Author: Derek

Party at Ward Manor

May 2, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Last weekend we had a family gathering in celebration of The Brother’s birthday. This was a little different in that it was completely my side of the family – including Rocket Engineer Brother, SIL, Niece, Nephew, and Nephew’s Girlfriend who came from the other side of the state.. I smoked a couple of pork loins, and we had a bunch of other food. This was the first time at Ward Manor for SIL and Nephew’s Girlfriend.

Niece and Nephew’s Girlfriend were enthralled by the clowder. The cats were petted, played, and photographed to a new extreme. It was kind of amusing and endearing to watch.

Much fun was had by all.

Monday Links

April 29, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Reason links first:

Another reminder that cops have no duty to protect you.

Gasp, politicians helped killed the Amazon / iRobot deal. Can I tell you how much this annoyed me?

The Supreme Court is taking a look at another case of the ATF’s flexible rule making. This one involving so-called ghost guns. Or as we refer to them, unfinished parts.

FCC is bringing back net neutrality. Because we have to solve a problem that has never happened.

And the FTC is banning non-compete agreements, even though that may be beyond their powers. Okay, I can understand non-competes where you could bring trade secrets to a competitor. I can also understand wanting to stop non-competes being blanket issued on all employment contracts including fast food workers. Still think this should have been passed by Congress, not the FTC.

Colorado told HOA’s they can’t ban home businesses.

Now, on to the Ground News aggregations:

A quarter of adults over 50 say they don’t expect to retire.

The feds don’t think Putin ordered Navalny’s death. Okay, fine. But I’m good with using the felony murder rule.

Ukraine pulled its new-to-them Abrams tanks after losing some to drones. We are seeing the rules of warfare change on the fields of Ukraine and in the streets of Gaza. I doubt that tanks have been supplanted, but they will have to learn how to survive.

A company wants to build submersible superyachts. It reminded me of a wild-eyed scheme that The Brother and I once had to turn old Soviet Typhoon-class boomers into luxury cruise ships. You know, because they already had a pool built into them.

Now on to some other stories:

One of the local stations reports that the last big owner of Clearwater properties not tied to the Church of Scientology has sold out to someone with ties to Scientology. Clearwater is pretty much the company town for the Church.

John Richardson reports that Marion Hammer’s contract with the NRA has been quietly canceled. I’m kind of unsympathetic to someone who helped loot the organization that I dutifully paid into for many, many years.

The Verge has an article on Home Assistant. Ward Manor currently runs the Echo ecosystem for its smart home needs because they’re relatively cheap and easy to use. I’m not against switching to something that would work just as well without getting Amazon’s ads and curated articles pumped in.

Angry Staff Officer has another great article mixing science fiction properties and modern military theory.

Time for light items.

For ten grand, you too can have a robot dog with a flamethrower.

Space Battleship Yamato is celebrating its 50-year anniversary with new sequels.

The Quintessential Quintuplets are coming out with a new movie.

Clowder Happenings

April 25, 2024 / / 0 Comments

The Wife and I have had some concerns about the state of the vet practice we take the clowder for some time. About a year ago, the vet tech we know very well departed under less than ideal circumstances. I was not willing to switch if it was a labor dispute and we were only getting one side at the time. The agreement was we would not switch unless the service was going down hill.

The service started going down hill. The techs were always good, but instead of our main vet that we liked, we were constantly seeing a parade of unfamiliar vets. Some good, some okay, but no consistency. Okay, it’s time to switch. It also helped there were two new vet practices about ten minutes away from Ward Manor, including one that had an emergency vet practice – who also employed the vet tech who was let go from our current vet. We decided to hold off until after our summer vacation, because we didn’t want to cause any issues with the pet sitter about where to take which cat if there was an emergency.

One of the cats is currently on insulin. The Wife was shopping around to get a price. One of the local pharmacies suggested a switch that would cut our cost to a quarter of the current prescription. The Wife calls the vet and asks if it can be switched. The vet tech said they would ask the doctor, but she sounded a little “cagey”. Um, is there an issue with the vet? Well, Friday was her last day, and the vet tech will have to talk with the vet currently managing the practice. But don’t worry, it’s the one you saw last week and liked.

After that conversation, The Wife and I decided we needed to move quickly because it sounded like original vet may not be a going concern or sold the practice. Neither of which we were willing to weather. When you have a large and complicated clowder, relationships are important. So, we call up the vet practice our friend is now working and explain the situation.

The good news? That practice is taking over our old vet, and the new vet is the “managing vet” that The Wife liked. Better news? They have access to all of our cats’ records so switching will be much easier. The only downside? We still need to get as many of the cats at the new place to get fully established before our summer vacation.

But, with vets, relationships are important.

Monday Links

April 22, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Starting off with the obligatory Reason links.

I have a trio of stories surrounding the current DEI workscape.

A thinkpiece on the Uri Berliner story. I’m not surprised he was suspended. You can’t publicly shame your employer and not escape consequences.

Speaking of NPR, let’s talk about the current boss’s tweets. She’s certainly not talking.

Google fired 28 employees after they protested their now-former employer on company time and on company premises. When you’ve lost Google…

Kansas has reformed their civil asset forfeiture laws. Let’s keep this ball rolling.

Virtual cashiers? Interesting. It sounds like it’s still in early days. I remember one chain I used to work with piloted a similar project for its drive thru order takers.

Now on to other stories.

From the Hill, even the IMF is worried about the US debt.

BleepingComputer reports that current and former T-Mobile and Verizon employees are being offered $300 to do SIM swaps. Why do all the heavy hacking work when you can find someone to do it for you on the cheap?

The Verge is reporting on new 4TB SD cards. Four terrbytes on an SD card. I was looking at those size drives when I put together my old NAS, and I thought they were expensive.

The Reload has reporting that there are more than 700 million standard capacity magazines floating around. Ward Manor refuses to comment on the extent it contributes to that total.

Sporting Illustrated had a couple articles on the new pistols and new shotguns for 2024. I still want to upgrade from my Mossberg 590 to an autoloader.

On the Florida side, I was pointed to this article about why we may not be seeing as many lovebugs. Lovebugs and mosquitos can both go extinct and I don’t think any Floridian would mourn the loss. H/T McThag.

Ward Manor Happenings

April 18, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Last Friday was a bit hectic. The Brother’s cat has been having some issues. The Brother asked The Wife and I to come up to help him wrangle the cat over to the vet. Plus, The Brother trusts my wife to ask all of the good questions due to her long history of cat ownership – including cats with complicated medical issues. The cat is doing better, but it was a long day.

Sunday, The Wife and I with Brother In Law and Sister In Law traipsed down to North Port to go to their mineral spring. It was an interesting little soak, but we came home smelling of sulfur. What surprised me was the crowd. Generally, in this area, when you hear languages other than English, it tends to be some flavor of Spanish or possibly Haitian Creole. This was the first time I heard more Slavic-sounding languages than Spanish.