Posts by bombastic bob 10935 publicly visible posts • joined 1 May 2015
"Medalion Homes" - I remember those, advertising on TV even. I lived in one in the 1960's, but it had gas central heat and gas water heat at my mother's insistence. They actually HAD IT BUILT at the time. It's worth over $1M now, but neither my mother nor myself nor my siblings saw ANYTHING out of it... the side effect of (mostly bio-dad) parents making VERY bad decisions.
It's those laws of physics, getting in the way again...
And now another shoutout for Arthur C. Clarke's "Superiority"
NOTE: there is potential with things like peltier devices; however I do not know how large a peltiere-based heat pump would have to be to provide adequate energy transfer. A much better way would be to sink pipes 50 or so feet into the earth, where the temperature tends to be above freezing in most places, and use that as a heat sink/source for a heat pump. The question is whether or not the extra expense and maint costs are worth the benefit...
the very bill this article is writing about is banning gas grills too!
You KNOW that there will be people driving their SUVs and pickup trucks to Nevada and Arizona to get a propane grill and plenty of fuel for it, right? Or, sending someone ELSE to do it.
Those with money do NOT have to obey these "laws".. "THEY" will ALWAYS have "nice things" - UNLIKE the rest of us!!!
2 words - the name of a restaurant: "French Laundry" - a perfect example of this 2-tiered snobbery. During somewhat recent lockdowns, Gavin Newsome took his family to a restaurant when NOBODY ELSE COULD GO TO ONE, and they DID NOT WEAR MASKS (the ones they demanded US to wear). SImilarly Nancy Pelosi got a hair cut in San Francisco and was photographed doing so without a mask, when ALL of the hair salons were in lockdown [except for servicing HER]. THIS is who these people ARE. Without arguing the moraiity of shutdowns and lockdowns and masks, it is OBVIOUS that for THEM, it is "ONE LAW FOR ME and ANOTHER for THEE..." [they must view us as plebes, mooks, and serfs]
that's kinda true.
Often the 220/240 outlet is split phase, depending. I am not sure if my 220 outlets are or not.
am pretty sure the electric stove is on a 220 circuit, and there's a 220 outlet for an electric clothes dryer. But I use gas for that. Also the water heater and central heating (gas). I'd rather keep it like that.
If my bedroom gets to cold at night *I* *AM* *SICK* *ALL* *OF* *THE* *TIME*
My thermostat stays where it is, with supplementary portable heaters as needed. Since I am limited to 15A on that circuit, they can't be very powerful, either. It gets amazingly cold sometimes, even in Southern Cali-Forn-You, along the coast.
oh it shut down just fine. the emergency cooling did not run, though, because the tsunami flooded the diesel generators. If it had NOT been for the flooded diesel generators, no leakage would have ocurred, and no meltdowns either.
decay heat is as high as 8% of operating power immediately after shutdown (which exponentially drops over several days to something more manageable), and nuclear waste (stored in the buildings) constantly emits heat. The inability to cool them resulted in melted containment and radiation leakage.
electric heat in Cali-Forn-You is MORE EXPENSIVE, regardless.
I own a GAS CLOTHES DRYER, which I purchased DECADES AGO because they are WAY cheaper to operate. Same basic idea as gas heat. I also prefer a gas stove (but have not had one of these in a long time) because they are faster responding and easier to control the level of heat, among other things.
The ONLY effect this is going to have is to drive anyone who is NOT a "rich snob" out of the state!
(I will be quite old by then - Texas is looking a LOT better!)
That's possibly true. Those with a sense of "entitlement" are probably more likely to "quiet quit" than those who are "achievers" with a strong work ethic.
It's a turning point in your career when you suddenly realize that you are a VENDOR and the company you do work for is YOUR CUSTOMER, rather than "a job" being somewhat entitled to you, justifying a LOT of blame and complaints and the willingness to stir up trouble because "wrong pronoun" or "boss yelled at you".
And pay scales are based on how profitable YOUR job is compared to how much it costs to have you in that position, If you make what YOU do more valuable, by hard work, experience, or efficiency, then promotions and raises SHOULD follow... and if not, keep your resume/CV up to date and spread it around.
"Quit Quit" is likely to follow you around. It can NOT be good for your career,. Co-workers are often good sources for new positions (especially if you are a contractor),. But if they know that you get lazy to protest things, they may not recommend you so readily...
I agree, the attempts to ban Harry Potter were pretty lame. And I would consider myself to be a christian, though I do not go to churches [sometimes God's fan club can be irritating and even toxic].
That being said, I do hope that in the case of these "Girls Who Code" books that the arguments from that Mom's group are not equally as petty. They could be. Or maybe not. More information is needed.
icon, because, it's possibly ironic
I have not seen prohibitively expensive feminine hygiene products, nor sports bras that are more expensive than boys' T shirts. So I do not "get" what you are saying. I actually go to a store on occasion and have purchased such things for a female relative so I have a pretty good idea of the costs involved. Maybe the only place you can find them is at an expensive department store, but places like WalMart and Target (here in the USA) have these things pretty cheap.
I do not think any of what you said makes ANY sense at all. And how is the price of women's clothing and hygiene products in any way MYSOGYNISTIC? (REAL mysogyny may exist in places like Iran and Afghanistan, but not in westernized countries, not any more)
In My Bombastic Opinion there is not enough information in the article to make any comment, especially without any specifics.being mentioned. I can speculate on possible topics not suitable for kids of all ages but I do not even want to REMOTELY go there without some specific examples.
There are just too many political hot-topic bezerk-button things these days that occasionally find their way into kids' books and set off atomic rage in one or more groups of people whose bezerk buttons get pressed by "fill in the blank."
On the surface this Mom's group sounds like concerned parents whom I might agree with on a lot of issues. But they could also be religious fanatics or something, and so more information is needed to understand what is really happening here. They should explain to El Reg and give some examples.
Anyway, need more information. How else can I put it?
It's almost impossible to move from GTK3 to GTK4 without a total rewrite......
Which is YET ANOTHER reason that major packages (firefox, thunderbird, vlc, wireshark, and so on) should NOT DO ANY DEVELOPMENT for GTK4 !!!
* Colossal waste of time
* Isolate/abandon Mate and Cinnamon users
* Very little benefit, apparently HIGH cost in time and debugging
* No future in GTK4 (or Wayland for that matter) In My Bombastic Opinion
"Just Say NO"
(and maybe it will ride off into the sunset, never to be seen again...)
I forget which KDE was used by Linspire but it looked and worked ok for me. Then again I quickly replaced Linspire with Debian (this was long before systemd) so I could have an inexpensive Linux box with an OS that I believed gave me more choice and a better way of maintaining it.
(and my desktop of choice at that time was Gnome 2, back when gnome was pretty good)
I disagree. The point of open source is NOT to create your own "fifedom" unless you like a small audience or are just doing it for fun.
The point of open source is to collaborate, either by just giving what you do out to the public sphere (with a license if you want), or to assist others by fixing/improving their stuff. Or testing. Or feedback.
Gnome devs became like arrogant Micros~1 "developers" when Gnome 3 was released. Linus had a nice rant about it. It was mostly capitalization and use of the F word if I remember correctly. Deservedly so.
"We will, we will, FORCE YOU"
(to be all 2D FLATTY FLATSO FLATASS McFLATFACE with! Adwaita!)
this "force you" mentality DOES! NOT! BELONG! IN! OPEN! SOURCE!!!
I thought Mate, Cinnamon, and Devuan spoke LOUD AND CLEAR on this.... (but some apparently need stronger affirmation, like maybe a clue-by-four)
Loath, because limited to Adwaita (which i SPECIFICALLY loathe) and 2D FLATTY FLATSO McFLATFAC, unless I misswed something along the line.
Any major software package that uses gnome at ALL needs to consider GTK2 and GTK3 support rather than GTK4 so that Mate and Cinnamon users aren't left out...
How to turn off the 'Adwaita' look in firefox:
a) use mate and install "mate-themes" or similar, basically to get "TraditionalOk" (other desktops YMMV)
b) from command line select TraditionalOk for GTK3
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences theme 'TraditionalOk'
c) in about:config
widget.content.gtk-theme.override = TraditionalOk
widget.non-native.theme.enabled = false
reload browser (or maybe just the page) and that *HIDEOUS* *ADWAITA* *SCROLLBAR* will *GO* *THE* *@#$%* *AWAY* and be replaced with a REAL one. of your choice.
"targets" - then the "fridge moment" happened..
yeah about that - I'm guessing that efficiency experts focused on whip-cracking the warehouse employees by increasing their 'targets' rather than finding ways to make it POSSIBLE for a non-stressed non-whipped employee to just naturally get things done more quickly...
(then the urinal analogy becomes even more appropriate)
On average, unionised workers earn up to 15% more than non union workers do. They have better benefits and working conditions.
This is why unions exist (says Captain Obvious)
Corollary: If Amazon had fixed this (wage scale, benefits) without the unions being involved, there would be no discussion regarding unionization.
Amazon should be doing whatever they can NOW to get a favorable union contract and THEN just let them unionize.
I usually use the '-t' option to test tarballs before extracting, usually to see if it has a top level directory or is more of a "tar bomb" i.e. no top level directory (meaning I have to change directories before extracting).
maybe a quicky utility could be writttten to use 'tar -t' to scan for files with ".." in the path, then flag it or something like a malware scanner would.
then your battery would be the size of your fist and you would swap it every 1000 miles.
Unlikely. Chemical reactions that make batteries possible do not have that kind of energy density.
The limits of physics and chemistry apply to all levels of auto engineering, from material strength, melting point, and energy stored in a gallon of fuel, to the energy capacity of batteries and even the efficiency of tires gripping the road.
Internal combustion engines became lighter and more efficient but you cannot escape the realities of burn temperature, exhaust pressure, and atmospheric composition. Similarly electric cars have road friction, motor size and weight, battery and power conversion inefficiencies, and maximum energy densities associated with the chemical reactions of the batteries themselves.
electric drive is more efficient when you look at "not idling" as proved by hybrid engine cars. And for fuel replenishment and distance, the hybrid cars are superior to all electric. It's all just physics and chemistry.
I expect that if you were to pound a railroad spike into the battery pack of an electric vehicle, a fire would result.
Similarly, several 30 caliber rounds from a single shot bolt action rifle (using 1906 cartridge design) might also do the trick.
Rapid discharge, over-discharge, both do damage to the Li Ion batteries and can cause swelling, fires, and so on. A cell reversal could be disastrous (so hopefully this is being monitored continuously). The tech works fine if you do not short out or otherwise physically damage the cells, so long as you stop discharging them completely (not even a trickle) when ANY cell voltage drops below about 2.5V.
It's sort of like carrying a butane lighter, which if mistreated has enough fuel inside to do some serious damage, but works safely when used as designed.
ask yourself this: how many cars would it take to respond to a 10% increase in electrical demand, something that might happen when everyone arrives home and starts turning lights/heat/AC/stoves on...
capacity of one electric car - about 50KWH (being as generous as possible)
Total electric demand on average in USA - 450 million KW (if I calculated right, 3.9 trillion KWH per year / 8760 hours per year)
number of fully charged plugged-in cars it would take to sustain that for one hour - 9 million (being generous). That is average, not peak (when "help" would be needed, so at least DOUBLE that demand value for a more realistic estimate).
And do not forget that for every KWH coming out of a car, most likely 1.1KWH (or more) would have to go back IN.
A 10% jump would need 9 million cars to take up the slack for one hour - and with an unrealistic generous estimate of around 1 million cars plugged in at any one time, they'd be completely drained in about 7 minutes... unless my math is off. No driving for YOU until it re-charges in several HOURS.
Realistically this kind of battery drainage would damage the cars, so you can probably assume the demand peak would have to be more like 1% which is NOT very practical, assuming that people are willing to have their car batteries COMPLETELY drained like that. I doubt it.
using plug-in electric car batteries for peaker storage is an impractical pipe dream.
Solution: BUILD MORE POWER PLANTS TO HANDLE DEMAND THE OLD SCHOOL WAY (nuke plants preferred for oh SO many reasons!)
U.S. Navy subs always used Pb-acid batteries, like a car battery. Typical lifetime, like a car battery, around 5 years. Maintain them the traditional way, and you'd have a building full of batteries that could store many MW hours of elecltricity. Sure it uses lead. Sure, it uses acid. But if you keep it well ventilated, and do not allow H2 gas to build up nor ICV to deviate too much from one another, the battery is relatively safe as proved by decades of use on U.S. Navy subs and in cars.
Sometimes OLD SCHOOL is the BEST
Again citing Arthur C. Clarke's "Superiority"
(of course the energy needed to mine and refine the components of Li Ion batteries probably uses MORE DIESEL FUEL and COAL than a power plant would, at least In My Bombastic Opinion - and of course ENRICHES COMMUNIST CHINA since THEY typically make the LiIon batteries and solar panels and so on)
getting a damn built in Cali-Fornicate-You would take DECADES due to environmental activists, corrupt politicians, and the worst red tape factory on the planet...
But pumped water storage would have turbine losses based on pressure differentials. It's a physics thing. Not against it, just saying there are losses associated with pumping water (friction) and using it to make electricity (turbine efficiency). One resource suggests 70-80% overall. So 1000MWH in gets you 700-800MWH out.
not a panacea by any stretch of the imagination
My preference would be gas turbine and natural gas diesel plants located in critical zones that could be started and stopped at a moment's notice.
From the article:
campaigners want to ensure that people's chats discussing procedures outlawed at the state level can't be obtained by the cops and used to build a criminal case against them.
I personally believe that the Dobbs decision (which allows states to restrict or outlaw abortions, but would not prevent you from getting such services in another state) is being over-hyped with a LOT of the usual FUD, during an election cycle.
The concern seems to be centered in the idea that state law enforcement would "come and get you" by scanning your private communications looking for "violators" in some kind of electronic fishing expedition. Granted, we should ALL fear that "in general" especially with recent cases and warrants against high profile people including the "My Pillow" guy.
So, I am *ALL* for better end to end encryption! And, I believe that this needs to be SERIOUSLY considered by all service providers, with phone applications and password prompts (and/or biometrics or even FOB keys) and so forth when needed.
Still it's a bit disturbing that the people driving this may have at one time been FOR all of that snooping, until it scares THEM for whatever reason...
I'm tempted to say something like "OK, Junior"
heh heh heh
The world is fllled with examples on what happens when "the next generation" decides "it is OUR turn now" and they immediately re-invent everything to be THEIR way, and then work through the same kinds of previously solved problems that the old way solved just fine, ones caused by doing it "Their Way".
Yet another gratuitous mention of Arthur C. Clarke's "Superiority"
(if you have never had to create the equivalent of a C structure in either assembly language or FORTRAN, then you may not be capable of appreciating the beauty of programming lingos like C and C++)
null pointers, double frees, buffer overruns, data races etc.
I rarely see that kind of bug. Usually I see infinite loops and bad logic. Easily found and fixed. Rust would be "about the same" I'd think.
Those pointer-related issues can also be resolved in C++ by use of abstract objects with reference counts.
/me once solved 'asynchronous allocated memory lifetime' bugs by using ref counts on each allocated buffer instead of trying to manage things with state variables. The end result is that the code became faster as well, which most definitely sold the idea to everyone. It seemed to me to be the obvious solution.
That belief is what is driving the enthusiasm for Rust despite being completely untrue.
I think the one selling feature to NOT adopt Rust is interoperability. That, and a learning curve for your existing experts in C and/or C++ (that last one bothers ME a LOT, wasting weeks or months getting back what I already have with the existing tools and programming lingos).
So, do we really need to re-write a large number of existing libraries code bases in Rust so we can use them again? This may or may not be justified (I really do not know) but it IS a concern, at least for me.
I'll stick to C when unavoidable, C++ where needed and scripting languages everywhere else.
from a practical standpoint, that makes the most sense, especially if you are in IT and need to solve problems as they appear and keep things running the rest of the time.
re-learning "New Shiny" everytime Micros~1 announces something is a colossal waste of time anyway. I'm thinking Silverlight, and that "Metro" thing. BOTH ARE BIG FLOPS.
And I stuck with C++ for any windows progs I wrote, which was not many, and they run fine on 7 too.
Still they ARROGANTLY chose to "Deprecate" C and C++. Who died and made THEM *GOD* ???
apparently Jupiter is close to its apogee, and to some extent, Earth to its perigee, which would make us even closer than for most oppositions.
According to one source, Jupiter's apogee (closest to the sun) is in January next year.
Earth is furthest from the sun (perigee) in July of every year.
Do the maths a bit and it puts us at a pretty ideal closeness to Jupiter.
all comedy aside, the planets exert tidal forces on the sun. The sun is a nuclear reactor and density is a factor in fusion rate. Even a minute alteration of density could change reactivity enough that the fusion rate is altered in a noticeable way, related directly to the positions of the planets relative to the earth, especially large ones like Jupiter. (this would affect the sun's output that is heading towards earth according to the relative planetary positions, rate of motion, and a few other physics things). Throw in the gravity well of the galactic baricenter and that of the universe, and it might explain a lot...
Thinking about that, maybe there is at least a *teensy* bit of truth in the whole astrology thing, minus the wackier mythology.
with Jupiter in direct opposition, looks like "around midnight" would be the best (on average) viewing time. or 1AM with daylight savings time applied. I have a terrible view towards the east, though, but very clear looking west, so maybe 4 AM for me looking west (so it would be lower in the sky, and I won't fall over trying to look up with binoculars).
For those with a nice clear view of sunrise, I would imagine 10 PM would work well.
