It might be warm and damp. Might not, but I’m betting on warm and damp. Yesterday cleared to a beautiful afternoon and early evening, but got overcast and cooled a bit later. There were even some spotty drops from the sky depending on where you were in town. Nothing real at my house though.
I’ll have to move fixing the sprinklers up the list if it stays dry much longer.
Spent yesterday afternoon doing auction things. Picked up at two houses, mostly stuff for the BOL and home. One item was a needful thing that has been in short supply for a while. Price was reasonable too. Went by the GW outlet, and picked up a couple of handy things and a couple of things for resale.
Came home and looked as some of the stuff I got at the hobby estate. I’ve still got some books and some more tools to go through, but I’m happy so far.
I also sorted some auction stuff. I’ll do more of that today.
It would be nice to get a freezer delivered to make room in my storage unit… but I’ll settle for sorting more auction stuff, and maybe doing home maintenance. I’ve got to stick close to home to get the child from her GS trip. I should break down and vac seal some meat too. Just my normal domestic bliss…
For the first time in a couple of years I was able to add to the stack of one certain thing in a meaningful way. Look around, supply might be opening up a tad.
Stack whatever you can find.
nick
I need to check our sprinklers this week before those guys get busy if I need something major done. Thanks for the reminder.
The AC guys are due tomorrow.
We spent most of last week in Orlando for a medical conference at the Coronado Springs hotel on Disney property. The hotel and logistics are ok, but we weren’t paying full Disney prices.
Notes held back to preserve OpSec until we got home:
Disney is obviously still combating a serious gang problem at Disney Springs, which they inherited starting 30 years ago when The Mouse decided to kill Downtown Orlando’s night life with the Pleasure Island complex addition to what used to be just a high end shopping area.
The entire Crossroads plaza at the east entrance to the Disney property has been leveled. I’m old enough to remember when that was just trees, but seeing it all gone suddenly was surreal. The State of Florida doesn’t seem to be in a big hurry to build the new offramp to alleviate the traffic problems at that point, the reason the shopping center was demolished.
Can’t imagine why DeSantis isn’t making that a priority. Anyone who thinks the Governor lost the standoff over Reedy Creek last week doesn’t understand the situation completely.
Disney may have fired Stacey Aswad from the resort closed-circuit “Must See” programming, but the new narrator is still reading scripts written for Stacey’s persona — hearing a man say “soooo cute” is … odd.
The area around the Orange County Convention Center was a zoo yesterday. If 100,000 people descending on the big geek/comic show wasn’t enough, the geniuses booking the center decided to host the NASB convention on the same day with Janelle James from “Abbott Elementary” as the keynote speaker, requiring a massive amount of parking get set aside for just that event.
The demographic going to see Janelle James at an education show doesn’t get on a shuttle bus at a remote lot.
Yeah, parking. Trump, tho.
Supply chain issues – none of the stores had the right replacement deodorant when I realized I left mine at home, even Publix, which was the real surprise.
Publix doesn’t do shelf holes like HEB, but the stock was spread thin in places.
Half of the rental car companies at Tampa Airport were names I’d never heard of before. Weird. Our rental was a 2023 Camaro even though my wife’s name is not Donna. Typical GM — the Camaro had the telltale signs that it was burning oil.
@Jenny – We saw Gates McFadden signing autographs yesterday. She looks great, but it is scary to realize that she’s 70.
Her line was really thin, and we would have stopped to express appreciation for the new season of “Picard”, but my autograph budget was blown.
If you and your husband are fans, the “Bounty” episode of the current season of “Picard” is as much of a nostalgia emotional roller coaster as “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” or “Top Gun: Maverick”. Watching the rest of the series prior to the current run of shows isn’t necessary with the possible exception of “Nepenthe” in the first season.
Someone decided that “Star Trek” was worth saving from “woke”, at least the Stage 8/9 era, even if it was to keep the residuals rolling from H&I nightly broadasts to put more money in Warren Buffett’s pockets.
And find a copy of Brendan Fraser’s “George of the Jungle” to watch with your daughter. 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITlM041DW1U
Jenny, for that bizarro table import, I’d write a simple script to split the CSV file into 250-column slices. Import each slice into its own table, using a generated primary key to match up the rows.
Oh, my sweet Summer child, do you think that will be allowed to make a difference? The “oddities” of the 2020 and 2022 elections are the new normal.
See also: Girl game streamers. Not that I game or watch game streamers but people who do unanimously say that not one is good enough that anyone would watch, if not for the cleavage on display.
Some of that even occurs in the science/engineering videos that I do watch. There was one young woman showing a lot of skin while talking about fusion reactors or something, but she was pronouncing half of the words wrong. Ah, got it. You’re not a physics grad student discussing science news, you’re a model pretending to be a physics grad student. -plonk-
They’re probably attempting to channel Margot Robbie in “The Big Short”, who was a nod to the textbook expert testimony scene which landed Marissa Tormei the Oscar for “My Cousin Vinnie”.
Dan Aykroyd’s sadly overlooked breakown of commodities trading in “Trading Places” may also be an influence, but that would be for cadence, not Y chromosome appeal. 🙂
Some damage to the house from the very strong winds. Mostly trim on the edge of the roof. Roof is getting replaced this year along with all the soffits so I am not really concerned or upset. I have to pick up pine cones, again, from that pine tree that I hate. The tree is not on my property so not much I can do about the droppings.
Several people around the area had trees fall. A few had the trees do significant damage to their homes. One car was crushed that I am aware. Lots of power outages in the area, some not getting power back until tomorrow about noon according to the utility website. The large affected affect areas are restored. What is left are spots of one or two homes.
It really was some monster winds with gusts above 60 mph at times.
That was my battle yesterday. I have a supply line that feeds two zones that’s leaking around the valve box. I got the box out and the area dug up. Found the leak, cut out what I had to and made a new manifold. I got everything in and somehow managed to not glue one small pipe. After many swear words and much contemplation, I left it for the day.
This morning I’m going to Lowe’s to get a flexible pipe to make the job 1000000x easier. I didn’t know those existed until I started searching last night. I also need t figure out a way to protect that pipe. It’s beside the driveway and not in the box. I think a car ran over that area and caused the crack. Hopefully I can find a bigger valve box so I can have the pipe protected in it. Lay a foundation of bricks and have the box sit on those.
LBJ’s stolen election
https://hotair.com/jazz-shaw/2023/04/01/lbjs-stolen-election-n540925
All sorts of clean and dirty tricks available.
@ITGuy1998
Section of corrugated drain tubing works pretty well. Not too ugly in black, but can be painted if you have the need to blend in better.
@Lynn
You might find this useful:
John Wick’s Entire Backstory Explained
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTubsMBrSb4
Don’t be there.
– I’ve written about that before. I consider it to be glib and borderline offensive.
WHY should someone abandon public discourse because another group threatens violence? Why not expect the state to provide protection for you as they do for them? I know that people make personal security decisions vs political ones. Ben Franklin’s quote comes to mind.
Violence shutting down opposing viewpoints may be natural, but it is counter to the social and political process. It’s wrong and should be pushed back.
Secondly, Don’t be there, assumes you know in advance there will be a real threat to your security. Having lived thru the Rodney King Riots in Los Angeles, with arson damage to my workplace, and smoke blowing in my front door while I watched the fires at the bottom of the hill, Don’t be there isn’t always an option.
There are plenty of examples of people caught in violence that they could not have reasonably expected. Reginald Denny springs to mind, but there have been far too many since then.
Mobs move. They swarm. They change direction. They come THRU YOUR AREA.
You don’t have to seek them out.
nick
Warm and damp. Overcast. Still. Kinda weird light. I’d say “tornado weather” if it wasn’t so still.
n
AoSHQ
The Saturday Night Joke
@Greg Norton
Two thumbs up.
@Nick
We’ve seen multiple examples of the police standing by doing nothing, presumably on “orders”.
My advice to any officer who gets such orders is to quit immediately and find another place to serve or get out of the biz entirely.
Because “officers’ obeying such orders are no longer officers, they become the worst part of ”them”. It’s only a trivial costume change to get the pretty wolf’s head and spiffy lightning bolt insignias.
As far as @brad’s
that is good advice up to a point. I used to enjoy Portland, and Chicago and San Francisco. I’ve been to Times Square. Not likely I will ever willingly go back to these and a lot of others in my lifetime.
But when it comes to my own downtown, or state capitol, it’s LOLGF time if anyone thinks I will cede it to the thugs. Particularly when the reality is that a lot of those thugs get very efficiently moved around the country to hot spots via some shadowy and well-funded communist/prog network that no one seems very interested, yet, in exposing and draggin out into the light. They ain’t my neighbors, they are an infection trying to spread, and should be dealt with accordingly.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., on 60 Minutes this evening.
At Long Last, Mathematicians Have Found a Shape With a Pattern That Never Repeats
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/at-long-last-mathematicians-have-found-a-shape-with-a-pattern-that-never-repeats-180981899
Looks to me like the simplest description is four hexagons each dissected into three pentagons that are then assembled into three asymmetric thirteen-side polygons.
I grew up reading Scientific American and this type of article. Sadly rare now.
I don’t think you need a shadowy network. Hooligan tourism is a thing. It’s common here in Europe, with football: hooligans will travel far and wide, just to get to where a game is being played, where they figure they can provoke the fans.
Keep in mind that continental United States is larger than Europe (so long as you don’t include too much of Russia in Europe). And that our trains and buses are not effective for anything beyond daily commute distances.
I’m pretty sure that the semi-covert funding of pAntifa and similar groups, which was revealed a couple years ago, included chunks of money for moving the cadre by plane and partly-trained mob members by charter bus. (I’ll check that in a bit if I remember but right now I need to feed the animals, including but not limited to teenagers.)
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/these-are-50-most-visited-websites-world
interesting the number of pron sites that rank above search engines…
n
Datum.
nestle’ medium cream in a can, bb of 2019 still good in my coffee this morning. It was right on the edge though, as it gets old it gets a more ‘cheese’ taste than a clean ‘cream’ taste. Eventually it will turn into a puck in the can. I haven’t tried eating the puck, but it might be good soft cheese…
Like all preserved milk products it does have a bit of a sweetness or caramel undertone normally.
n
@ray, glad you and your stuff are all ok.
n
Follow-up to my comment above: Yes, the Project Veritas investigation into pAntifa covered their funding in some detail. That’s the report I’d been thinking of.
@Lynn
You might find this useful:
John Wick’s Entire Backstory Explained
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTubsMBrSb4
All that you need to know about John Wick is that his boss’s son stole his car and shot his dog.
@jenny – re you data import problem.
Assuming I had a SQL database with the structure matching the columns of the CSV file, I would
Even a very large CSV shouldn’t take too long to do. Not very efficient, maybe, but simple.
Rick, the CSV import problem was the number of columns, I believe. MySQL has a limit of 4096 columns in a table but that’s more a theoretical limit than an actual limit because things blow up before you hit the theoretical limit.
Found a deck of these at goodwill.
https://www.mudpuppy.com/products/little-feminist-playing-cards
They could barely find 13 women to ‘celebrate’ judging from the list, which includes Queen Elizabeth and Cleopatra.
One of the others is Frida Kahlo, who the left loves. Member of the Communist party.
her favorite subject for painting was herself. What the brittanica article leaves out- she had an affair with Trotsky, and was a suspect in his murder.
She was a serial adulterer, drug and alcohol abuser, and later turned on Trotsky [becoming a Stalinite.]
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-frida-kahlos-love-affair-communist-revolutionary-impacted-art
I can’t argue with most of the remaining women featured, Gloria Steinem, Rosa Parks, Amelia Earhart, Billie Jean King, Sally Ride, Jane Goodall, Marie Curie, Hillarity and ginsberg round out the list. The Joker says “The future is Female.”
Lot more lesbians than the gen pop, and the nice biased statement on the joker tops things off…
Just what I want for my girls.
n
Re SQL and 3,000+ columns
Thanks for the ideas, truly appreciated, gentlemen.
I agree Python may be a good option. I’m mucking about with PowerShell first, that’s our ‘approved’ scripting tool. I’ve done similar tasks in Python, but internal standards limit my language choices.
I‘m going to bump into a few of the MS SQL limitations listed here.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/sql-server/maximum-capacity-specifications-for-sql-server?view=sql-server-ver16
I’m examining the data before I get too deep into things because at a glance, a large number of the columns contain no data. The initial queries will be simple SELECT / GROUP BY to identify unused equipment. I won‘t need all of the columns. Trick is to identify which columns will be useful. Pulling in all the columns is going to just make a useless mares nest.
This is probably a rare case where we would be more efficient in Excel and pivot tables, however that’s not what management wants. So.
I’d say they missed a few First Ladies: Dolly Madison, Eleanor Roosevelt, Mamie Eisenhower, Jackie Kennedy, …
Seems like quie a few authors could be on the list.
Historical figures like Eleanor of Aquitaine …
Female role models: Margaret Thatcher.
re: lots of columns
Much of my last job revolved around data analysis as much as database work, so Excel became my everyday tool. I immediately thought of it for your problem.
It sounds like there are many approaches to solving it, but your management is limiting your options by limiting your tool selection.
The joker in me wants to go back to the canonical model of relational databases, and take your 3000×3000 cells of data and map them to a single table with primary key of row#,col#. That’s 9 million rows. Ugly, but SQL Server handles it.
Then you can analyze by column to find useless empty columns.
You can create views or CTEs to extract the rows or columns , and most important, rows consisting of subsets of relevant columns.
I think even SSIS can be coaxed into doing that. Ugly and slow and coding required, but it’s a path.
An occasional problem like this keeps your job from getting boring.
Nick,
I find this very offensive but police are garbage men in these situations. They can only call an ambulance after you get your head kicked in and maybe arrest a few people that will get released without bail the next morning.I have been in the situation where I have had to be there and much like you I took all precautions available.
I would not lose sleep over an elderly person shooting jackboot thug much as I didn’t when Kyle Rittenhouse shot those people up here in Wisconsin but if I were elderly I would have three or four grandsons with me so they never get a chance to put me in a coma. This also makes it much easier to shoot in self defense and protect myself.
It is much like a young woman shouldn’t go down a dark alley alone…good things don’t happen. I think everyone should have the right to protest but a gub won’t help you, as much as, a good plan,
The wind picked up, and there are a few random drops out there. Still warm. Got D2 home from her trip, but W1 is off on business. Just me and the brats for a few days…
I’ll have to work pretty hard to keep the house from exploding with laundry and dirty dishes.
n
>> Just what I want for my girls.
@nick, keep looking for another deck, not fair for them to have to share 😉
I haven’t fired up the gaming PC since December. So, I did. A lot of updates to the Alienware Ryzen. After everything was done, the Alienware Control Center is borked. Not critical, but it lets you overclock and change the lights on supported AW peripherals. I just started the update to W11. Once that is done and gaming is working, I’ll chat with Dell. I pay for support and might as well have them fix the borked Control Center.
It’s been awhile, so I’ll play through Half-Life 2 and then Alyx. I still have to update the VR hardware. I’ll wait for W11 to install.
@lynn, any improvement with your Starlink service?
Huh, W11 installed by the time I wrote the above. The Alienware Control Center is still borked, though. HL2 works fine. I’ll chat with Dell about the borking.
My neighbor at the BOL who had been interested in sharing his starlink (and the cost) got it, and got the update. But he didn’t mention it because he’s changed his mind about sharing. He says there isn’t enough bandwidth, he’s getting 20-40 mbps and two streams will cause buffering…
so I still need to get something else sorted.
n
I am unable to use a regular thumb drive with W11 to wipe my Surface laptop to a virgin condition. After booting from the USB drive, created with Windows Media Creation Tool, the setup screen appears, as is expected. However, the trackpad, keyboard and touch screen do not function. Obviously missing drivers. I suppose I might be able to hook up a wired mouse to get through the clickable items. But there is still the matter of a keyboard and there is only one USB-A port occupied by the rodent.
I have to download the Surface recovery software from Microsoft. That creates a thumb drive. Then I have to copy over the files downloaded by the Media Creation Tool to that thumb drive. I guess drivers are provided on the recovery software but still needs the Windows files.
The only option is W10, no W11. That will require going through the update process from W10 to W11. Something I wanted to avoid to get a clean install of W11. Bummer.
LOL! Dell has no chat support on the weekends. Only M-F business hours. I didn’t even try their phone line. As usual, their automated support was useless. I followed an detailed article and no go.
>> He says there isn’t enough bandwidth, he’s getting 20-40 mbps and two streams will cause buffering…
But…but…Tony promised 100!
To be fair, Tony is launching satellites at an astonishing pace. One rocket per week is un-freaking-believable.
And really, 40 is more than enough for work from home. I don’t have any need to stream video while we are there.
n
Just like the $40k EV half-ton pickup.
Cherry makes a combination keyboard and mouse pad used for POS system which I buy on EBay. I have several around the house.
One USB-A connection covers both, and I haven’t found a system which needed drivers for the basic functionality. I’ve never tried the credit card reader built into the keyboard.
Anything new becomes a training and backup developer issue.
Pizza boxes from the Big River…
https://www.space.com/amazon-kuiper-satellite-internet
LOL.
I’m really likely to run all my data through Amazon, being the paragons of integrity that they are.
Really.
I am not buying stuff to make it work. I will just deal with the software work around.
So meme-ing which should be covered by the 1A is a prison sentence —
Mackey has been found guilty by a jury of his peers of attempting to deprive individuals from exercising their sacred right to vote for the candidate of their choice
but ACTUALLY depriving people of their ACTUAL vote is just fine.
n
The fake ad in question had that “Lets Talk About Healthcare”/Pajama Boy feel going which appeals to the Progs since it makes them feel smarter than the masses. I would be willing to bet that the crowd I saw showing up at the school board convention in Orlando yesterday would have no shortage of people who would buy the meme as genuine.
Of course, they weren’t riding the city bus to the convention center like I did from Disney Springs.
The upside? I got to park in employee parking behind the transfer station near Cirque du Soleil (sp?) when I showed up in the lot at 8 AM and told the guard I was there to catch the bus.
15 feet from my car door to the bus door. At the convention center, the bus stop was closer than most of the parking.
Yeah, the management sucks as of late, but Disney still has some very cool people working the front lines.
In case anyone is concerned, I am home and not violating OpSec, but someone was home all week and my neighbor, the VMI grad with lots of sporting goods at his house, would love another encounter with whoever was casing my house last Spring Break.
For those unfamiliar with “Pajama Boy” — Sherman set the way back machine.
Real name: Ethan Krupp, an employee of Organizing for Action, literally a “community organizer”.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2013/12/opinion-rich-lowry-obamacare-affordable-care-act-pajama-boy-an-insufferable-man-child-101304/
>> In case anyone is concerned, I am home and not violating OpSec, but someone was home all week and my neighbor, the VMI grad with lots of sporting goods at his house, would love another encounter with whoever was casing my house last Spring Break.
Hmm…are George and Martha still with Barb?
“President Biden to Impose a US Version of the Great Chinese Firewall?”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/03/30/president-biden-to-impose-a-us-version-of-the-great-chinese-firewall/
“Could voicing support for a climate skeptic position land you with a million dollar fine, if Biden’s “RESTRICT Act” is passed?”
“Section 3 C of the act appears to give the Attorney General the power to declare receiving news from overseas sources off limits to US Citizens.”
Are you kidding me ?
McDonald’s closes ALL of its US offices and cancels in-person meetings this week as it prepares mass layoff of corporate staff – after CEO warned ‘difficult decisions’ will be made
– Church’s Chicken has closed most if not all stores around me. Sonic has closed several.
n
– time for shortwave, and illicit radio receivers.
n
>> Church’s Chicken has closed most if not all stores around me. Sonic has closed several.
Breaking: Chick-fil-A closes all its stores on Sundays.
What’s next? 7-Eleven will only be open from 7 AM to 11 PM?
“Waking Gods (The Themis Files)” by Sylvain Neuvel
https://www.amazon.com/Waking-Gods-Book-Themis-Files/dp/1101886749?tag=ttgnet-20/
Book number two of a three book science fiction series about giant robots. I read the well printed and well bound trade paperback published by Del Rey Books in 2017 that I purchased new from Amazon. I am reading book three in the series now.
This book is written in the style of interviews with various people. Much like the book “World War Z”. And, personal logs and video transcripts.
Nine years after the Themis giant robot was exposed to the public, another giant robot appears in London. And then proceeds to destroy half of London and kill over 100,000 people. The two Earth Defense Corps pilots take Themis to London to disable the new robot. After they disable the new robot, a dozen more giant robots show up around the planet.
Dan Livingston recommended this book series to me:
https://best-sci-fi-books.com/review-sleeping-giants-by-sylvain-neuvel/
My rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars (2,217 reviews)
Breaking: Chick-fil-A closes all its stores on Sundays.
–haven’t they always? I’m missing something…
‘n
Over The Hedge: No Stinking Peacocks
https://www.gocomics.com/overthehedge/2023/04/02
Yup, peacocks are divas.
Breaking: Chick-fil-A closes all its stores on Sundays.
–haven’t they always? I’m missing something…
‘n
I think that Alan is making a joke.
This 200,000 layoffs by McDonalds Corporate has me spooked. I did not know that McDonalds corporate even had 200,000 employees. But the stock is the highest it has ever been. Something must have gone bad in a hurry.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/MCD?p=MCD
McDonalds layoffs: I found this link about their employee numbers.
Interesting: the number of employees in 2022 is one-third of what it was in 2013. They have already reduced from 440k down to 150k. Which is still a heck of a lot of corporate overhead.
So this appears to be a continuation of the housecleaning that has been going on for a decade. Honestly, it’s nice to see a company clean out middle-management cruft pre-emptively, i.e., before it drags the company down. How the heck did McDonalds ever need 440k corporate employees?