Sunny cool and clear in the morning, getting hot later. Probably the same in Houston.
After I set up an A/C service visit, I’ll work in the garden for a bit. I spent several hours yesterday rototilling the whole thing again. I thought I’d just get the grass off, but that took multiple passes, and increasing the depth. I eventually got the whole plot tilled to an even depth. Made my rows and planted two of them. I did not know that beans should be soaked overnight before planting, so they will get planted today.
The planting choices are a bit wierd, but some of the seeds I have won’t do well this late. I’m pushing it with what I am planting. I wanted to get SOMETHING in though. Since the fence isn’t in yet, I covered the whole row with hardware cloth in a tunnel shape. I’ll either have to bring up more hardware cloth, or get busy on the fence.
I spent the hottest part of yesterday doing some other things, including taking a break to eat lunch with my wife on the dock. Very cool breeze on the dock… So I tried my hand at throwing the cast net. Tougher than it looks. I did manage to catch 3 little fish that would have made decent bait, which is what you do with the cast net in Texas. I’ll need more practice, and maybe an in person coach…
The eclipse was cool. Glad I got to see another one.
Unless things go horribly wrong, I’ll head home in the afternoon. I’ve got a list of stacks to move up here, and more stuff to do work with. We have one bedroom with the paint, ceiling fan, flooring, and furniture in it. There is only the closet floor still to do. Plenty of other work to do…
I’ve been sipping the news through a tiny straw, so I might have more to say later. Someone asked the question “what will they come up with next to distract us?” Now we know. Yes, I know that is crazy conspiracy talk. I will need to see more coverage before it’s anything more than a wry observation, but the question was asked.
Stack some stuff. It’s getting weirder daily.
n
Conventional war with Russia. People like my former Colonel Bat Guano neighbors think it would be contained or, failing that, won with minimal civilian casualties. 20. 30 million tops.
I need my pussyhat!
Site is still sporadically slow loading this morning. @Rick, the issue from my end seems to be in getting that first response from ttgnet when I click the link from my sidebar. The pagination of comments had no effect: not only was yesterday’s post slow to begin loading/slow to respond when I clicked this morning, but also after I’d clicked “earlier comments” and read those, when I hit the “back” button, I encountered the slow response again. It feels like the kind of latency we get from auto-dialers calling the house. I say “Hello” and nothing happens.
You’ve hit the nail on the head. Everyone used nothing but window swamp coolers when I was growing up in Oklahoma, and they worked fine. For heat, natural gas space heaters. Our houses were all old, built in the 1920s, 1910s and 1890s.
But sometime in the 80s, when the first round of “seal up your house to conserve power and minimize heat loss” started, my family up there got gung ho and caulked, weatherstripped, covered up the louvered vents in the eaves, covered the screened under-house accesses, and covered the original windows with an outside set of “storm windows” (so to open the window, you had to open two windows).
Suddenly they started having mold problems. The lower corners behind furniture and along the baseboards under the windows started mildewing. This panicked everyone, and not knowing any better, they blamed the swamp coolers. So they all switched to refrigerated air conditioning units and kept the windows and doors closed all the time.
And still had/have to battle mildew in any place that didn’t get good air circulation : especially in the winter.
We understand this now, but it’s too late to go back. Everyone is accustomed to paying higher electric bills, and keeping the house shut up, and that different kind of “cold”.
Rick, site performance seems good to me for the past couple days. No delays in loading pages, no problems in posting comments.
I lived in Barstow and Victorville (both in California) for a small portion of my youth. I remember the swamp coolers. Turn that thing on, crack open a window in every room and let the air move. It was not uncommon for it to be 100f outside, humidity below 10% on a humid day, and have the inside temperature be less than 80f and it felt good. For a few pennies a day, some water, and the house was kept comfortable. Just change the pads every year. May have to replace a small pump or a float valve every so often. Coming inside from playing outside and it really felt nice.
Of course that would not work where I currently live. When the humidity is above 90% and the temperature is at the upper 90’s, swamp cooling just adds to the misery. Getting that moisture out of the air is really necessary.
My mother-in-law still tries to make a swamp cooler work in Florida. There just isn’t any point in trying to argue about science with some people.
Up and moving. Back is one solid misery from yesterday’s work. I’ll get some stretching in after things lossen up a bit.
Texted the A/C guy, haven’t heard back yet.
Site gave me a ISE500 on the comment about removing gravitar when I reloaded the page. The comment pagination works for me on the phone but doesn’t seem to solve the response issue.
Keep poking at it!
n
You don’t need no stinkin’ car:
Pete Buttigieg unveils plan to ‘nudge’ Americans out of cars and into public transportation
As the US population gets older, let them ride bicycles to get groceries and such.
Another $5 billion down the toilet.
Added: my comment info was missing.
Lowering the national speed limit back to 55 would nuke the manufacturers’ current plans to deal with CAFE in 2025. The increased costs and diminished durability of the overdrive transmissions in the half ton pickups would be pointless since the EPA MPG testing would not touch the speeds at which the drivetrains operate more efficiently even if the states didn’t budge on changing the limit.
More money for The Real Life Tony Stark (TM) since the product pipleline can’t change at this point. GM, Ford, and [whatever Chrysler calls itself now] would need more “regulatory credits” as it is termed in TSLA earnings reports — $679 million last quarter.
Of course, it doesn’t matter to Mayor Pete since his government fleet Yukon has a six speed Allison transmission, taxpayers cover the costs of daily operation, and his driver can always pull another vehicle from the motor pool if necessary.
Current thinking for NEW construction, to achieve super insulation, super tight, energy efficient comfort comes from moisture barrier placement and mechanical ventilation.
See the YouTube channel, the BUILD SHOW where Houston based contractor builder Matt Rissinger (sp?) recently kept only the 70’s slab for his own new home. Details for the wall section included tapeing the sheathing panels and base plate, standoffs for the exterior weather surface. A key component is the super filtration system in the attic.
Another YouTuber TEXAS BEST CONSTRUCTION, use similar techniques for NEW steel framed Barndominiums.
Unless you’re part of the half of the US population which doesn’t live in a city.
It’s a mile and a half from my house to the nearest bus stop. A mile and a half of hilly, twisty road with no street lights, no sidewalks, and no shoulders, and with the 30MPH speed limit routinely ignored. And the bus at that stop comes only about ten times from 0600-2000, last I checked. Yah, that’ll work real well.
I’m holding to the plan I decided on right after the traitor frauded his way into the White House: If gasoline becomes unavailable or unaffordable, I plan to procure it from government vehicles. I can’t believe that the fleet of EnCon SUVs used for driving around town will be left in the lots because the government agencies can’t get gasoline due to the government-created shortages.
The MSM has always had an urban-centric approach to everything. They act as if everyone in the US lives in NYC, LA, or Chicago. Then they proceed to assume solutions to various things in those cities should apply nationwide. Hell, they do it with everything. That’s why a snowstorm in NYC is somehow national frontpage news. As if the the 280M Americans who don’t live in the northeast US megalopolis give a shit. Or, during the pandemic when they thought that rules that apply to a city with 27,000 people per square mile should also apply to midwestern counties with 2.7 people per square mile. So, since they take the bus or the subway everyday then everyone in the US should too. Duh.
@stevef:
And if that policy becomes general among the Great Unwashed, “theft of gasoline, especially from Goobermint vehicles”, becomes a capital offence, punishable by instant shooting to death.
And some of “the Blue” would do that, I suspect.
G.
Those guys are high end and custom. Texas Best is also a special interest niche.
We got burned playing with a custom builder as the last real estate buble popped in Florida in 2008-09. Though, I consider us to be lucky that it was only a five figure dollar amount, mostly on the decline in the land value before we gave up and sold. One of our builder’s clients couldn’t convert her construction loan and went into foreclosure. $500k of construction.
It will be a while before we try custom again. My wife didn’t tell me that the builder was on Florida Medicaid and wholly dependent on her for a lot of free care for his spouse’s Lupus. I don’t think he ever told us the truth about numbers.
The site load and refresh as is slow as it has been for me for the last several months. LOL. That sentence does The Kamel proud.
Mechanical ventilation works great until it doesn’t. Like when the power goes out, the filters clog, or the motor fails silently. Then your first sign your house is a tear down or remediation site, is when the mold blooms…
F that noise.
All this tech and design effort to sqeeze a few cents in energy efficiency SO THAT THE POWER COMPANIES CAN PUT OFF BUILDING NEW PLANTS. If you recall, the whole thing started so that they could push off the plants that would be needed anyway as the population grows.
They shifted that cost and health risk to YOU.
n
Wait until the Jesus Trucks wipe out all of those efficiency gains.
Again, I think Summer 2024 will be hilarious to watch unfold.
Reading the headline:
Fauci: I won’t work for Trump again
Immediately produced the rejoinder:
You’ll be too busy in prison, Tony.
Who knows, though?
Maybe weasel skin jackets come into fashion and they get hunted to extinction:
Heard on the street:
”This is a genuine Fauci”
”This is a genuine Vindeman.”
Thanks for the Samba information. I was busy the rest of yesterday. Hate to ask a question and run. Will be busy today, so might be a while before I try the suggestions. This is tied up with a new backup scheme I am working on. It is open ended, and may take a while to implement, but the Samba needs to be fixed for it to work.
I’ve been watching page load speeds (via the Network tab in Developer’s mode). Used to be up to 30 seconds. Last couple of days has been regularly under 6 seconds; often under 4 seconds; occasionally under 10 seconds. Acceptable in my eyes.
Also been watching analytics showing requests per minute. Ranges between 5 and 15 requests per minute. The indexing places are still at it. Current page requests are usually under 4 visitors at a time.
The more comments on a post, the slower the response time. The initial request results in a number of WP database requests, which have to be resolved before the page can be displayed.
I tried a ‘lazy load’ for the comments table, but that caused the comment ‘submit’ button to never appear. That was for a few minutes yesterday afternoon. Disabled and deleted that plugin right away. Although enabling it might have resulted in much better response time, since no new comments could be added. But reason prevailed, and I deleted it.
I did some page loads for prior days, to reduce effect of caching. Still under 5-6 seconds. Comment count per day seems to be between 40 and 80. I may reduce the pagination breaks to a smaller number than 50. Have to put in a database table response time plugin to see that effect.
But, removing the gravatars for comments has helped slightly, I think. Each gravitar is a second request to the external gravatar site, which would slow down things, especially if there are lots of comments that day.
Still playing around with settings, in between other projects.
“Supreme Court overturns law that barred Ted Cruz from fully recouping a personal loan he made to his campaign”
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/16/ted-cruz-supreme-court-campaign-finance/
“The court’s three liberal justices dissented from the majority’s decision, saying that the ruling rewards politicians and paves the way for political corruption.”
We need to purge SCOTUS of the libs. They are freaking crazy.
And apparently this law was created by bureaucrats in the FEC, not even Congress. In any case, the law was overreaching and stifling political speech. There should be no limits on any dollars that I spend on free speech at all.
And not much on Scotusblog yet.
https://www.scotusblog.com/
You don’t need no stinkin’ car:
Pete Buttigieg unveils plan to ‘nudge’ Americans out of cars and into public transportation
As the US population gets older, let them ride bicycles to get groceries and such.
Another $5 billion down the toilet.
Sadly, elections have consequences.
Hopefully the American public is watching Buttranger and getting a sick feeling in their stomachs. After, he is the next great hope for the dumbrocrats.
Busy weekend with little internet. Gub show, time with family we hadn’t seen since before Covid (they live about 100 miles away however one has legitimately frail health and were in self imposed hard lockdown). Good food, better visiting.
prick hounding on the recently exposed gravel banks of the wandering Matanuska river (check map for Old Glenn Hwy and E Leeside Cir near Palmer Ak). Was under water a year or five ago taking out several homes. No force of man can stop a river that size when it decides on a new course. whenthehomes were built the river was a couple miles away.
water always wins.
Someone had constructed a simple mammoth teeter totter by notching a 24” diameter log and hauling over and perfectly balancing another 24” log. Large enough that videos of I and the 78 year old uncle playing looked like the toddlers we were emulating in our glee.
Surrounded by mountains towering above us, the might of the river fresh in our minds, talking and basking in the warm 50 f day. Humbling was the sight of the well head protruding yards above us, the only sign remaining of someone else’s decades of living betwixt mountain and water.
Glorious day.
I left band kids, parents, and spouse unattended yesterday so I could visit a friend from out of town. I received an “all clear” text, returned home to happy exhausted family. As I was doing some minor unnecessary task in the kitchen I noted and commented on the black streaky motes highlighting previously unseen cobwebs. The broiler with dirty pan was forgotten during dinner. Bad things happened.
We wereup late into the night, cleaning. Soot on all flat and vertical surfaces. I have the cleanest kitchen / dining / living room in Anchorage at the moment. Husband didn’t realize that there was a problem until soot drifted onto our dinner guests. Damn lucky the wall didn’t catch fire. House with its wood and age would go up like a matchbox. unclear the state of the smoke alarm. It is functioning now, however.
Minor home improvement chore today is to install a new deadbolt. Original when the house built is finicky. Husband had started the job months ago but hole was wrong size. After shenanigans with the bolt Friday I took a look at it. There is a removable adapter on the deadbolt. I’m pretty sure removal of the adapter will correct matters.
Children are more or less ready for Wednesday’s performance. One of the fathers is a great musician, who hadn’t realized what his kids were up to. He brought a kid sized electric and amp, got his daughter going on it last night during their rehearsal. My husband gave the father about ten minutes then gently booted him out. We’ve been fiercely protective of the children making this their thing with as little adult influence as possible. We start each practice with the exhortation that remaining friends at end is more important than any musical interpretations, to slooow down, and to make it theirs.
I have an opportunity to buy more KW Cages for the rabbits with free shipping. Shipping was half the cost of last years cages. Very tempted. I cannot get that quality cage locally, I cannot obtain that quality raw materials locally.
Conformation dog show first weekend in June. Not ready.
Huh. Signed my last post with wrong email I guess.
——-
Or not. Broke my dog hair avatar.
I’m not seeing any avatars on the site right now. 🤷🏼
I have an opportunity to buy more KW Cages for the rabbits with free shipping. Shipping was half the cost of last years cages. Very tempted. I cannot get that quality cage locally, I cannot obtain that quality raw materials locally.
Shipping costs are steam rolling through the economy. If you can get them for free and can afford it, I would do it.
$5.00/gallon diesel is $0.83/mile for truckers. That same diesel is going into locomotives. A minor variant of that diesel is going into jet fuel. All of it becomes costs for consumers. This is being done intentionally to us to make us cry for “cheap” renewables. $10.00 diesel is coming even though the cheap renewables are not available to us. A lie is a lie is a lie. There will be no cheap renewables and they have destroyed our cheap carbon based fuels.
Avatars were disabled yesterday, as part of the ongoing attempts at optimizing (speeding up) page loads.
Each comment with avatars enabled requires a request to the avatar site (gravitar.com), and the wait for that response to happen before the page request can continue getting data to display the page. The more comments, the more avatar requests needed, slowing down the page load a bit.
See my previous comments about page load and gravatars and comment pagincation.
Renovating old houses is not easy. Our previous house, built in the 1930s, we did a lot to it (mostly DIY). And, yes, had mold problems afterwards. The people who bought it after us had some professional help, fixed the weak spots in what I did, and have eliminated the mold. But it took that second round, with professionals.
Insulation is also one of those things with diminishing returns. If you have a totally uninsulated house, you definitely should do *somthing*. Pick the low-hanging fruit, like blowing insulation into the attic. Walls? Depends. Windows? Depends. It also takes some research, for example, storm windows are rarely worthwhile, unless the original windows are drafty.
I’m a huge fan of public transport. I take the train far more than I take the car. However: the US is not set up for it. With the possible exception of downtown areas, American cities sprawl too much.
An even bigger difficulty is a chicken-and-egg problem with perception: people think that only the poor have to take the bus; hence only the poor do take the bus; hence non-poor don’t want to be seen taking the bus. Which somehow also means that the service is terrible.
I’ve mentioned the time my wife tried to take a public bus in Texas. First, the woman she asked “where’s the bus stop?” was horrified that an attractive, young, unaccompanied white woman would do such a thing. Then the bus – which ran every 45 minutes – was somehow more than an hour late. Which has got to be really great, if you’re a poor person trying to reliably hold down a job.
Finally, the biggest problem are the stupid politicians who make the decisions. CoyoteBlog has documented the Phoenix adventure: They put in light rail. To save money, and try to force people to take the new light rail, they eliminated a lot of bus routes. The result is that the average number of people taking public transport has dropped. Ans because rail is more expensive, the cost per person is far higher. Shoot yourself in the foot, then shoot yourself in the other foot, then wonder why you can’t walk so well…
@Rick: I agree with PecanCorner: the loading problems almost certainly have nothing to do with content. When I load a page, 99% of the time it is very fast. The 1% of the time that it is slow, I can go drink a coffee before the page finally loads.
While I haven’t done web admin since the dark ages, to me this smells of a low volume site on a busy shared server. Some other customers on the server are having a load peak, so the low volume site gets swapped out – all the way out.
I see Ben Crump has showed his ugly racist mug in Buffalo. Claiming all white people are bad and are the cause of black suppression and problems in the black communities. Implying that unless something is done that all black communities will suffer the same fate because of white hatred. CBS news ate it up like a white TN boy that hasn’t had a Whataburger in three years.
No, Ben has it wrong. There are deranged individuals in all ethnic categories. The event in Buffalo is far from representative of white suppression or how white people feel about the black communities. Ben is merely stirring the racial pot because that is how he makes a living. Ben is a racist pig by using racism to his advantage.
What happened in Buffalo was horrible. No community deserves that fate. No one deserves to be targeted because of their skin color. But I have to think that people like Ben, who continue to stir the racial pot, are partly responsible. The media is doing the rest by putting Ben’s face on the news to promote the racist agenda to sensationalize the news.
Four years ago, Benny Crump came very close to installing a easily controlled crony in the Florida Governor’s mansion.
If he had been successful, two of the three branches of Florida Government would have been under his control heading into 2020 and redistricting this year.
Thanks to Treyvon, Crump is going to be a major Dem player in the future, possibly involved with whatever Jesus candidate emerges for 2028.
I think I said similar a while back. Maybe I just thought it. Might be time for a support ticket to DreamHost.
Whoo hooo, cooollll blessedly cooooooool air is flowing again. My diagnosis was correct. Motor start cap for the compressor was failed. Visibly. Big sucker too.
Had them check out the system, refrigerant level was good. $140 was more than the cap and me doing it but was cheap including the testing.
Talking with the guy, he’s had supply chain issues too, but not as bad as some. He didn’t have a problem getting duct because he’s got it stacked in his shop. Out here, he says you have to carry everything, since you can’t just pop down the road to an HVAC supply house.
I ended up paying cash, as he couldn’t get his square account to work on his phone out here, then couldn’t get logged in. Cash is king, still.
n
@rick, I agree, those times you were getting are good enough. Most of the time I get similar times but at least a couple of times a day it will be sit and spin while waiting for the site to load. Didn’t used to be like that. FWIW.
n
EEWwww. I didn’t know we had the “love bug” season in TX. Must be just up here, and not in Houston. Black flying carpenter ant looking things, mated in pairs…. all over the front of the truck and now on my kitchen table too.
I’m going to have to up my game regarding flying insect control. Several cases of fly paper were in the auctions last week and got me thinking about it. If sanitation and hygiene degrade, if you’re living outdoors or with windows open, there will be bugs. I will add “looking at insect traps” to my list of things to do when I get home.
—
I got my beans planted, three rows, before it got too hot. I’ve got zukes to plant before I leave today. Meanwhile, I’m trying to get some sprinkler action going.
n
I pulled a sheet of aluminum foil to wrap the lasagna that is now in the freezer. Used a Sharpie to write the directions on the foil. Me are smart!!! ugga! ugga!
While sealing the foil to the rolled edge of the aluminum pan, I ran a thumbnail in the grove. I don’t have much of a thumbnail. I wasn’t pressing hard. Sliced the foil better than a razor blade. What the heck? That’s never happened to me.
Re-wrapped with heavy duty foil. Foil with directions crimped over that. Perhaps a couple of wraps with plastic wrap tomorrow. I buy the 18 inch wide Reynolds Wrap.
Yeah, probably. Don’t have the time at the moment. Discovered a major ‘white screen of death’ on one of my custom-written sites. Have to fix that first.
But, have been thinking about doing that. Was having trouble making a round tuit before I found the issue on my other site. Now, the round tuit, even when found, will have to wait.
I ended up paying cash, as he couldn’t get his square account to work on his phone out here, then couldn’t get logged in. Cash is king, still.
My buddy was taunting me yesterday at lunch when he saw the half dozen $50 bills in my wallet. I always carry enough cash to pay my bill in case the stupid credit card get banned again.
EEWwww. I didn’t know we had the “love bug” season in TX. Must be just up here, and not in Houston. Black flying carpenter ant looking things, mated in pairs…. all over the front of the truck and now on my kitchen table too.
Nope, all over Fort Bend County. They are all over my back patio, front door, etc every time we go in and out. There are dead ones all over the back patio and the long haired cat lays in them while he is outside. He refuses to brush himself off before he comes inside and really, really, really resents you brushing them off him. Ever deal with a 15 lb resentful Siamese ?
Pearls Before Swine: Dear World
https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2022/05/16
Oh my, that will not go well. I see a “Bless your heart” in Pig’s future.
“Mattress Mack makes huge Astros bet, doubles Gallery Furniture promotion”
https://www.chron.com/sports/astros/article/Mattress-Mack-Astros-bet-Gallery-Furniture-offer-17175857.php
“Jim McIngvale could win more than $40 million if Houston takes the World Series, which he’ll need to cover the offer he’s making to customers”
The wife and I spent three hours at his place on the Grand Parkway yesterday looking for a power lift chair for the disabled daughter. We wandered the entire million square foot store looking at all the furniture goodies. We found two candidates for the daughter so she needs to go back with the wife to check them out.
We also looked for a sleeper sofa for guests. He had about 15 or 20 of them. They all sucked, even the $5,000 model.
Temporarily fixed my ‘white screen’ web site error with a downgrade to PHP 7.2 from 8.x. Some deprecated statements were causing errors. Still have to fix those to get back to PHP 8.x, but now less of a crisis.
Just after the temporary fix, I put in a support ticket with Dreamhost. Their System Status page for my server shows ‘degraded performance’ for shared hosting. They have had some DNS issues in the past week (that’s all the data available).
More later as I get a response from them.
@RickH:
It’s always DNS.
Except when it isn’t.
G.
Re power lift chair
Also looking into those. Will probably get one from La-Z-Boy, along with new power recliners (love seat size) for the den.
Got a pair of new recliners plus 3-seat couch from them last year. Quite comfortable. The one I use daily (for long periods of time) is a power recliner with preset/remote control.
Wife and I spend much of the day in our respective recliners (in different rooms). (We are both retired.)
Also looking into stair chair lifts for wife’s access to the 2nd floor. She has mobility issues (knees and swelling) and can’t easily get upstairs to her scrapbook room, where she likes to spend time during the day.
Thought about moving to CA and a single story home, but increased mortgage rates, higher home prices (although we have lots of equity here due to those increased prices in this seller’s market), and a $10K yearly state income tax hit on our retirement income negated that move.
It would have been nice to be nearer the grandkids (ages 3-11) there, though. Although I wasn’t looking forward to the moving process. There is literally a ton (or more; it takes up about 2 bedrooms upstairs) of scrapbook material that would need to be moved.
As much as I cr*p on the place, Vantucky (Vancouver, WA) is okay if you live east of the city in Camas or Washougal, but that would only shave two hours off a drive to California down I-5.
Plus, healthcare would be an issue since the dominant group is where my wife worked, and Kaiser wasn’t bothering to open on that side of the river on weekends when we left.
Anywhere in between Olympia and Vantucky would be far worse.
Yep. With civilization, you can keep them under control. In an SHTF situation they would just be part of life. Not really worth prepping for, imho.
Bear Grylls says they are ‘good eating’ .
Besides, you would hopefully have chickens to eat the bugs.
Thought about moving to CA and a single story home, but increased mortgage rates, higher home prices (although we have lots of equity here due to those increased prices in this seller’s market), and a $10K yearly state income tax hit on our retirement income negated that move.
It would have been nice to be nearer the grandkids (ages 3-11) there, though. Although I wasn’t looking forward to the moving process. There is literally a ton (or more; it takes up about 2 bedrooms upstairs) of scrapbook material that would need to be moved.
Sorry to hear that. Moving closer to family might be advantageous in the future. But all the increased costs suck.
Rick, would it be worth looking for a house that you like, in the basic location you’re looking in, owned by real jerks? Then murder them, bury them in shallow graves, and move in. No mortgage and no taxes, at least not in your name. It sounds like a win all around, including for the former neighbors of the jerks.
Be sure to get ones that either contain a reliable battery backup, or will close from both directions (go back down to a flat chair with leg piece closed) manually and EASILY in case of power outage. We had one for my mother in law during the time she lived with us, and she was once trapped in it for about an hour during a storm when the power went out.
Last time we looked at them, such a feature was still difficult to find. Paul can’t use one, as his feet don’t grip the floor, so the lift would just dump him into the floor.
Last year I bought a (supposedly) 100% cotton stuffed futon to replace the mattress in our sleeper love seat. It is much better than the usual mattresses made for those. However, it isn’t thick enough. I bought this one from Wayfair, and it does not have enough stuffing in it, could use about ⅓ more. I need to look for one in a showroom, and see if I can buy one that is shipped on a truck and not squeezed down to go by UPS.
I also question whether they might have used some wool for stuffing and not 100% cotton bolls – that’s the newest trick claimed for comfort but it means the good firm support of 100% cotton isn’t there.
I prefer the old-style reversible mattresses. I found an interesting article that explains why modern mattresses are lousy, and have to be replaced frequently. Like everything else, even the mattress people can’t buy the same quality we used to expect:
Be sure to get ones that either contain a reliable battery backup, or will close from both directions (go back down to a flat chair with leg piece closed) manually and EASILY in case of power outage. We had one for my mother in law during the time she lived with us, and she was once trapped in it for about an hour during a storm when the power went out.
I have a 38 kw whole house generator in the back yard. It will power just about anything I have. And I got it big enough so the neighbors can come over with their extension cords for a six week outage. The only down side is that it needs a lot of natural gas, enough so that I had to get a super sized natural gas meter.
My dog was using the generator this morning as a stalking position for the two squirrels next door. There is about a two foot distance between the generator and the garage, just perfect for somebody to lay in the grass and watch next door.
Last year I bought a (supposedly) 100% cotton stuffed futon to replace the mattress in our sleeper love seat. It is much better than the usual mattresses made for those. However, it isn’t thick enough. I bought this one from Wayfair, and it does not have enough stuffing in it, could use about ⅓ more. I need to look for one in a showroom, and see if I can buy one that is shipped on a truck and not squeezed down to go by UPS.
URL please ?
I slept on my brother’s futon for three weeks when I moved back to Houston in 1989. I got tired of it and moved to my parents house for a real bed then. I was going back to Dallas every weekend for my family so it was only five days per week.
“One of the most powerful DDoSes ever targets cryptocurrency platform”
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/04/one-of-the-most-powerful-ddoses-ever-targets-cryptocurrency-platform/
“15.3 million requests per second is HUGE, especially when delivered through HTTPS.”
Good night !
Hat tip to:
https://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram/archives/2022/0515.html
This futon claims that that the mattress is 8 inches thick. Is that thicker than yours ?
https://www.wayfair.com/furniture/pdp/red-barrel-studio-arioc-full-futon-and-mattress-w005404986.html
“Biden Secretly Orders U.S. Troops to Somalia, Reverses Trump Pull-Out”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/05/biden-secretly-orders-u-s-troops-somalia-reverses-trump-pull/
Why ? Why ? Why ?
My apologies for not being clear: I bought a futon mattress to go on my existing traditional sleeper sofa. That mattress IS thicker, but it is built differently than what I was looking for.
There are some very nice looking futon frames these days. And, it is possible that a modern-built futon and frame might be more comfortable than the traditional pull-out sofa bed. I would look at those if I were thinking of buying an entire piece of furniture.
This is the one I bought. Our pull-out needs a twin-size. The description has changed since I bought it more than a year ago. It DOES still say “no foam” which is part of what I was looking for, but now says “Filled with cotton and fiber pads”. It would be fine if it were used on a platform bed that had full support under it.
The issue with this one is not so much the thickness, but the amount of fill within the cover. It has looseness due to not being completely packed full, and that keeps it from being as solid as I want. I was looking for a hard , reversible mattress. There used to be mattress factories that specialized in sewn cotton-filled mattresses, but I couldn’t locate one. This kind of mattress was as close as I could find at the time.
About the “seal up the house” thing, I get it. Stop the drafts and your heated or cooled air stays inside.
Before we replaced the windows I could sit at my PC and the bedroom across the hall had the door pulled to. Too? To the strike, not latched, enough to mostly keep the dogs out of that room. On windy winter days the door would bounce against the strike.
Possibly inexpensive if not just cheap windows made around 1980 don’t have a way that I could figure out for replacing the gaskets. If I ever could find the gaskets. Vinyl gaskets…. still flexible but shrunk in length a couple of inches each window, some more than that. That’s the gasket I could see. Top of the moving part? No clue. I did some good with self stick foam weatherstripping. Still, the top gasket was a problem.
I thought about caulking the windows closed. For all of five minutes. What happens in case of fire? There you are in your jammies and pushing the screen out is one thing but then getting through the broken glass? It’s several feet to the ground from most windows here.
I caulked and sealed the a/c vents. That worked great at the previous house and helped a little here. Sealed the various outlet boxes /as/ I messed around. Not much of that actually. If the outlet is on an inside wall, yeah, stuff a bit of insulation in the hole where the Romex goes into the wall. Outer walls, not so much. Made a point of working the ceiling light fixtures.
The bathroom vent fans didn’t. Fan in ceiling, insulation over fan. Huh? Who does this? I put some scrap dryer duct on each fan and at least vented into the attic. I had a gable fan running on its t-stat.
Fans have been replaced over the years. Master bath vents outside. That was a pita project mostly from doing it all on a ladder. Works fine when the weather is cold. Works better if I open the window an inch. Otherwise, just open the door. Yeah, we have the deck wrapping around most of the house. Four feet wide covered walkway. It’s nice. Shades the house. I had the bathroom window replaced with a door. Swings out. All of the structural stuff was there, door or window whatever. The door was an improvement from a drafty window. Anyway, out in the middle of 26 acres and it’s nice to do the morning routine while watching and hearing the birds and tree rats.
Hall bath vents into attic but that fan mostly vents “OMG I ruined the toilet and the paint is peeling”. I take a shower in there a couple of times a year just so it gets some use.
Ok. After all of my rambling, I have the house sealed up about as good as I know how. How sealed? If all of the windows and doors are closed, running the clothes dryer pulls attic air in through the whole house fan louvers. I don’t smell “attic” in either bathroom. Hey, those crappy looking vent flaps actually mostly work! Opening the laundry room door window an inch or so stops that. I need to fix that…. the louvers have thin fuzzy felt gaskets but they don’t seal. Not enough to stop determined mud daubers from getting into the house. I’m thinking of how to do it and still be able to use the fan once in a while.
It’s time for the dogs to get their snack cookies. Judging by the way I’m being stared at….
Oh. The 50 comments thing? Yeah I posted and where did it go? Down vote for that feature. 🙂
The PHP version problem is probably the entire problem. DH upgraded to MySQL 8 in January. Right about the time this site stared to act wonky.
If you are looking at comment #50, there’s a link just under it for ‘newer comments’. If you are one 2+n group of comments, there is a link for ‘older comments’.
If you are on a page with comment #51, then a page refresh will still keep you on that same comment, with new comments shown below it.
RTFS.
“Calls for increased natural gas production ignore US infrastructure needs”
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/calls-for-increased-natural-gas-production-ignore-us-infrastructure-needs/623756/
“The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s track record is just one of many proof points of the already difficult and lengthy process to build infrastructure in this country. From June 2021 until March 2022, FERC did not approve any major natural gas projects. Since then, FERC has approved six, but there are still 8 major natural gas projects pending approval before the commission with the combined potential to provide more than 11.3 million cubic feet of natural gas per day in additional capacity. Without this additional transportation capacity, some of the additional gas supply policymakers are calling on developers to produce may not reach American consumers or LNG terminals.”
“In short, the Biden administration’s words and their policy actions are telling two different stories. While the President has recently shifted his narrative to support American natural gas, his administration continues to introduce and implement policy that impacts our industry through added delays and costs. Though his messaging may be encouraging, the actions tell a different story. Rhetoric must match reality.”
Federal man talk out of both sides of mouth. Want natural gas but don’t want infrastructure. I guess they are going to fly the natural gas to the users on the back of fairies.
>> It’s always DNS.
Except when it isn’t.
Yeah, then it’s a cable,
>> EEWwww. I didn’t know we had the “love bug” season in TX. Must be just up here, and not in Houston. Black flying carpenter ant looking things, mated in pairs…. all over the front of the truck and now on my kitchen table too.
Don’t know if those are the same ones we had in Florida, but if so I know that they can do nasty things to the paint on your vehicles if you leave them on for any length of time.
>> Of course, it doesn’t matter to Mayor Pete since his government fleet Yukon has a six speed Allison transmission, taxpayers cover the costs of daily operation, and his driver can always pull another vehicle from the motor pool if necessary.
Hey…don’t forget about last quarter mile that he bikes to the office on the bicycle that’s stowed in the back of the Yukon.
My parents still house was like that. Every window caulked shut. I don’t know if dad did it when he bought the house or they were like that. I would guess it was like that when he bought the house, as he did undo it later.
The KJP era starts with a seamless transition…
The ‘Peter Doocy asking a question Karine Jean-Pierre can’t/won’t answer’ era in the WH briefing room has begun!
So soon we’ll see if MSNBC ponies up the 9:00 PM (ET) time slot to Circle Back Girl when Maddow gives up the daily grind to work on ‘special projects.’
Barak Obama, with tons of white-guilt republican and independent women (and girly-men) in addition to stupid democrats, got 69MM votes his first time around. I suspect fraud even so, based on growing up in corrupt Illinois next to corrupt Missouri.
Meantime, NaN would have us ignore our guts and believe that Slow Joe Biden, campaigning from his basement, got 12MM more votes than even Obama, including a bigger number of black votes. Incidentally, Trump lost with 74MM (more votes than any previous winner, ever), and that’s with rampant stories of people throwing away his ballots. The first sitting president to increase his vote count in his second election, and yet lose.
NaN is sort-of correct, though. The proof will never materialize, so long as those cheating on elections run the elections and the justice system. To coin a phrase, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. And I’ve heard rumors there’s some sort of movie out about ballot fabrication and harvesting, though I haven’t looked for it. And apparently, you have to look for it, since none of the Democrat-controlled “news” agencies will cover it. Including Fox.
I was never around when this site’s founder was around, and I’ve heard great stories about his patience with fools, but I wonder just how much credulity he would have put up with. Did he support flat Earthers?
I wouldn’t invoke him, but NaN often does. May the founder rest in peace.
Walking a incorrectly delivered package down to the neighbor’s house, I noticed a new Mustang EV abomination parked at the house next to where I dropped off the package. Adding insult to the name was a “GT” logo on the back of the electric vehicle.
It isn’t a Mustang. It definitely isn’t a “GT”.
The GT is for “Goes Thwoosh!” if anything goes wrong with the battery.
You never answered my question about your connection to Kent State.
Alumni? … or washout?
Meantime, NaN would have us ignore our guts and believe that Slow Joe Biden, campaigning from his basement, got 12MM more votes than even Obama, including a bigger number of black votes. Incidentally, Trump lost with 74MM (more votes than any previous winner, ever), and that’s with rampant stories of people throwing away his ballots. The first sitting president to increase his vote count in his second election, and yet lose.
I predict that there will be at least 500 million votes in the 2024 election.
2024? Try the election for Governor and US Senate in Georgia this fall.
Y’all need to stop responding to Numb-a-Nuts. He misses the days when his momma’s pimp would beat him. Being smacked around was better than being ignored, so he learned to be an obnoxious little pile of rodent droppings when he wanted attention. It worked for him so he never learned to act around others as a normal adult would.
2000 Mules by Dinesh D’Souza about ballot packing.
Another neighbor’s house has a recent vintage Camaro in the garage with a serious V8. *That* is more “GT” than the E Mustang.
We joke that the wife’s name is Donna.
https://www.npr.org/2021/12/03/1061314781/-2158-donna-drives-a-datsun
I drove a Mach-e last month – it was a base model. It was ok. Fake engine noise pumped in, performance ok. I’d much rather have a petrol engine (Felt the need to channel Clarkson there for some reason).
>> I drove a Mach-e last month – it was a base model. It was ok. Fake engine noise pumped in, performance ok.
Try out a Tony-mobile Model S Plaid – will get you to forget petrol engines. I’ve ridden in one once but not driven one. Bring clean undies.
>> See the YouTube channel, the BUILD SHOW where Houston based contractor builder Matt Rissinger (sp?) recently kept only the 70’s slab for his own new home.
Sheesh, just what I need, more videos to distract me from the To Do list.
https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2022/05/16/what-happens-when-a-country-goes-all-in-on-the-green-agenda-200-dead-as-sri-lanka-literally-runs-out-of-gas-n1598311
Not one dime.
@RickH, thanks for down arrow. I almost never use it except for a certain individual.
NBA to stage games in United Arab Emirates, where homosexuality punishable by death
https://www.foxnews.com/sports/nba-stage-games-uae-where-homosexuality-punishable-by-death
If you missed the eclipse last night, you can at least get a view of LeBron and the boys putting their rosy bums up in the air for their Chinese masters.
Conventional war with Russia. People like my former Colonel Bat Guano neighbors think it would be contained or, failing that, won with minimal civilian casualties. 20. 30 million tops.
Shoot, that is less than 10%. Dr. Strangelove would be happy with those odds.
Mechanical ventilation works great until it doesn’t. Like when the power goes out, the filters clog, or the motor fails silently. Then your first sign your house is a tear down or remediation site, is when the mold blooms…
F that noise.
All this tech and design effort to sqeeze a few cents in energy efficiency SO THAT THE POWER COMPANIES CAN PUT OFF BUILDING NEW PLANTS. If you recall, the whole thing started so that they could push off the plants that would be needed anyway as the population grows.
They shifted that cost and health risk to YOU.
n
Hey, just try building a new power plant now. Even out in the sticks, FERC is forcing the LNG liquefaction plants ($12 billion each) to replace the two variable speed gas turbines with constant speed electric motors that require a slushbox to get to variable speed. All in the name of reducing carbon emissions.
Generation is only half of the problem.
The other half is transmission and that’s at least as much of a problem to get past the regulators and the NIMBYs.
California’s brownouts twenty-some years ago occurred partly because of manipulation of the system but also partly because a 300kV line was not built from northern California, which had a surplus because of the hydro, to southern CA, which had a surplus of demand. This line was not built because the NIMBYs and BANANAs wouldn’t let it be built: Not through my neighborhood! Not through that sacred Native American burial site! Not within 1000′ of a school! Not through the national park! Not past an underprivileged minority community!
I wasn’t involved in the attempts to route the line but heard about the problems they were having and how the boss finally threw up his hands and said, “OK, you retards don’t want us to build up new capacity? Fine. Just don’t come whining at me when your lights go out.” (paraphrased)
I was involved in the analysis in 1997, which showed that southern California would be at steadily increased risk of power shortages and could expect blackouts within a few years if they didn’t change something. Nailed it.
NIMBYs and BANANAs
NIMBY = not in my backyard
BANANA = build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIMBY
BANANA is new to me.
https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2022/05/16/what-happens-when-a-country-goes-all-in-on-the-green-agenda-200-dead-as-sri-lanka-literally-runs-out-of-gas-n1598311
Not one dime.
Is this the USA in three years ?
“Is that the USA in three years ?”
Nah. Not with the PLT-to-fuel mini-plants that SteveF and I are working on. If Ford had a Model T that could run on farm alcohol, we should have a tractor that can run on city PLT’s.
“Is that the USA in three years ?”
Nah. Not with the PLT-to-fuel mini-plants that SteveF and I are working on. If Ford had a Model T that could run on farm alcohol, we should have a tractor that can run on city PLT’s.
I am scared to ask but, what is a PLT ?
I get the feeling that it is somewhat related to MZBs (mutant zombie biker) from the awesome “Lights Out”.
https://www.amazon.com/Lights-Out-David-Crawford/dp/0615427359?tag=ttgnet-20/
Made it home.
Last thing I did was plant the zukes. 5 big mounds.
I do not like the 50 comment thing. It breaks my habits and I miss comments.
2000 Mules. Uses cell phone location data and surveillance video obtained under freedom of information act to link democrat operatives with ballot stuffing. Video + movement metadata. The bits I’ve seen look pretty much like ‘beyond a reasonable doubt.’
n
And did I mention that the moon is bright orange and as near to full as makes no difference?
It’s stunning to come over a hill and have it pop into view.
n
I do not like the 50 comment thing. It breaks my habits and I miss comments.
My sediments exactly!
@NaN
OK, did that… every one from 1998 to 2017. Bob mentioned the event 10 times in 19 years, 7 times was a boilerplate lead paragraph including names of all four. The other 3 were shorter mentions. 9 years of no mention at all. So, your point?
>> I am scared to ask but, what is a PLT ?
Got me too, nothing here seems to match?
https://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/PLT
I gotta vent. I was trying to solve a technical problem, and wound up calling a support number for Fr 40 per 15 minutes. Got a technician on the line, who pointed me to a LogMeIn website so she could see my screen. I told her “I’m using Linux, this will be running under Wine, is that ok?” She said sure. Couldn’t see my screen. Struggled with this for 10 minutes or so…
Then she said, “so, is that Windows 10 or Windows 11?”
I hate incompetent tech support. Sure, I know most of their calls are dumb, so level 1 is rarely the best, but that is paid support? I asked to connect to the next higher support instance. She gives me a number, which I call, and I’m right back in the same damned call center at level 1.
At least the guy I connected with the second time confirmed that I hadn’t been charged. Oh, and his answer? “We don’t support Linux.” So I spent some more time surfing, and eventually got everything working. Under Linux.
ProgLibTurd, I believe MrAtoz’s appellation for the useless segment…
n