. I am seriously considering, if/when we ever build at the BOL, building a proper library.
It’s been a while, but I think sold my Hardy Boy collection on eBay…
A pile of precipitation moving in over the weekend. At our altitude, the temperature will be just above freezing, so it’s not clear whether it will land as rain or snow. I’m hoping for rain…
Tonight I’m off to meet up with younger son and his new
kidskittens. He and his SO got two kittens a few weeks ago, plus I haven’t seen the new apartment they moved into earlier this year.@Lynn: If your dad had a lot of technical books, you might consider contacting these people:
https://www.zubalbooks.com/
Deserves no mercy:
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2025/12/05/people-are-driving-to-tim-walzs-house-and-calling-him-this-its-totally-hilarious-n2667415
60+ year old complete set of the Hardy Boy books
— they bring good money. I’m sure there is other similar stuff. The Harvard Bookshelf of Knowledge, and similar sets are crazy money. Leather bound classics bring good money too.
Some of your problems are why there are estate sale companies. Take what you want, leave the rest for an estate seller.
———-
44F but dry. Well, it may be damp but no precip.
———-
First world problems are no less problems since we LIVE in the first world and not some 3rd world shitehole. All our problems are first world problems. Admittedly, which sexy cheese to eat is not a SERIOUS problem. You could be plotting which family to ruin, or which maiden to deflower… so net gain for human happiness.
———-
W’s recent flurry of moving, organizing, and throwing out stuff has me going nuts. Can I really be out of my allergy med, when I had over a year supply, or did it just get moved and is now lost? Can I really be out of vitamin B-12 supplements, when I was pretty sure I had a dozen bottles stored? Or did they move somewhere. Lots of little things I can’t find. Barber scissors. Meds. Food. To got to where you thought you had something stored and have it not be there is frustrating, especially for a prepper.
n
Officially, Walz did not have any assets, but I believe that money stashed in the MN teachers’ retirement fund is exempt from reporting requirements as well as mutual funds at places like Vanguard.
I’ve been slowly unwinding things over the last few years, but most of my non-401(k) money is still at Vanguard.
Disclaimer: I have shares of VTSMX, the heart of Vanguard’s power to advance the agenda, but haven’t put any new money into it for over a decade. With 300% capital gains in 20 years and a lot of uncovered cost basis shares, unwinding that for political reasons could be expensive and a serious research project.
The online auction platform that has most of the sellers in my area, hibid.com, changed something 2 days ago and suddenly I couldn’t log on.
That’s when I thought there was an issue with cloudflare, since I got a ‘failed’ to authenticate message no matter what I did. Hibid never used cloudflare prior to that for authenticating I’m human.
Some poking around last night, turning my ad blocker on and off, trying different computers and browsers, etc, and I found that my User Agent Switcher add on was causing the issue. Turn it off and the cloudflare authentication worked.
I have only been using it for a short while. My CCard site programmers are stupid, and changed something which kept me from logging in because “My browser is out of date.” I am fully up to date, but with a branch of firefox for older OSs that has a different numbering scheme. Using the User Agent switch to tell them I’m a different browser let me pay my bill again.
So chase.com won’t work with my true user agent being reported, but cloudflare won’t work with my chosen user agent being reported. FFS.
n
Here is the story of the almost scam.
We have been looking for a new dog. The wife wants a labradoodle. She found one in Jacksonville Florida. The guy said we could pay him and he would ship the dog. Nope, nope, nope. When we said we would come to Jacksonville to get the dog all communication ceased. Obvious scam.
Now the good part. The wife found a dog in Louisville KY, about 230 miles from us. Not a difficult drive up I-75 to I-64. Easily done in a day. The wife was messaging the person on Facebook. The lady wanted $500 and would take Apple Pay, Zello or Chime. No credit card. No cash on delivery. Hmm, strange. The red flag is starting up the pole.
I looked at the profile. It had been created November 5, 2025. Yeh, about a month old. The red flag goes to the top of the pole. I questioned the lady about the newness of the page, and she responds with some gobbildy-gook about trust and she is a fine Christian lady who just to trying to make some extra money.
Then the lady says we can come see the dog and gives us an address. She sends a video of her playing with the dog and some more pictures. The flag lowers a bit. We give the lady a date and a time. No response. Hmm, strange. But at least we have an address. Off we go on the journey to Louisville.
Four and half hours later, with a stop for lunch, we arrive at the address. No one is home. No dogs are barking. The red flag is now proudly waving. There was about 3″ of snow on the ground and the trip up was nice through some of the snow-covered areas. The wife goes to the neighbor’s house and asks if the lady lives there. Nope. The home is owned by an older couple who spend their winters in Florida. The red flag is flying in all its glory.
The wife messages the lady on FB and says she is going to report the scam to FB. Almost immediately the dog seller’s page disappears.
We drive home with a stop at Buc’ees for some beef jerky, so the trip was not a total waste. But very expensive beef jerky when one factors in the gas.
We were not out any real money other than gas money, about $75.00 worth. And almost a day, which when retired, any day out of the house is not really a waste. I doubt the video was her or the pictures of the dog were hers. They were probably stolen from another site.
With fake sales, fake information, fake profiles, Facebook should replace the “C” with a “K” and become FakeBook.
I thought fakebook had authentification and you had to use your real name?
n
Overnight temp was around 0F here. Temp at 0800 was below 0F. The myth about that yellow thing in the sky making the earth warm has been debunked.
The chickens’ heat light was on for much of the night despite eight plump little birdies providing warmth. Well before dawn I heard a couple of them awwwking, probably because they thought that the light meant it was daytime. I got fed up after half an hour and opened the coop. A couple of the little geniuses came out into the dark and cold and perched on one of the things I’ve set out for them. Whatever. The rest came out once it was light, though no warmer. I’ll adjust the thermostat down a few more degrees, since they obviously are willing to put up with 0-ish temperatures.
I’m way behind on billable work this week, though not as disastrously behind as I was the previous couple weeks. Family issues, the bane of getting things done.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/12/pipe-bomber-unmasked-affidavit-reveals-how-fbi-identified/
Guy used credit cards to purchase the materials. Bought just the materials when he did.
FBI can trace the pipe, the wire, the battery terminals, as well as use cell records to place the guy in different locations.
Panopticon. And yet it took 5 years… you don’t find what you don’t look for.
n
Trent Dilfer is a Fine Christian Man (TM).
I hate when people invoke that meme.
Wife mentioned she might like an apple laptop for Christmas.
She’s and Ipad and Iphone user.
Any thoughts?
n
Divorce attorney!
Joke. W1 likes Apple stuff. When she started wanting it, I bought it for her, with the proviso that she does her own technical support for it. I haven’t touched an Apple in anger since the ][ e.
Even a base MacBook Air M4 with 16 GB is a powerful machine right now.
Depending on what she does, you may want to opt for a bit more storage. I’ve filled nearly 256 GB in 20 years across various Apple laptops, mostly pictures and videos.
Don‘t get an M1 Air at this point, even if you see a deal.
Etch-a-sketch with a grey case and an apple sticker?
Update to the above: It seems that the birds were awwking in the coop because they’d knocked down their roosting rail in the coop. And it’s my job to fix it. Awwwk! Where are you? Awwwwk! Fix what’s bothering us! Awwwk! And bring some treats!
I checked the wild bird feeder outside the kitchen. Saw a small bird lying in the seed dish. Froze to death overnight? I guess it could happen. But when I opened the door, it lifted its head and flew off. So… it fell asleep in the food dish like a kitten or puppy? I don’t think I’ve ever even heard of it. -shrug- It didn’t poop in the seeds, so no problem.
I fill the seeder with half mixed seed and half sunflower seed. The sunflower seeds are prized by the birds because of the higher fat content. I also put chunks of suet on the feeder, on the rare occasion that I remember. One time a woodpecker flew off with a suet chunk bigger than its head. “Dude! I got the good stuff!”
MacBook Air, M4. Base configuration. 16 Gig memory, 256 Gig SSD.
The real question is if Mr. Nick can provide IT support to Mrs. Nick.
Will somebody tell the NWO to stop messing with Cloudflare and DNS servers? I need my digits. And I want them with a 3ms ping, dammit!
Is it just me or are Dumbocrats despicable scum to be avoided and ostracized at all costs.
Every Dumbo says tRump can do nothing right and all of his nominees should resign NOW!
I hope the Dumbo attitude of hate torpedoes them next year. Please wake up, sheeple, you are being gaslit to the max.
The real question is if Mr. Nick can provide IT support to Mrs. Nick.
– that’s an easy one. No. I quit messing with apple in the Mac days, ‘89, ’90.
She knows she’s on her own for tech support on the apple side.
n
The hardware is generally rock solid. The M4 is a great CPU. Integration with any of the iLimpetstm is best in class.
It’s quite expensive and, like any of the major OS’s, they are datamining you for their AI. Probably a bit safer than Google or Microsoft because
of their great big honest heartsthey are secretive stingy closed shop b*st*rds unwilling to share.For desktop use a mini might be more cost effective.
Happy wife, happy life…
Is she holding your allergy meds hostage?
Prepping: Anker Solix C1000 Gen 2 solar generator.
I have had a small Anker battery pack for a while, the model 521 but it only has a quarter kilowatt hour battery. It also won’t run anything particularly power hungry, a few hundred watts output at most. I have had my eye on their big brother for a while and when it came up on Black Friday I snagged one.
I’ve done a couple tests in the last few days running a:
I didn’t buy the associated brand name solar panel for input, they wanted way too much, but it should work with anything of the appropriate size and voltage/current limits. The local area is utterly awash in solar panels, I can pick up a 300 W 50V panel for $40.
Anyways, for emergencies and truck camping where open flame is prohibited, it should suffice.
(There are bigger models, but this one was about 25lbs, two-handled, ergonomically easy to shift. If you need more battery endurance one can use external batteries or the solar to extend things.)
Worth $300 extra to get an M5?
n
No. The M4 is quite capable. The M5 is only available on the Pro model. You get a brighter screen, 120Hz refresh, and more ports on the Pro. It is also heavier. The Pro has fans so it will not throttle under heavy CPU load. The Air has no fans. That means less dust intrusion. To stress a M4 to the point of throttling requires some seriously intensive software.
Famous last words. RIP Mr. Nick, we knew ye well.
Went out to give the chickens a treat, check their food and water, and get the mail. Cleared the several inches of snow off the van’s roof as long as I was out there. Yesterday I cleared the windshield in case I needed to go somewhere in a hurry but didn’t clear the roof because of the weather. In the snow were several small pinecones. We do have pines on and near the property but none anywhere near the driveway. Either the wind blew them a considerable distance, very unlikely, or crows were dropping them on my car for some reason. That also seems unlikely.
I also have that one and use it on trips. I have it’s big brother, too, the one with wheels and a handle.
They replace the POS Jackery 2000 I had. I posted years back on how I had to return it under warranty three times. It promptly crapped out as soon as the warranty expired. I didn’t even try to harvest the batteries. It went to the SA hazardous materials recycling station where it met a deserved death.
No. The added ports, heat sinks and fans make the newest Pro much heavier than the air.
I‘m still very happy with my M1 Pro for personal use.
@Lynn: If your dad had a lot of technical books, you might consider contacting these people:
https://www.zubalbooks.com/
I have all of the worthwhile technical books at the office. About 3,000 of them, several written in German. Lots and lots of chemical information books.
And that is a very good machine for general use. I like the M2 version and up because the bezel is smaller. The M1 can still be purchased at Walmart for $499. My only beef with the M1 is the 8GB of memory moving forward. More than likely enough, but who knows? The M4 Air will come with 16 Gig of memory on the base model. Storage of 256 Gig will be half used by the OS and the preinstalled apps. I would think that 512 Gig would be a little better.
The problem with the increase in storage is the cost. For considerably less external storage can be purchased. Store the user files on the external drive. Does two things, avoids the “Apple Tax” and makes the files available in case (when) the Mac pukes on itself. Although a Mac truly puking on itself is fairly rare.
I have the M4 Pro and if truth be known, I could be easily served by the M4 Air. The only real reason for the Pro was the addition of the high speed SDXC port, which supports the cards my camera uses.
At one time I had a M2 Air and that was a really nice machine. The screen on my M1 got flakey, out of warranty, Apple would replace for $500.00. I complained to the store manager. He gave me full value for my M1, and for $500.00 more sold me the M2 Air with more memory and storage. For the cost of a new screen, I upgraded to the M2 Air. Seemed like a good deal.
For installed apps, Pages and Numbers are quite capable and are free. They can read, and write, Microsoft Office files. The mail app works. Safari works although Chrome can be downloaded and installed.
For Mr. Nick it will be an exercise to support his wife. Apple does stuff differently. Enough so to be annoying and some decisions I consider absolutely stupid and nothing more than a big middle finger to Microsoft.
The light switch for the garage lights quit. It is easy to replace. I went to the Home Depot website, ordered a new switch (lighted) for $5.00. Home Depot will deliver the switch today, for free. What a deal. Seems like a waste of money for Home Depot. At least I am not spending the $5.00 in gas and my time.
Working for Clapper, I had a loaded Intel MacBook Pro with the touch bar and became very fond of the concept.
The M1 Pro with the touch bar still seems like more of a leap by Apple than the current Pro.
I bought the laptop with my unemployment settlement money from the tolling conpany job.
I didn‘t need the money as much as I needed to get my name cleared with TWC.
I bought a few bags of frozen french fries and tater tots when I bought my air fryer. Today I wanted some french fries and huh, I’m all out. I discovered some good stuff in the freezer I had forgotten about.
Time for an experiment. I opened and rinsed a can of potatoes. Whole potatoes. I quartered the potatoes lengthwise. The air fryer says to pre heat. So I did, with the potatoes in the machine. About five minutes to dry them a bit.
Sprinkle on some seasoned salt, black pepper, and a wave of garlic powder. Spray on some olive oil. Shake it all up and repeat. Then about 12 minutes. A couple more minutes would have been better. They turned out ok. I mean, canned potatoes. Good enough to do again.
I’m not hungry.
I run Firefox, Thunderbird, and the Libre Office apps, much like my Windows and Linux laptops. All are very responsive.
Canned potatoes. Years ago a friend welded me up a campfire wok out of an old plow disc and rebar. Fry some bacon use the grease for some canned sliced potatoes and some fresh onions. Pepper and maybe some salt, perfect breakfast food
made a later model with
Removable legs
Potatoes. I used all of mine up making Thanksgiving dinner.
Then I didn’t get to the store two days later because I had plenty of food laying around.
I need to add them to the list for this Sunday.
“Why Netflix Buying Warner Bros Would Be A Disaster For America”
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/why-netflix-buying-warner-bros-would-be-disaster-america
“As we detailed earlier, Netflix and Warner Bros Discovery announced today a $72 billion merger, in a deal intended to consolidate Hollywood into the hands of a streaming giant.”
I think that the deal will be good for Netflix and Warner Bros.
If the movie theatres die, they die.
“FBI Raids Home of High-Ranking DEA Official Under Obama, Charges Him For Conspiring to Launder Millions of Dollars For Mexican Drug Cartel”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/12/fbi-raids-home-high-ranking-dea-official-under/
So is the DEA rotten to the core ? I suspect so.
Infinite money always corrupts the monitor. This is why I want to CANCEL the War On Drugs ™.
Hat tip to:
https://thelibertydaily.com/
“SpaceX Might Be Worth $800 Billion—and This Stock Is Soaring”
https://finance.yahoo.com/m/2877ca13-3845-38ec-b189-816586afdfa8/spacex-might-be-worth-800.html?guccounter=1
“Elon Musk’s SpaceX is seeking an $800 billion valuation, making it the most valuable privately held company on Earth—and sending shares of EchoStar soaring. Citing people familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal reported that the space technology company is initiating a secondary offering that would value it at that amount. The Journal also said there is no certainty that the price will be that high.
Woof ! Musk strikes again with gold !
W will be truly on her own with a mac. She’s a technical girl and can deal. She’s been dealing with the i-verse with phones and tablets for years. Looking back, the ipod was the gateway.
——-
The new auction that left off my steals claims there was a setting they had wrong. Hmm. Sounds sketch to me.
——-
Speaking of sketch, the auction that was ripping everyone off by shill bidding, selling crap, and changing the definition of industry standard terms to their advantage has gone belly up. I stopped by for my last 2 lots, and the girls said they were done as of yesterday. Funny thing is, they are still running an auction online today. They sent out a “we’re done” email after I spoke with the girls.
These last owners were subcontinent and they just didn’t play right. It’s possible that the well was already too poisoned when they took over though.
I’m sure it sucks for them personally, and I don’t want people to fail, but it was a textbook case of screwing your customers will make them all leave…
That makes two of the fairly big players in Houston calling it quits this past 2 months.
(just checked and the auction is still up.)
——-
Oh, and the Goodwill Outlet near me closed down too. FFS, where am I gonna shop????
n
Musk strikes again with gold !
– Silicon Greybeard had news that people are talking about ending SLS. https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2025/12/congress-warned-artemis-cannot-work.html
Which might have played into the timing.
Since he controls something like 80% of mankind’s access to space and there is a war coming, SpaceX is sitting pretty. It’s probably 98% of US access.
n
With the other 2% being the catapult in Nick’s back yard. It’s good for boinging more than just teenagers into orbit.
I like the “new” War On Drugs which consists of blowing the frak out of drug boats. If the Army has a stockpile of old TOW missiles, they should line them up on border crossings. They can easily fire across the border on known drug trucks. How about 10,000 volts on the border wall ala Jurassic Park.
Is it too much to ask that the next Dumbo who opens their yap about “war crimes” takes one right in the baby maker?
60+ year old complete set of the Hardy Boy books
— they bring good money. I’m sure there is other similar stuff. The Harvard Bookshelf of Knowledge, and similar sets are crazy money. Leather bound classics bring good money too.
Some of your problems are why there are estate sale companies. Take what you want, leave the rest for an estate seller.
I have hired an Estate Sales Company. He and his 10 person crew are scheduled to show up in March. He has 14 in his queue right now ahead of us.
He thinks that the gross sales amount will be around $20K. He will take 40% of that.
We have stripped out about half of the worthless crap, excuse me, precious stuff, in the house now. I still have a 25 yard3 dumpster in the driveway.
“F1” made $631 million for Apple in theaters, more than streaming could ever generate.
Beyond business reasons, Netflix may have the Best Picture winner this year with “Frankenstein”, but last year they were pushing a musical about a transsexual drug lord.
Hollywood may have an agenda, but Netflix’s is significantly more perverse.
Musk strikes again with gold !
– Silicon Greybeard had news that people are talking about ending SLS. https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2025/12/congress-warned-artemis-cannot-work.html
Which might have played into the timing.
Since he controls something like 80% of mankind’s access to space and there is a war coming, SpaceX is sitting pretty. It’s probably 98% of US access.
Blue Origin finally launched the New Glenn the other day. It has twice the payload of the SpaceX Raptor but it has one quarter ??? the payload of the Starship.
https://dailygalaxy.com/2025/12/blue-origin-70000kg-rocket-heavy-payloads/
As long as you have a fairly current printer, the problems should be minimal.
Get an external drive with a USB-C interface and at least 1 TB capacity to set up as a Time Machine backup drive.
Time Machine is really the killer app on macOS.
If she wants an external display to connect to the MacBook, my employer’s monitors with USB-C dock capability built in offer excellent Apple compatibility. Ironic since, 30 years ago, the boss stated that Apple should just give up, distribute the remaining equity to share holders, and shut down.
Our health benefits still do not cover the Apple Watch in the coverage for fitness bands.
A series of big spots on the Sun today, if you’ve still got your eclipse glasses (or a real solar filter) handy.
Worth $300 extra to get an M5?
I would get 32 GB of ram and a 1 TB hard drive first.
Today’s software engineers burn ram and hard drive space like there is no tomorrow.
Tomorrow’s software engineers will probably take your breath away in their spoilage of resources.
I also have that one and use it on trips. I have it’s big brother, too, the one with wheels and a handle.
Anker makes good stuff so far.
The light switch for the garage lights quit. It is easy to replace. I went to the Home Depot website, ordered a new switch (lighted) for $5.00. Home Depot will deliver the switch today, for free. What a deal. Seems like a waste of money for Home Depot. At least I am not spending the $5.00 in gas and my time.
With my new eyes, I am waking up in the middle of the night and noticing red and green lights all over the place now that I could not see with my old bad eyes without glasses. It is disconcerting and has me using my nightstand flashlight to ascertain that I am still in my bedroom.
Yes, I have a nightstand flashlight. Don’t you ?
https://www.amazon.com/Rayovac-Virtually-Indestructible-Black-Flashlight/dp/B0716D98GQ?tag=ttgnet-20
Nah, 24 Gig works just fine. Even 16 Gig on a Mac will serve most people’s needs quite nicely. I ran Photoshop and Lightroom on 8 Gig for over a year. Then 16 Gig for another year on a new machine. It all ran fine. Now I have 24 Gig and I don’t notice any appreciable difference. For hard drive space, on a Mac, I would get fast external storage. Cheaper than the “Apple Tax”. But sometimes clumsy when using the machine on the lap.
What is nice that anything she does on her iPhone or iPad, will also be reflected on the Mac. Calendar, Notes, Pictures, documents, emails, etc. The integration that Apple has done is quite nice. That is what convinced my wife, who hates change, to switch to a Mac when her PC was at the end of its life as it could not upgrade to W11 and was several years old. I got her an iMac.
My Mac found, and installed all the drivers, for my 10-year-old Brother color laser printer. The Mac also found the Epson inkjet printer with scanner capability. Scanning, and printing, work fine without any problems. Both printers are network connected with no cable to the computers. My Windows machine also found both printers and the scanner option. A lot of the problems of connecting printers in the early years have gone away in the last 10 years.
And the occupants.
You say “nice”. I say “Goodbye, privacy.”
No one p*sses away memory and storage like Redmond.
@Lynn
The original books were extensively revised in the 1950’s, so the books you have are probably later editions. Easy to identify: Pictorial covers, not dust jackets. The first re-issue editions ca. 1959-1979 was comprised of 58 books plus the Detective Handbook, and had a small sketch of the brothers on the spine. The cover finish was matte with a fine fabric texture. Later reprints had glossy covers and did not have the portraits on the spine.
If you have 1-58 in the matte edition and they are in top condition they should sell on eBay before Christmas for $300, or list them on Facebook Marketplace for $250. I would Make three stacks of 20 to show the spines, then tile them on the floor in six rows of ten, taking one photo of the whole collection and additional photos showing 10-12 in closeup.
Any defects such as major wear or owner’s name on the flyleaves need to be disclosed and described.
If you have any questions give me a call.
Your dad’s books are more complicated. Publishers had been using the ISBN (International Standard Book Number) for more than a decade when they started incorporating the number as a barcode on the dust jacket in the late 1970’s, revolutionizing book selling. Most of your dad’s collection is probably bar coded, so you can scan the bar codes and check value pretty easily. The goal here is to sort out the chicken dinners ($20 and up) and the steak dinners ($100 and up), and sometimes you will even get lobster. Old text and technical books rarely have much residual value, but there are enough $100-300 books that it’s worth checking (devolatilization is a great keyword, as is asbestos). Most fiction is effectively worthless as in not worth messing around with, so donating is your best option, although if there are large numbers of $5-15 science fiction or mysteries you can make a tidy sum in a single morning with a garage sale, by starting at 8am at $3 and dropping the price to $2 at 8:30 and $1 at 9:00. Give buyers cardboard flats and make them checkout before each price reduction, and post a sign to discourage shoplifters and hoarders–doesn’t hurt to have a belt holster visible, either.
Many books in the 1968-1980 range will have ISBN’s on the title page, but not bar codes. Manual input required.
Pre-ISBN there was briefly an SBN created by Bowkers before the rest of the industry got on board. They can be converted, but it’s easier to just look up author, title, etc.
I’d tackle the bar-coded books first to thin things down, then work on the rest. Call if you have questions.
The stuff is encrypted. Lose the Apple credentials and the information is useless. Unlike Google, which harvests everything, then sells the information. I trust Apple over any of the other interoperable systems, by a wide margin.
Truck is loaded and I’m headed out shortly. W and the two miscreants will head out when D1 gets home from a dinner date.
———
I always scan old technical books, especially if they look like foundational works on a subject. I either talk to the ebay app -reading the title and author,- and then filter on ‘sold’ or I use the ebay app and my camera on the phone to search with a barcode. The ‘real’ resellers are using handheld or finger mounted scanners to go thru the bins and shelves at goodwill, their software tells them if they should grab a book or leave it.
Bible reference books can be crazy good money too.
n
Bobbsey Twins, Tom Swift, Doc Savage all sell well too. As does Nancy Drew.
n
No one p*sses away memory and storage like Redmond.
Huh. Obviously you have not looked at any of the serious Python projects. I have never seen such wasted space and bloated code.
I analyzed a Python project in detail with about 300 classes a couple of years ago. I decided that 90% of the code was totally superfluous to the project goal. It looked like they just added entire open source classes to get a function or two.
The original books were extensively revised in the 1950’s, so the books you have are probably later editions. Easy to identify: Pictorial covers, not dust jackets. The first re-issue editions ca. 1959-1979 was comprised of 58 books plus the Detective Handbook, and had a small sketch of the brothers on the spine. The cover finish was matte with a fine fabric texture. Later reprints had glossy covers and did not have the portraits on the spine.
Yup, these are the matte versions with the brothers picture on the spine. They are at Mom’s house 120 miles away. Not worth the gasoline to get them for me.
Your dad’s books are more complicated. Publishers had been using the ISBN (International Standard Book Number) for more than a decade when they started incorporating the number as a barcode on the dust jacket in the late 1970’s, revolutionizing book selling. Most of your dad’s collection is probably bar coded, so you can scan the bar codes and check value pretty easily. The goal here is to sort out the chicken dinners ($20 and up) and the steak dinners ($100 and up), and sometimes you will even get lobster. Old text and technical books rarely have much residual value, but there are enough $100-300 books that it’s worth checking (devolatilization is a great keyword, as is asbestos). Most fiction is effectively worthless as in not worth messing around with, so donating is your best option, although if there are large numbers of $5-15 science fiction or mysteries you can make a tidy sum in a single morning with a garage sale, by starting at 8am at $3 and dropping the price to $2 at 8:30 and $1 at 9:00. Give buyers cardboard flats and make them checkout before each price reduction, and post a sign to discourage shoplifters and hoarders–doesn’t hurt to have a belt holster visible, either.
Dad’s books are all mainstream thrillers: John Grishom, Tom Clancy, Clive Cussler, etc. No SciFi, he hated SciFi books. But he like SciFi movies. Go figure.
All of the technical books are owned by the business and are here in my office, the technical office, or one of the programmer offices.
I just bought a new vapor pressure reference book for $170.00 on Big River. Not cheap.
The Media’s Latest Defense of Minnesota’s Somali Community Fails Basic Math
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/amy-curtis/2025/12/05/kstp-somali-tax-and-revenue-generation-n2667433
Note that Dr. Corrie’s “8 billion” is from a computer model, and the 12 billion is for the country of Somilia and so is irrelevant except to illustrate the economic impact of all those stolen U.S. taxpayer dollars shipped to Africa.
Also note that 10-15 years before the Somalis were forced upon the taxpayers of Minneapolis and Minnesota, a large number of Hmong refugees were resettled in Saint Paul, Minnesota:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Hmong_in_Minneapolis%E2%80%93Saint_Paul
The link does not specify a numbe, but probably 25-30,000.
Contrast this result:
The numbers are incomplete, but it’s clear that if 58% of Somalis in Minnesota are still in poverty more than 30 years later, it indicates total failure and a fantastic drain on taxpayers. It probably also indicates that the billions of funds stolen with Somali Scam I, II, and III are not being officially accounted for. As mentioned before, a few thousand of those Biden IRS hires should set up in MN and start auditing.
Note to Secretary and Acting IRS Commissioner Scott Bessent: Seems like low-hanging fruit.
https://thefederalist.com/2025/12/05/ai-data-centers-are-wreaking-havoc-on-local-communities-across-america/
Ayup.
Pearls Before Swine: Coffee-Mate
https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2025/12/05
No, Rat, no !
Re data centers: it’s not just the generated electicity – it’s the water to cool off all of that heat. Not much water in the Permian basin, right?
There’s just not easy answers to where they should be. Unless we turn off the interwebs….
“SCOTUS agrees to decide if Trump admin. can end birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants”
https://www.oann.com/newsroom/scotus-agrees-to-decide-if-trump-admin-can-end-birthright-citizenship-for-illegal-immigrants/
“On Friday, the court agreed to review a lower appeals court’s decision earlier this week, which rejected the Trump administration’s interpretation of the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause.”
“The administration argues that this protection does not extend to babies born to parents who are in the U.S. illegally or temporarily, citing the “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” phrase, because the parents may be loyal to a foreign country.”
“Trump has directed federal agencies not to recognize the citizenship of children born in the country if they do not have at least one parent who is an American citizen or owner of a “Green Card” — officially known as a Permanent Resident Card.”
I have no idea which side that SCOTUS will jump on. Clarence Thomas will probably say Trump is correct though.
“Supreme Court strikes down bump stock ban”
https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-strikes-down-bump-stock-ban/
“The Supreme Court on Friday struck down a rule that banned bump stocks, issued by the Trump administration after a 2017 mass shooting at a concert in Las Vegas. By a vote of 6-3, the justices rejected the federal government’s argument that rifles equipped with bump stocks are machine guns, which are generally prohibited under federal law. In an opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas, the court’s conservative justices emphasized that Congress could have enacted a law that banned all weapons capable of high rates of fire, but it did not – and so the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives was wrong to interpret the federal ban on machine guns to extend to bump stocks.”
I had forgotten that SCOTUS did unban brump stocks.
“”The Higher Education Bubble That Everyone Forgot About””
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-higher-education-bubble-that.html
“My generation, Generation X, the smallest generation, hatched an even smaller generation, Gen Z. The number of students going to college peaked around 5–7 years ago, has been going down ever since, and will continue to go down. Many colleges and universities simply won’t be able to survive. They’re businesses, like anything else, and the schools that have something to offer will continue to thrive, and others will simply wither and blow away. We’ll have far fewer institutions of higher education 10 years from now, and while that is regrettable in a sense, it is probably a good thing.”
I can see the commercials now: I can educate your kid for just $50K ! !! !
It looks like my Aggies (TAMU) are going to play Notre Dame again but at College Station, Texas this time for the college football playoffs.
https://www.ncaa.com/news/football/article/2025-12-02/college-football-playoff-bracket-based-current-committee-rankings
The real schedule comes out on Sunday.
Guido van Rossum, the creator of Python, works for Redmond.
pip and npm (the Node.js equivalent) are out of control. No one knows what’s in those libraries anymore.
The pseudocode of CLRS, the MIT Press “Algorithms” textbook that is the standard, is very close to Python, and MIT’s vaunted 6.001 became a Python course, 6.0001, circa 2007.
Anymore, the undergrads don’t bother to learn C/C++, and the young’n’s really don’t have to at a lot of “good” schools unless they take Systems Programming or Compilers.
No one has ever produced a definitive book on recent Python infrastructure.
O’Reilly isn’t interested in producing “O’Reilly” books anymore, and The Big Nerd Ranch, which had a “Boot Camp” on the subject, gave up their education and publishing activities after the founders sold out and the company became part of Amdocs.
Cough … Mossad … cough.
The dime was dropped. UT Austin will be the #12 seed.
The Permian is about the gas flares.
Crusoe, Inc.
They will find the water no matter what the cost right now.
There is a reason I am back to three BP meds as of this morning.
“How USS Gettysburg Ended Up Shooting Down A Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet”
https://www.twz.com/air/how-uss-gettysburg-shot-down-a-super-hornet-and-nearly-another
“On the approach to land on the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman, the F/A-18F Super Hornet’s pilot looked out the canopy and saw a Standard Missile-2 (SM-2) launched from the Ticonderoga class guided missile cruiser USS Gettysburg speeding through the sky. At first, the pilot thought the missile was aimed at a Houthi drone or cruise missile, one of several fired at the carrier strike group on Dec. 22, 2024, during an attack from the Yemeni rebel group. But as the SM-2 drew closer and changed its course toward the Super Hornet, configured as an aerial refueler, the crew knew it was heading straight for them. However, they had no way of knowing that on the Gettysburg, their jet had been identified as a Houthi anti-ship cruise missile like others fired at the strike group, and thus a threat.”
““Are you seeing this?” the F/A-18F pilot asked the Weapon Systems Officer (WSO) as the missile came dangerously closer shortly before 2 a.m. local time.”
““Yeah, I’m watching it,” the WSO responded prior to the two ejecting from the jet before it was hit by the missile.”
Oops. Friendly fire sucks.
What is the meaning of “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” in the 14th amendment?
Interesting but does not illuminate two things:
The concept of “anchor babies” is a direct violation of “unjust enrichment”, and the clear remedy is to toss any such concept and deport the parents and their children.
We’re not going to advocate breaking up families, so the children go too. Do we let them back in? Only if we consider the headcount as part of the legal immigration limits in U.S. law. The other country involved might have some input there.
Is securing U.S. citizenship for children an direct or indirect benefit to the children. Is it age dependent?
There are limitations in the law that include foreign ambassadors, foreign armies, and ships flying foreign flags. (I note the absence of any discussion of foreign embassy staff without diplomatic passports) What about countries such as Mexico that have explicit policies based on violating the immigration laws of the U.S. for their own benefit? Does “foreign army” require that the invaders be under color, or simply part of the invading county’s governmental policy?
Hopefully, Python will ultimately follow the same trajectory as Perl.
Significant whitespace–really?
>>Thursday. Good morning again. Toasted crumpets with marmelade and tea for breakfast!
I get my English crumpets at Trader Joe’s. And yes, toasted with orange marmelade and some Earl Grey tea.
It’s not just Python. That’s the state of commercial software development for the past decade or three, in my experience. Get something “god enough” put together and move on to the next project. There’s never time to sit back and look at the completed system, regularize the architecture and dependencies, and prune the cruft.
Since I write and edit words as well as code, I think of it as releasing the first draft with just a spell-check edit pass and without an editor’s pair of eyes doing a skeptical look at the work as a whole. This process might give a good story or a good project but that’s not the way to bet.
Where can I put my book reviews (about 1,300 to date) on the intertubes where they will outlast me and I do not have to pay $10 / month for the website. I want the reviews to be seeable by anyone so I can point to them.
Kinda like the old myspace or something along those lines.
This guy made a website for his reviews but it took too much time to update so he abandoned it.
https://best-sci-fi-books.com/
James Davis Nicoll has a slow website for his reviews:
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
So nobody had any ideas ? Did myspace crash and burn the free website concepts that bad ?
Put up the website and your reviews. Make sure they have the right copyright notices. Include a page offering a reasonable licensing fee, and specifying $500 per day for unlicensed use.
Wait thirty days, then start searching for unlicensed use. After you find some examples, go shopping for an IP firm that will send the letters and offer to settle with any website for unauthorized use. Use your share to fund your
honey trapwebsite.Developer focus for the last three decades has been about the next job and what they can do at the current job to pad the resume.
@lynn, I’ve got an 86″ I’ll sell you cheap. I’ll even deliver and help you set it up. It’s not technically a tv, so no built in apps or tuner. That also means no built in spying. Works with any other source like roku, appletv, directv, etc.
Another link, it was available at Office Depot 6 months ago.
It’s too big to fit on the wall between the bookcases where my current tv hangs.
I’ve got my dad’s 85 inch 8K 155 lb QLED Samsung if I want it. My youngest brother wants it but he does not have a working transportation that can make it to Port Lavaca and back. He is 60 and has not had a paying job since he was 20 or so. And I am not going to loan him my truck, especially since he does not have a driver’s license.
My wife has vehemently vetoed the 85 inch tv in our 25 foot by 16 foot bedroom. I have my desk and computer in one end of our bedroom in the “sitting area”.
http://www.winsim.com/perry_homes_floor_plan_3301.pdf
Wow, the size of the tv is “Set Size without Stand (WxHxD) 73.9 x 42 x 0.5 inch”. That is longer than the bed of my pickup which is 5.5 ft !
https://www.samsung.com/us/tvs/neo-qled/85-class-neo-qled-8k-tv-qn990f-sku-qn85qn990ffxza/
I smell a 6/3 decision since they agreed to hear it. Anchor babies are a footnote that should be corrected.
Professor Jacobson:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2025/12/supreme-court-to-hear-challenge-to-trumps-birthright-citizenship-executive-order/
Let the gaslighting begin.
WRT a ‘free hosting place’, check out the first entry in this article: https://www.techradar.com/web-hosting/best-free-web-hosting
Although the recommended place in the article of ‘InfinityFree’ requires you to have subdomains, not full domain names (which would require registration, of course), and you don’t get any email accounts. Article indicates that their process is easy to set up, and they don’t force ads on your site. Decent storage space (5gb), and supports PHP and SQL and FTP. And no time limit on the site.
There are other alternatives if you do a simple search of ‘free web hosting’. Not everything you will find will be fully free.
Go has even weirder nitpicky things than whitespace. Certain names have to be capitalized and bracket placement has to be at the end of the line reminiscent of K&R C.
Ken Thompson of the K&R Bell Labs era is one of the authors of Go.
Big TVs are BIG. It would fill a wall in my living room. Which is why I have it for sale.
——-
Got to the BOL a few minutes before the wife and kinder. I stopped for gas and a pee break, they stopped for Sonic.
It’s 46F here which is brisk but not to bad for walking the dog around the loop. Too chilly for a tiny little fire, even with the fire ring, because I haven’t gotten out the heaters. Tomorrow night. (your backside gets pretty cold waiting for the fire to die out.)
———
Trip up I was listening to the audiobook for “Little Brother” by Cory Doctrow. I’m 2 disks in, and don’t know if I can keep it up. Supercilious might be the word I’m looking for regarding the personality of the narrator and main character. It doesn’t help that the voice actor has a weird accent that is not quite Bay area, nor east coast money, but somewhere in between. I’m sure he’d be happy to spend 3 hours talking about why he’s a vegan and drives a Prius. The writing is bad enough. Main character is an omniscient narrator talking about things in his past, but relates stuff that happened to his 17 yo self from the worldview of a 30 something.
I’m not sure that gets my feeling across but there is a serious problem with the ‘voice’ of the author, and with the actual voice of the actor reading it.
I’ll give it some more time on the drive home, but I don’t have high hopes. Doesn’t help that the main character is a whiny little b!tch.
——
I think I’ll try for an early bed tonight. I’ve got plenty to do tomorrow…
n
Lucky you! Alas, Aldi here doesn’t carry them.
I had to go to the English shop for my crumpets, and some Terry’s chocolate oranges, and Christmas crackers and Clonakility white pudding and ispíni, and Stilton and Branston pickle, and barín breac and fruitcake and raisin shortbread and… and….
I dare not shop there more than once a year for Christmas, as I would just go on a feeding and spending frenzy each time.
One of the (very few) nice side effects of Brexit has been that the “English” shop is now getting the bulk of its supplies from the supplier (Musgrave’s) to the SuperValu high-end supermarket symbol group franchise in Ireland.
SV has an excellent assortment, and their own-brand goods are also uniformly excellent. I was surprised and somewhat perplexed to see that the English shop is even bringing in SV fresh milk and cream.
Saturday. Still dark. Awake anyway. Meh.
Have a good weekend, all!
I should probably add, I didn’t have to go to the English shop to get crumpets. I know how to make crumpets.
I had to go to the English shop because W1 wanted Christmas crackers, and I don’t know how to make those, other than perhaps the terrible puns.
Crumpets and all the other luxury stuff (200 bucks worth) was just collateral damage.
Trip up I was listening to the audiobook for “Little Brother” by Cory Doctrow. I’m 2 disks in, and don’t know if I can keep it up. Supercilious might be the word I’m looking for regarding the personality of the narrator and main character. It doesn’t help that the voice actor has a weird accent that is not quite Bay area, nor east coast money, but somewhere in between. I’m sure he’d be happy to spend 3 hours talking about why he’s a vegan and drives a Prius. The writing is bad enough. Main character is an omniscient narrator talking about things in his past, but relates stuff that happened to his 17 yo self from the worldview of a 30 something.
Here is my review of the dead tree book:
First in a series of two books. Doctorow takes a serious look at a serious terrorist incident in San Francisco in 2007 or so and the response of the Department of Homeland Security. The response by DHS is overwhelming and over the top. Literally and figuratively. Any decision made by DHS to increase security in SF goes bad. Way, way bad. The protagonist used by Doctorow is very sympathetic and just a little too smart. No one person can solve all these issues and problems.
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
https://www.amazon.com/Little-Brother-Cory-Doctorow/dp/0765323117
WRT a ‘free hosting place’, check out the first entry in this article: https://www.techradar.com/web-hosting/best-free-web-hosting
Although the recommended place in the article of ‘InfinityFree’ requires you to have subdomains, not full domain names (which would require registration, of course), and you don’t get any email accounts. Article indicates that their process is easy to set up, and they don’t force ads on your site. Decent storage space (5gb), and supports PHP and SQL and FTP. And no time limit on the site.
There are other alternatives if you do a simple search of ‘free web hosting’. Not everything you will find will be fully free.
Thanks !
Do you have any actual experience with the free site ?
Nope; all I know is what I have read in that one article. Suggest doing some research on that site and similar sites via your favorite search engine. Or even your favorite AI, which can help with the initial research.
. The sites that I run/manage require more capabilities. But since the recommended site is free, you can try it out to see if it meets your needs.
Substack might be worth a look.
I’ve noticed on Substack I can’t save an article as a web page. Only what is visible. I might be doing something wrong but I don’t know what. I can print to PDF and catch the whole article.
Sooo…. he has a liþp?
That’s þ alt 0254.