Something Random

[Handruin]

It won't teach them anything, they'll find some other scapegoat to blame.

 

[jtr1962]

They already did. They claim the government can control the weather, so it's sending hurricanes to punish red states.

 

[Mercutio]

1. Who is controlling the GOP? (I don't mean to sound like a tin foil hat wearing fool, but who decided to support an convicted felon as a nomination)?

I do believe this will sound pants on head crazy but I believe this to be the case:
The way that conservative politics worldwide works seems to be that tere's a group of billionaires with some form of niche interest in changing the way the world works. Some want widespread theocratic rule. Some are ultranationalists. Some have pet theories about alternatives to democracy. Others just want to make money without any restriction, even if that means absolutely annihilating the Earth as a habitable planet.

These guys fund Think Tanks and media companies to advance policy positions throughout the world. To some degree, these groups can coordinate their operations. Since these groups have largely compatible goals at the moment, they're often able to have an exchange of ideas at a policy level such that they can produce compatible plans to both politicians and the general public. This is why conservative talking points in the USA will appear "spontaneously" from multiple organizations and individuals at once. You'll see groups like the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute and far right or extreme libertarians like Curtis Yarvin advocating for the same policies in different ways, and at the same time, extremist groups with like the 3%ers also begin demanding the same things. It's because they all get their money from the same place.

I think at this point Russia, China and the Saudi government are also fully aware of just how far their money can go to influence Western political structures and that it's cheaper and easier to manipulate the media and our politicians than it is to fight wars, so that's certainly a factor as well, but at the end of the day we really, truly have to understand that we are in a hole that has been created by a combination of money amplifying speech and misinformation destroying any credibility of trust in science or institutions that used to be seen as common good.

I don't see a way out.

 

[ddrueding]

That isn't too far from my thoughts on things, Merc. It is one of the reasons I decided to locate the highest ground on the planet and stay there. Probably isn't enough, and it came at considerable cost, but we all do what we can I suppose.

 

[Newtun]

A friend sent me one of many cases in the new regime :

Our new ambassador to France … Charles Kushner
“…convicted of illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion, & witness tampering, & was sentenced to two years' imprisonment…As convicted felon, was disbarred in three states. He received pardon issued by his son's father-in-law Trump on December 23, 2020.”

 

[Chewy509]

From an outsider, it certainly appears that he is filling positions based on loyalty to himself (or his family), rather than based on qualification or expertise in the field.

 

[Mercutio]

Well that might be the most correct statement ever made here in the pub.

 

[jtr1962]

Anyone know how to get a cat out from under a car? My cat ran outside last night. When I tried to get him in the yard he ran under my brother's car in the driveway. Good news is he's staying there, and with the fences he's contained to the driveway and yard. Bad news is he's been there for over 12 hours and nothing is working. I tried food, calling him, playing cat sounds, pushing him out with a broom, etc. I've left the side door open all the time in case he does decide to come in on his own but I hope it's soon. It's getting into the low 30s again tonight.

 

[Newtun]

Maybe the new Director of the U. S. FBI, Kash Patel:

• active promoter of Qanon conspiracy theory whose core belief is that a cabal of Satanic, cannibalistic child molesters is operating a global child sex trafficking ring that conspired against Trump.

• promoted use of pills that, he said, reversed the effects of COVID-19 vaccines

 

[Mercutio]

Anyone know how to get a cat out from under a car?

Piece of shrimp on a string?

There's a mother cat who has her kittens every summer under a disabled man's car at my apartment complex. The car moves about four times a year so it's normally pretty safe for the cat. We (me and a couple downstairs neighbors) usually spend a few weeks convincing the the new guys to come out by leaving cat treats, tuna or wet food out. Sometimes we can get them fostered and adopted and sometimes we eventually take them to one of the no-kill shelters if there's room. Momma cat is VERY skittish and doesn't take the bait, but she does seem to understand that the people by the car are helping her babies. This year we set up an insulated outdoor shelter for her as well because she's definitely not an indoor girl.


Newtun, the simple fact is that every single person picked to head an executive department is going to be uniquely unqualified if not ideologically opposed to its stated purpose. These people aren't getting background checks that local postmasters have to have.

 

[jtr1962]

Piece of shrimp on a string?

There's a mother cat who has her kittens every summer under a disabled man's car at my apartment complex. The car moves about four times a year so it's normally pretty safe for the cat. We (me and a couple downstairs neighbors) usually spend a few weeks convincing the the new guys to come out by leaving cat treats, tuna or wet food out. Sometimes we can get them fostered and adopted and sometimes we eventually take them to one of the no-kill shelters if there's room. Momma cat is VERY skittish and doesn't take the bait, but she does seem to understand that the people by the car are helping her babies. This year we set up an insulated outdoor shelter for her as well because she's definitely not an indoor girl.

Thanks but I managed to get him. I checked under the car around 6:30 PM yesterday and he wasn't there. I didn't see him in the yard, either, so I looked all around the block. Turns out he was hiding in the vegetable garden between the compost bins but I forgot to look there first time around. Given how he fought his way out of my grip the first time I figured I wouldn't be able to carry him back, so I devised a plan. I bought over the small brown compost pail we got from the city. I think it's 15 gallons. I calmed him down for about 15 or 20 minutes so I could start lifting him. He started getting nervous and fighting but by then I had him in the compost pail. I closed and locked the lid, then bought him inside. He bolted out of the bathroom into my bedroom. Within a few minutes he was calm again. He looks none the worse for wear today after his ordeal. He was out for maybe 18 hours.

I need to make sure he's locked in another room whenever I open any outside doors. This isn't the first time but the other times I got him back in within a minute.

Nice of you to give the momma cat a shelter. It gets way colder by you than by me.

 

[Mercutio]

Give him a bath anyway. It's like picking a fight with a blender but better to know now if he found any fleas or has any wounds.

 

[jtr1962]

Give him a bath anyway. It's like picking a fight with a blender but better to know now if he found any fleas or has any wounds.

I started that yesterday, at least until he ran away. I'll give him a dose of flea treatment also. He had fleas earlier this year. No idea how given that he's strictly an indoor cat. Evidently the fleas in this part of the country developed a resistance to FrontLine. Advantage II worked with one treatment.

 

[Newtun]

Breaking news: Trump nominates the CEO of Boeing as head of the FAA.

 

[Newtun]

NY Times: Elon Musk spent more than A QUARTER OF A BILLION DOLLARS in the final months of the presidential election to help Donald Trump win.

<insert political cartoon of Trump as a marionette controlled by Musk>​

In other news today, Donald Trump announced the replacement for all federal government vehicles:

 

[sedrosken]

As a break from the dreary political landscape, some more retro adventures for your perusal:

Putting RAM in this P3B-F box has been an utter nightmare. It seemed fine through a 98SE install which in my experience has been pretty sensitive to bad configs in the past, but eventually I ended up having to troubleshoot why it seemed nothing Direct3D wanted to launch and I wound up running Memtest86 only to find it was freezing near the end at the modulo 20 test. Sounds straightforward, no? Replace the second stick.

Fun fact, no.

Both of these sticks are fine. It's just that 440BX is a bitch and is extremely particular about what RAM it likes, and where it likes it. Add to this that the board is approximately 25 years old (it's definitely a late BX board, from its support for Coppermine chips and BIOS date of December 1999 at the earliest) and it's clear I needed to put some Deoxit through the DIMM slots. I eventually settled on a triple set of 64 meg sticks to make 192MB, as that ought to be plenty for the time being and it's the only combination I have that would finally get through a round of Memtest86.

It's funny, the IRQ sharing and ACPI issues I usually have with 440BX stuff hasn't been an issue here. I think I managed to find slots for my addon cards that aren't actively having their resources shared with each other.

Right now it has a Katmai 450 in it but I have a Coppermine 550 that I'm hoping will manage to hit 733. I hear this is one of those boards that more reliably hit 133FSB on 440BX, and the 550 is quite literally the slowest Coppermine to exist on desktop, and I should be able to manage 733 at a respectable voltage like 1.8 or maybe 1.9. Honestly I think I'm more concerned on whether the Voodoo3 will tolerate an 83MHz AGP bus or not, but the PCI bus has a proper divider in place for 133 operation.

 

[sedrosken]

Probably passing my Elitebook on to my girlfriend when I see her in February -- she's still using a mid-2010s Chromebook for her computing needs, which, frankly, aren't a lot, so an 8550U running Windows 11 should suffice for a good while. I still have my Pavilion, so I'll probably go back to that for the forseeable future for my laptop needs. My next step is to eventually end up in an Elitebook or Thinkpad or some other such with a 7840U for the 780M iGP, but I imagine it'll be a while yet before I go for that -- I'm more liable to give my TV PC an upgrade first so I can run some heavier stuff (like Valheim) locally on it instead of relying on Steam Link (which, to be fair, has mostly been a flawless experience over my wired LAN).

It should be interesting getting through airport security with three laptops (mine, hers, and my work machine in case I'm needed) as I already got a couple looks when I brought two through last time -- then again, that was a small local airport, this'll be my first time at Pensacola. Merc, I'm stopping at O'Hare for about a 3hr layover both ways, if you want to drop by, though I'm sure that's a fair trek for that little time -- You're in Gary, if I'm remembering right? I pass through there on my way up I-65 to see my mom every so often, she lives in the suburbs.

Also there's probably something wrong with the P3B-F, I'm not sure if it needs recapped or what but any AGP card fails to get into Direct3D modes for anything more than a couple minutes. Maybe it's a power delivery thing... I'm using a CX550M that was already in the case, but maybe I need to pick out something with a stronger 5v rail. I just didn't imagine a PIII being strong enough to need more than the, what, 20A the CX550M provides.

 

[Mercutio]

I actually just spent the week in Tampa. My partner is planning to move down there. I don't know how the hell anyone affords anything any more.
I'm pretty sad about it all, but truthfully she needs to move on. Indiana isn't a good place for anyone, really.

 

[Handruin]

That's a bummer she's moving on. Sorry man, that's no fun. Why does she want to move to FL?

 

[Mercutio]

She has a job opportunity and family there, and it turns out that she's grown very close to my dear friends, who also live in the area. Basically she'd have a better life overall and I can't even remotely argue otherwise.

 

[jtr1962]

Any reason you're not considering moving with her? Is there anything keeping you in Indiana?

Of course, if hot weather isn't your thing then I get not wanting to move to Florida. That's a state you couldn't pay to move to.

 

[Mercutio]

I don't think I could build a new customer base there and I'd probably have a hard time finding work as an older tech with no interest in management or corporate work experience in the last ~20 years.

 

[Handruin]

You're a smart dude, I'm sure you could find work there even if not as interesting as a job. I know our field ages us out but I still work with plenty of devs in their mid to late 50s who aren't management.

 

[ddrueding]

Dev work and management seem to be more forgiving of age than IT itself. Sure I was looking in a different market, but I feel the perception is similar. My buddy and former business partner (the dev) has been turning down work, where I had to found my own company to get a job.

 

[sedrosken]

I think you might well be fine if you're okay with working for a company instead of freelancing -- I'd seen a fair bit of work in Tampa when I last went looking. But if you're dead set on staying where you're at, I understand it.

 

[Newtun]

Speaking of Something Random, DD in DK, thanks to the Danish Storyville Records for their archival of classic jazz.

E. g., I'm but a happy serf in the Dukedom of Ellington, and Storyville was kind/generous enough to provide an online compilation of Duke's classic amateur-live-recorded 1940 concert in Fargo, ND. Here's their link: https://storyvillerecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-duke-at-fargo-1940.

This incredible band was touring the U. S. hinterlands, and two recent college grads convinced the music bureaucracy to let them record this concert.

You might imagine this busload of brilliant black musicians touring around the country, and word getting around among the 1940 Dakota hipsters that Duke was coming to town to perform at a dance in the Crystal Ballroom. (We can also imagine the "challenges" they faced on their bus tour.)

This is one of the few sources I could find for one of my (many) favorite Duke songs, On The Air. Other songs of his were recorded many times over time, and the variations can be interesting. E. g., a version of the classic In a Sentimental Mood, Duke accompanying John Coltrane. What generation gap?

 

[ddrueding]

Their office is right downtown Copenhagen, there is a great hotdog shop between them and the train station

 

[Mercutio]

I think you might well be fine if you're okay with working for a company instead of freelancing -- I'd seen a fair bit of work in Tampa when I last went looking. But if you're dead set on staying where you're at, I understand it.

It's not so much that I'm dead set as that the role and position I have is meaningful and stable. I'm not getting rich by any standard, but I like the life I have. There's a lot of trash IT service companies out there I could work FOR, or I could try to swim upstream by starting my own, full time, but looking for new customers is far and away the worst part of being in that business to begin with.

I'm established here. Getting re-established someplace else sounds like punishment.

 

[sedrosken]

I was dealing with the same wicked instability on this R5-4500U laptop that I was last time I used it extensively and I can't remember how or even if I ever fixed it. I'd either BSOD with a DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE that points in the direction of ntoskrnl and eventually shakes down to Microsoft-provided drivers for my AX201 WiFi chip, or I'd hard freeze when trying to decode media while slamming the CPU. I can't figure out if I've got it fixed by updating the chipset, GPU and WiFi drivers to latest -- I'm not sure if I'll ever really trust this thing again. And I just splurged on a 2TB SSD for it, too...

 

[Mercutio]

My partner decided to put off her big move for a while. She's still leaving, but the current plan is to wait and look for apartments with the people she'll be rooming with. I think the reality of being on the hook for those extra months of rent right away really killed her enthusiasm for going, even though that means sitting through another winter here.

 

[Newtun]

Hey, David D, I hope you're not drafted to fight against Trump's threatened invasion of Greenland.

 

[jtr1962]

Everyone in the US should be worried about a draft also if he plans to invade Canada and Panama as well. During WWII the draft age was expanded to include 45 to 64 year olds.

 

[Mercutio]

Most adults over age 30 would probably be 4F regardless. Too many sedentary, pot-smoking people who have ruined their eyes from bad phone habits.

I sort of think Trump talking about these imperialist ambitions is going to be his narrative for why some future administrative positions don't get adopted. "The Generals" or "the Deep State" or "NATO" won't let the US be as great as I want it to be. I think he's trying to emulate Putin as an imperialist. He definitely has a boner for wanting to play with all our military toys, even if he spent his last term getting his every terrible idea shot down by actual adults.

Speaking of the draft: I never met my grandfather. He lied about his age and volunteered to serve in World War I. As I understand it he was a mustard gas survivor who lived with a rasping cough his entire life. He was 42 when the US started sending kids overseas again for WWII, but he could safely pass for 35, and every time the Army called up a bunch of farm kids from Central Illinois, he'd get on the train with all of them and spend the entire trip explaining to scared young men exactly what would happen to all of them, and then he'd go through the whole process with them as if he was a new recruit. That meant getting vaccines (with enormous 1940-grade needles), getting his hair shaved off and being issued a new uniform. He did that eight times.

I am not sure why but those train rides seem a world more heroic than being a guy who got a taste of phosgene in a trench one time.

 

[ArAfGo]

I was drafted and remember that there was a line of us in preparation for an overseas tour of duty and there was a medic on each side and we'd step up and get whatever number of shots it was in both arms. It was so long ago that I don't remember how many shots in each arm, but at least two in each arm and with needles and those guys were really good at holding two syringes in each hand and doing that shot stuff really fast. Might even have been three in one hand at one time, but I really don't remember. But it was one heck of a kind of assembly line, except it was humans, not machines. Well, sort of like machines. We were just processed, trained, more processing, then in-country training they called it. But a lot of stuff changed over the years. That was the early 70s and not so long after I was in the draft was stopped. Lot of the training changed, too. I was in aviation, which was no surprise as I was already fixed wing rated, except they put me in choppers. That was a surprise, for sure. So long ago. Funny, too, I've pretty much stayed in Asia ever since. Could say I did a few tours in CONUS. Made sure I was stationed in the U.S. in '76, so I would be there for the 100th celebrations. Had one mighty big celebration in our back yard. Put up a GP medium and fired so many fireworks the next morning a white table was black with soot. Was in Kentucky and a sink hole way in the back of the yard got to burning that night and for a few days. Fire department came out the next day and said not to worry about it. Said those caught fire a lot as folks would cut the grass and dump the grass in the sink hole.

 

[ArAfGo]

By the way, I am understanding that agreement related to the Canal Zone included a clause that has some sort of language that if the U.S. is getting a raw deal in some manner then all bets are off. But I haven't studied that agreement. Not my AO at any time during active duty, or DoD or State work.

But our past history has a lot of really uncool stuff related to gaining territory. We basically stole a big hunk of Mexico. And don't forget, we bought Alaska. Lots of folks thought that was really stupid when it was first agreed to, but now . . .

 

[ddrueding]

Hey, David D, I hope you're not drafted to fight against Trump's threatened invasion of Greenland.

So long as they don't deport me as a spy or something I'm good.

 

[Mercutio]

I was drafted and remember that there was a line of us in preparation for an overseas tour of duty and there was a medic on each side and we'd step up and get whatever number of shots it was in both arms. It was so long ago that I don't remember how many shots in each arm, but at least two in each arm and with needles and those guys were really good at holding two syringes in each hand and doing that shot stuff really fast.

There were a total of eight standard vaccines given. I've seen syringe guns that delivered four injections at at time, but that might not have been what you got.

When I got my second covid booster, it was delivered by an Army corpsman and it was done so quickly and so smoothly that I didn't even realize it had happened. This guy just handed me my vaccine card at the same time he stuck me. I guess they're pretty good at it at this point.

As far as the canal zone, Panama has not adjusted pricing for carriage in line with inflation as it is. Moving gigatons of freight through the canal is an insane value compared to circumnavigating South America regardless, but apparently the pricing based on inflation should be something like $60/ton and it's more like $20/ton for US shippers.

 

[sedrosken]

So we're already getting a hell of a deal and Trump wants to take a mile and a half when given a few feet like always. I'm absolutely thoroughly embarrassed by how the incoming officer of the highest office in the land is behaving. He's trying to emulate Putin, it looks like. I just hope our relations with Canada hold up long enough for me to get in, see my girlfriend, and come home -- my tickets aren't refundable, so if the border closes I'm just... out that money.

 

[Mercutio]

Go up there and fucking get married so they don't make you leave. Claim refugee status if you have to. You'll be better off.

Around 25 years ago, I just missed out on a senior Windows admin position at a tech consultancy in Windsor and I doubt there's a day that goes by that I don't think about how different my life would be if I'd gotten that job.

 

[sedrosken]

I can't just leave. I have obligations and family down here.

Oh, and uh, just occured to me -- if we were to invade either Greenland or Canada, that would make NATO invoke Article 5... on us. Christ, we're going to enter the 2030s so isolated it'll make the early 1900s look like a joke.