Cold and clear again, warming later. Had a beautiful sunrise yesterday. Orange, pink, blue sky… chilly willy though. Should be the same today. Mid 70sF in the afternoon, maybe a bit more. I’ll take it.
After the sunrise, coffee, and getting the kids out the door, I did auction stuff, office stuff, and fell down a rabbit hole with some genealogy stuff online. I was mildly interested, now I’m mildly informed. The biggest change is how much more stuff has been digitized and is available online. Some of it, maybe most of it, is volunteer driven too, from what I saw.
In the afternoon I did small things around the house. Several projects got minor attention and moved a tiny bit forward. I’m avoiding big stuff. One of the projects was recovering and repurposing D1’s old chromebook. It’s much more possible, and straightforward than it was a couple of years ago when I last looked. But it’s also far too much messing around when I’ve got a stack of other lappys that I can update or put new OSs on easily without jumping through flaming hoops.
It’s a shame that schools are buying stuff that has no residual value and pretty much has to go into the landfill after only a few years. The kids don’t really need more at school, but the example it sets is bad.
Today I’ll do a couple of pickups. And more small stuff from the list. I want to keep moving, even if it’s slowly and in tiny steps.
Because that’s how you eat an elephant, one bite at a time.
Always be working. And stacking.
nick
As long as the kickbacks aren’t exposed, everyone is happy, except the taxpayers and the environment.
Happy Tuesday, all!
Best wishes to Mrs Ray for her surgery today, and for a fast and full recovery.
Up at O:dark-thirty. Hard to be Mr. Denis, and thanks for the well wishes.
I’m not really sure what benefit it is to get the credit monitoring. But it’s free for a year, so why not enroll?
You should have a freeze on all three major credit bureaus at a minimum. Also consider freezing the Lexis-Nexis report but that has side effects when renewing insurance. Get the report from Lexis-Nexis. It is
amazingdisgusting the amount of information and the sources for the information. There is data on mine from emails that I never had in which only the name matches. I am in the process of disputing the information from those sources. There is even one item that is simply “H”, my middle initial.Off to the hospital in a few minutes. Will take the MacBook with me to pass the time. She is scheduled for 6:00 AM, after which I will head to Chick-Fil-A for some breakfast as there is no use waiting during the prep, which takes about two hours.
The wife will not be able to bend her back for several weeks which means I will have to wipe her butt for her. Oh, joy, and TMI. Sorry for that.
A desktop from one of the warehouse clubs is not going to be top grade hardware regardless of the name on the case.
Seeing that BluRay and even DVD RW drives are suddenly unobtainium is concerning. It isn’t just those components either. All of the pieces necessary to build a PC at home are suddenly disappearing unless you are intent on building a high end gaming rig.
I don’t think the issue is the Orange Man’s tariffs either.
No physical media, of course. The studios and manufacturers have been open about that distribution channel for entertainment and software going away. IIRC, Sony doesn’t even make blank recordable BluRay media anymore.
Nintendo may backtrack about producing game cartridges, but that is only after a brutal Christmas season where the Switch 2 didn’t sell in numbers expected.
“Father of ‘Ancient Astronaut Theory’ Erich von Däniken Dies at 90”
https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-general/erich-von-daniken-death-00102440
I remember my mother reading his “Chariot Of The Gods” book in 1968.
The paperback came out a few years later and sold a lot of copies, begetting sequels..
Our understanding of technological history gets progressively poorer going back in time, and the bias has always been to underestimate the sophistication of ancient cultures.
One timely example is Roman concrete. The recipe was lost for hundreds of year until natural pozzolans were rediscovered. Research in the 1990’s developed artificial versions based on metakaolins, and development continues driven by the high cost of energy to make cement and the superior physical properties of the product. Current research continues to uncover the specifics of Roman concrete technology, with the use of slaked lime recently confirmed.
von Däniken’s theory was that ancient cultures did not have technological sophistication, so there must have been at outside force at work. He chose “ancient astronauts”, and the concept gained popular notoriety and sold tens of millions of books.
Good thing he did not choose politicians. We would still be living in caves and slinging stones at our dinner.
Surgery is supposed to start at 07:30 EST and consume about two hours. I expect the surgery to take a little longer, probably done by 10:00 and then a discussion with the doctor. Recovery will take an hour, then sit in the recovery room for another four or five hours.
For now, I sit in the waiting room, with my laptop, watching the sun rise in the east. A cold, but clear day. The hospital does have decent wireless. The patient information monitor, obviously running Windows, is showing an automatic recovery screen which speaks volumes for the incompetence of the IT staff. I got a Dr. Pepper from the vending machine. A $0.69 bottle at the local grocery store is $2.50 from the vending machine. The hospital does not control that pricing.
Methodist Medical Center in Oak Ridge was at one time independent. Several years ago they were absorbed, corrupted, conned, kidnapped, whatever, by Covenant Health. I don’t think the quality of care improved and in fact went down a couple of notches. MMC used to have their own IT staff but now I don’t think anyone from IT is staffed here.
I did head to Chick-Fil-A for some breakfast. The cafeteria does not open until 7:30 which is odd considering most people have to show for surgery at 6:00 and the family accompanying has no place to get food. The last time I ate there the food was expensive and not that good. Prior to Covenant Health taking over the food was cheaper and the quality was actually fairly good.
And speaking of IT. The local credit union used to have their own computer center. So did TVA credit union where I was the IT manager for six years. Those days are long gone. Now some central rack of servers, in who know where, is where all the CU data is now hosted. It used to be two major CU software suppliers, Summit Information Systems, and Symitar. Both are now running Jack Henry software and part of FiServ. I remember Jack Henry software from ‘80’s for banking software. Massive COBOL programs that had to be customized by local IT staff. An update took months having to integrate changes.
There was also Florida Software which the bank I was in was using for many of the applications. With modifications of course. Generally the core applications. The teller and ATM software was custom designed and maintained by me, along with the PULSE integration software. I also maintained the OS (MCP for Burroughs) software. The item processing software was from Burroughs as it needed to handle the reader-sorters where timing was critical.
And why am I rambling?
A desktop from one of the warehouse clubs is not going to be top grade hardware regardless of the name on the case.
– this is my main machine, bought direct from Dell, small business line, over 15 years ago. Ripped 2400 CDs and about 1000 DVDs. The drive did ok.
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And why am I rambling?
– to distract yourself. Which is fine. We’re here. I hope everything goes smoothly.
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Not only were ancient civilizations sophisticated, at least on the western civ and cultural side, as humans they were pretty much like us. Read a greek play and you’ll see the lie of progressive belief – man has not been “improved” in thousands of years of trying. Until we can alter our chemistry and DNA, we’ll remain what we are.
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48F this morning. Kids are moving, coffee is ready. I should eat…
n
“Read a greek play and you’ll see the lie of progressive belief – man has not been “improved” in thousands of years of trying. Until we can alter our chemistry and DNA, we’ll remain what we are.”
Future historians, if such exist, will recognize the twentieth century as the inflection point, followed shortly by a peak after which decline set in as we sidetracked evolution and used our increasing medical knowledge to keep the culls in the gene pool. Coupled with the social normalization of behaviors long recognized as deleterious to the health of society, and the democratization and dissipation of wealth, “cultural suicide” will be the conclusion.
Seeing that BluRay and even DVD RW drives are suddenly unobtainium is concerning. It isn’t just those components either. All of the pieces necessary to build a PC at home are suddenly disappearing unless you are intent on building a high end gaming rig.
– the only culture that still wants to build systems is the high end gamer culture.
I picked up an Xbox One without realizing it was the network only version. I’ve got a bin full of games I haven’t ever played. I don’t want a machine that can’t play disks. (it was for the BOL, before we got starlink.)
I have several PC games I would like to find the time to play on this machine, and I am ripping my physical media, otherwise I really wouldn’t even need an optical drive. Oh, and I have a box of perfectly adequate software that I purchased that I might need to reinstall, although I’d probably look to D/L something opensource to replace it at this point.
n
Good luck to your wife Ray and you too. W1 has had a pacemaker done in Sept and a knee replacement about 5 weeks ago. PM wasn’t too bad just had her left arm immobilized for a couple of day the restricted movement for 2 weeks. The knee has been rough and very painful and certainly no fun for me either. Drugs, icing helping dressing and pt three times a week. No real issues on the bathroom except boy do I hate that raised seat.
@dkreck: Thank you sir.
Yeh, I have been through the knee stuff on my own knee. Much rougher than I thought. Surprised about the numb area on the knee that is permanent. The tourniquet was also a surprise that left bruising and painful urination from the catheter that was used. Therapy was rough, but I pushed harder than was expected.
I did find out what level 10 pain was. The day after the surgery I was in the shower and slipped, putting my full weight on the knee with the surgery. I almost blacked out from the pain. After the bandage off a week later, I banged my incision on a bucket I was carrying. It ripped open the incision and I had to make a quick trip back to the surgeon’s office. He was not happy but closed the gap with some type of strips.
Full recovery took a year. The therapy lasted six months. The first month was at home. The surgeon wanted therapy in his office. The VA said if I wanted therapy at home, that is what I would get. It saved me having to drive. The therapist came from the University of Tennessee hospital twice a week to the house for a month. After that I was cleared to drive so had therapy at the surgeon’s facility.
The therapy is critical. I pushed hard on mine. I know a person who did not and they now have trouble walking. Yes, it is painful, but necessary.
The spousal unit is out of surgery. I was originally told two hours, it took a little over one hour. Now I am waiting on recovery. The spousal unit has to walk, urinate, and eat before she can be released. Then home, in bed with rest, and I need to get some prescription pain killers and muscle relaxers which are optional, the antibiotics are not optional.
I read it around ‘72 or ’73. Probably the Science Fiction Book Club edition. I recall it as being interesting.