And it should be mild and clear for the extra day off. Well, mild-ish, and clear-ish. Yesterday wasn’t bad, mid 70sF by afternoon, but chilly by nightfall. 58F when I went to bed. The dampness made it feel colder. Today should be nice though.
I spent most of yesterday morning in bed. Weirdness with my blood sugar, or just weirdness with the monitor had me up early, and sleeping late. Then I spent most of the afternoon doing auction stuff while messing around on the internet. The day ended with a nice walk with the wife and dog.
Today the kids are out of school. D1 continues her girls weekend, D2 has plans in the late afternoon. W1 will be getting up and going to work. Me, not so much.
Plan is to cut my hair and do some of the many things I’ve been putting off and avoiding for the last week. I’m not super good at following up on my plans, so we’ll see what happens.
In any case, y’all should be preppin’ and stackin’. Even if I’m slackin’.
nick
Monday. Good morning.
It’s a working day here. No Presidents’ Day (is that with or without an apostrophe?) slacking off for me. On the contrary, today is going to be the busy start to a busy work week. ah well. It keeps the wolf from the door, mostly.
Have a good week!
Working day here.
Chilly day. 46F.
According to wiki it’s actually Washington’s Birthday on a Federal level, but Presidents’ Day to the rest of us. And they moved it so they’d have more 3 day weekends.
Hmm, even I’d forgotten that, and I make an effort.
n
At most levels of government, the period between Thanksgiving and Presidents Day is what comprises “the holidays” for about 30 years
If Lunar New Year is later than Presidents Day, “the holidays” extends to that date.
It isn’t just the US to be fair. Forget about getting any response from an Asian supplier during the month straddling Lunar New Year. Call it six weeks between calendar New Year and Lunar.
I did a first run of my taxes this weekend with TurboTax Deluxe. I owe just under $500 fed and $150 state, so right on target. I did have trouble importing brokerage info. Turbotax would connect and say it successfully imported, but the program would not actually have the information. It turns out, Microsoft Edge was the problem. I changed my default browser to Firefox and everything worked as it should. I haven’t had this problem in previous years.
I renamed the .tax file and I’ll do another run next month to make sure the results match.
Re: windows file sharing.
The secret sauce is to run Active Directory. The problem with home setups is inconsistent usernames and passwords among machines. Even when they are consistent, windows will still act strangely sometimes, due to SID differences. Samba should be good enough, just make sure all machines are domain joined and you are using domain credentials, not local.
I run AD at home with a couple server 2022 installs in vmware, but that’s severe overkill for the average user. Synology has a directory service, but I haven’t tried it.
Oh, another big problem with home file sharing on windows is windows firewall. It is a giant piece of garbage that also doesn’t get automatically configured properly many times.
President’s Day! Only seven more years of tRump! 😉
I grew up in Illinois, in a time when the holiday was Washington’s birthday, and before it was moved to Monday for convenience.
It was weird; Illinois did not celebrate Washington’s birthday. The state-run schools presented Lincoln as though he were a God, and the state specifically celebrated his birthday instead.
This led to interesting ramifications. Post Offices and federal offices and courts were closed on Washington’s birthday, but banks and state offices were open. On Lincoln’s birthday, it was the opposite.
As I grew up and got more life experience, I went through different phases of opinion on Lincoln. A God when I was in elementary school, a tyrant during my Libertarian/Objectivist phase, the worst president in history during my survivalist phase, and a well-intentioned monomaniacal flawed politician during my later years.
The lowest point was when I decided, correctly or not, that Lincoln was the first Western leader to wage war directly on his own civilian population, in the person of General Sherman.
Of course, I have since learned that Wilson was the worst president in US history. But there are so many bad ones to choose from.
The Memorial Day Federal holiday was an attempt to reconcile various late Spring Civil War memorial holidays across The South, including Juneteenth, into one predictable day of everything being closed, banks, Post Offices, and government offices.
We see how long that lasted.
I’ve gone thru a similar experience of Lincoln. Illinois, the Land Of Lincoln, sanctifies him. The South vilifies.
Objectively, he is the reason the founding fathers didn’t want a federal standing army. And the war forever changed us from “these united States” to “the United States” and enthroned Federal power.
Nothing lasts forever.
———-
We’ve got a few light clouds in a blue sky and the temp got up to 70F so far. I was up early because of a low glucose alarm from my monitor. I ate half an apple and 2 tbs. of peanut butter and went back to bed. Surprisingly, and maybe because I was asleep, that didn’t result in a big spike, just a moderate one and got me back into the green (assuming it’s not all a problem with the sensor). Time for some real food and coffee.
n
Oh, what finally got me up and out of bed? We had a very short power failure. Just long enough for the UPSs to beep, then back on. Clear blue sky. Aging infrastructure with bandaids on top of bandaids.
Although on our walk yesterday, I noticed several poles that feed our neighborhood had been replaced with new fiberglas poles. A disconnection point for the run that feeds our row of streets was new too.
And on the street that borders most of our subdivision, they are installing new power poles. Big tall fiberglas poles with three phase distro lines at the top. I don’t know where they are headed or who will need a bunch of new power… yet. Gotta keep your eyes open.
n
– From Schneier’s newsletter.
n
VS Code makes Linux developers lazy and stupid.
The application also allows Redmond to play kingmaker among the Linux distributions.
Right now, the common thread among the supported releases is use of Glibc supporting Coverity scans.
Microsoft’s Linux developers are dependent on Coverity because VS Vode made them … lazy and stupid.
The circle continues.
RIP Robert Duvall – great actor.
Be careful what you post online: multiple stories about this:
And lest you think that there is risk only with anti-I/C/E actions/comments, consider a similar ‘administrative subpoena’ issued here because of any comment that might irritate the current administration. Your IP address (by default) is captured with your comment. And there are server log files with IP addresses. Even the up/down vote here captures your IP address (it’s how the plugin prevents multiple votes from the same person).
Makes one a bit paranoid when you start thinking about it. Even though there is this thing in the US called the First Ammendment. And VPNs are not fully effective in blocking your identity. Your ISP logs are another source of your online activity.
That is why I use Starbucks, McDonalds, Chick-Fil-A, Panera Bread, and the school WiFi for my nefarious comments.
It’s just his odoriferous comments that he shares freely, although in real life, he shares them anonymously 🙂
n
Imagine copyrighting the scent under the creative commons, free with attribution …
n
after all, depending on what he eats, it is a work output.
First, you are 100% right to be concerned. Not so much this administration, but future Democrat ones. They’ve proven their intense interest in persecuting the 50% of the US population that disagree with them, with lawfare and prison.
Second, that article is an example of the classic liberal ploy of fake “misunderstanding” of facts.
For instance:
A subpoena is a legitimate first step in prosecuting someone for insurrection, threatening a federal officer’s life and family, and interfering with legal, lawful, and dare I say heroic activity.
John Hinderaker
Elon and the Engineers
This is one of the more optimistic things I have read in a while. I hope it is true–Elon Musk has redirected American engineering to the physical world:
Katherine Boyle, General Partner at a16z, from a video link on X:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2026/02/elon-and-the-engineers.php
It’s a good insight as far as it goes.
But the irony is that Elon’s flagship product, Tesla, is virtually a sealed system with no need for an owner to get under the hood. Part and parcel of the unfixable/disposable products that have become the norm for offshore manufacturing.
What the hell kind of vehicle is it if you don’t even carry pliers and a couple of screwdrivers? That’s what trained generations of engineers. How many Tesla owners carry a Leatherman Wave and have no idea what all those things are for?
I passed again on the Black Friday temptation to “upgrade” my Dewalt (Black and Decker) tools by shifting to yet another battery system, and last night I revisited that decision when I watched a YT video on rebuilding the 18V power packs. If I can find some honestly rated NiCad power cells I will be doing that in stead of migrating and tossing $1,000+ worth of perfectly good tools in the trash.
I looked at buying Chinese 18V replacements. If I knew someone at the FCC I’d suggest that they file suit against Amazon for false advertising, as most of the packs claim AH ratings that are impossible. I looked at a couple products that had decent (4.6 average over 500) ratings, but when I checked recent comments it was clear that an honest rating for the last 12 months was probably under 3.0–typical Chinese crap. When the AI summary notes that some users reported “smoke”, it’s a clue.
I also found that Dewalt did–apparently briefly–offer an 18V Li-ion battery pack, which of course required a new charger, which of course meant that some people tried to cheap out and use their old NiCad charger, which probably burned down a few houses and prompted lawsuits that resulted in the product being discontinued. Their original solution, if you recall, was a converter that mounted rather firmly to the new “20V” battery and drained it to zero when not in use, making forgetting an exercise is creative profanity.
Dewalt, Milwaukee and the rest of the top-tier battery tool manufacturer’s are effectively making disposable tools for the pro only. If you’re not wearing out multiple batteries each year, then you will not get he use of the tool before the battery platform becomes obsolete. I have perfectly good corded tools (including Dad’s ca 1950 Home Utility ¼” drill) to use in the shops, and I’m going to take a hard look at Makita and Bauer to see what my next purchase will be for portable tools will be.
Raining here, as predicted.
And freely, as grimaced by the departing passengers in the aisle behind me on that flight from Frankfurt.
https://redstate.com/wardclark/2026/02/16/gasoline-starved-california-now-turns-to-distant-bahamian-supplies-n2199219
What’s the carbon footprint on that, you f-tards?
Newsom’s $450 Million 911 Debacle Reminds Why We Oppose Federal Welfare
https://redstate.com/redstate-guest-editorial/2026/02/16/newsoms-450-million-911-debacle-reminds-why-we-oppose-federal-welfare-n2199218
Is there anything that this blow-dried greaseball hasn’t f-ed up?
The writer opens with a condemnation of federal programs that duplicate state programs as unconstitutional.
Sounds great. Now do SNAP.
But in the meantime, any state that repeatedly fails with projects should not be getting more money. The list for Cali is long, with no accounting for funds spent.
Cut
Them.
Off.
Just do it with an EO: “Federal grants to states dependent on full accounting of previous grants.”
https://x.com/EricLDaugh/status/2022274805391585706
If California needs it, let them raise taxes to pay for it.
Beelee Eyelash wants to steer Hypocrisy Train, ends up in the Cattle Car with the rest of the Horse’s Patootees:
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/dmitri-bolt/2026/02/16/man-who-tried-to-get-into-billie-eilishes-mansion-following-grammy-comments-deported-by-ice-n2671386
Rumor is the Nantucket Rotary is sending her real estate flyers.
So it’s not just smoke on the water:
Potomac Interceptor Rupture Poised to Become the Largest Sewage Spill in U.S. History
“We were just out there yesterday, we saw remnants of toilet paper, remnants of sanitary products. There are remnants of sewage there, so even interacting with the land that’s been impacted by the sewage spill carries risks,” she warned.
Got DIE?
Never fear, they’ve deployed…the modelers:
So much better than those outdated sampling things, donchano?
Too busy getting medical exemptions for field work?
@drwilliams, I use the adapter and dewalt 20v batteries on all my old 18v tools without issue. Bigger Ah batteries are better for both balance and run time. I just remember to remove the pack when I’m done. I started by moving the adapter, but as you noted, it’s wicked hard to remove from some tools.
Chinese versions of the adapter exist, as do adapters to use dewalt batteries on everything from Black and Decker to Dyson. The dewalt batteries are great, unless you drain them dry, but that’s an issue with all batteries. The fit and finish on the chinese dewalt 18 to 20v adapters is hit or miss – I have one that won’t grip the battery properly, and one that seems to work. Get the dewalt.
Please don’t support the enshittification of everything by buying Bauer. Besides stealing design, and trade dress, the packs are built from the cells that didn’t past inspection for other users (inferred by me due to how short their life is), and the tool is built cutting every corner- from the wire size, soldering technique, and type of plastic, to the bearings and lube.
——————–
Even though there is this thing in the US called the First Ammendment
Nothing in there about finding out who said what. Free speech comes with consequences. Nota Bene the Federal response to people assembling on January 6 a couple of years ago. FBI spent years pouring over FB posts, cell phone location data, facial recognition databases, credit card records, hotel reservation logs, etc. to identify EVERYONE that was there, or near there.
Did people squawk about it? Yes. Did any change happen? No. Someone said “never give a political party power that you wouldn’t want used against you.”
Even as far back as the Nazzi marches in the Chicago area, feds were on rooftops taking photos of the crowd. A crowd that came out largely AGAINST the Nazzis.
Do I like any of it? no. Absent a specific crime alleged, there shouldn’t be ANYTHING that can be construed as a search, but that is the 4th, not the 1st.
Searching and identifying are not violations of the 1A, but the 4A.
n
Shellfish? That’s like snails in an aquarium. Why would one ever eat either? Maybe you can cook the shirt(-r) out of them. Shrimp? Yeah, that’s not actually a vein like you see on the back of your hand. But removal is easy.
Spring is coming. The grass is the back yard is turning green. The Arizona Ash is just barely pushing leaf buds with a few tiny leaves starting to show. Give it a week and it’s going to look like a teen boy sprouting whiskers. No, I don’t know where that image came from. But I get it every year.
I checked the Pet Mesquite tree. It has twigs turning green. And cold, the sap it rising. When it leafs it’s officially Spring.
The three house plants might go out a couple of weeks after Easter. We’ll see. Ti plants don’t like cold.
I bought dried chives for the Olive Butter recipe. Then I looked. Do I use a cup of whole olives with pimentos or a cup of sliced? Either way I have to buy olives. Since I don’t know what “the real thing” tastes like I’ll just fake it. Sliced might be better for draining the juice and if it’s all too thick I can add some juice. Or use whole and add more bread crumbs. Either way I’m going to have to dust off the blender.
I had a whole post written out in my head and it vanished when I sat down.
I haven’t heard from the floor foam insulation folks. But they did say it would be a few weeks. Well, if they blow me off it’s no huge loss. I’ve lived here since ’92 with an uninsulated floor.
As for Mint, I’m going to make space for his monitor on my desk. That PC is just like mine but mounted on the back of the monitor. Then see if there is anything I haven’t backed up already. I don’t think there is. Nothing I’ve needed, it’s been almost two years now. So get it to boot from USB and install Mint. It has a 1 TB WD Blue ssd stick and 16 GB of ram seems like plenty says various web sites. If I need more ram I’ll pull one (of the two) 16 GB sticks from this PC.
I have a plan. Run them both side by side. Maybe I can figure out networking. Get FF and T-Bird imported/exported and then simply swap boxes. And have a spare PC and monitor.
Next up is to read up and figure how to install Slimserver on a Pi. That will give me another spare PC. And eliminate all of my “can’t share Desktops” noise.
Yeah. I bought this PC and liked it. So I bought another to replace Moa. Dropped the electric bill for the EDC by almost $20 a month. And then I’m hearing “I don’t need a new PC but…” and I’m not totally clueless so I bought a third. All the same but for drives sizes and amounts of ram.
Today is the third day of “no socks as feet sweaters”.
Almost all of this last week Penny is seeming to sleep a lot. But she turned 14 first of October. She gets up and eats and goes for walks. She’s alert. Doesn’t seem to have bad eyes or hearing. Likes to eat. She’s not losing weight. But just seems tired all the time. Ahh…..
Prison? They’re going to hang all of the devils, starting with the Orange King.
The first gallows will be built on the spot where Trump was Inaugurated in 2017.
Or maybe they’ll reintroduce the guillotine. The Scarlet Pimpernel shall ride again.
Sink me!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtAM7YDap6o
Sir Percy, Anthony Andrews, turned down “Remington Steele”, possibly changing Bond history as well as the mid 80s TV landscape.
Odds fish, my dear. Someone isn’t a fan of Sir Percy.
They seek him here.
They seek him there.
Those Frenchie wannabes seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven?
Or is he in hell?
That damned elusive … Skippy!
How many engineering jobs were cut at the US auto manufacturers to pay for Elon’s carbon credits grift?
Stellantis, in particular, paid the lion’s share of the R&D on the Jesus Truck debacle.
I wonder when Tesla will pull the plug on all of those jobs bending stainless steel.
Add WD hard drives to the list of computer components sold out for at least a year to keep the plates spinning on the AI monkey trick.
https://wccftech.com/western-digital-has-no-more-hdd-capacity-left-out/
My new ThinkPad has seen the price rise by 50% since I purchased it two months ago.
The irony is that the Hecho en Vietnam build quality is not stellar but I doubt the extra money is going into quality control.
@Nick
Dewalt adapters list for $49 and are discounted to $39. I bought Dewalt 20v 2AH batteries on sale in Nov in a two-pack for $99. I’m tired of Dewalt being up my ass looking for change that they missed the last time. And since Dewalt is Black and Decker, I’m even more tired of B&D being up my ass, which is just about capacity after Versapack, Firestorm, and a couple other power tool battery platforms. We could also talk about the various 20v and 40v iterations for their yard tools. Anyone need a hedge clipper–no battery?
I looked at a 4.5 rated adapter by Biswayne (2.2k ratings total). Pulled up the most recent reviews: 10 reviews, 31 stars total, 3.1 average. Classic Chinese shittification. There are dozens of Chinese adapters with fewer than 1k of ratings. Do they: 1) Inspect to find the best parts to ship first, get good ratings, then dump the crap and close the listing, or 2) Ship from a B-rated factory first (the A-rated factory is making Dewalt), build up the rating, then drop to C-factory and bust out with the D? Don’t know. They probably have more than two playbooks.
With regard to Bauer, I should have said Bauer and Hercules. I don’t know that either makes sense, but paying $10-15 for a walk-in and exchange warranty might be attractive.
I’ll start by sifting Project Farm and Torque Test, but the problem with both is that it doesn’t matter a tinker’s curse what the tool performance is if the batteries are not included in the cost of ownership.
Some years ago I bought a Waring Pro blender that was DOA. I thought it was rpobably a loose wire and opened it up to see, thinking that it would be less work than reboxing, shipping, and waiting two weeks for a replacement. Unfortunately, I didn’t get that far. Seeing the wire gauge on the switch that was laughingly inadequate to carry the claimed power convinced me that I didn’t want it at all.
Bottom line is that they are all whores unless proven otherwise–this month.
I just last week bought the adapter to use dewalt batteries with the Black and Decker tools that I gave my wife so she has tools at the lake and will leave mine alone– because I can’t keep the B&D batteries running. I never would have bought the B&D at all ,but they were cheap in the auctions. Definitely not pro, and barely homeowner grade, and I can point her to them instead of my stuff.
The first tool I ever bought to make money with was the 9.6v Makita screwgun/drill driver. That thing ran like a champ and changed the construction industry. Ergonomics weren’t great but you could work with it. All the pistol shaped drivers have horrible ergo even now, so that problem never got resolved.
The next tool that made me a bunch of money was the $400 Hobart Handler mig welder. Runs on 120v, with gas, can weld up to ¼” in steel if you are good. More than enough for tube and wrought iron work. Of course you need a helmet/shield, couple of angle grinders, and a cut off saw too, but without the welding machine to stick the metal together, you got fashion wear.
There were lots of other tools that helped me work, or let me do something others couldn’t, but that first screwgun, and that welding machine made me a ton of do re mi…
n
Nick and I each got TWO downvotes.
Cool.
I wonder what I’d have to say to get 3? or 4? or more….
How many engineering jobs were cut at the US auto manufacturers to pay for Elon’s carbon credits grift?
Stellantis, in particular, paid the lion’s share of the R&D on the Jesus Truck debacle.
–they thought it was cheaper than saying “you and what army” or fighting it in court. Carbon credits are a scam, always have been, but it wasn’t Elon’s idea. He just figured out how to make money at it. The automakers didn’t want to “look” like they were anti-environment so they paid the Danegeld. It’s on them, not RLTS. For a market there has to be two parties.
n
@Nick
I still have mine. Jacobs chuck–keyless came out later. Used it to put 3-inch screws through 30-year-old fir stair treads into the risers. No torque settings–had to use a light touch or the screw would darn near get driven through.
I have an angle drill that uses the same battery.. Rebuilding them is on my list.
“How many engineering jobs were cut at the US auto manufacturers to pay for Elon’s carbon credits grift? ”
I’d like to sit next to a Ford engineering VP on a flight to New Zealand. I can do thirty minutes on the engineering stupidity of the lighting control module, and another thirty on their cowardice when the things started to fail. I wouldn’t actually accuse him of sucking d*ck at the NHTSA, but I would strongly imply that he’d had good training for darning socks in the afterlife.
Second topic would be the pennies saved on relaxing paint standard vs. the lost customers and rolling billboards their 2003-2005 cars became for their competitors.
Another murder committed by illegal alien filth
https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2026/02/16/public-school-teacher-killed-by-illegal-immigrant-fleeing-ice-n3811957
RIP Linda Davis, special education teacher.
No drivers license and in the county for years. Based on the average driving excellence of most of the horde, the reasonable question is “How many times was he stopped and either released by the officer per policy or released by a PLT judge?”
Sooner or later someone is going to lose a loved one and decide that grief is only assuaged by Biblical therapy.
As I grew up and got more life experience, I went through different phases of opinion on Lincoln. A God when I was in elementary school, a tyrant during my Libertarian/Objectivist phase, the worst president in history during my survivalist phase, and a well-intentioned monomaniacal flawed politician during my later years.
The lowest point was when I decided, correctly or not, that Lincoln was the first Western leader to wage war directly on his own civilian population, in the person of General Sherman.
Of course, I have since learned that Wilson was the worst president in US history. But there are so many bad ones to choose from.
Biden was the worst President ever. He flooded the country with 11 million illegal immigrants who cannot support themselves except by theft. Many of these plus the existing 20 million illegals have maimed and murdered several USA citizens. And they haven stolen billions, maybe trillions, of dollars from the federal and state governments.
I am in Oklahoma where the wind blows freely. Not that kind of wind !
My 2019 F-150 4×4, lifted 4 inches front and rear, got 22 mpg going 70+ mph for the last 150 miles of the 440 mile journey. Pretty good for a tall brick.
I took the new tollway through downtown Fort Worth. Shaved 20 minutes and much traffic off my journey for $8. Worth it !
Tuesday. Early. Dark, but just barely brightening. Birdies tweeting in the dawn.
I worked until 1 am, and I have to continue banging the rocks together this morning. I hope it stops soon. Soooo tired.
Lucky you. It is definitely still feet sweaters time here.
Cuddles. Lots of cuddles. And treats.
Today must be Shrove Tuesday (Mardi Gras). Don’t forget to make pancakes!
Aw, shoot. I forgot. I think I have some beads somewhere… you’d think the google calendar “holidays” pack would include Fat Tuesday and Ash Wednesday, but I guess that is to religious for them.
Won’t really make much difference to me. Ash Wednesday always surprises me with the number of people I see wearing the ashes. The south is so Baptist, you forget there are Catholics around. Which brings to mind OFD. Miss him.
n
Had a snack. Couple of ounces of cheese, 8 crackers, and some raw turnip strips. We’ll see what my glucose monitor says about that.
Time for bed.
n