Sat. June 29, 2019 – last day in Chi-town

By on June 29th, 2019 in Random Stuff

Cooler, maybe a bit of rain overnight? Not as hot as Houston certainly.

Wrapping up in Chicagoland today. If I can fit everything in the truck, I’ll head home tomorrow morning. Lots to do today still. One thing is packing this computer. Another is packing my truck. And RE-packing until it all fits. And where the heck will I put it when I get home?

There are still things to do to pass the VA inspection. I sprayed the perimeter for bugs. This house has always had a problem with big black ants. One of my frustrations with this situation and when my dad was sick is that my siblings are too close to the problems and everyone here LOVES problems. What they don’t love is solutions. I’m the solve it guy. If dad is losing his balance on stairs, put in a handrail, don’t complain because he insists on using the stairs. If there are ants, get the freaking spray, don’t curse the ants in the trash bin. If the place smells musty rent an ozone generator and a dehumidifier. Don’t just say “the smell chases buyers away”, fix the smell. This can be applied to life in general and ESPECIALLY when there are big problems like a disaster.

“We’re out of bottled water” – then buy buckets and fill them at the tap!
“We’re out of plywood to board up windows” – then buy fencing, or metal roof panels…

I had a friend who I was staying with for a while. I was babysitting for his 6yo and I suggested we watch a video and sing along with it. The tape title was “Songs for Learning” and I figured, “Hey, songs, lets sing along…” His daughter says “NO! Those are songs for LEARNING, NOT songs for singing along”. Don’t be that 6yo.

Adapt, improvise, overcome.

nick

43 Comments and discussion on "Sat. June 29, 2019 – last day in Chi-town"

  1. Greg Norton says:

    There are still things to do to pass the VA inspection. I sprayed the perimeter for bugs. This house has always had a problem with big black ants.

    Whenever we have a bug issue, I spray outside and get three packs of the *dry* (green box, “Deodorizing”) foggers from the Home Depot, enough to deploy one fogger the recommended density of every 500 sq. feet.

    Nothing moves inside the house after we set off the foggers and leave for a couple of hours … with the cat in tow of course.

    That reminds me — now that we’re recovered financially from Vantucky, I need to have the termite people back out to talk about a contract.

    What have the ants been snacking on all these years?

  2. Greg Norton says:

    This is a start, but there are bigger Ponzi schemes still running, starting with Magic Leap.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/28/theranos-founder-elizabeth-holmes-to-stand-trial-in-2020/

  3. Nick Flandrey says:

    “What have the ants been snacking on all these years?” — the house?

    They like to get into the garbage. They come out of the wall and explore. I don’t know if they find anything, but they do come in looking.

    n

  4. MrAtoz says:

    Homes probably wouldn’t have gotten anywhere if it wasn’t for her looks. Who drops out of Stanford to run a Ponzi scheme? American Greed should do an episode on her. If they haven’t already.

  5. MrAtoz says:

    And…Apple moves the assembly of the new Mac Pro to…CHINA. Way to go Cook. I bet he thinks he’s sticking it to tRump.

  6. Nick Flandrey says:

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7195333/Horrifying-video-shows-two-teens-STOMPING-strangers-head-New-York-subway-platform.html

    — hoodie wearing teen (but foot in mouth Joe said something about hoodies and now he’s in trouble?)

    –is this part of Portland Muslim? Everyone is wearing a man dress….

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7194105/Horrific-moment-man-sucker-punches-woman-face-breaking-eye-socket-Portland.html

    n

  7. Nick Flandrey says:

    Looks like apple is long overdue for one of their periodic retrenchments. Accompanied by a fall from grace, and possibly followed by a resurgence.

    Done it a bunch of times already.

    Or are they diversified enough to ride thru any difficulty?

    n

  8. dkreck says:

    It’s not Californians screwing up your state.
    http://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2019/06/pin-tail-on-actual-jackasses-responsible.html

    But I’ll tell you what:
    I’ll pay you a $1 for every actual native Californian who moved to your state, if you pay me a nickel for every transplant from anywhere else, and you’ll buy me a Ferrari for cash just on my profits from that deal.

    I’ve met far more liberal idiots down here driving around with OR and NV license tags than I ever heard of people I grew up with who were born here, who then moved to either place. (And to further illustrate the point, license tags don’t make them Oregonians or Nevadans either; such people are invariably malcontent gypsies in all cases.)
    It’s easy to blame CA, but someone who comes here from BFE, tags up, and moves to your patch is no more “Californian”, than Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gray Davis, Barbara Boxer, or Nancy Pelosi.

    You could look it up. 😉

    Yes I’m a real Californian.

  9. Greg Norton says:

    Homes probably wouldn’t have gotten anywhere if it wasn’t for her looks. Who drops out of Stanford to run a Ponzi scheme? American Greed should do an episode on her. If they haven’t already.

    Of course not, but you aren’t allowed to say such a thing.

    The Valley desperately wants a new “up from nothing” story like Apple, Cisco, or Intel. Google and Facebook are too creepy, and the founders came from upper middle to upper class backgrounds rather than working class or immigrant families like previous Valley successes.

  10. MrAtoz says:

    I’ve met far more liberal idiots down here driving around with OR and NV license tags than I ever heard of people I grew up with who were born here

    Hey!

  11. Nick Flandrey says:

    “the founders came from upper middle to upper class backgrounds. ” —

    yes, because those are the classes with money and leisure, and sons who are free to pursue their interests. Dirt poor urban utes don’t build computers from scratch, or software, while on a prolonged adolescent search for something to do with their lives. They get jobs. Or escape into crime and hedonism.

    n

  12. Greg Norton says:

    Looks like apple is long overdue for one of their periodic retrenchments. Accompanied by a fall from grace, and possibly followed by a resurgence.

    Done it a bunch of times already.

    Or are they diversified enough to ride thru any difficulty?

    Apple is still very profitable. I honestly believe they wanted the current sales slowdown so the stores stopped looking like Greyhound bus terminals.

    Tim Cook could turn around the sales decline in a heart beat with an order for a few million iPhone SE units. The infrastructure is obviously still in place for production with Apple “finding” new stock every couple of weeks.

    An IT department-friendly laptop would also reverse the numbers. The rumors about that being in the works are non-stop.

  13. Greg Norton says:

    yes, because those are the classes with money and leisure, and sons who are free to pursue their interests. Dirt poor urban utes don’t build computers from scratch, or software, while on a prolonged adolescent search for something to do with their lives. They get jobs. Or escape into crime and hedonism.

    As “Bob Cringely” pointed out in the book and subsequent PBS special which were the foundations of his media empire, the previous generation of Valley success stories were bored kids stuck in middle class suburbs in the Sunbelt of the 70s and early 80s, before Internet, basic cable, Nintendo, and cell phones.

    My generation was probably the last to emerge from the Sunbelt suburbs who were even semi-bored. Our home video games were lousy, computers were primitive, and used cars unreliable, but basic cable brought MTV and endless reruns of “Ghostbusters” into our homes every afternoon.

  14. Greg Norton says:

    I’ve met far more liberal idiots down here driving around with OR and NV license tags than I ever heard of people I grew up with who were born here, who then moved to either place.

    I see a lot of OR plates around here (Austin) as of late.

  15. RickH says:

    Re: packing a moving truck.

    I’ve found that the first 90% of the stuff you are moving will fit in 90% of the truck. The last 10% of the stuff will need to fit in the other 90% of the truck.

    Packing a truck is like playing Tetris.

  16. dkreck says:

    New math?

  17. lynn says:

    From yesterday:

    I admire Jimmy Carter the man. I have since he was president.

    I do not admire Jimmy Carter the politician. He was not as great as a national leader.

    You can have both of them in the same man.

    I can understand him not seeing Trump as “legitimate”. I do not agree with saying so publicly as he has. That’s as bad as the Birthers. Once a president is elected and all that.

    I regard people who can compartmentalize themselves as brain damaged.

  18. lynn says:

    “Trump officials weigh encryption crackdown”
    https://www.osnews.com/story/130233/trump-officials-weigh-encryption-crackdown/

    “Senior Trump administration officials met on Wednesday to discuss whether to seek legislation prohibiting tech companies from using forms of encryption that law enforcement can’t break — a provocative step that would reopen a long-running feud between federal authorities and Silicon Valley.”

    “The encryption challenge, which the government calls “going dark,” was the focus of a National Security Council meeting Wednesday morning that included the No. 2 officials from several key agencies, according to three people familiar with the matter.”

    What part of no do you not understand ? No backdoors ! There will be more Edward Snowdens selling those backdoor passwords if they ever exist.

    References:
    https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/27/trump-officials-weigh-encryption-crackdown-1385306?cid=apn

  19. MrAtoz says:

    What part of no do you not understand ? No backdoors ! There will be more Edward Snowdens selling those backdoor passwords if they ever exist.

    This is why goobermints hate crypto-currency.

  20. lynn says:

    _The Armageddon Inheritance_ by David Weber
    https://www.amazon.com/Armageddon-Inheritance-David-Weber/dp/0671721976/?tag=ttgnet-20

    Book number two of a three book space opera series. I read the well printed and bound MMPB published by Baen. This is my favorite SF series of all time as I have reread it six or ten times now. In fact, the binding of my book has broken since I have read it so many times. This book has sadly has gone out of print as a standalone book. But, the omnibus is still available as a new book:
    https://www.amazon.com/Empire-Ashes-David-Weber/dp/141650933X/?tag=ttgnet-20

    I do not know why this is my favorite SF book and series of all time. I think that I like the standup position of the chief protagonist, Colin the First. Or that there are so many different species of intelligent space races. Or that the book is written so tightly, especially when compared to Weber’s later works. Or that an self aware artificial intelligence shares the main protagonist job in the book, much like Heinlein’s _The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress_.

    I keep on hoping that David Weber will write more books in the Dahak series but, I doubt it. He did write the Safehold series which is along the same lines as this book, overpowering space aliens and self aware artificial intelligences. BTW, there is an ending to the Safehold, Honorverse, and Dahak series that David Weber wrote as joke:
    http://www.davidweber.net/posts/443-how-safehold-wont-end.html

    Here is my 2006 review of the book:
    “Great sequel with awesome space battle scenes. The story line is solid and the awesome battle scenes are just the icing on the cake. Plus, I really enjoy dual scene stories.”

    My rating: 6 out of 5 stars (yes 6 stars, get over it !)
    Amazon rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars (36 reviews)

  21. Greg Norton says:

    “The encryption challenge, which the government calls “going dark,” was the focus of a National Security Council meeting Wednesday morning that included the No. 2 officials from several key agencies, according to three people familiar with the matter.”

    National Security Council. Mustache Boy needs to go.

    SSL VPNs are pretty much useless against government level actors, but the concern is about messaging services like WhatsApp.

    Of course, WhatsApp already has a backdoor into the system for the Feds, but, long term, competitors will emerge which may or may not have a cozy relationship with the NSA like Facebook.

  22. Nick Flandrey says:

    The LEOs doing all the drug surveillance around Houston (DEA, HPD, etc) all use whatsApp to share links and addresses.

    What about hushmail and signal? I thought those were secure…

    n

  23. Nick Flandrey says:

    BTW, made a vdh of this pc, now I need to figure out how to actually run it when I get home. Thanks for the link.

    n

  24. lynn says:

    “Asteroid Day 2019 Is Coming Soon — Here’s How to Celebrate”
    https://www.space.com/asteroid-day-2019-events.html

    “That’s why the Chelyabinsk incident in 2013 caught everyone by surprise, when a body the size of a six-story building exploded over a Russian town and caused many injuries. Asteroid Day calls for a hundred-fold increase in asteroid monitoring; there is a petition available online for anyone who wants to sign.”

    A six story building landing on you is gonna hurt.

  25. Greg Norton says:

    The LEOs doing all the drug surveillance around Houston (DEA, HPD, etc) all use whatsApp to share links and addresses.

    What about hushmail and signal? I thought those were secure…

    I always assumed LEOs had their own XMPP servers. Sooner or later, someone inside Facebook will sell access to the data to some bad people. The incentive is there.

    Signal source gets reviewed, but it is a lot more complicated to use than WhatsApp.

    Dunno about hushmail.

  26. hcombs says:

    I regard people who can compartmentalize themselves as brain damaged.

    Then count me damaged. I have normal modern sensibilities, aversion to pain, want to play fair, don’t want to hurt others, etc. but (BIG BUT) when I NEED to I can “turn off” my sensibilities and simply do what must be done without a second thought. It takes a lot to flip my switch but I DO have a switch. I can (and have been) a very deadly person when I have NEEDED to be.

  27. Greg Norton says:

    The LEOs doing all the drug surveillance around Houston (DEA, HPD, etc) all use whatsApp to share links and addresses.

    I’m curious — how do the LEOs know that someone hasn’t sold their account access for a little extra cash … or had the account login extorted from them.

  28. Greg Norton says:

    I’ve never heard of this before. Wow.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/06/19/married-debt-couples-are-taking-out-loans-pay-their-weddings/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.63a32fc33c0f

    We paid cash for our wedding. My father-in-law, despite making $160k/year (in 1997!) stiffed us. Ok. Fine. His call, but for the rest of his life he whined about not being able to dictate the guest list. It would have been really easy for us to end up $10k in debt if I hadn’t put my foot down.

    My wife assumed for years that he offered me something which I turned down. Bzzzt. This was the conversation where he offered “help”:

    “Put the reception on your credit cards and I’ll pay you back for my guests.”

    “I have one credit card and it is a Green Amex. I have [X] in the bank which is enough for 50 people to attend. The guest list is 50 people.”

    “Doh! Green card. What the hell do you do that for?”

    My nickname for him was Homer from then on.

  29. lynn says:

    “Why a Minnesota city council is nixing the Pledge of Allegiance”
    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/why-a-minnesota-city-council-is-nixing-the-pledge-of-allegiance/ar-AADvPck?fbclid=IwAR2q2W2QA2-FZMwcGpGhg__3bM9EyJn6l8_yX8iPoWm5URrzXiKrdwXPtMw

    “Members of the city council for a Minneapolis suburb have voted to stop reciting the Pledge of Allegiance before council meetings, citing an effort to “create a more welcoming environment.” CBS Minnesota reports the St. Louis Park city council voted unanimously to make the change that will take effect on July 15.”

    Absolutely freaking crazy.

  30. Greg Norton says:

    BTW, made a vdh of this pc, now I need to figure out how to actually run it when I get home. Thanks for the link.

    Get VirtualBox. Though, while I haven’t checked in a while, I don’t believe that VB works with the virtualization settings necessary for the Linux Subsystem for Windows or Docker to run properly. Be aware if you run either of those where you want to host the VDH.

    If you want to actually run the OS on the drive image, you will want to have the registration sticker for the Windows license installed on the machine which was the original used to create the VDH. Windows will detect the hardware change and insist upon reauthorization.

    I’m not a huge fan of VMware anymore, but if VB doesn’t work, give that a try for running the image. VMware has kinda withered under Dell.

    If you want to keep the image for archival/forensic purposes without running and possibly corrupting the OS, install a Linux distro in VB and mount the image file read only in the guest OS.

    The Caine Live Linux distribution offers a pretty good set of civilian forensics tools.

    Always back up. If you think you might have to go to court, MD5 sum *everything* and keep paper notes. External drives and notebooks are cheap.

  31. paul says:

    Damaged over here, too.

    It’s like, oh, raccoons are SO cute! Not when they eat my chickens…. and are so “whatever” that just putting the trap, un baited, next to the coop door, netted me feeding the buzzards about 45 coons one summer. I kept a 22 shell for each…

    Dang buzzards would sit in the trees waiting for breakfast. Pretty trippy to roll up with a squeeky wheeled wheelbarrow and the birds start to flap their wings. Get 20 feet away after dumping the barrow and there’s ten or fifteen birds on the coon.

    Yeah, I have a place out back where I dump the bodies.

  32. Greg Norton says:

    Absolutely freaking crazy.

    Ilhan Omar hails from Minneapolis.

    Kill or convert the infidels … or extract tribute.

    Sounds like extracting tribute to me.

  33. paul says:

    “Why a Minnesota city council is nixing the Pledge of Allegiance”

    Dieversity. Can’t be offending the Somali welfare leeches now, can we?

    I’m looking forward to hearing how the Congolese that walked across our southern border deal with winter in Maine. I suspect “not well” if the power goes out.

  34. lynn says:

    I regard people who can compartmentalize themselves as brain damaged.

    Then count me damaged. I have normal modern sensibilities, aversion to pain, want to play fair, don’t want to hurt others, etc. but (BIG BUT) when I NEED to I can “turn off” my sensibilities and simply do what must be done without a second thought. It takes a lot to flip my switch but I DO have a switch. I can (and have been) a very deadly person when I have NEEDED to be.

    You aren’t damaged. You just do what needs to be done. The military spends an enormous amount of time and effort teaching young men and young ladies how to do things that must be done. Some people just come by it natural.

    Jimmy Carter undermining the duly elected President of the USA is tantamount to treason for me. He just gave several crazy people permission to go after our duly elected leader. We cannot allow this to go on in our society. Just ask Steve Scalise about crazy people shooting at our duly elected leaders.
    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/06/14/video-depicts-horror-baseball-shooting/102865766/

  35. Nick Flandrey says:

    The shooting war already started. It just hasn’t escalated yet.

    Thanks for the note about the windows sticker. I’ll get a pic when I take the machine down tonight. I will want to run the image at least once to be sure I can. I’m going to run a backup tonight too. I guess I’ll be busy.

    The people on the council in Minn have it backwards. The new members of the community have to accommodate the existing structures and become one with them. Almost every legal immigrant who becomes a citizen talks about how moving it is to say the Pledge the first time. So F making them comfortable. Might as well buy a burka and a rod to beat your wife with and say the words now. Maybe get ahead of the curve. Of course they are massive racists and xenophobes, so good luck with that, dhimmi…

    n

  36. CowboySlim says:

    Too much! Loved St. Louis Park, Minn. Aunt and Uncle lived there in the ’50s, spent many summer months there with them. Wonderful back then.

  37. lynn says:

    From @mediumwave yesterday:

    Mommas, don’t let your babies grow up to be “software engineers”:

    Boeing’s 737 Max Software Outsourced to $9-an-Hour Engineers
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-28/boeing-s-737-max-software-outsourced-to-9-an-hour-engineers

    Neither the CEO nor anyone on the Board of Directors is a pilot. Boeing needs to move to the toaster business.

    Anyone want to start a pool on when the next 737 MAX will go down when / if they start flying again ?

    Sadly, the USA software engineering industry is headed to the commodity zone. I have no idea how to fix it.

  38. Greg Norton says:

    Neither the CEO nor anyone on the Board of Directors is a pilot. Boeing needs to move to the toaster business.

    Boeing needs a real replacement for the 757 before Delta’s fleet gets too much older.

    I saw a lot of A220s on the tarmac at O’Hare in March. Airbus has those rolling out of the factory in Mobile at a rate of four per month.

  39. lynn says:

    Boeing needs a real replacement for the 757 before Delta’s fleet gets too much older.

    Just put the 737 MAX lean burn ultra high bypass engines on the 757-200 and voila ! A 757 MAX.

  40. lynn says:

    Swimming pools are such high maintenance. I just tried to turn on the spa and heater to jump in for while. The spa heater is broke again. Six years old and I have have had to have it fixed three times now for about $1,500 total. I am fairly sure that the pool guy is going to tell me to replace the spa heater for $3,500 this time.

  41. nick flandrey says:

    Try it for a community pool. We spent $30K iirc on leak fixes before open this year. Our water bill was unbelievable and we were going thru chemicals like the water…

    50+ yo pools need A LOT of maintenance.

    Now off to bed.

    n

  42. Greg Norton says:

    Just put the 737 MAX lean burn ultra high bypass engines on the 757-200 and voila ! A 757 MAX.

    Boeing shut down production in 2004.

    The current proposed 797 will replace both the 757 and 767, but Boeing is still in the decision process about that plane.

    The 737Max fiasco makes moving forward with the 797 more complicated because the union doesn’t want to see any more production moved out of Renton for at least a generation, and the proposed 797 would probably get built at Everett or in South Carolina.

    The longer Boeing waits, the better argument they have that Renton is not cost effective for production anymore. The problem is that Delta will have to make a buying decision soon.

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