Fri. Aug. 17, 2018 – exhausted. Taking break today.

By on August 17th, 2018 in Random Stuff

Back in Coast Guard City USA.

Siblings felt like we had to take a break from digging through the house and all the papers, so we are.

Still feeling like two people inside my head. One continuing on normally and the other occasionally just losing it. The trigger is usually something very mundane.

Hoping for good weather today…
N

51 Comments and discussion on "Fri. Aug. 17, 2018 – exhausted. Taking break today."

  1. Greg Norton says:

    “It seemed like better karma at $420 than at $419 … But I was not on weed, to be clear.”

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/business/elon-musk-interview-tesla.html

    Sure, we believe you, Elon.

    Ponzi. Always has been.

  2. Greg Norton says:

    Still feeling like two people inside my head. One continuing on normally and the other occasionally just losing it. The trigger is usually something very mundane.

    When my son was born at 25 1/2 weeks and no one was sure if he or my wife would survive the first 24 hours, anytime I ventured towards the edge mentally, a voice in my head kept me straight. The voice sounded a lot like John Cleese in the Python “self defense against people armed with fruit” sketch.

  3. MrAtoz says:

    Ponzi. Always has been.

    That’s why we should all vote for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

    A free Tesla in every garage!

    AOC 2020!

  4. Greg Norton says:

    A free Tesla in every garage!

    That may happen regardless of whether AOC wins or loses. When Toyota takes the Fremont plant back to build Corollas, they won’t want the disposal problem.

  5. MrAtoz says:

    And now for an unusal request:

    Can someone recommend a “good” book on preparing and eating insects, snakes, grubs, etc. You know, the gross stuff most FUSAians won’t eat. Something for the library in case the socialists win and destroy the economy.

  6. Greg Norton says:

    Can someone recommend a “good” book on preparing and eating insects, snakes, grubs, etc. You know, the gross stuff most FUSAians won’t eat. Something for the library in case the socialists win and destroy the economy.

    Copies of this book used to be in independent beach gift shops in FL, especially around Fort Myers. I’m surprised it hasn’t been reprinted. My guess is that the author has passed.

    https://www.amazon.com/Iguana-Cookbook-Save-Florida-Eat/dp/057801226X?tag=ttgnet-20

  7. Rick H says:

    @MrAtoz – perhaps some books from Bear Gryllis, who always eats anything on his survival shows? There’s a bunch of them, so don’t know which one: http://www.beargrylls.com/store/products/6c4d4acf38c1/bears-books .

    And maybe this will get you started: https://amzn.to/2nNKOZk . Or this one “Extreme Food: What to Eat When Your Life Depends on It” https://amzn.to/2L2gza2 .

    Please don’t invite me over for dinner if you decide to test these recipes….

  8. lynn says:

    “Report: Apple Could Launch a Car Between 2023 and 2025”
    https://www.pcmag.com/news/363158/report-apple-could-launch-a-car-between-2023-and-2025

    I still think that the Apple car will be a relabeled Tesla. And it will be incredibly expensive. And non-repairable.

  9. mediumwave says:

    @RickH: I’ve tried three times to post a comment containing links, and each time the links are trashed, with quotation marks, less-than symbols, and greater-than symbols translated into their ampersand..semicolon forms, even when I bypassed the link button and built the hyperlink “manually.” For example:

    <a href="https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_pg_1?rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Afoxfire+books&keywords=foxfire+books&ie=UTF8&qid=1534528662%5C%22%3E&tag=ttgnet-20

    The trailing “%5C%22%3E&tag=ttgnet-20” isn’t part of the original link.

    Of course, it could be that I'm having a "senior moment" …

  10. mediumwave says:

    Can someone recommend a “good” book on preparing and eating insects, snakes, grubs, etc. You know, the gross stuff most FUSAians won’t eat. Something for the library in case the socialists win and destroy the economy.

    Dunno if these contain what you’re looking for:

    https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_pg_1?rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Afoxfire+books&keywords=foxfire+books&ie=UTF8&qid=1534528662&tag=ttgnet-20

    Good prepping info in any event.

    Was reminded of the series’ existence by a review of this book in today’s WSJ:

    https://www.amazon.com/Travels-Foxfire-Passions-Practices-Appalachia/dp/0525436294/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1534528451&sr=8-3&keywords=foxfire+books&tag=ttgnet-20

    (Again, the “&tag=ttgnet-20″s aren’t part of the Amazon URLs.)

  11. MrAtoz says:

    Thanks for the reco’s all.

  12. Ray Thompson says:

    I still think that the Apple car will be a relabeled Tesla. And it will be incredibly expensive. And non-repairable.

    But it will work very well with iTunes and have a phone charging port.

  13. Rick H says:

    @mediumwave — Amazon links get an affiliate code added. That’s what you are seeing. Links will still work.

  14. Greg Norton says:

    I still think that the Apple car will be a relabeled Tesla. And it will be incredibly expensive. And non-repairable.

    I could see Apple buying the IP out of the bankruptcy action, but Tim Cook knows to let someone else do the actual manufacturing.

    The UAW will want to have a “come to Jesus” with the next owner of the Fremont plant.

  15. mediumwave says:

    @mediumwave — Amazon links get an affiliate code added. That’s what you are seeing. Links will still work.

    Why isn’t the markup being interpreted as markup?

    <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Foxfire-Book-Dressing-Building-Moonshining/dp/0385073534/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1534538574&sr=1-1&keywords=foxfire+books%5C%22%3Etest%3C%2Fa%3E&tag=ttgnet-20

  16. Rick Hellewell says:

    @mediumwave :

    Why isn’t the markup being interpreted as markup?

    Because the that part of the text was typed with the < characters, rather than pasting in a link. I think.

    If you paste in an ‘href’ link, then the whole thing, including the ‘href’ stuff, is interpreted as text. If you want a proper ‘href’ link, then use the ‘link’ button.

    If you paste in just a URL, then it should be automatically converted to a HREF link. Although the “Comment Editor” plugin used here (to allow you to edit comments) may also have some effect on that process/results.

    And, for anyone wondering, the affiliate code belongs to me. I get a few dollars a month (very few) from that affiliate code to help offset my hosting costs for this site and Barbara’s site. (Actually, it is spent by my wife on scrapbooking supplies, something that happens daily.)

    There is no additional cost to the person that clicks that link and then buys something.

  17. Nick Flandrey says:

    @mediumwave, the WordPress template only allows a very limited subset, and disregards the rest. Also, it mangles attempts at text formatting, deleting blank lines, changing a series of dashes to a line, and other things. Existing formatting rarely survives being quoted too.

    The percent code things in the url are the html codes for those characters. I’ve noticed it when cutting and pasting from some different websites. It must be some legacy confusion from cross platform or different character encoding settings. I think I see out Monday often when using right click, copy link target, then patting as text. Try a different copy technique.

    N

  18. lynn says:

    I still think that the Apple car will be a relabeled Tesla. And it will be incredibly expensive. And non-repairable.

    But it will work very well with iTunes and have a phone charging port.

    Shoot, my 2005 Expedition has a phone charging port. In fact, several of them. They are repurposed cigarette lighter sockets.

  19. Rick Hellewell says:

    @nickflandry:

    It must be some legacy confusion from cross platform or different character encoding settings.

    Actually, it is a technique that is used to make a URL safe so it doesn’t contain any invalid characters, or scripting commands. Very common on all sites to prevent malware from executing in a link, and to remove ‘script’ commands.

    …and I just noticed that you can put scripts in comments. That’s not good. I will have to fix that. (Don’t tell anyone.)

  20. mediumwave says:

    Direct link to a site other than Amazon:

    https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2018/08/16

    Using the link button:

    link button

    And of course the link button now works as it has in the past.

    While I am by no means an HTML expert, I’m not a total n00b, guys. I’ve wasted WAY too much time on this, so I’m just going to go away quietly now.

  21. lynn says:

    I could see Apple buying the IP out of the bankruptcy action, but Tim Cook knows to let someone else do the actual manufacturing.

    The UAW will want to have a “come to Jesus” with the next owner of the Fremont plant.

    Apple has an incredible amount of cash and needs to put it to work before the shareholders demand it to be paid out (too late, they are demanding already). I just don’t see Tesla in bankruptcy, especially since the House of Saud now owns 5% of the stock. I would not be surprised to see the House of Saud pick up the other 75% of the outstanding stock just to keep from having to declare a loss on the purchase.

    Actually Musk is sweating that the House of Saud will take over Tesla and fire him. Or make him work even harder.

    BTW, I do not see a long future for the UAW. They are slowly driving all of the unionized automobile manufacturers to Mexico. At some point someone will have to turn the lights out in those union halls.

  22. lynn says:

    Well, that was weird. When I posted the last comment, I got a message box saying “Hello”.

  23. mediumwave says:

    Well, that was weird. When I posted the last comment, I got a message box saying “Hello”.

    As did I when I posted my 17:15 comment.

  24. Rick H says:

    @lynn … I was in the middle of testing an apparent security risk with scripts in comments. Should be gone now.

  25. mediumwave says:

    Gonna try posting an Amazon link via the link button <a href="https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=foxfire++&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Afoxfire++%5C%22%3Eone&tag=ttgnet-20 mo' time.

    ADDED: Why is the less-than character ‘a’ href sequence visible????? Why was the text I embedded in the link, “one mo’ time”, mangled????

    Something be broken!

    ADDED-2: On calmer reflection, it occurs to me that the “something” might be on Amazon’s side, but I’m not enough of an HTML guru to say exactly what … 🙁

  26. paul says:

    The gate is fixed. It has been acting goofy for a couple of weeks…. closing when I tell it to open. Since the warranty expires in a couple of weeks I sure hope it is fixed.

    One of the bolts holding the hinge brackets to the post sheared off. Probably my fault, I tend to over tighten stuff. Or maybe just heat and expansion with a flawed bolt. It’s a carriage bolt and broke where the square part of the head becomes threads.

    The lock was dragging on the latch. I moved the lock a bit lower. It was high to start with to allow for future gate sagging. Why did it get higher? Broken bolt, maybe. Of course, if it ever starts to rain the stupid thing will sag. Because my gatepost is a hater.

    I reset the close limit. It has gradually closed tighter and tighter. Somehow the opener counts revolutions but it isn’t exactly accurate. It’s not difficult, just a pain because you have to open the control box and DON”T DROP THE SCREWS IN THE GRASS. Just saying. 🙂

    I’ll clean the battery terminals tomorrow. I’m using a maintenance free lawnmower battery and there is a leak at the positive terminal. Just messy.

  27. mediumwave says:

    Testing, testing, …

    ADDED: Used the link button with the results above.

    Something’s going on with the Amazon links, and it ain’t good.

    Now I really do have other things to do.

  28. lynn says:

    One of the bolts holding the hinge brackets to the post sheared off. Probably my fault, I tend to over tighten stuff.

    You ain’t the only one.

  29. Rick H says:

    @mediumwave

    (1) If I just type in a URL, it looks like this: https://www.securitydawg.com when I save the command.

    (2) If I use the link button to make this a link, then it will look like this when I save the comment.

    (3) If I type in the A HREF with the link as text (which shouldn’t be done), it looks like this

    https://www.securitydawg.com

    (4) If I put the same text (the A HREF) as a <a href="https://www.securitydawg.com“>link for this, the result is as you see.

    So, I suspect you are doing #3 or #4. Or your browser is weird. One should normally do #1 or #2. (Get your minds out of the gutter, it’s too crowded.)

    (Although it could be my affiliate link plugin, but I haven’t seen that before. It could be the combination of my plugin and the ‘Comment Editor’ plugin. Hmmm…)

  30. paul says:

    Well, they are not stainless steel bolts. Just plain silver bolts, not even galvanized, that came with the opener.

    The hinge brackets should be welded to the post. If I had a welder. As it is, I marked and center-punched and drilled for the four bolts. I’m told the post is well pipe. I wore out a $15 drill bit…

  31. mediumwave says:

    @RickH: I use the link button like this:

    1. Go to the page I want to link to and highlight the address in the address bar and right-click to copy it to the clipboard.

    2. Return to this blog, left-click the link button, and paste the address from the clipboard over the highlighted “http://” text, completely replacing the “http://”.

    3. I then type in some text, e.g., the headline from the page I’m linking to, followed by clicking the link button again, which by now has become the /link button.

    This has worked well in the past and works well now EXCEPT for links to Amazon. I suspect that the problem lies with the appended affiliate tag.

  32. lynn says:

    “Horror moment US pastor is bitten by a deadly snake during a service leaving him drenched in blood”
    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7040148/horror-moment-us-pastor-is-bitten-by-a-deadly-snake-during-a-service-leaving-him-drenched-in-blood/

    WARNING: Graphic content of some so-called religious idiots.

    Looks like someone forgot to milk the rattlesnake before the service.

    And that is not drenched in blood. Now the movie “Carrie”, that was drenched in blood when they poured the bucket of pig’s blood on her.

    Hat tip to:
    https://drudgereport.com/

  33. Rick Hellewell says:

    @mediumwave

    Yeah, I suspect an interaction between the ‘Comment Editor’ plugin and my affiliate plugin is causing the error only on Amazon links.

    First complaint I’ve had about it, but my plugin is not widely used. I use it on lots of sites I own/manage. But this (and Barbara’s) are the only ones that have both plugins installed.

    I’ll have to figure out a solution for my plugin. I have some ideas, just need to test them.

    But first, I have to finish my update to my FormSpammerTrap code. Just some packaging and then updating of that site is all that is needed.

  34. mediumwave says:

    I’ll have to figure out a solution for my plugin. I have some ideas, just need to test them.

    But first, I have to finish my update to my FormSpammerTrap code. Just some packaging and then updating of that site is all that is needed.

    As we used to say back in my programming days: “Just give me fifteen minutes and I’ll have it fixed. Piece of cake!” 😀

  35. paul says:

    Barbara’s site has a green Share This button that doesn’t work for me. I blame AdBlock Plus.

  36. DadCooks says:

    Okay, guys, @Dad is going to jump here and make a Grumpy Ol’ Man Statement:

    You are over thinking this link thing and making it complicated. Anything in the first line of the link after the “?” question mark is unnecessary for the link to work properly. It is just tracking/source/smile/etc. data. I always delete everything up to and including the “?” question mark, verify that the link still goes to where it should and then either past that link directly or use the link button after I have highlighted the word/words associated with the link.

    I am sure that @Rick H will cringe at my method, but I am practical, not a programmer. I used to do basic, batch files (.bat), and macros (EasyWriter, WordStar, WordPerfect, Word, and their related/associated spreadsheet and database programs), but now I just want things to work, be logical, and simple.

  37. mediumwave says:

    … but now I just want things to work, be logical, and simple.

    Amen.

  38. lynn says:

    “Click Here to Kill Everybody: Security and Survival in a Hyper-connected World”
    https://www.amazon.com/Click-Here-Kill-Everybody-Hyper-connected/dp/0393608883/?tag=ttgnet-20

    @SteveF, no, he is being figurative, not literal.

    Wait, he may be being literal.

  39. Rick Hellewell says:

    @DadCooks – OK by me if you delete everything after a “?” in a link, if you want to go through that trouble. That will still get you to the right page.

    It’s true that there can be some tracking codes in the query (which is what the part after the “?” is called). I suppose there is some browser plugin that will also delete query stuff from a clicked URL.

    But, it is extra effort. Be my guest and do that., if it pleases you. Simple for me is to just click on a link without spending the time to delete things. No ‘cringing’ here. And I’ve been doing this stuff (programming, web sites, etc) since 1975-ish.

    And, @mediumwave : “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.”

  40. lynn says:

    I hate programmers !

    Especially old fortran hackers who try to get cute with “pointers” in fortran code.

    Type safety, we don’t need no stinking type safety !

  41. IT_Pro says:

    @lynn,

    How ’bout some Unlabeled Common?

  42. Nick Flandrey says:

    I usually delete the queey stuff on Amazon links I post so any identifying text is removed.

    It’s more of a concern when I post links from any email newsletters I get as they often append my email or acct number to track response to the email campaign.

  43. Nick Flandrey says:

    My opening post will probably be later tomorrow. It’s late and I’m beat.

    Nick

  44. Nick Flandrey says:

    And…. Open

  45. Greg Norton says:

    I hate programmers !

    Especially old fortran hackers who try to get cute with “pointers” in fortran code.

    Type safety, we don’t need no stinking type safety !

    Try C++11 when the developers get a little too cute with ‘auto’.

  46. SteveF says:

    It’s late and I’m beat.

    I was going to make a joke about pregnant girls with abusive boyfriends, but I didn’t. I’m kindly that way.

  47. Nick Flandrey says:

    You are a model of restraint….

  48. lynn says:

    @lynn,

    How ’bout some Unlabeled Common?

    We got rid of those years XXXXX decades ago.

    The real problem was that all of the common variables were different names in each subroutine. We changed all of the common blocks (300+ of them) to uniform variable names and included them everywhere.

  49. lynn says:

    Try C++11 when the developers get a little too cute with ‘auto’.

    Not in my shop. The only good thing with C++ 11 is nullptr. The language lawyers have taken over both the C++ and Fortran furtherance efforts. And not for the good. I don’t allow new templates either, there are horrible alligators there.

    C++ desperately needs a minimalist user interface toolkit that developers know exists on all platforms and the language lawyers are arguing about minutia of exotic weird corner situations.

  50. BillF says:

    One of the bolts holding the hinge brackets to the post sheared off. Probably my fault, I tend to over tighten stuff.

    I worked for a mechanic when I was in college. Best job I ever had, has saved me many thousands of dollars. The first thing he taught me was not to over tighten bolts. When we got a car in with tight bolts on something, he usually said “someone has been six pack engineering on this”.

  51. SteveF says:

    Air wrench with the knob twisted all the way over. Pisses me off. I use a high-quality breaker bar and impact sockets, so I don’t worry (much) about breaking my tools, but it’s still really annoying.

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