Friday, 23 October 2015

By on October 23rd, 2015 in relocation, weekly prepping

08:30 – The bread we baked yesterday turned out fine, actually better than our earlier efforts. The bread was noticeably drier this time. If I didn’t know we’d made it ourselves, I would have thought Barbara bought it at a bakery.

We’re rapidly getting through watching the BBC Historical Farm series. We’ve finished Tudor Monastery Farm and Secrets of the Castle, and are 3/4 of the way through the 12-episode Green Valley series. Next up is either Victorian Farm or Victorian Pharmacy. We finished watching series one of Little House on the Prairie, and will start series two shortly. It’s kind of hokey, with inferior writing and some truly bad acting, but it’s interesting nonetheless for a reasonably accurate representation of rural life in the 1870’s. It maintains a strong focus on self-reliance and getting the job done no matter what.

Here’s what I did to prep this week:

  • Although the offer we made on the house up in Sparta is still hung up in paperwork, we’ve started packing up stuff on the assumption that it will go through. If not, that’s fine, because we will eventually be relocating, whether it’s to Sparta or somewhere else in the western North Carolina mountains, and the stuff we’re packing up can sit in boxes for a long time without us needing it.
  • I continued work on the open-pollinated seed kits. We’re currently awaiting the outcome of the germination testing after a freeze/thaw cycle. I’m still working on the planting guide.
  • I started work on organizing reference books for the Kindles. Step One is to use Calibre with the de-DRM plug-in to produce portable copies of each book. Step Two is to organize those books into Kindle categories in an on-disk directory structure on my PC. Step Three is to use the on-line tool at this web site to create the Kindle category structure on disk and then transfer it to our Kindles.

We won’t depend entirely on Kindle ebooks. They require power and aren’t ideal for displaying PDFs and other graphics-heavy titles. I don’t believe that a Kindle would be damaged by an EMP, but it’s possible they would if they hadn’t been stored in a Faraday cage. But overall, Kindles are an excellent and inexpensive way to store literally thousands of books in a very small space. Many more books than we’d have space to store in pbook form. And of course those ebooks can also be backed up to USB flash drives for later transfer to a surviving Kindle or tablet. In fact, I’ll probably convert each of them to epub format just to maximize their potential usefulness.

All of that said, your library should also include as many useful pbooks as possible. Disregarding fiction, our library currently contains probably 1,000+ useful or potentially useful pbooks, many of which we picked up for nothing or next to nothing at library booksales or used bookstores, and all of those will definitely be going with us when we relocate. When she was packing up books in the living-room/library the other day, Barbara was about to put a full print version of Encyclopedia Britannica in the Goodwill pile. I immediately reclaimed it, not because we have any current use for it, but because it’s a potentially priceless collection of knowledge.

So, what precisely did you do to prepare this week? Tell me about it in the comments.


65 Comments and discussion on "Friday, 23 October 2015"

  1. Dave says:

    So I know that copper screen is the traditional material for constructing Faraday Cages. I presume copper is used instead of aluminum because copper is a better electrical conductor, and therefore a mesh made of copper wire will provide more protection than a mesh made of the same diameter of aluminum wire? Copper screen is $2 per square foot on Amazon. Next silly question, would a few layers of heavy duty aluminum foil offer any EMF protection? In other words, is mesh used because it is easier to work with than an equivalent sheet, or is there some other reason mesh is used?

  2. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    Any decent conductor will work. One good option is a steel trash can. Put any items you want to protect from EMP in a heavy plastic bag to insulate them from the inner surface of the trash can. The friction-fit steel lid completes the enclosure.

    You can also turn plastic or wooden boxes and similar containers into Faraday cages by wrapping them completely in aluminum foil, overlapping where it joins. You can also use that shiny conductive duct tape to seal things up completely.

  3. nick says:

    Sheets work, screen is cheaper and easier to physically work with, but the holes potentially let some frequencies thru.

    For .gov and .mil facilities that need the protection, they will put solid copper sheets up behind the drywall. Seen it with my own eyes.

    I’d think that the lead bags to protect film from xrays would work too. Slide a phone in, fold over the flap, tape. They are cheap and often available at yard and estate sales…or on Amazon.

    If anyone knows WHY a film protector bag wouldn’t work, chime in…

    nick

  4. Roy Harvey says:

    Today (and today only! while supplies last) Woot is featuring one of those survival-in-a-bucket food packages. One hundred bucks for 124 “servings”.

  5. Jack Smith says:

    A Faraday shield works via counter-EMF. An exterior electromagnetic field induces an opposite polarity field on the outer surface of the Faraday enclosure, with the two fields cancelling.

    However, if the Faraday enclosure does not have perfect conductivity, then the exterior and surface induced fields will not be equal and hence cancellation of the exterior and induced fields will not be perfect. Copper, silver, aluminum are all decent enough conductors to provide acceptable cancellation.

    However, keep in mind that aluminum oxide is not a conductor and hence if woven aluminum screen is used, the crossing points of the screen wire are not guaranteed to be conducting and hence the effectiveness of the aluminum screen is not guaranteed unless it’s made from expanded mesh.

    As far as the mylar bags go, not all are equal. You need one with low resistance aluminized coating layer. Some (many?) mylar bags intentionally increase the conductive layer resistance to avoid other problems.

    Holes or gaps in a Faraday cage permit ingress of the exterior field, so conducting gaskets or finger stock is normally used around doors or hatches. The usual rule of thumb is that any unintentional gap or opening should be less than 0.1 wavelength at the highest frequency intended to be blocked.

    A “screen room” in the old days used to be made from copper screen material, with two walls, separated by a couple inches of air. Newer one tend to use either solid copper sheeting or galvanized steel, with great care taken to maintain wall integrity.

    As a simple test of a home brew Faraday cage, use a battery powered FM radio tuned to a strong station. Place the radio inside the Faraday cage and the radio should output only noise. Keep in mind, however, that FM broadcast band has a wavelength around 3 meters, so that gaps or openings smaller than ~0.3 m will not be detected by this simple test.

    In the case of an external EMP, we think of rise time of inbound pulse waveform. Depending on the source of the EMP, it may be rather slow (microseconds for a solar flare) or nanoseconds (nuclear EMP device). You can convert to frequency by taking the reciprocal of the rise time, or if one wants to be more conservative increase the computed frequency by a factor of 3 or 5.

  6. Dave says:

    @nick,

    Lead is a much poorer conductor of electricity than aluminum or copper, so a much thicker layer would be required.

  7. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    Thickness doesn’t matter. Protecting against EMP/CME is all about skin effect.

  8. dkreck says:

    When they rip it from my cold dead fingers…

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/23/who_bacon_shocker/

  9. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    Woody Allen probably thought he was kidding in Sleeper, but he was spot on. Most of the stuff that the government and “nutritionists/dieticians” claim is bad for you is actually good for you. Among the items that are good for you are animal fats, salt, coffee, dairy products, and so on. Low-fat products are real killers.

  10. brad says:

    Making the rounds of the interwebs: Doubts about the official Bin Laden story. Apparently, more and more inconsistencies have come to light; I hadn’t been following it, but the article argues that it was all a strange setup. Pakistan knew perfectly well where he was, and just finally allowed the US to come in and get him. Well, if he was there at all – it really was rather strange that the US claims to have dumped the body at sea, and provided zero actual, physical evidence that they ever had said body. Maybe he had been dead for years, as other people claimed, and the US just wanted to set something up where they could claim credit after the fact?

  11. OFD says:

    lol. The bin Laden caper is just one of many gummint stories fed to us over the years that looks more fishy as time goes by and new stuff comes to light. Ditto the Boston Marathon bombing, 9/11, etc., etc. They wouldn’t know the truth if they tripped over it.

    I’m in favor of waterboarding Dick Cheney and some of his minions; maybe then we’ll get some decent intel on a lot of this stuff.

  12. MrAtoz says:

    The latest soldier lost overseas is identified.  Now we are sacrificing our troops for everybody except Americans. What happened to Ofuckstick’s promise of no troops on the ground?  Weakest, lying leader, evah!

  13. OFD says:

    Obola is only the latest in a long line of lying, thieving war criminal scumbags. Our last decent Prez was Grover Cleveland. And our second-best Prez was also Grover Cleveland.

  14. nick says:

    So, WDIDTPTW?

    Not much. Was on vacation and traveling, posted comments elsewhere on anything that was even marginally related….

    This weekend, not many interesting sales, and I have the kids by myself on Saturday, which puts a damper on my shopping.

    What I hope to get done.

    Couple more ‘window boxes’ built and planted.
    Grounding rods for antennas and shack.
    2m antenna installed?
    Discone for scanner installed?
    More cleanup and organizing of storage.

    Lots of honey do though, so we’ll see.

    nick

  15. Miles_Teg says:

    “Low-fat products are real killers.”

    Why?

  16. nick says:

    @miles,

    They usually replace the fat with sugar, or normal animal fats with vegetable fats that have been mangled chemically to be more like animal fats, or in other words, highly processed.

    Dietary fat is necessary for brain development in kids. Low fat diet is great if you want to stunt them intellectually.

    Dietary fat contributes to “satiated feeling” without which you over eat.

    Dietary fat is necessary part of healthy body.

    nick

  17. OFD says:

    Got a new Tecsun shortwave and currently setting it up, doing the config, looking at possible antenna configs; ditto an older and more basic Radio Shack Pro 405; plan is to move the second desktop monitor, keyboard and mouse to the floor until and if I need it for IT cert studies, which look more and more like a waste of time lately. Replaced by the Tecsun, Radio Shack, and one of the Bow-Fungs, while I step up work on the ham licenses. Also several RaspberryPI gizmos, one a very secure email server, and the others a future cluster, with a touchscreen for one I haven’t played with yet.

    Ordered more firewood and will soon order oil to top off the tank. Working on firearms mods, and I ought to point out here for handgun peeps: make SURE to get a decent belt/holster combination. I’ve fiddled with this stuff for years so you don’t have to, lol; found the perfect config for ME, an Amerihide belt. Wicked pissah. You don’t want your gat falling out onto the floor at an inopportune time and neither do you want it so tight in there that you gotta heave on it to get it out fast enough. If you do OC, you mos def want solid and reliable retention. I’m also looking at driver’s side holster mounts in my vehicle. Also, practice like a maniac daily at home and get to training if you haven’t had it yet.

    Also doing online course material on community intel and other firearms-related stuff. Got the Fed Curio & Relic license, working on the FFL and Class III.

    Got another bunch of canned goods and pretty much cleaned out the cellar for shelving and storage.

    And as may seem evident from the start of this update, I’ve kinda given up on any more full-time, permanent, decently paying IT gigs in this area. Maybe I can dig up some remote/consulting stuff but I’m not banking on it anymore. Fuck it. Filing for VA disability and SS accordingly, as I’ve certainly paid into the system and am ENTITLED. Get a cut of the loot before the big boyz disappear it. Mainly to give me some breathing room while I work on other sources of revenue here, like the writing, which goes slowly and painfully thus fah, thanks to interruptions and did someone mention a honey-do list? Yeah.

  18. Miles_Teg says:

    Every dietician I’ve ever seen nags me about drinking low fat milk/yogurt. Are you saying I’d be better off with normal milk and yogurt? I can’t taste the difference.

  19. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    Yes.

  20. nick says:

    Absolutely yes.

    People of good will can disagree on the recommendation o the week, but I think everyone could agree that closer to nature, closer to whole, is better than farther.

    The less processing (other than for food safety) and the fewer ingredients not found in nature, the better.

    nick

  21. Ray Thompson says:

    On CNN “The Justice Department notified members of Congress that it is closing its two-year investigation into whether the IRS improperly targeted tea party and other conservative groups. There will be no charges against former IRS official Lois Lerner or anyone else at the agency.”

    Anyone surprised. Government protects themselves. I would not be surprised if the IRS wasn’t doing some heavy handed audits against people in the justice department.

  22. nick says:

    @OFD,

    I have just a random length wire on my shortwave. I took about 240 ft of thermostat wire I had laying around (nice brown color insulation) and ran it on top of my fence, on 3 sides of the lot. Then it goes up into my attic, then down into my office, and alligator clips to the radio. This is not ideal, as it is low, and one part parallels power lines. I get about the same reception with my 80’s vintage SW on that wire, as with my Yaesu FT847 ham radio on a cushcraft R5. ‘Course the R5 isn’t very high either, only about 25-30 ft at it’s highest. At the moment, I have one leg of the random wire coiled up so the new fence could be installed. Reception is about the same, maybe slightly less strong.

    I get Romania, New Zealand, Cuba, Florida, Tennessee, Colorado,signals pretty much every night and Canadian time occasionally. I sometimes get 11k km or slightly more. What I don’t get much is UK or north, but I don’t know if there is really anything much there.

    Supposedly height is more important than length…

    (I like to tune around with the SW as the knob moves better, and the bands are covered more specifically. Just rolling up and down the dial on an all modes, all bands radio covers a lot of dead space. My Radio Shack SW has digital tuning and display, but makes a ‘chuffing’ noise with every button press, so it’s NOT my choice for just spinning the dial.)

    WRT holsters, a good belt makes even a crap holster work better. And holsters are like shoes, you need more than one kind depending on use. I’m switching between a comp-tac tuckable, and a local manufacturer for my everyday wear. It’s IWB, and has a big leather pad. The tuckable hides a little better, but perversely catches my shirt when bending and is much more likely to hold my shirt up when untucked.

    I did score a couple other items last week, at a pawn shop clearance sale. I got a miniVault, which I now know how to crack, and a cooler sized fire safe, with no key. Each was $5. The fire safe has a latch which works, and will be good for paperwork that doesn’t need to be locked up, but still needs to survive a fire, and I might be able to get a replacement key. The gun vault is already reset and ready for use.

    nick

  23. OFD says:

    @Mr. nick; I’m gonna experiment with different antennas; probably do the same kinda longwire deal you got on one of the radios and I’ll try a ground-based Beverage-type on that and another radio, too. Also wanna coil one around the inside of the attic space. I’ve read that shortwave is dying and countries are dumping their stations; we shall see.

    “There will be no charges against former IRS official Lois Lerner or anyone else at the agency.”

    I am shocked. SHOCKED! Same old, same old. They just do whatever the fuck they want now. They’ll bust Martha Stewart to make an example, or shit-can Generals McCaffrey and Petraeus on trumped-up bag jobs (because they were effective and honest) and promote shit-birds like Ray Odierno to Chief of Staff.

    The regime has been giving us all a giant middle finger for a very long time now and voting another krew of assholes into office will change nothing, and probably make things even worse. As will be proved in the coming years.

  24. brad says:

    dietary recommendations: all you can do is take your best guess. There’s so much bad info out there, and the real truth is “nobody really knows”. About a year ago I stopped having cereal for breakfast and went back to two strips of bacon and an egg. Means I’m less hungry during the morning (usually something sweet). So this has dramatically reduce my carbohydrate intake. Whether the result will be arteries full of cholesterol? Only time will tell…

  25. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    It is unethical for scientists to experiment on humans. Self reporting is entirely unreliable, especially for spans of several years or more. Accordingly, there are no valid data. About the only useful information out there is gained via data mining, which itself is prone to manipulation, intentionally or unintentionally. The last valid data we have from experimenting on humans were gathered by Nazi doctors and scientists, and they hanged them for doing it. The data were kept, of course, and later used, because those Nazis, although evil beyond speaking, were in fact good scientists and doctors.

    I still maintain, as I always have, that the only reliable indication of what’s good for you is the one that’s been perfected by a couple million years of human evolution. If it tastes good, eat it. If it doesn’t, don’t.

  26. Lynn says:

    I’ve fiddled with this stuff for years so you don’t have to, lol; found the perfect config for ME, an Amerihide belt.

    URL please?

    You don’t want your gat falling out onto the floor at an inopportune time and neither do you want it so tight in there that you gotta heave on it to get it out fast enough. If you do OC, you mos def want solid and reliable retention.

    Can anyone translate this? Sounds like Scottish XXXXXXXX Cockney to me.

  27. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    That must be why I had no problem understanding it.

  28. nick says:

    And don’t eat too much of any one thing.

    n

  29. Lynn says:

    If it tastes good, eat it. If it doesn’t, don’t.

    One of my friends has five heart stents and type II diabetes (he is 62). He had a massive heart attack at age 56 and survived it. His cardiologist tells him to open the box of food, throw away the food and eat the box. Basically, if it tastes good, throw it away.

    The best thing to do is chose your ancestors wisely. I believe that your genetics matters the most. My great-grandfather having a massive heart attack at age 52 and dying at age 54 was bad for all his descendants. And he was a tall skinny guy who worked his 8,000 acre cattle ranch in Wharton, Texas every day.

  30. nick says:

    @Lynn

    “You don’t want your gat falling out onto the floor at an inopportune time”

    while you don’t want you holster so loose you gun falls on the floor while using the toilet, or having fun in the bouncy house with the grand kids,

    “and neither do you want it so tight in there that you gotta heave on it to get it out fast enough. ”

    you also don’t want it to be SO good at retaining your gun that you can’t draw it when needed, or draw it with the holster still attached.

    “If you do OC, you mos def want solid and reliable retention. ”

    Especially if the gun is visible to others, you will want a retention holster that won’t allow an attacker or thief to simply draw YOUR gun for their own purposes.

    So there, translation complete. Of course, I wouldn’t have guessed scottish as their legendary ‘thriftiness’ should also apply to speech. Now the irish ARE known for their ‘gift of gab’ so perhaps you just got the wrong isle?

    nick

    🙂

  31. OFD says:

    @Mr. Lynn; must I do your google-fu for U?

    http://amerihide.com/

    “Sounds like Scottish XXXXXXXX Cockney”

    I’m a recovering English major and grad student; I reserve the right to always mess with the language any way I can, mostly for my own amusement if no one else’s. I also have a smidgeon of Scottish blood and DNA, along with the Irish, Norse, English and Algonqian.

    “His cardiologist tells him to open the box of food, throw away the food and eat the box.”

    I think it all depends on one’s metabolism, body type/size, DNA, etc., and I pretty much eat whatever I want; if it tastes good, perfect. The booze was an acquired taste and now I can’t stand the smell of it. But by Jeezum, I’ll eat pretzels, orange chocolate candies, big-ass cakes and pies with ice cream, eggs-and-bacon, double cheeseburgers, chili, spaghetti-and-meatballs, lasagna, you-name-it, and gallons of wotta and Moxie and Dr Pepper. I manage to stay between 240-250 but am working on getting rid of the minor gut and knocking my waist size down to 34 from 38. Last med checkups were A-OK, other than that I take daily BP med for borderline BP. Heart, lungs, circulation, etc., all swell. Brain probably damaged beyond any hope of repair, though, but IDGAF.

  32. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    Reminds me of one of the mystery authors I do sanity checks for. She’s a working cop, and we were talking one time about holsters. She used the toilet, started to stand up to pull her pants up, and ended up dropping her pistol in the toilet.

  33. OFD says:

    When one needs a holster, one should test it, thusly: leave off the retaining strap, put your carry handgun in it (EMPTY!), hold it upside down and shake it a few times.

  34. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    That’s the truth. I remember one time that my .45 bounced out of my holster. For some reason, I was wearing a competition rig. I slipped on the icy ground, fell on my ass, and my pistol bounced out of the holster and slid down the slope, stopping at the feet of a striker we were protecting the property from. He smiled and bent down to pick it up. Fortunately, I was also carrying my MAC-10 in a shoulder rig, without the suppressor. I fired a short burst over his head and asked him please not to touch my pistol.

  35. OFD says:

    “I fired a short burst over his head and asked him please not to touch my pistol.”

    Hardcore!

    No apartment buildings or office towers behind him, I take it.

    Probably around the same era I was carrying a .25 ACP mouse gun in a crappy suede holster on my belt and I was out to dinner with one of my brothers and his fiance; we were being escorted to a table and it fell out onto the nice polished hardwood floor. I bent down and grabbed it but I’m pretty sure only my brother noticed and if anyone else did they didn’t say anything. My face must have been beet-red, though. Never again, I said, and I’ll say it now, too.

  36. nick says:

    One reason I like the shield, you can engage a safety if you want to. Like at the bouncy house. Just saying…

  37. Lynn says:

    She’s a working cop, and we were talking one time about holsters. She used the toilet, started to stand up to pull her pants up, and ended up dropping her pistol in the toilet.

    The subsequent operation is called fishing in the blue lagoon by range instructors.

  38. Lynn says:

    “His cardiologist tells him to open the box of food, throw away the food and eat the box.”

    I think it all depends on one’s metabolism, body type/size, DNA, etc., and I pretty much eat whatever I want; if it tastes good, perfect.

    Two items are key here. The first is the interior diameter of your coronary artery(s). Should you be lucky enough to have two (a left and a right, I have only the left), the 1/4 inch inside diameter model is preferred. Takes a lot longer to coat up. The 1/16 inch inside diameter model is just a precursor to you laying down and dying somewhere around age 50 or so.

    The second item is how well your body processes cholesterol. Some people apparently produce cholesterol in their blood stream which then coats the interior walls of the coronary arteries. See the aforementioned laying down and dying somewhere when the arteries plug up. However, you can try bypasses, stents, and the new option, an air driven pump in your left ventricle. Our former vice president, Dick Cheney, had one of these.
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/vice-president-cheney-has-heart-transplant/2012/03/24/gIQAYYcgYS_story.html

  39. OFD says:

    “One reason I like the shield, you can engage a safety if you want to.”

    Same with the CZ P09 I may be rumored to have had once upon a time.

    “…fishing in the blue lagoon…”

    Some peeps from this household did that a couple of times for cell phones and jewelry. What the hell, the dawg and catz drink out of it…can’t be that bad.

    “Our former vice president, Dick Cheney, had one of these.”

    Yeah, I gotta retract my recommendation about waterboarding that s.o.b.; he’d check out too fast. Ditto the soda can method or wet phone book. Have to use drugs on him to get the straight scoop. After that, the wet phone book, electrodes, whatever.

  40. nick says:

    I have several funny stories about portajons and goin’ fishin’, but I’ll leave it at my rule- don’t take anything into the bathroom you would have to go fishing for.

    Pretty much live by that.

    nick

  41. DadCooks says:

    I recall recently see an interview with a centenarian, she attributed her long life to bacon and whiskey. She didn’t mention that as a general rule women live longer than men.

    I think it all depends on one’s metabolism, body type/size, DNA, etc., and I pretty much eat whatever I want; if it tastes good, perfect.
    Me too…

    On both sides of my family I come from a long line of livestock farmers, quarrymen, and bakers all who enjoyed plenty of spirits and tobacco. Going back to the 17th century my family lines habitually lived into their 90s (except those that got crushed in the quarry or gored by a bull 😉 ). My doctor marvels at my low cholesterol numbers. I tell him it’s my ancestors bad habits.

  42. Robert Bruce Thompson says:

    Dogs drink from the toilet AFTER you flush.

  43. pcb_duffer says:

    [snip] His cardiologist tells him to open the box of food, throw away the food and eat the box. Basically, if it tastes good, throw it away. [snip]

    Suggested alternative: Don’t eat food that comes in a box. Fresh fruits & vegetables, unprocessed meats, whole grains, etc. As others say, there is certainly a genetic lottery involved in all this. My dad was a ‘three eggs and several slices of bacon for breakfast every day’ sort, and he died of lung cancer at age 58 with low cholesterol. When I donate blood, non-fasting, the cholesterol test usually comes out about 130; when the doctor ordered lab test with 12 hours fasting is done it’s usually about 120.

  44. SteveF says:

    It is unethical for scientists to experiment on humans.

    Bah. All you have to do is find people who are so beyond the pale that they deserve no human rights. Obama supporters, for instance. There is a question of whether they’re intelligent enough to be considered human, but that’s a separate issue.

  45. dkreck says:

    I made a comment to my cardiologist about no more bacon-cheese burgers and he said he liked them and a couple of times a month were okay. OTH my oncologist and GI doc always tell me to eat less red meat. All three are Indians and I think the latter two are just protecting the cows.

  46. Lynn says:

    We who are to be inundated salute you!
    http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Get-set-for-a-weekend-soaking-6585310.php

    10 to 20 inches of rain are forecast for Saturday night for the Houston area. You know, living next to world’s biggest hot tub is not all that it is cracked up to be.

  47. dkreck says:

    Going back to the bacon will kill you assholes at WHO. I’m pretty sure they’re a bunch of vegan dicks with an agenda.

  48. nick says:

    Well, I figured we’d get some of the blow by from the “worst hurricane EVAH
    ” that is hitting and then CROSSING mexico.

    Funny how the storm track just stops in the graphics. “It’s comin’ right for us!”

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3285166/Hurricane-Patricia-strongest-history-Tourists-evacuate-Mexico-catastrophic-storm-approaches.html

    nick

    “Meteorologist Dennis Feltgen, of the Hurricane Center in Miami, said Patricia also poses problems for Texas. Forecast models indicate that after the storm breaks up over land, remnants of its tropical moisture will likely combine with and contribute to heavy rainfall that is already soaking Texas independently of the hurricane, he said.

    ‘It’s only going to make a bad situation worse,’ he said.”

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3285166/Hurricane-Patricia-strongest-history-Tourists-evacuate-Mexico-catastrophic-storm-approaches.html

    Oh, and tape on the windows ain’t gonna help people.

    Some folks are gonna die tonight.

  49. OFD says:

    “Oh, and tape on the windows ain’t gonna help people.”

    LOL. No chit, hombre.

    “You know, living next to world’s biggest hot tub is not all that it is cracked up to be.”

    We live next to one of the world’s biggest iceboxes in the winta. Keep food A-OK on the back porch for six months. Makes ya feel ALIVE!

  50. Lynn says:

    “A 23-year-old Google employee lives in a truck in the company’s parking lot and saves 90% of his income”
    http://www.businessinsider.com/google-employee-lives-in-truck-in-parking-lot-2015-10

    Wow, now that is minimalist. And yet it looks vaguely like a prepper situation. I mean, the dude looks ready to bug out.

    And he has a blog:
    http://frominsidethebox.com/

    One of my employees lives in a 34 ft RV with one slide in the RV park about two miles down the road. After three years, 250 ft2 is starting to get old though. He is thinking about moving to a 600 ft2 apartment.

  51. dkreck says:

    Equal space in the south bay would probably be $2k a month but at least have a bath. In SF proper maybe $3K.

    see this from earlier in the week

    http://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/1-2-Million-13-Offers-400K-Over-Asking-For-6582153.php

  52. nick says:

    No mention of the chamber pot.

    And “stuffed animals”? WTF?

    when I moved to San Diego from LA, with no job prospects, I seriously planned what vehicle to buy, so I could live in it if needed. VW Vanagon.

    Weather in Cali has been nice so far, wonder what he’s gonna do when it gets cold?

    nick

    If we’re not careful, we’ll be living in a U Stor It like Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, or sleeping one to a stair in building stairwells (can’t remember which book that was in.)

  53. dkreck says:

    http://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/1-2-Million-13-Offers-400K-Over-Asking-For-6582153.php

    People out here are so spoiled by our climate they think 50F is freezing; something that rarely happens in SF or any coastal area. Hell it rarely happens here in the San Joaquin Valley.

  54. SteveF says:

    living in a U Stor It like Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon

    Snow Crash, actually. /pedantic

  55. OFD says:

    Or living like those poor Russian bastards in “Doctor Zhivago,” while the Party leeches lecture Omar Sharif and Geraldine Chaplin on their duties to the Revolution, etc. I love that movie!

  56. Lynn says:

    If we’re not careful, we’ll be living in a U Stor It like Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, or sleeping one to a stair in building stairwells (can’t remember which book that was in.)

    My favorite is the massive herds of retiree RVs in 2044 in “Distraction” by Bruce Sterling. The national debt is $40+ trillion and property taxes have zoomed to pay for everything. People sell their homes and move into RVs that have to be driven every six months to avoid property taxes.
    http://www.amazon.com/Distraction-Bruce-Sterling/dp/0553576399/

  57. OFD says:

    Excuse me while I laugh myself silly here…

    http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/insiders-trump-nomination-looking-more-likely-215087#ixzz3pNgfNdEW

    If true, and they are forced to nominate him in the end, watch a pile of Repub ass-hats rush to vote for Cankles; she’s a better choice for them in terms of readiness for more wars, sucking up to Wall Street and taking orders from there, and shutting down right-wing conspiracy dissenters. This will make Obola’s terms look like a day at the beach! Bring it! Molon Labe!

    Meanwhile the story is now out that Bipolar Biden bailed due to a former Klinton operative (WH deputy Chief of Staff) telling him the Klinton Machine would destroy his ass if he ran. That, and his family considerations, of course. But that was the nail in the coffin, so to speak.

    So we could well have Cankles vs. Chumpster and my money would be on her.

  58. nick says:

    @SteveF,

    Of course! Hero Protagonist and YT. the Loglo, “You’ve got a friend in the family” and the narcolumbians.

    The opening 42 pages (the Deliverator) are some of my favorite ever.

    nick

  59. Miles_Teg says:

    “The best thing to do is chose your ancestors wisely. I believe that your genetics matters the most.”

    My father and three of my grandparents died of heart attacks. That’s what I worry about the most.

    I never add salt to food (I don’t like the taste) but detest low salt/salt free food, I like normal fat and low fat milk and yogurt but detest no-fat. I’m determined to enjoy life – I don’t want to end up like Ray’s relatives, but my appetite is less than it used to be. I’d like some solid information on why low fat is bad, I’ll ask my doctor for his opinion. A GP recently told me that the artificial sweetners in diet soft drinks are toxic, other more or less reputable people say the same sort of thing. But my two endocrinologists (Canberra and Adelaide) say they’re okay. I don’t raise the issue any more, I just drink diet drinks to my heart’s content because I get enough sugar.

  60. SteveF says:

    Miles_Teg, “why low fat is bad” is two issues. The first was touched on, above. The human body needs to take in some fats for good health. That’s not a problem for most people; unless you eat nothing but steamed rice, you as an adult probably get enough.

    The more common problem is with prepared food. Because of the pronouncement “fat is baaaaaad!!!!” (based on no evidence whatsoever, mind you), heat-n-eat food companies have needed to reduce the fat in their products. Problem is, with the fat reduced, they taste like crap. Rather, they taste bland. As one (recently deceased) chef I knew put it, fat is flavor. In order to make the products taste good enough that customers keep coming back to buy more, the manufacturers load them up with salt and sweeteners, especially the High Fructose Corn Syrup that gets snuck into practically every prepared food in American grocery stores. That is what makes low-fat bad: all the crap you’re getting in your food instead of the fats.

  61. Dave says:

    Here is Alice Lichtenstein, the Vice Chairman of the USDA’s 2015 Dietary Guidlines committee stating that low fat diets are probably not a good idea, and that they have been saying that since 2000. She even goes so far as to say that low fat diets cause dyslipidemia.

  62. lynn says:

    Bought 400 rounds of Remington 115 gr 9mm JHP for a possible future 9mm pistol. $26.97 per 100 round box at Walmart.

  63. Miles_Teg says:

    I heard that you dropped the lot in the Brazos where it’s too deep to recover…

  64. lynn says:

    The Brazos was about a foot deep again until yesterday. It has come up about 4 ft since then and is expected to come up another 25 ft over the week. It was so low that huge sandbars were showing with just narrow channels of water. It is amazing that they use to run 300 ft long side wheelers up it back in the late 1800s. We have gotten 10+ inches of rain in the last 24 hours. My swimming pool picked up five inches by 8pm Saturday or so and went out of its bank.
    http://water.weather.gov/ahps2/hydrograph.php?wfo=HGX&gage=RMOT2

  65. OFD says:

    Wife flew out at 05:30 this morning to Kalifornia and had called United to make sure the flights were still on, because we were having a major wind storm here with sheets of sideways rain, etc., a fun ride down the interstate this morning at 03:30. They told her, yeah, flights are good, so long as you don’t have to go through Houston.

Comments are closed.