A Billion Here...
14:59 Tuesday, 15 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 81.18°F Pressure: 1014hPa Humidity: 36% Wind: 4.61mph
Words: 77
Progressive reporting preliminary figures exceeding $1B for losses in Florida due to Helene and Milton.
The $200 million estimate includes what are known as “allocated loss adjustment expenses,” which can include such things as adjuster costs and legal fees.
Yeah, the part where they invoke the "heads I win, tails you lose" rule.
Anyway, I'm no actuary or insurance expert, but that sounds like a lot to me. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe that's couch change to Progressive.
✍️ Reply by emailLudicrous Speed
14:26 Tuesday, 15 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 79.92°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 34% Wind: 4.61mph
Words: 260
Passing the time, as one does, I moved the Sierpinski program over to the Floppy Emu so I could run it on the Apple IIc.
On the IIc, it runs just as it does on Virtual ][, but there's still something visceral about running it on real hardware. I can recall what it felt like forty-some years ago, seeing hi-res graphics being drawn on a 13" Hitachi color TV that I'd bought to use as a monitor.
It felt like, "the future."
I guess what it feels like now is, nostalgia.
But I can definitely recall that feeling of excitement. Nothing excites me about technology anymore. Well, maybe SpaceX and the Super Heavy landing at its launch tower.
Maybe semaglutide. Heh. But nothing about computers. Or tablets.
Or phones.
Anyway, figured I'd go ahead and run it under Beagle Compiler. Whoa! Takes about 7s compiled, about 8x faster, which means it'd run in about 2.5s on the IIe with the SpeedDemon. That was kind of exciting.
There's a little binary called FAST.HPLOT on the compiler disk that probably substitutes an ampersand-routine (a way of calling a machine language routine from BASIC) for the built-in HPLOT command. I'll have to have a look at that.
Anyway, it's a beautiful day today. The kind of day that makes people think of Florida as paradise. Makes you forget about it taking everything you have from you and leaving you homeless. Makes you forget about the cruelty of the state government here.
At least we got that goin' for us.
✍️ Reply by emailWell...
11:07 Tuesday, 15 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 71.8°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 45% Wind: 9.22mph
Words: 513
The Yellowstone card does not play well with the McT SpeedDemon accelerator card, even setting its slot to "normal" speed.
It remains somewhat possible that essentially upgrading the IIe to the "enhanced" version may resolve the issue. But the Yellowstone card doesn't require a 65c02, so that isn't the incompatibility.
BMOW points out that there is an incompatibility with an unenhanced IIe and the Yellowstone insofar as the "unenhanced" IIe will not boot from the Yellowstone card automatically. You can issue a keyboard command "PR#n" (where n is the slot number), and it'll boot. The ROM update might be my last hope, if it is compatible at all.
I've got a ROMxe coming, so I'll be able to switch between the "unenhanced" ROM and the "enhanced" ROM.
As I had the IIe configured today, I had the Disk II controller in slot 7, the Yellowstone in Slot 5 and the SpeedDemon in Slot 4. At first, I couldn't boot from the 5.25" floppy, until I recalled I hadn't set the dip switch for Slot 7 to "normal." After I did that it booted right up. Scared me at first, because the drive would spin with a strange sound, and I'd get an "Unable to load ProDOS" error message. I didn't associate that with an accelerator incompatibility at first. How was it able to realize it was a ProDOS disk?
Anyway, once I set the dip switch correctly, it would boot to the ProDOS splash screen, then crash into the monitor. (I didn't pay attention to the memory location. I may do that if the 65c02 and enhanced ROMs don't work.)
Removing the SpeedDemon, I'd get a normal boot from the 5.25" drive, and it did automatically recognize the Floppy Emu with a 32MB hard drive image mounted in Slot 5. So, while it may not boot unenhanced, without a keyboard command, it's otherwise recognized automatically by ProDOS.
I think having the Yellowstone's smartport capability is more useful than having a faster cpu. But the faster cpu makes things more fun. With the smartport, I should be able to boot into Pascal 1.3 from a 3.5" floppy smartport image, and run a script to move everything to the RAM disk and run the OS from there. (The 800K 3.5" floppy is large enough to contain all the files you need to run UCSD Pascal on an Apple II.)
That makes doing anything in Pascal a lot quicker and more convenient, especially compared to using a pair of 5.25" floppies.
But the ideal case would be able to do that with the accelerator. The great advantage of Applesoft as an interpreter in ROM is that you get immediate feedback from any changes in your program. With Pascal, there's moving back and forth between the editor and the compiler. It's almost transparent with the RAM disk and the accelerator; less so without it. But still far better than relying on floppies.
It is something of a small disappointment, but I can't say enough about how valuable it is as a way to occupy my time.
✍️ Reply by emailPlay Along
09:35 Tuesday, 15 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 67.55°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 56% Wind: 6.91mph
Words: 92
I've received the new Floppy Emu, so I'm probably going to spend some time with the IIe today, and not devote a lot of time to the Sierpinski program.
But if you want to play along, here's the program as it is with the "RETURN WITHOUT GOSUB IN 190" error. You can copy the text and paste it into this Javascript Applesoft emulator, which doesn't seem to mind the POKE command to get full-screen Hi-Res Page 1 graphics.
It runs a hell of a lot faster than on real hardware.
✍️ Reply by emailLet's See If This Works
08:23 Tuesday, 15 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 61.83°F Pressure: 1017hPa Humidity: 72% Wind: 5.75mph
Words: 36
A risk index from the feds. Testing to see if the link will produce the report. This is for St Johns County, Florida.
Here's Schuyler County, New York, where our "summer home" is.
(Obviously, it worked.)
✍️ Reply by emailAnother Florida Embarrassment
06:56 Tuesday, 15 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 62.67°F Pressure: 1017hPa Humidity: 71% Wind: 6.91mph
Words: 89
I was wondering when or if we'd hear about how these Florida phosphate mines fared. I'm not sure we'll really know, but it doesn't seem near the scale of the Piney Point disaster, which is still in the process of being closed.
That's to say nothing of all the septic tanks that failed. Again, Florida is flat, so as those septic tanks fill with floodwaters, and it flows out into the leach fields, it just spreads out over the landscape. Some of it eventually flows into the waterways.
Awesome.
✍️ Reply by emailPrepper
06:23 Tuesday, 15 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 63.61°F Pressure: 1016hPa Humidity: 70% Wind: 6.91mph
Words: 463
The audio on this report drops out briefly in a couple of places, but it's illustrative of something important.
If you live in an area that may be prone to flooding (or any disaster), you need to educate yourself on what you will do in the event of a disaster.
This is something the state of Florida and the federal government could do much more, ahead of this, to help fight disinformation. We're going to be dealing with much more of this in the decades to come, and we need to get much better at it, and fast.
At the state level, I'm sure it's not congruent with efforts to "promote growth," but making sure people understand how to respond in a disaster, the process, what resources are available, how fast they're available, and what they will have to do on their own while they're waiting, is important.
Watching some of the videos in North Carolina, there are dozens of volunteer organizations trying to help, and no coordination among them. We need to get better at this. Local emergency management officials should lean forward and ask for lessons learned. Plan for how to establish communications networks between volunteer organizations. Let them know how to become part of those networks.
And what is the long-term recovery process? Who oversees that? Implied in this video is that people who were flooded may be eligible for FEMA grants to elevate their homes. How does that work? I'm certain it's a much slower process than the one speaker seems to think it is.
And Florida is just incredibly vulnerable. If you can leave, you probably should. I want to, but I'm only 49% of the vote. Otherwise, be ready to be just like these folks if you don't plan for becoming a victim of a natural disaster.
We have at least one advantage now, someplace to go if we get flooded out here. That's a privilege, for sure, and it has brought me at least some peace of mind. Yeah, it's not ideal in terms of managing things here. I was watching mail get delivered to flooded out, uninhabited homes on the gulf coast, because the Post Office can't just store it all, and the mail carriers feel bad about it. So we need to plan to get a mail forwarding request in as soon as the Post Office resumes operations.
Maybe everyone needs to have a mail forwarding record on file that gets activated in a disaster declaration?
We need to figure this out.
✍️ Reply by emailKinda Working
15:10 Monday, 14 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 86.9°F Pressure: 1014hPa Humidity: 54% Wind: 5.99mph
Words: 300
Made some progress today. I had left out a line, which didn't seem to matter for single curves. I could get multiple curves plotted, but the 2nd and 3rd and 4th order curves weren't aligning correctly with the first order. The fourth order curve was only about two thirds the size of the preceding three plots. It'll plot up to the 5th order, but it gets so busy, you have to plot it by itself. And that takes two and a half minutes.
Since the Apple II hi-res screen coordinates go from 0 to 191 in the y-axis, division by 4 was going to give me a decimal value that would be ignored. I made the quotient an integer value, but I forgot to round up.
H=INT((H0/4)+.5)
Once I did that, everything aligned properly.
I still have a "RETURN WITHOUT GOSUB ERROR," but I'm taking a break.
I turned on the virtual printer and added a TRACE command and got three pages of line numbers being executed. (16 #s per line of print, 66 lines per page!) I tried following the "push" and "pop" on the stack array, but it started to make me go cross-eyed. Anyway, it's working. I may do some debugging later.
Do I understand the recursion? Not really, but I'll play with it some more. There are some other curves I want to try.
✍️ Reply by emailFlorida is FLAT
09:35 Monday, 14 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 69.75°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 83% Wind: 5.75mph
Words: 117
Here's another unique feature of Florida that makes intense rainfall events more destructive: It's flat.
You don't get the kind of extreme, swift-water flash flooding that happens in mountainous regions where water rushes downhill. Instead, it slowly drains through the watershed. If the soils are saturated, it very slowly drains, eventually reaching the rivers and streams, which rise as they, themselves, move slowly, ultimately making their way to the sea.
Florida. A flooding paradise.
✍️ Reply by emailGovernor Dumbass
08:26 Monday, 14 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 63.03°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 89% Wind: 1.01mph
Words: 199
Ron DeSantis is an ambitious man. He's not unintelligent, but his ambition has made him a fool and he does a disservice not only to himself and his reputation, but to all the people of Florida he supposedly "serves."
Discounting the role of climate change in Florida's repetitive extreme weather disasters, DeSantis recently said:
“I just think people should put this in perspective,” DeSantis said at Thursday’s news conference. “They try to take different things that happen with tropical weather and act like it’s something — there’s nothing new under the sun.”
He's a fool. There is something new under the sun. THIS CLIMATE.
This climate, the one we inhabit today, has never existed before in the history of this planet. This amount of atmospheric CO2, with these polar caps, with this landscape has never existed before in this history of this planet.
Should I repeat that again?
Yes, there have been hurricanes before.
But there have never before been hurricanes that formed in these climatic conditions.
Because this climate has never existed before in the history of this planet.
I wish people could get this through their thick skulls.
Especially intelligent people who should be able to understand this.
✍️ Reply by emailBlindness
08:12 Monday, 14 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 62.56°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 89% Wind: 0mph
Words: 261
I'm glad that this type of coverage is becoming, at least temporarily, more prevalent. All of this was foreseeable. But developers and the counties that benefit from the property taxes only saw the money, not the risk. We're over-developed, and it's probably uninsurable at this point.
Our premiums are still affordable, for us. We're nowhere near that $11K "average." If it ever does get that high, I think Mitzi would be more amenable to leaving. I don't know what's going to happen, but we're going to find out over the next 12 months, as insurance companies pull out of the market, go under, raise premiums and fight the state and policy-holders. This is a slow-moving catastrophe.
One thing the report doesn't mention is that many people can't afford to leave. They're tied to jobs, mortgages, and schools. They won't be able to sell their homes because they'll be uninsurable, so that keeps them stuck here.
This is a "cascading climate catastrophe," which I used to tweet about often when I was on Twitter. Where one domino tips over hundreds more.
What's going to happen to the housing market in Florida when mortgage companies won't lend because insurance is unavailable or unaffordable? What happens to home prices? What happens to that "wealth"?
It was all utterly predictable.
✍️ Reply by emailLast Night's Moon 10-13-24
05:53 Monday, 14 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 62.74°F Pressure: 1017hPa Humidity: 97% Wind: 0mph
Words: 839
Hadn't done one of these in a while. Went out to look for the comet, but suspect my horizon is too cluttered, or sky is too bright. But it was clear and there was the moon.
Switched over from fidget spinner to doing some hi-res graphics stuff in Virtual ][, at least until I can figure out what's going on, then I'll play with it on the IIc. I need to look at an old issue of Creative Computing magazine, which is easier to do here at the iMac.
It's from the July 1984 issue, The Sierpinski Curve: A Lesson in Debugging and Conversion, by David H. Ahl. I'd link to it, but Archive.org is still offline after being hacked. If you google Sierpinski, you get a lot of stuff about the triangle, not so much about the curve. The article includes a nice capsule summary of the curve. Wikipedia does too.
In the article, Ahl is trying to convert a version of a program written in BASIC for the NEC 8801 computer, a Japanese computer, to some other variant of BASIC. Ahl wasn't very clear on which version of BASIC he was converting from and to, but both seemed ultimately to be some variant of Microsoft BASIC, which Applesoft is as well.
Apart from just being kind of interesting to watch as it is drawn onto the screen (which takes ~2m40s for the 5th order curve, at stock Apple II speed), it also deals with the concept of recursion. I have some notional understanding of the concept, but since I seldom do any real programming, as a practical technique, it remains kind of opaque to me. From the article:
This program, incidentally, takes advantage of the feature in MSX Basic and MBasic that permits a subroutine to call itself. This is known as recursion. It is often said that languages such as Basic and Fortran do not permit recursion. This is simply not true. While not all versions of Basic permit a subroutine to call itself, there are other ways of achieving recursion, but that is a subject for another day.
There are several subroutines in this program that call themselves.
The program that Ahl was converting would overlay curves of different orders, so you could have the 2nd order curve appear over the 1st order curve. It makes for a somewhat more interesting display. So far, my version works in drawing a single curve of orders 1 through 5, but it gets buggy when it begins to overlay two curves, so that's what I'm trying to figure out.
Ahl implemented a stack array to keep track of, well, something. I was confused because he didn't dimension (BASIC "DIM" statement) the stack array first. Looking at the Applesoft Reference Manual, apparently Microsoft let you get away with this and it assigns memory for 11 subscripts (elements 0 to 10) automatically. I'm not getting a BAD SUBSCRIPT ERROR, so I don't think that's the problem.
Anyway, it's something to distract me from the election. I cannot fathom how this thing can supposedly be this close. On the one hand, I'm somewhat encouraged by Harris's consistent, albeit slim, lead. I'm also encouraged by the evident lack of enthusiasm for Trump exhibited by my neighbors.
Four years ago, my street, and many if not most of the streets in this development, were positively festooned with American flags. This was code for Trump supporters, since the HOA doesn't permit partisan flags of any kind. Nothing like that today.
We were also having regular weekly "Trump flotillas" and boat parades. None of that has happened. Yet.
I don't see a lot of golf carts or pickup trucks driving around flying enormous Trump flags.
I'm rather certain that most of those folks will vote for Trump again; but they're not proud of it anymore. They don't want to own it.
Which is of absolutely no comfort.
"Plausible deniability."
It's almost more chilling.
And it's not just "rural Americans" who support this monster. These are wealthy suburbanites who embrace this fascist.
I'm eager to cast my mail-in ballot, so I can go online and verify that it has been counted. Then, if I have a stroke between now and election day, at least I'll have done what little I can to stop this catastrophe.
In the mean time, I'm going to distract myself by playing with old computers.
I need to order a 16-pin ribbon cable to plug into the Apple IIe in the garage. I want to bring those signals out to a breadboard to play with. This program is nothing but subroutines. Maybe add a line in four of the subroutines to ping one of the four annunciators available at that connector to light a different colored LED for each subroutine and see which one is lit most?
Well, mostly just because blinky lights are cool.
Something to look at...
Instead of staring into the abyss.
✍️ Reply by emailBetter
06:12 Sunday, 13 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 65.26°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 96% Wind: 3.44mph
Words: 853
Rather than continuing to harp on the ongoing, unstoppable, slow-motion train wreck that is Florida, I thought I'd write about my return to the Naval Academy for the first time in 45 years.
It was the 45th reunion of the class of '79, and I'd never previously attended any of them. My experience at Annapolis was, shall we say, complicated. To make a long story short, I went there full of hope for success and achievement, quickly settled for "survival."
When I went to the academy, the model was "attritional." I'd never heard it expressed that way before, until I attended the Superintendent's brief to the class. But, yeah, it was definitely "attritional." Much like the Navy's "up or out" career path.
Well, they have a new model today. I don't recall specifically what she called it, but it's more like "recruit and retain." About 10% of the people who apply to Annapolis are admitted. I was surprised it was that much, but I guess that after almost a generation of a "Global War on Terror," a military career isn't as appealing as it once was. Vietnam wasn't that long, though it was far bloodier.
Anyway, the idea is to select the best candidates, and then help them succeed. That seems like a much smarter approach than the one I endured.
Not all of my classmates were as impressed. "Coddled" was a word that was mentioned.
But it's not "coddling" someone to help them succeed. Midshipmen must still accommodate themselves to military discipline, the physical demands, and the academic ones. Some can do this more readily than others. It's not that those "others" are unsuited for service in the military, it's just that they may need a little help getting started.
It was a pleasant surprise to learn how much affection I still have for my company-mates. The campus was almost unrecognizable to me, it's changed so much over the decades. Bancroft Hall, "Mother B," remained much as I remembered her, and the chapel. I wasn't much of a church-goer at the Academy. Plebe Summer I went every Sunday, because it got me out of Bancroft Hall, where danger lurked around every "squared corner." Once academic year came around, Sunday was a day to sleep in.
Whatever success I enjoyed in my Navy career was, in many respects, in spite of my experience at Annapolis, rather than because of it. But nearly all of the important lessons I've learned in my life, I learned in the navy, and that began at Annapolis.
That took nearly a lifetime, but it was worth it.
In case you're just tuning in, here's the short version:
Big picture? Life is meaningless.
If you're looking for meaning in your life, you're wasting your time. You won't find it. You must make it. We bring meaning to life.
The greatest opportunity to make meaning is through service to others.
Everything we have, all this stuff, all our awards, our titles our achievements can be taken from us in heartbeat. One day, life is pretty sweet. The next day, you're dragging all your stuff to the curb and looking for a new place to live. See: Current events.
The past is out of reach, the future is unknown. All we have are moments to live. One at time.
All we have are moments to live, and each other. Because we're all in this together, and none of us is getting out of here alive.
Power? It's an illusion. The only power that exists is the power to choose. It's a very weak power. Gravity is the weakest of the four fundamental forces of the universe. (Five, if you count irony. As I do.) Yet it holds the world together.
Our cognitive abilities? Our capacity for rational thought? We flatter ourselves. They're far more limited than we suppose. Most of what we do is habituated, unconscious. Stimulus and response.
The space where power exists is between stimulus and response, where you can choose.
That faculty that affords that space is attention. It's a resource, like time. And just as finite. Use it wisely. Pay attention to your what you're giving your attention to. Don't waste it. (Though we mostly do. But small investments yield huge dividends.)
The "ties that bind?" Faith.
Love.
Love is faith in action. Honor is the act of "keeping faith." Honor is love in action.
"Love your neighbor," is an act of service. It makes meaning. Makes your life "full" and not "empty." (Rick Scott, like most politicians, doesn't know this.)
Desire is the source of all suffering. It's glib and unfair, but suffering is the difference between the way things are, and the way we want them to be. Life is unfair. Arbitrary. Capricious.
COVID, Helene, and the shit we do to each other. It's all unfair. But it is what it is. The tautological tension that is "the harmony of binding opposites." Faith and fear. Love and anger. Honor and hate.
Yin and yang.
Existence and nothingness.
We live on the razor's edge.
Hold on.
To each other.
We're all we've got.
✍️ Reply by emailBeat the Rush
05:54 Saturday, 12 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 62.89°F Pressure: 1019hPa Humidity: 93% Wind: 6.91mph
Words: 56
Lots of stories about people who've endured Helene and Milton and saying, "Enough."
✍️ Reply by emailDisaster Pr0n
06:30 Friday, 11 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 69.98°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 77% Wind: 11.5mph
Words: 242
I confess to watching too many videos of the disaster in North Carolina. I didn't spend any time looking for those in Florida.
My correspondent yesterday asked, "And how about all that sand burying houses down SW." I replied that I hadn't seen any videos and we don't have cable anymore.
But this morning my YouTube page is filled with Florida disaster videos, and this one showed sand in houses. (Sand in houses is at the 3:00 min mark.) "Storm Chaser Aaron Rigsby" and his trusty drone. Keeping the world informed.
Or something.
Maybe we should mandate that all homes in Florida be essentially grass huts. That way, when they're washed away, there isn't so much unnatural debris that has to be carted to a landfill somewhere. It's not like we've got an abundance of land we can use to dump our disaster shit on.
And rebuilding shouldn't take as long. I guess we'd still need sewers though.
What happens to all those boats? Are they all repaired? Do they just wind up in a landfill?
Beats me. "Out of sight, out of mind," as they say.
Maybe Storm Chaser Aaron could expand his franchise to include Disaster Debris Chaser. Get a close look at the Florida landscape that has to receive all the sad consequences of our folly and hubris. I'm sure it'd make for compelling viewing. Maybe we could find a big enough sinkhole to drown it all in.
✍️ Reply by emailIt Can Happen Here
06:01 Friday, 11 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 69.82°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 79% Wind: 10.36mph
Words: 189
It was just over 60 years ago. There are a few people alive today who recall Dora. But this area has grown immensely since 1964.
Florida has been filling from the bottom to the top, and it's damn near full now.
Most of those folks have never experienced a hurricane of any kind.
There are people here who believe that we can't get hit by a hurricane.
We can. And if we stay here long enough, we will.
And then we can share the experience so many Floridians have had. Evacuating. Sitting in traffic for hours. Waiting. Then returning home and dragging all of our water-soaked possessions to the curb, to be taken away to some landfill somewhere. Waiting on adjusters. Meeting with FEMA reps. Filing claims with our insurance companies. Picking up the pieces. Trying to find reliable contractors. Waiting for our turn to get rebuilt. Trying to find temporary accommodations. Maybe the HOA will allow FEMA trailers?
Yeah, probably not.
Then watching the tropics next year. If we're even back in our home.
But hey. Winter isn't bad and there's no state income tax.
Fuckin' paradise.
✍️ Reply by emailLessons Unlearned
21:10 Thursday, 10 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 73.98°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 72% Wind: 8.99mph
Words: 188
A reader brought this to my attention from Craig Pittman, a Florida columnist. A review of what Florida learned back in 2004 when we were hit by four hurricanes in one season.
There's a lot of happy talk from the folks who are, perhaps justifiably, proud of their work. But I'm far less sanguine. Jeb mentions learning to prepare special needs shelters, but it was years later, under Rick Scott's watch that seniors died in assisted living facilities without backup generators and air conditioning. So I'm not really sure what Jeb's talking about.
Meanwhile, Florida has been a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party of Florida for the two decades since 2004, and I think their record speaks for itself. Unrestricted overdevelopment in vulnerable areas. No action on addressing climate change. A lot of lip service toward "resilience" as sea levels rise, hurricanes intensify and temperatures grow hotter.
I take it back. It's not "no action on addressing climate change." The legislature took action to remove any mention of it from Florida's statutes this year.
So, yeah, they've got their eye on the ball.
Florida is fucked.
✍️ Reply by emailIt's Not Just Me
21:06 Thursday, 10 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 73.98°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 72% Wind: 8.99mph
Words: 76
Apple News+ link so apologies if you can't read it.
To watch as real information is overwhelmed by crank theories and public servants battle death threats is to confront two alarming facts: first, that a durable ecosystem exists to ensconce citizens in an alternate reality, and second, that the people consuming and amplifying those lies are not helpless dupes but willing participants.
A super-computer in everyone's pocket, networked to everyone else's.
What could go wrong?
✍️ Reply by emailBeetlejuice x 2
20:38 Thursday, 10 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 74.17°F Pressure: 1014hPa Humidity: 72% Wind: 12.66mph
Words: 17
Slow start, but builds to a fun climax. Loved it. Good movie for a rainy October day.
✍️ Reply by emailIn Happier News
10:46 Thursday, 10 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 70.68°F Pressure: 1007hPa Humidity: 92% Wind: 16.11mph
Words: 422
I seem to be finally over the last of Covid. Apart from the tooth. (I can inhale through my teeth right now, and it's not screaming at me, but who knows? It might be better. It was actually worse yesterday.)
There's nothing going on in my sinuses and no upper respiratory congestion. My voice doesn't feel/sound hoarse. I slept well last night. At least, as well as I usually do.
I think Mitzi has a bit of cabin fever, sitting around here for the last few days, watching and waiting for Milton. So we're throwing caution to the wind this afternoon and going to a movie. The Beetlejuice sequel. Hopefully something mindless.
I've ordered my mail-in ballot. I want to get that turned in, just in case I stroke out before election day. Mitzi's already voted, and her vote has been counted. "Rumor has it," they're really scrutinizing the signatures. Jesus. I never sign my scrawl the same way twice. Should be fun.
Slow Horses wrapped last night. Some high spots, though I thought the overall storyline was a bit thin. I'm going to watch it all again because some of the plot points remain unclear to me. They've already made the next season. Sucks that we'll have to wait a year to see it.
There wasn't much of Oldman in this one, but for what there was, it was pretty good. Maybe I'm mis-remembering how much he'd figured in previous seasons. But I liked the way this one wrapped. He looks after "his Joes."
Bad Monkey wrapped as well. Vaughn was a bit too much with the "banter" in a couple of scenes, but mostly it was good. Pretty high body count, which surprised me. I don't know if they'll make another season, but I'd probably watch it.
It's been cloudy all morning, but the sun's beginning to peek through. Raining pretty much all the time. I want to get out and take a walk around. I don't expect to see anything in the way of "damage," but it would be nice to get out.
Spent some more time with Fidget Spinner. Found out that "Restore" in Applesoft always goes back to the first line of data in a program with any number of "data" statements. So you can't use multiple "data" statements to control the color sequence in a program with a number of different graphics routines, each designed with a different color sequence. Could use arrays instead. May try that later.
Anyway, the beat goes on...
✍️ Reply by emailWorst Ideas Ever
10:29 Thursday, 10 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 70.95°F Pressure: 1006hPa Humidity: 94% Wind: 19.57mph
Words: 239
Along with the automobile, I'm convinced that future historians, should we be so fortunate as to preserve a civilization that can afford the study of history, will regard "social media" as one of the worst ideas in humanity's history.
Technology changes how we do things, it doesn't change what we do. While it can empower people to do greater "good" things, it also empowers them to be stupid. It empowers bad actors to do more harm than they could otherwise. We don't have the faculties to manage this. We inhabit a culture and an economic system that seizes our attention and refuses to let it go. We can't think at all, let alone, "critically." We're too busy checking our "likes" and responding to outrage.
We have precious little in the way of rational cognitive capability. We're habituated creatures responding to emotional cues stimulated by economic and political entities competing for their own aims.
Faced with a climate crisis that demands rational action, we've diminished our capacity for rational thought to pad quarterly earnings statements and fight for political power.
Stick a fork in it. This civilization is done. It'll stumble along, getting progressively worse for a decade or so, then it's all just going to grind to a halt. "Influencers" will report on it through the lenses of their "augmented reality" glasses. "He who dies with the most clout wins."
It'd be funny if it wasn't so tragically stupid.
✍️ Reply by emailThis and That
10:13 Thursday, 10 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 71.11°F Pressure: 1006hPa Humidity: 90% Wind: 19.57mph
Words: 337
Some serious weirdness this morning with Tinderbox. I exported Passed and Opening and then sync'ed with the server using Forklift, as per usual. I checked the web page and there was nothing on the home page.
Went back to Tinderbox to make sure the agent that creates the index page was working and all of the archives were gone! There was nothing in the Main Page agent container, and there were no children under Archives, which contains all the years going back to 2013!
That seemed really weird, so I closed the file without saving, or "discard changes," (whatever this bullshit paradigm is now). Reopened the marmot and the Archives came back, but without October! Christ! ("Last saved" was 23 September.)
Okay, time to screw with "Revert To."
Sure enough, there was this morning's post and all the rest of October on the right side of the screen, outlined in blue, which I guess means it's "selected." Clicked on "Restore" or "Revert" or whatever the action button is and expected to get the same nonsense I got last time I tried this, with dozens of windows of prior versions.
Nope, just the spinning pinwheel of infinite futility.
Went out to the kitchen to give the iMac some time to be alone with its thoughts. Came back several minutes later and still pinwheeling.
Sigh.
I force quit Tinderbox and relaunched it. Opened the marmot from "Open Recent," and everything was there. Except I knew it was from a "version" because the file name in the window lacked the ".tbx" file extension, which breaks the Photos AppleScript. So I added the file extension, and then saved a separate copy just in case more weirdness happened.
Anyway, things seem to be functioning normally now. For how long, I don't know.
The tech stack we operate with today is miles deep, and who knows what goes on in there? Nobody, that's who.
It's all opaque. You just have to hope it works.
It used to be, "It just works." Not anymore.
✍️ Reply by emailPassed and Opening
05:22 Thursday, 10 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 75.63°F Pressure: 999hPa Humidity: 85% Wind: 23.02mph
Words: 227
Pressure bottomed out at 990.4 hPa at 0435, and is creeping up. Center of the storm is off the coast now. Lights are still on. My rain gauge is clogged, but a neighbor's is showing 2.5" in the last 24 hours, so it wasn't an enormous rain event, though the news says that parts of St Johns County had recorded 6" as of yesterday evening.
My wind gauge is useless, but it's very windy outside. Constant, you can hear it in the trees in the preserve. Saw nothing down in the limited view we have.
I think we're fine. My daughter is supposed to fly back to LA this morning, and they hadn't canceled her flight as of last night. Not sure how that's going to work.
A lot of time and warm water left in this hurricane season. Let's hope we've seen enough for this year.
I've mentioned before that Florida was one major hurricane away from an insurance crisis. Well, now we've had two.
This will be a slowly unfolding disaster, and the state government will be doing its best to obfuscate and deny. Gross incompetence and ineptitude, focusing on culture war issues, dividing people, ignoring the real threats facing Floridians.
But that's Republican governance in a gerrymandered, permanent majority state.
A political monoculture, like an ecological one, is vulnerable to disease, parasites and corruption.
✍️ Reply by email
20:34 Tuesday, 8 October 2024
Words: 40
Stumbled on this article from 1983 looking for something else. A lot of cool ideas for the fidget spinner.
And now to figure out why half of my web page is missing...
Update: And just like that...
It's back.
Weird.
✍️ Reply by emailGreen is Good
17:25 Tuesday, 8 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 80.01°F Pressure: 1008hPa Humidity: 83% Wind: 12.66mph
Words: 155
I should have used that fancy "markup" thing that MacOS has, but this is pretty easy.
Red is Zone A. Green is Zone D. (Yellow is Zone C. I initially wrote that my neighbor across the street was in Zone C. Nope. Zone D. D!!!)
Anyway, see that corner down there where green kind of stabs into the red? That's where I live. That bit of gray road that forms a loop? That's Wood Pond Loop. The south end of Wood Pond Loop, where there's another, fractal, little corner of green marrying up to the red? That's the point where the houses on our side of the street become part of ZONE D!
Despite being backed up to the same swamp that we are!
So, yeah, we're not going anywhere. If we have to, we'll go knock on our neighbor's door.
✍️ Reply by emailDrama
16:26 Tuesday, 8 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 81.25°F Pressure: 1008hPa Humidity: 80% Wind: 21.85mph
Words: 159
We have been "ordered" to evacuate.
In a bizarre example of cartography, we are in Evacuation Zone A, while right across the street, at eye level, is Zone D.
Mandatory evacuation for Zone A.
Zone D... you're good.
I think the difference in elevation is less than a foot, and I know that flooding is "a game of inches," but we're not leaving. It's crazy. I'm pretty confident the worst of Milton will remain well to the south. There will be some storm surge, but nothing that's going to flow up Deep Creek and into the cul-de-sac at the end of our street, on up into our neighborhood.
I will keep a weather eye out, but it's this sort of nonsense that really makes people skeptical about these evacuation orders.
Sadly, our former neighbor's mother lives in Fort Myers in a second floor condo. She's 80 years old and is not leaving. We hope she makes it.
✍️ Reply by emailEaster Eggin'
14:13 Tuesday, 8 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 81.45°F Pressure: 1008hPa Humidity: 77% Wind: 19.57mph
Words: 936
Since I seem to be blessed with an abundance of energy this afternoon (I'm usually crashing in the recliner about now.), I spent some time screwing around with the IIe with some interesting, if ambiguous, things to report.
I pulled the 8MB RAM card and re-installed the 64KB card. I also pulled the Yellowstone Liron clone from Big Mess O'Wires. (This will, or may, allow me to connect a 32MB virtual Smart Port HD to the IIe.)
Next, I ran the onboard diagnostics for the SpeedDemon. Went through the whole series of 9 tests, error-free. The SpeedDemon is good!
So I had to get the utility program for configuring the RAM card onto a 5.25" floppy, so I could use it on the IIe. The Floppy Emu is quite particular about disks having contiguous blocks. (It resembles Apple UCSD Pascal in that regard.) So the procedure I've developed is to keep a copy of the IIc's external HD image on my iMac's desktop. I mount that in Virtual II, and then copy the files I need from the disk images I've downloaded from Garrett's Workshop within Virtual II. (The Virtual II is configured as a IIe with two 5.25" disk drives in Slot 6, and two hard drives in Slot 7.)
Then I pull the micro-SD card from the Floppy Emu and mount that on the iMac. I use Disk Utility to erase all the files, and then copy the "temporary" image to the micro-SD card. (This includes another 32MB HD disk image, and dozens of 5.25" floppy disk images in another folder.) This ensures that all the files are contiguous.
The only mistake I made today was that I'd added another lo-res routine to the fidget spinner program, and didn't copy that program over to the "temp" image. Not a huge deal, but it reminds me that I'll have to be careful and copy all the files from the micro-SD card first, as a backup, just in case.
Moving on... I got the utility to configure the RAM card onto the Smart Port HD image, mounted that on the IIc and then copied the config program over to a 5.25" floppy on the IIc.
If it sounds like a hassle, it kinda is. But I'm getting used to it.
Back to the IIe with my floppy disk. I plugged the 8MB RAM card into the Aux slot. Stuck the floppy into Drive 1 and booted the IIe, pressing "Escape" before the SpeedDemon kicked in, forcing the IIe to run at regular speed. It booted fine.
I ran the configuration utility and set the card to appear as a 1MB RAMWorks card. (1MB is plenty for the kinds of things I like to do.)
I power-cycled the IIe and let the SpeedDemon take control, and it booted right into ProDOS and BASIC.SYSTEM. Hurray! Success!
Believing I'd just solved my problem, I shut down the computer and put the Yellowstone card back in Slot 5. I have another Floppy Emu inbound that's going to live on the IIe.
Just to make sure, I started the IIe... and we never made it past the ProDOS splash screen.
Doh!
I wondered if it was a speed issue, so I powered down, pulled the SpeedDemon and set the dip-switch for Slot 5 to "slow," so whenever the computer polls Slot 5 it'll do so at 1MHz.
Reinstalled the SpeedDemon and turned the computer back on. Same problem.
Doh! Doh!
Well, my energy level remains normal, but my enthusiasm is a bit diminished. I decided to just pull the Yellowstone card and try again with the new Emu gets here. It may be that the card has to have something to talk to besides the cpu. I could figure that out with the Emu I have on hand, but I'm not sure I want to know right now. Maybe later.
I had the Yellowstone in Slot 5 because the 5.25" disk controller is in Slot 6 and the ribbon cables from the 5.25" drives really crowd into the space for Slot 7, putting some strain on the card in Slot 7.
As the IIe is currently configured, it resembles the IIc here in the office. I have the IIc configured to boot from the 5.25" internal floppy, but it sees the 32MB Smart Port HD image as a drive in Slot 5.
If connecting an Emu to the Yellowstone solves the problem, I'll keep that configuration. If it doesn't, I'll move the 5.25" controller to Slot 5, and put the Yellowstone in Slot 7 with an Emu attached. The empty Slot 6 will leave room for the ribbon cables without them pressing on the Yellowstone in Slot 7.
The IIe will try to boot from the highest slot that it finds a controller in. I'll start with the Emu configured to emulate a 5.25" floppy and see what happens. If that works, I'll try an 800KB 3.5" disk emulation. That'd give me Apple Pascal 1.3 all on one disk, and I can run a script to copy all the modules I need to the RAM drive, and we're back in business.
And if all that works, I'll try a 32MB HD image.
For now, I'm pretty happy that I know the SpeedDemon is good and I've got the AUX RAM card configured for 1MB.
I just spent a couple of hours not doom-scrolling! Of course, Mitzi has been doom-scrolling and giving me updates. (Cranes in downtown Tampa that they couldn't secure in time. If you live near a crane, hide.)
✍️ Reply by emailEV Benefit
12:49 Tuesday, 8 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 82.36°F Pressure: 1009hPa Humidity: 75% Wind: 13.8mph
Words: 137
I'm sure we've all seen the videos of the Tesla self-immolating in a garage after a flood, but if you keep them dry (and "well lubricated"?), they will perform for you!
We rented an EV6 in Baltimore for the reunion. I enjoyed driving the car. It was the first time I'd experienced regenerative braking. It didn't take long to get used to it, and I really appreciated it. The dash was a bit of a mystery, and figuring out the "forward" and "reverse" thing took a few double glances.
The only things I didn't like about it were the seats (not enough lateral support), and the turning radius seemed pretty huge.
Anyway, as we adapt building codes to our new climate, we'll have to take into consideration using EVs as emergency backup power for household loads.
✍️ Reply by emailMadness
11:29 Tuesday, 8 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 81.41°F Pressure: 1009hPa Humidity: 82% Wind: 16.11mph
Words: 424
The cleaning was, thankfully, relatively uneventful. Great tech and she gave me some kind of "ozone" treatment that's supposed to reduce tooth sensitivity.
To test that hypothesis, I stopped at Publix and bought a pint of Ben & Jerry's. Hey, you can't argue with research.
But Publix was very busy. The checkout bagger said it was nothing compared to yesterday.
I don't know. I think we're going to be fine. There's a front that passed over yesterday that looks like it's keeping the worst of Milton to the south of us. We will have some storm surge issues, and for folks in St Augustine, that's going to be a problem. But I don't see the Intra-Coastal flooding. I could be wrong, but I'm not worrying about it.
Milton was a big topic at the reception desk at the dentist's. I think it's because we haven't had a hurricane affect us around here very recently, and Helene was such a catastrophe, so folks' sense of anxiety is elevated.
There was no gas at the Shell station by Publix. Apparently they've been shifting the stock west to keep those stations full as the evacuations take place. They'll backfill us after. Again, I'm not worried, but we were down to half a tank and I figured I'd top it off. We don't have to do any driving, so the batteries should be adequate for the time being.
The bagger also said they were out of propane too. Everyone bought that up expecting to have to cook all the food in the fridge when the power goes out.
I don't think the power will go out. Again, most of the worst of it is going to be to the south of us and, this part of Florida has much of its utility infrastructure buried. Now, that may be a problem with severe flooding, but it pretty much limits the damage from a wind event. I think folks are just going to have a lot of extra propane for a while.
But the real insanity is constantly electing Republicans who are more interested in waging culture wars than dealing with the catastrophe unfolding before them. Part of me wants to say that we deserve everything that's going to happen to us. But I also happen to think that nobody deserves to experience this type of thing.
We didn't have to. But we didn't do anything about it either.
I guess it's like Clint says to Gene Hackman at the end of Unforgiven.
"Deserve's got nothin' to do with it."
✍️ Reply by emailNo Difference
08:09 Tuesday, 8 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 70.75°F Pressure: 1008hPa Humidity: 92% Wind: 4.61mph
Words: 93
Gotta head out to the dentist's for a cleaning. Not looking forward to it with this tooth. Maybe an x-ray?
Anyway, I used Program Writer, an editor for Applesoft BASIC, to do a global search and replace on all the real variables and converted them to integer (added "%" after the variable name). Compiled the program and ran it, and it made no difference.
So I'm guessing that if Beagle Compiler doesn't see a decimal point in the value, it bypasses Applesoft's variable handler and treats it as an integer.
Anyway, gotta run...
✍️ Reply by emailFun and Games
17:36 Monday, 7 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 77.99°F Pressure: 1009hPa Humidity: 76% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 711
It's always kind of an odd time in Florida, as we're staring at an oncoming hurricane.
It's too soon to know exactly what we might expect here in northeast Florida. It won't be "nothing," but the range is fairly wide.
Anyway, spent some time distracting myself this afternoon playing around with old computers.
As I mentioned before, the Apple IIe is working in nearly all respects. I think the McT SpeedDemon hung on its self-test. I'm guessing it may have something to do with the 8MB Aux Slot memory card. In all other respects, it works just fine.
I received some old DOS 3.3 disks today, the "original" disks Apple included with the IIe. They all booted and ran fine, even accelerated, so I'm pretty confident it's solid.
This morning, I cut and pasted the Applesoft code for the fidget spinner program into an Applesoft emulator web site. It ran in 25 seconds, which is about a minute faster than it ran on real hardware. I'd been wondering how fast it would run on real hardware using Beagle Compiler, a program that came out late in the II's life that would "compile" Applesoft programs and run them much faster, depending on how much floating point math they used. Floating Point didn't "accelerate" at all after compiling.
I had to do some hunting around for the "latest" (last) version of Beagle Compiler, because earlier ones had conflicts with later versions of ProDOS or BASIC.SYSTEM. In any event, I did find one from 1990 and it was able to compile the fidget spinner and it ran in about 30 seconds. I may be able to eek some additional speed out of it if I convert all the variables to integer variables. In normal Applesoft, there's usually no value in using integer variables, except to save space as array indices. Otherwise, Applesoft converts all numbers to their floating point representation, and handles them accordingly, which eats up some time. Beagle Compiler will treat declared integer variables (n%) as integers, and that saves a decent bit of time. Haven't done that yet, but probably will, just out of curiosity.
So then I wanted to see it run on the IIe with the SpeedDemon running. That's when the fun and games started.
I couldn't seem to get booted into ProDOS. It would get to the splash screen, then crash into the monitor. It would work if I turned off the SpeedDemon first, but that would kind of defeat the purpose of having the accelerator. That was with contemporary versions of ProDOS (2018). I thought I'd try with earlier versions, more contemporaneous with the SpeedDemon and see if I'd have more luck.
Well, after working successively back, I got the original ProDOS release, 1.0.1 from 1984, to boot. From there, I first ran the fidget spinner just using the accelerator. Ran in about 25 seconds. (I should have taken notes.) About as fast Javascript emulator.
I was able to get the compiler system into memory, I worried that it might have been incompatible with the early version of ProDOS. Crossing my fingers, I ran the fidget spinner from the compiler under the accelerator.
Ran in about 8 seconds! About 10x faster than regular hardware.
If I tweak the index variables, I might get another second out of it. We'll see.
It's a bit of a bear to pull the IIe out from under the monitor stand to open it up. I'll do that tomorrow sometime and pull the 8MB Aux Slot card and put the original 64K card and see if that makes any difference on the self-test for the SpeedDemon, and then see what happens with more recent versions of ProDOS.
I may have a conflict between cpus. The motherboard has the OG NMOS 6502A installed, while the SpeedDemon is running a 4MHz CMOS 65c02. I've ordered a 65c02 for the motherboard, which was part of Apple's original IIe "enhancement" kit. But I'll swap out the memory cards first and see what difference that makes.
Anyway, something to do rather than fret about hurricanes, war in the Middle East, half of America wanting a senile ex-gameshow host, wannabe dictator as their next president, and all the other stuff that makes life "interesting."
✍️ Reply by emailFidget Spinner
06:05 Monday, 7 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 73.94°F Pressure: 1011hPa Humidity: 86% Wind: 8.99mph
Words: 188
This is kind of what I had in mind when I bought the IIc. I sat in the recliner yesterday with the IIc in my lap, wired to the 32" TV on the wall, playing around with Applesoft and lo-res graphics.
I'd do one routine, then change it a bit to do something else and again and again. Of course there were glitches, but it's simple stuff so it was easy to find them.
It was relaxing. The *click* of the Alps key-switches on the 4100 IIc are mellow, but "techie." Just a way to pass the time.
(I guess I should warn anyone susceptible to adverse visual stimuli that this might be problematic.)
Hey, it's better than doom-scrolling.
✍️ Reply by emailSpeed Test
10:28 Sunday, 6 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 74.61°F Pressure: 1016hPa Humidity: 94% Wind: 1.01mph
Words: 897
As a distraction from everything else that's going on in the world, I played around with the Apple IIc and Apple IIe yesterday.
I can sit in the recliner with the IIc in my lap and type in little BASIC programs to draw lo-res graphics on the screen. I have a composite to HDMI adapter connected to the video expansion port on the IIc, and it does a pretty great job. The only weakness is that it's essentially doubling the screen and outputting a 640x480 signal. The TV doesn't really recognize that aspect ratio, so it's somewhat stretched. Not a big deal, it's not really noticeable.
The thing that was useful, in terms of improvement, was turning up the settings in the TV to "Vivid." Much better. I'm even able to read 80-column text sitting in the recliner.
So I did that for a while, but I still find myself running out of gas at some point. I didn't sleep well on Friday night, so I spent a lot of time napping yesterday. (I also still have some residual crud going. Yesterday, I was hoarse and had to keep clearing my throat. Tooth is still sensitive, but seems to be improving, albeit slowly.)
Anyway, I rallied yesterday evening and decided to go look at the IIe. I hadn't checked out the disk drives on it yet, and I wanted to see if they were working. I have a diagnostic program on a 5.25" floppy, and it booted that okay. I ran through all the CPU tests, and they all passed, as I'd kind of expected.
I wanted to do a read/write test on the drives, so I needed to format a blank 5.25" floppy. I just got a box of 10 "new, old stock" disks on Friday, so I pulled one of those out and stuck it in Drive 1 to format it. The drive made all the usual noises, so I went on to do the read/write test.
Failed.
Hmmmm...
I figured I'd try Drive 2, and since Drive 1 had failed, I'd do the format all over again with Drive 2. Well, looking at the disk I'd just removed from Drive 1, "Saint Hopper be praised!" there was a desiccated dead long-winged fly on the disk. Probably from inside the drive. Now, I don't know if that was the source of the failure, because it was on top of the disk and it's read from the bottom. But I blew the corpse away and stuck the disk in Drive 2.
All tests passed.
Figured I'd try Drive 1 again, and likewise.
So far, everything on this machine has checked out. It came with a parallel interface card, two 1200 baud internal modems (one just lying loose inside the cabinet, a 64K Aux Slot memory card, and the drive controller. I'd removed the cards but the Aux Slot and drive controller, and it works like a champ.
I bought a new-production 8MB Aux Slot memory card and installed that in place of the 64K card and ran the memory test again. The diagnostic software only seemed to recognize the first 64K, but it passed the card.
It's awkward working on the IIe with the monitor stand and the System Saver, so I decided that was enough for one evening. I figured I'd play with it a bit this morning.
I'd spotted an McT SpeedDemon accelerator card on the auction site, and one thing led to another and I bought it. A pretty good deal, compared to the Applied Engineering Transwarp, and the Titan accelerators. They each have onboard memory that essentially replicates the IIe's motherboard memory. The Transwarp actually has 256KB, and will use the additional memory as a RAM disk, or to "expand" AppleWorks (allow you to have more files active on the desktop). The SpeedDemon has 16KB of cache memory, 8KB of code, and 8KB of "tag" memory. In terms of performance, it's usually just as fast as the others, sometimes faster. If you're really bored, or interested, you can check the comparison here. Note that it includes a number of "modern" accelerators. I had a FastChip before, and it was a screamer. The SpeedDemon is impressive though.
It has a built-in self test, and it'll test Aux memory. It's running now. It's either hung, because of an incompatibility with the modern card, or it just takes a long time to test 8MB of memory. It hasn't failed though, because that would give an unambiguous result. I'm just going to let it run for a couple of hours and see what happens. When I turn the machine on, I get the little SpeedDemon accelerated Apple logo on startup, so I'm pretty sure it's working just fine.
My big challenge now is to get it into the office somehow. I recall really enjoying playing with Apple Pascal on the IIe I had back in 2019. It ran out of a RAM disk, with the Transwarp accelerator. It wasn't as fast as using a ROM-based interpreter, like Applesoft, but it wasn't unbearable either. All the modules were available on the RAM disk, and the accelerator made compiling tolerable. I expect a similar experience with this setup. Just need to make space.
Anyway, a harmless distraction from all the awful going on in the world. Grateful to have it.
✍️ Reply by emailRound Two
08:52 Sunday, 6 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 75.65°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 92% Wind: 1.01mph
Words: 135
So Milton is a thing. (Unsure what happens to these links as time goes by.)
Pretty sure the folks on Florida's west coast aren't looking forward to Hump Day this week.
It's a good thing that Florida's Republican legislature has spent so much time, laser-focused on the important issues facing Florida. Things like de-funding public schools, attacking trans people, voter fraud, insurance "reform," micro-managing the state university system, warning people not to get the Covid vaccine. Just a remarkable display of courage and responsibility, shouldering the burdens of managing the third largest state in the Union and seeking the best possible outcomes for its citizens.
The idea of leaving Florida is beginning to take root in Mitzi's imagination.
We need to get out of here before the rush to the exits begins.
✍️ Reply by emailFalse Economy
10:40 Friday, 4 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 83.28°F Pressure: 1019hPa Humidity: 84% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 490
This report from Reuters says that less than .5% of the homeowners in "the state's flood-stricken west" have flood insurance.
They put a couple on camera who were initially required to have flood insurance by their mortgage company, but after the flood maps were redrawn, they were no longer required to have it by the bank, and so they dropped it.
They don't say when they were no longer required to have it, just that they were required to have it for the first three years of their mortgage. The husband stated, "We're not wealthy people, so we opted out of that coverage."
Later in the report, the wife says something to the effect, "if it's $600 a month, and you have a mortgage on top of that."
The report is confusing and misleading. At some point, they could afford flood insurance, because for the first three years they did. Supposedly after the flood maps were redrawn, they were no longer required to have it, so presumably the risk was considered lower.
Now, flood insurance rates have bounced around in the last fifteen years or so. Congress mandated that FEMA make NFIP rates "actuarily sound," which meant raising them significantly, like 200-300% or more in some cases. Constituents screamed, and they revised the requirement. So I suppose it's possible that at some point they looked at flood insurance rates and were quoted $7200/year ($600 a month).
I doubt that, but I don't know where she's getting that figure. My premium in a "low risk" area is only $1000 a year. I suspect theirs would have been about that, or less.
In any event, it's a familiar argument. When I was president of our condo association board, I insisted we buy flood insurance every year. We weren't in a "flood zone," as every condo owner who scrutinized the budget for wasteful spending liked to point out. But we were less than a mile from the beach and between the ocean and the Intra-Coastal Waterway.
We could afford flood insurance. What we couldn't afford was a flood loss.
"We're not wealthy people," is an admission that you're exactly the people who should be buying insurance.
And if you can't afford the insurance, then you can't afford to live there!
This has been the great "moral hazard" of the NFIP. The rates don't reflect the risk, so people make calculations based on bad data. Our flood insurance premium has been going up more than the rate of inflation every year. I believe FEMA is trying to get rates closer to being "actuarily sound." I expect them to continue to go up every year. At some point, they may tip the scale regarding whether we stay here or not.
But, by then, I think it'll be past the optimal time to leave.
I think now is the best time to get out of here.
Before everyone else realizes it too.
✍️ Reply by emailClimate Haven
15:53 Thursday, 3 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 84.22°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 80% Wind: 17.27mph
Words: 10
Maybe scratch the Carolinas off your list of "climate havens."
✍️ Reply by email"Heads I win, tails you lose..."
15:50 Thursday, 3 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 83.68°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 81% Wind: 17.27mph
Words: 57
“There’s nothing normal about these high denial rates,” according to Martin Weiss, founder of Weiss Ratings. “They’ve been creeping up steadily for nearly two decades and have now reached alarming levels, especially among some of the biggest providers in disaster-prone states like Florida and California.”
You have to be crazy to live here.
✍️ Reply by emailThe Risk of Risk
10:41 Thursday, 3 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 83.34°F Pressure: 1016hPa Humidity: 81% Wind: 10.36mph
Words: 124
I imagine someone objecting to my previous post, saying that no place is completely without risk. A pipe could rupture and your house floods. You could have a catastrophic house fire. (Probably started by a lithium ion battery - Just kidding.)
And that's true.
What I'm looking at here in Florida, and what all those folks are experiencing today and many others have experienced before, is a large scale disaster event. While enormous resources are brought to bear in those cases, it remains an enormous challenge.
If a single homeowner's home floods, or burns down, they file their claim and they hire a contractor and do what they need to do to get on with it.
When thousands of homeowners' homes flood... Well, good luck.
✍️ Reply by emailWhat's Your Plan?
09:22 Thursday, 3 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 79.99°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 87% Wind: 10.36mph
Words: 567
We're all preppers now.
For those affected, they're still in shock. For those of us who are unaffected, what more of a prompt would you need to begin thinking about how you assess risk, how you manage it, and what you can do to prepare for a disaster?
We're vulnerable to flooding here. It's not in a "flood zone," per se (It has a risk rating.), but virtually all of Florida is at risk for flooding.
We have flood insurance. I put the Powerwalls above the floor. We have some experience with evacuating. Mitzi has all the paperwork in a fireproof box that we can grab when we leave.
Gaps in my knowledge are what our options are in the event of a catastrophic loss. Assuming a total loss, flood insurance coverage for the structure is more than enough to pay off the balance of the mortgage. I don't know if any of our contents would be covered by our regular homeowner's policy, but I suspect not. I need to find out.
I do feel a lot better since we got the place in New York. While our homeowner's does cover "loss of use," which I think would still be in force even in a flood event, we'd be competing for housing with thousands of other people around here. Family isn't an option, and they would probably be facing their own challenges anyway. Bolting to New York would be my plan.
The question then becomes what to do about this property. If the house is a total loss, who is responsible for demolition and removal? Even if we were to rebuild, that would have to take place. I recall our condo association was responsible for that when one of our buildings burned. I suspect that, as homeowners, we would be responsible.
At that point, could we simply put the slab on the market? (I suspect we'd have to demo the slab as well. No builder is going to want to build on someone else's old slab.) Lot or slab, we'd still be responsible for HOA fees and property taxes, though I would expect the assessed value to reflect that absence of an actual house.
I used to think that any storm surge that would threaten us would include wind damage, which would invoke our regular homeowner's policy. The geography and hydrology of the gulf coast isn't the same as this part of Florida, so maybe that's still a good assessment. But the gulf is basically a basin, and when water piles up it has nowhere else to go but inland.
Trying to imagine a "worst case" scenario, I'd have to think it's one where it's not a total loss. What to do then? Is there a scenario where we take the interior down to the studs and then try and sell it? Do we have to try and do a total repair and then try and sell it? Repairs are going to be difficult, competing with everyone else for materials and labor, and then hoping you get a competent contractor.
It seems that the wisest course of action, from a risk mitigation point of view, would be to sell now and move. No history of flood. No questionable repairs.
Something to think about. I'm not sure Mitzi is there yet. I am.
She did say she thought she might be able to handle a New York winter.
✍️ Reply by emailTooling Around
12:46 Wednesday, 2 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 85.32°F Pressure: 1013hPa Humidity: 67% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 322
It's a beautiful day, as Florida days go. I've still got some remnants of Covid lingering. My nose has been running again, and some upper respiratory congestion. No fever or chills, aches or pains. And the damn tooth still hurts. And I periodically seem to run out of gas.
Slept ok last night. Wearing ear plugs again. Woke up at 0400, but fell right back to sleep. Got up at 0500. By 0930 I needed to get in the recliner and close my eyes. Didn't work very well, because the dog started whining about 5 minutes into my 15 minute snooze. I took him out and resumed for 10 minutes.
That seemed to be enough to rally for working on the IIe. Got that done and figured I'd go for a bike ride.
I worry a little bit about those folks who went charging off after supposedly being "over" Covid and developing some kind of muscle fatigue issue. So I'm taking it easy. Haven't been walking, with or without sticks. But the bike is fairly low effort.
With the 3-speed hub I have, about the max assist I can manage is level 3 (out of 5). I get going faster than I can pedal and it just feels silly. So I set it at level 2 and pedaled along with some modest resistance. Gave me an average speed of 14mph, which is still much faster than without the motor, and with far less effort.
Did my 10K loop and didn't really break a sweat. But after sitting here for a bit and then standing, I could feel it in my legs. So I did get a bit of a workout. And I did feel warm once I was inside, even in the AC. Turned the office fan on for a while to cool down.
Battery was down to two leds (40% ?), so it's on the charger.
Anyway, the beat goes on...
✍️ Reply by emailDebate
12:37 Wednesday, 2 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 85.59°F Pressure: 1013hPa Humidity: 67% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 150
The vice presidential debate was everything I expect in my American politics.
Boring.
Apart from the fact that I can't stand J.D. Vance, even when he's on his best behavior, it was a snoozer. I went into the office to read some old computer stuff and kind of half-listened for anything exciting.
I did catch the part where the whining punk was bitching that he was being "fact checked," and the moderators tried to talk over him. The producers blew it on that, I think. They should have muted his mic immediately. They left their moderators out there trying to wrangle that misogynistic asshole, and it wasn't a good look for anyone.
Even at his best, J.D. Vance just sounds condescending to me. Anyway, that's me. I'm biased.
Nothing-burger. Just the way I like a VP debate. No flies, no hits, no errors, nothing meme-worthy.
✍️ Reply by emailRIFA Removed
12:23 Wednesday, 2 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 86.05°F Pressure: 1013hPa Humidity: 65% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 262
I didn't get around to it yesterday, but this morning I went out to the garage to poke around in the IIe and remove any unexploded filter capacitors.
The Apple II power supply is built like a tank, and I'd forgotten what a pain in the ass it is to work on. But, perseverance paid off, and I got the circuit board out of the enclosure. (Leave it wired to the plug, you can still work on it. Ideally, you'd remove the plug and it looks like it's crimped on. I think I left it connected the first time I did this several years ago.)
Sure enough, the RIFA was still there and intact. I was kind of surprised, given the age of this IIe (a Rev A, probably manufactured in 1982). But the machine came as part of a package that included a Kensington System Saver (a fan and surge suppressor that would hang off the side of the Apple II and draw air across the card bus). Maybe the ventilation offered a cooler environment and helped to increase its longevity. I wasn't going to gamble on it though.
The power supply works without the capacitor, so rather than dig through my parts drawer, I just unsoldered it. Now I should add a sticker to the power supply noting its removal. If I should die and someone gets the IIe, they'll know they don't have to worry about the "magic smoke."
I still need to hook up the two Disk ][ drives and check them out, but I'm pretty confident they'll work.
✍️ Reply by emailMaintenance
13:09 Tuesday, 1 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 87.31°F Pressure: 1013hPa Humidity: 73% Wind: 1.01mph
Words: 254
Got the replacement keys I ordered for the //c. Seller didn't have an up-arrow in stock, so I've ordered one of those from another seller for a much higher price. Replaced the broken key switch and got the keycaps all installed. The replacement "D" key is a different color or shade of gray, but it's not super-noticeable.
I discovered the space bar was damaged. The little clips that secure the metal bar are broken, so the right side of the bar won't depress the key switch. I'm looking for a replacement, but there don't seem to be any available at the moment. The little brown clips are also on the shift keys, so I may order one of those and try to graft them onto the space bar.
I may go out this afternoon and open up the IIe again, and pull the power supply. I just need to see what the Rifa capacitor situation is. They may have blown years ago, in which case no big deal. If not, I need to pull them and spare myself the "magic smoke" ordeal.
The larger issue is finding space for the IIe and the //c. I'm reluctant to leave the IIe in the garage because, while it's largely climate-controlled these days, the leaf blower is often used to remove debris from Mitzi's landscaping efforts. Stuff goes everywhere. I sometimes find the workbench covered with fine dirt and crud, and there's little I can do about it. I hate yards and yard work.
✍️ Reply by emailCrud Continues (Kinda)
13:02 Tuesday, 1 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 87.31°F Pressure: 1013hPa Humidity: 73% Wind: 1.01mph
Words: 115
I now have a runny nose again. Not as bad as it was at first, but still a surprise.
My tooth is somewhat(?) better. It's still quite sensitive, but it's in the 8-9 range. If I'm careful, I can manage to eat nearly anything I want, although there will be some pain.
Mitzi and I are back in the same bed, and we're dog-sitting. I suspect that's kind of affecting my sleep. I'm actually feeling more tired now than I was when I was taking the Paxlovid. But a nap mostly restores my energy level, for a while anyway.
If the tooth didn't hurt, I'd say I was pretty much done with Covid.
✍️ Reply by emailEditor's Note
06:46 Tuesday, 1 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 76.44°F Pressure: 1013hPa Humidity: 96% Wind: 0mph
Words: 99
For those who may feel that I'm being a little too harsh on Mr. Millinor, please note that I know we're living here on borrowed time. If we have a catastrophic loss, we are not "rebuilding" here.
There may be questions regarding HOA requirements and so on, but the "concept of a plan" is to use the insurance proceeds, such as they may be, and pay off the mortgage. Do what we have to to scrape off the slab, sell the lot and move. Get the hell out of Florida. Let some other fool assume this risk.
Borrowed time.
✍️ Reply by emailA More Sober Note
06:45 Tuesday, 1 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 76.44°F Pressure: 1013hPa Humidity: 96% Wind: 0mph
Words: 23
This video tells a different story. Same place, different people.
And a closing shot that offers at least a glimpse of the truth.
✍️ Reply by emailGood Ol' Boy
06:36 Tuesday, 1 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 76.44°F Pressure: 1013hPa Humidity: 96% Wind: 0mph
Words: 57
It seems Shannon Millinor, Good Ol' Boy from the preceding post, is something of a community spokesperson and this ain't his first rodeo.
Or hurricane.
Where can we find an accounting of state and federal dollars that went into Keaton Beach a year ago after Idalia?
Put a number on what "we" are doing.
Year after year.
✍️ Reply by email"We will rebuild..."
06:14 Tuesday, 1 October 2024
Current Wx: Temp: 76.82°F Pressure: 1013hPa Humidity: 95% Wind: 0mph
Words: 274
Uh, who is "we," kemosabe?
Here it is, the archetypal disaster report, closed on a note of earnest, homespun resilience. "We will rebuild."
Nowhere in the report is our stalwart survivor interrogated as to just exactly how, or who "we" represents.
Because, as sure as I'm sittin' here, our straw-hatted Good Ol' Boy doesn't have the resources to rebuild. And by "we" he means that you and I and every other sucker is going to have to pitch in and help him enjoy "our little paradise."
At least between catastrophic storms anyway.
We already subsidize living on the beach for those who wish to embrace that risk. We shovel tens of millions of taxpayer dollars into the ocean to "renourish" the sand the ocean washes away. An ocean that's rising, and wave action that's growing more energetic with increasing average wind speeds. We pay higher insurance rates all over the state, in part, to offset the risk Good Ol' Boy takes on to live where he does.
Folks in Kenosha, Wisconsin are helping Good Ol' Boy live in his little paradise with their federal tax dollars spent by FEMA.
Good Ol' Boy doesn't care.
I love the way PBS just ignores the question. Sure, it might be too much to put it directly to Good Ol' Boy in his hour of suffering. But they could have asked someone. Illuminated this illusion that "we" isn't just Good Ol' Boy and his fishin' buddies.
"Other folks got their stuff." Yeah, "their stuff" is subsidizing his dumb ass.
Florida. You have to be insane to live here.
Or a dumb ass.
Unsure which category I'm in.
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