ShopTalk Sunday: Six-Pack of Topics

by

There are six topics to go over in lieu of a project report this week. More insight into why Urban will become paywalled, idiocy of Daylight, ER Roulette, D’Lynn’s “Thinking Sandwich”, radiation monitoring plans, and one other topic (or I just can’t count).

Daylight Time Stupidity

Ask people with serious sight impairment what they think of Daylight Time and they have a much more realistic view of things than the political aristocracy.  “Half the year, I feel like I’m always behind and the other half, I’m twiddling my thumbs” a sight-limited ham pal was telling me this morning. “I just wish there was one time and people could adjust.”  All this without optical (light) references!

By the way, Mexico is smarter than the U.S. anymore.  Not only do we provide employment for what, 10-million of their citizens? – they also don’t have Daylight Time.  Yeah…geniuses…that’s us.

I’m convinced that sight-impaired people should staff all positions in government.  When you have sight issues, a lot of gender/DEI/racial issues go “Poof!”  Blind people would not be so easily hornswoggled by the whiner class.

After that, our morning roundtable (around Texas) on 3806 (lsb) bemoaned the state of pretty much everything.  One fellow – told to stop drinking coffee – explained that Aging is when you transition to “Pills without Thrills.”

Another feller explained what unconditional love is:  “Now you lock your wife and your dog in the trunk of the car for an hour, or so, but not on a hot day, of course.  When you open the trunk, which one of them is going to be happy to see you and be wagging its tail?  Not your wife, for damn-sure…”  

There’s a lot of wisdom to be found on the overnight ham bands…

ER Adventures

Elaine’s latest “over-doing it around here” landed her in the ER a couple of three weeks ago.  Recovering from what was diverticulitis, she came home, pills without thrills, recovered for a couple of days and then spent 3-hours on hands and knees pulling weeds in the yard.  Her idea, not mine! Which then triggered a hell of a neck issue, so off to the PCP Friday for an assessment,  Armed today with a muscle-relaxer, she’s back to normal (ish),

But here comes the “dog ate my homework” part:  Losing an entire day due to doctoring (and drugstoring and candy striper chores attending) the grand plan for marvelous photography and an article ran into the ditch.

But, this (sort-of) leads into a discussion of…

Urban Going Paywall Rationale Detailed

Somewhere (late week) a long-time subscriber asked “Is this with or in addition to the subscription for Peoplenomics?”  

“No change fo subscribers – Peoplenomics is where everything is moving.

I made the decision because paywalls are an honest (and simple!) business relationship.  Urban content has been very good but the business model part of it is a time-sink.  This didn’t used to be the case.

Once upon a time, WordPress was a simple, effective “content manager” system. Took care of all the “manual labor” which was continued on Peoplenomics which is – even now – created using a tool called Microsoft ExpressionWeb,.

What has changed, though, is the grand proliferation of tools  – add-ons and plugins – to make the WordPress core code do everything I want (and need) it to do.

As you may know – but many people don’t – is that website back-ends have become increasingly complicated.  For example, on Urban (with ads turned on), the ad provider demands analytics access plus you need to have a solid tool set to document complaints with GDPR (European megalomaniacs) along with now 12 states in the US that have their own data opt out rules.

This all goes on regardless of whether a website has had time to create actual content.  This is just in order to show the ad, you’ve got to appease this person and that.

OK, it’s complicated, but doable up to here.  But then we got into an area called “page load speed.”  Essentially, when you get the dozen (or more) “plugins” to make a site fast, secure, showing ads, conforming with legal issues, and “playing nicely with servers” it can tear up a lot of processor time slices. The Urban site started to slow down.

Then, when something goes wrong (like it did last week) you have to go “troubleshooting”.  To give you an example, I had an issue with one plug-in (that enables the RSS feed and drives the site’s search engine optimization.  Which, in turn was 8-hours, spread over three days reading exciting emails from the (plugin maker’s support team) that offered advice like:

“2 .I also found a [brand] Tag Manager code in [redacted] > General Settings > Webmaster Tools > [brand] Analytics-

https://[redacted].com/i/9Pjvme If this is not needed, it should be removed. These are adding scripts to your pages.”

Turns out that was supposed to ad a script, because it drove function (in another plugin) and after an hour or three to resolve, then there was the chore of making the other plugins (like site caching to keep the site reasonably fast) which required changes to….um, you get the idea.

Maintaining two sites (if it’s just pure content creation) it’s no problem. I am a “thinking and writing machine.”  Hell, I just put the last of what’s now a 57,000 word non-fiction book on anti-aging on the Peoplenomics site this week.  Bonus for subscribers.

Where the problem (time demands) has come is that two business models are involved (the ad supported (Urban) and the paywall (Peoplenomics). In order to free up more time (which in turn will increase the subscriber value on Peoplenomics) I’ve made the decision to focus on what matters most to an interested audience of really exceptional thinking people.

So rest easy. Peoplenomics won’t change.  UrbanSurvival?  Well, that’s a different kettle of fish.  Thanks for subscribing (since 2010!) and I hope to be around writing columns another 20-years…”

Since he wasn’t clear what I was waxing on about recently, I wanted to share a little more detail…so other smart people might have ther question because of my rambling approach to all this…

The Thinking Sandwich

Reader D’Lynn posted a Comment you might miss (not everyone knows about the gems in our Comments following posts).

Thinking Sandwich
– Do you get bogged down with a project, or idea and smack-the-wall ?
Whenever that happens I go into kitchen and make me a “Thinking Sandwich”.
Today’s was two slices of spam, pan fried., two eggs fried and two slabs of aged white cheddar cheese [ melted on top of the eggs as the finish frying.] all on our home made whole wheat, 12 grain/seeds/nut bread – toasted, of course, with just a touch of mayo.
Then.., stand over the sink and as I consume my artery clogging concoction I think the problem through. Nine times out of ten I solve the dilemma or come up with a much better design / idea. My “Thinking Sandwich”.
They are not always the same. [My double-decker BLT is great.] Just depends what I find in the frig when I am need of some serious thinking.
Today’s ‘need’ was a project I am working on for the vegetable garden come Spring. Came up with an even better design. After I cleaned-up, I drew it out in less than 20 minutes.
Works for me.”

Send in the new plan! We will be looking it over for the permit review here….

Thinking Sadwiches might work for D’Lynn, but hell, I’d never get out of the Kitchen.  I have so many “unsolvables” at any one time, the feedbag would be on non-stop.  Wait…do problems all have a glycemic index connection?

Radiation Checks

Some websites to bookmark before the end of the world shows up: Radiation Network let’s you look at how “the radioactive cloud” is moving around the country.  Out here in the woods, we have 15-20-click a minute levels most of the time.

Amazon has a pretty good selection of radiation monitoring units here.  In terms of brands, we have been happy with the GQ something-or-other-300 unit.  Having a system available is not going to change anything, but it can increase “peace of mind” (until we all wink out). But we’ll have great comfort knowing when we pass medium-rare.

Hydroponics and Deer Plantings

Rain returned to East Texas (finally!) this week. But that doesn’t mean we can burn in the burn barrel, yet.  Because with a County burn ban on, if you burn before the “official” all-clear, there’s the risk of a $500 fine.

But the rain means the rainwater barrels will be filled up and we can move some of the hydroponic cold weather plants out into the greenhouse.

As soon as I get me a “thinking sandwich” I’ll be up on the (big) tractor putting out clover seed for the deer.  I figure by late winter the perennial clover will have deer lined-up three deep to get into the yard.  (If I ever get out of the kitchen, that is…)

Which is also a gun-free zone, except for the owners, of course.

On that note, the to-do list isn’t going to shorten itself, so consider today’s meeting adjourned. We continueto be appalled that the Federal Trade Commission doesn’t apply bait-and-switch laws to office holders (in common with other thieves).

Write when the idiotic and insulting “I approved of this message” cloud has passed! Can we put elections on eBay and call it good without pretending it’s not already a bidding war?

George@Ure.net

43 thoughts on “ShopTalk Sunday: Six-Pack of Topics”

  1. Day the World Ended(1955)

    An atomic war has seemingly destroyed most of human civilization, leaving the Earth contaminated with radioactive fallout. One exception is an isolated box canyon, surrounded by lead-bearing cliffs, in which former U.S. Navy Commander Jim Maddison lives with his daughter Louise in a home he has stockpiled with supplies in anticipation of such an apocalypse.

    Trailer
    https://youtu.be/CR3VIe4lDgU?si=jjI4m1sfX7sZRq4Y

    • Ahhh.., another Roger “How to make a hundred movies and never lose a dime” Corman movie. He was great.
      –

    • Rare, rare (bloody-drippy) roast beast on a fresh Cassone’s New England-style “hard roll” –NOT at all like southern-style soft-ass pissy “kaiser rolls;” — sammitch served with entirely too much Hellman’s [real] mayonaise. (NOT that southern fave “Duke’s” crappy mayo…) and plenty black pepper. (Enough to make your wife scream.)

      Seeved cold. (We keep the mayo in the fridge just for this reason.

      THAT is genius food… (Best consumed ravenously while standing at the kitchen sink, staring out the window for inspiration — which never fails.) (Paper towels handy.)

      Good for calculating Trans-Lunar Injection Orbits in your head to seven decimal places.

      • Now iuf you’d let me put some thin-sliced maters on it and a lot of sliced onion and have it with chicken noodle or french yumuyum soup, then we’d be into Nobel-level thinking for sure…

  3. Ures’ ballsack was recently overheard saying..”No, I am offended by You and Ure Underwear!” , this after G had just asked it to, “Come back Sack!’

    Feeling like Ures’ Nut Sack anymore, OFFENDED, constantly, by all the bald faced lies being spewed forth from mouths of the least worthy and msm.

    The marxist retard can unburden “THIS”, the miserable excuse for a intelligent Human being, hell my Parrot has more on the ball than that walking insult, she can barely talk, intelligently.

    Somebody – please remove those dark oily stains from current time line, getting to be so I cant even turn on a sporting event without being verbally assaulted by one of these vile satanists/messages.

    Color Moi – Offended! by the darkness..

    “Thinking Sandwich” – thinking wit fried Spam, must be an Army puke or Hawaiian thing. One of best buds growing up Dad was an Army Ranger – Korea, would fry up SPAM every Sunday in da Kitchen. Dude married a Model who cleaned house in her undergarments on Sundays..you will never guess where I wanted to be on Sundays ? Same guy witnessed a Brother in Philly tie up a B&W springer spaniel pup to post and smack it around. Needless to say – the cat who hit the pup regretted it the rest of his life, and my bud got one of the coolest Springers I ever knew..Win/Win.

  4. For the record, I LOVE Daylight Saving Time, and I hate Standard Time! I’ll start to adapt to Winter Time some time around March. That’s why I’m up and functional now.

    Regarding Mexico – most of the country is on year round Standard Time, but it’s spotty. Some border regions follow whatever is happening in the USA, which makes sense from a trade perspective.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time_in_Mexico

    Thanks for the explanation of why Ure paywalling. It’s a good idea since Ure retired and I’d rather read useful words than not. In the old days, you could set up a functional website in about 1/2 hour in pure HTML. Today – not so much.

    My best wishes for Elaine’s continued healing! Perhaps some pills with thrills and a day of rest together are in order for both of you.

  5. 1) Be together, and be happy.
    Nothing else matters.

    2) I Got on ‘Nomics after seeing
    Urban for a time. So, maybe
    keep a huge PDF low-work version,
    delayed a week, to incentivize
    newbie discoverers to buy in.

    Don’t over-work. Be toghther;
    THAT is your true treasure.
    73

  6. re: Six Ways to Sunday Shop Talk

    Folks,

    You may have been wondering if someone had been locked in the car trunk as President Biden toiled solo in the waning campaign days. Fear not. Fifteen days before the election, the White House website announced another First Lady accomplishment. The enhanced White House public tour serving 10,000 visitors a week is up and running. Ten improvements now include an enhanced view into the room setting of fireside chats given by FDR.

  7. What you are doing with websites would drive me nuts. We see this happening to you –not to mention all the time you spend on it. And you keep looking for end runs.

    This is in sharp contrast to a website and organization I was in a leadership role.

    The website was for information and education and was big.

    It was full of energy, population and sustainability materials. No fluff. Often seldom easily available.

    If a researcher or student wanted info, this website was a well regarded primary information source.

    Its been defunct for years but on occasion still see it being cited.

    There was no advertising, no business model.

    The server was private and its owner a phone call away. Never down; never had problems.

    The only thing to do, if anything, was to tell the search engines something was available.

    People make their choices; you and I made different choices. I was happy, delighted with its repetition and usefulness and proud.

    • To tell us: Was the employee count (including legal, accounting, and all outsourced services) done with an employee count of Exactly one (which we presume would be you? Which is my point…)

  8. When you are retired or self-employed, setting Ure own hours is possible. The current time rotation is working for most. Leave it alone.

    • Now we have to wonder if n___ is an appeaser for the atomic clock industry and the other (pardon, this won’t sound righte) clo9ck suckers who impose perfectly made=up time on top of an esstablished, well-regulated sunrise and sunset.
      I don’t mind working till past dark in the winter, but in summer Party Time!

      • Did I ever do a Peoplenomics write up on “relative time?”
        Core idea is sunrise and sunset are local (and vary) so electronics slice up the day on a seasonal basis depend on local sunrise…
        Even so, I suppose some people will remain forever in the dark…

      • I just switched over to a Seiko 5 Automatic Sport with one of their newest movements a couple of weeks back. It has a one wrinkle, but is otherwise astoundingly accurate. The sweep hand isn’t stopped by pulling out the crown, so you can’t set it closer than 30 seconds off NIST time after the spring is wound. Still, it keeps better time than some quartz watched I have had; you just have to keep up with it in your head or write it down if you try to verify accuracy against the NIST. I’m thinking that keeps a watch discounted to $140 or so from being the equal of a $4000 certified chronograph, which Seiko also makes. Sounds like Japanese marketing keeping the engineers down on the farm. Supposedly these watches run for about five years before they need an overhaul or replacement. I occasionally get 5 years out of a watch, but not always.
        You did miss a point that MBA’s are prone to overlook; daylight savings is as much a labor issue as it is anything. If you want to volunteer to labor from sun-up to sundown for yourself, that is Ure privilege. Personally, I like clocking out when there is a little daylight a goodly portion of the year.

        • I have a $35 Casio ‘solar’ watch that I wore when working in televion… where we needed ‘network & satellite’ timing. As long as I wore it to keep it at body temp. it kept to within 5 seconds per month!! Was nice to have something that reliable when working around the building, knowing you could watch the hourly ‘switch’. Still have the watch, laying in a sunny window to keep it charged

        • Hank- My late father never used PC’s, and would avoid programming home entertainment gear, but he wore a Casio watch in his later years and figured out to program the alarms. That watch constantly alarmed. I think he everything he did was on a scheduled alarm.
          Bet you can’t get that Casio for $35 anymore.
          My new watch is completely mechanical. First one I’ve had since I was a youngster.

    • I’m thinking my 76th birthday. I already bought a present for the occasion – based on Chris Tyreman’s recent vacation – which won’t make sense until tomorrow’s column…. but that’s dangling conversations for you, Simon.

  10. “Thinking Sandwich” – is probably why I can’t shake the extra ten pounds that I have been carrying around for a decade, or so.

      • G: “cut out all the problems in your life”

        Pfew, if only. Lost an appeal with my elderly sister’s UHC carrier so on Friday we moved her from Rehab to Assisted Living. Those insurance fellers don’t know what a pest they created. As a recently retired near 40 year slave to Finance … I have plenty of time to start the reverse torture routine. Set to stun …

        ATL: yesterday we had patio cocktails with the neighbors (Ozzie, Harriet and their adorable kids). Then a troop of lake kids plied the lake for Halloween treats. Mrs. E decided to go intercept the farm wagon and … apparently had her party hat on. She has gone back to bed (3) times so far today.

        Tuesday I’m meeting a sailing bud who is handing off three RC sailboats, two Victor 32s and one meter boat. Guess I better get up to the barn to locate a safe space out of sight. And I also need to get my campaign sign out at the road edge.

        Vote for Pedro.
        Egor

        Napoleon Dynamite (my cousin gets royalties so …)
        https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/napoleon-dynamite-explained-why-vote-for-pedro/

  11. Washington State – the Governor has placed the National Guard on alert for possible election night violence.

    • “Washington State – the Governor has placed the National Guard on alert for possible election night violence.”

      Why would anyone get violent on that night if the results are not announced for a week or more after the election? Simple answer? Because they can. Any excuse to burn down the town is acceptable.

  12. Thanks for clarification regarding subscription.

    Hope to be around reading your scribblings for another 20.
    >

  13. “Urban Going Paywall Rationale Detailed”

    I happened to be listening to Megyn Kelly today (it was either she, or 80 channels of sportstalk & religion.) She had a pair of “Steves” as guests. I didn’t catch the one dude’s name, the other was “Burguiere” (better known as “Stu,” Glenn Beck’s longtime producer and friend.) Megyn was talking to the Steves about moving to a “free subscription model” because THEY believe the commies in D.C. will evoke widespread censorship after the Election, whether or not Trump is elected. They were discussing what sounded to me like placing her productions inside a shell, which could then be shopped to RTV or used as a podcast, but would guarantee the veracity and integrity of her broadcasts against 3rd party editing or censoring, and could be instantly made private, while retaining her listenership, should an issue arise.

    Is this an actual issue, or just compelling fill…?

    • Not useless fill by any strentch. I reported on the subscriber side in 2017 (uissue 803-B, Feb 4, 2017) on\\

      The Weaponization of Social Media

      Ouch! Not a very comfortable topic today. But an important one to consider going forward.

      It began as a simple discussion of how America needs to begin coming up with new – and more effective – ways to fight militant Islamic jihadists. But in the process, turns out that in addition to having a terrible “soft underbelly” in things like the SCADA systems that run utilities and such, the biggest “target of opportunity” is sitting right in front of us.

      Social media… It’s also why given time, perhaps within five years or less, we will see the arrival of my long-predicted web content licensing.

  14. BTW, I had brunchper this afternoon at a Waffle House. They had an employee making biscuits in pans of 36, then taking the biscuits apart, laying the half-biscuits on the work counter, buttering the halves and reassembling, then putting in containers. I’ve eaten at a Waffle House a time or two and hadn’t seen that procedure, so I asked.

    “It’s for the concert…”

    As I was leaving, I asked the manager “What concert?”

    Her reply: “TAYLOR SWIFT!

    TAYLOR SWIFT IS IN INDIANAPOLIS, TONIGHT!!!”

    I was in the process of crossing Indiana, en route to points in the commiewealth of Illinois, and was about 90 miles north of Indy.

    I said “You’re kidding?”

    She explained that I could not get a motel room anywhere in the area, for any amount of money. She said: “We’ll sell at least 10 gallons of sausage gravy and 50 pounds of hash browns tonight, just on 3rd shift. Concertgoers always want B&G.”

    I just looked at her.

    She went on: “We’re open 24 hours — In fact, we’re the only 24hr restaurant within 20 miles…”

    I knew Taylor Swift was popular. I had no idea Swifties were Grateful Dead or Jimmy Buffett like camp-followers. My daughter later informed me that Swifties will typically arrive 5-10 hours before a concert, so they can hang out with other Swifties and exchange TS friendship bracelets.

    …And here, I was worrying about something as inconsequential as a flight of B-52s.

    • take a gander at the Swifties at work..check out the guy that was harassing Jason Kelce at PSU-OSU game Saturday @ PSU. After 10 minutes or so of constant harassment by young drunk Male student, said drunk decided to call a recently retired NFL Linemans’ pro bowl caliber Brother “a faggot”. On that faggot comment, Jason spun around grabbed the dudes phone and slammed it into concrete saying “whos’ a faggot now ?” That was just the minor incident – the aftermath ?

      Swiftie Nation is all over that moron, like stink on obamma.

      Dude is gonna need to change identity and enter into a witness protection program..

      a dumbass if there ever was one .

      • I saw it — It made the news rotation on ESPN.

        BTW, I’m amoral WRT Big-10 football, but I was expecting PSU to win. Wha hoppened…?

        • STDD – beaten by hometown HS football team QB – who is for playing OSU. PSU looked intimidated for certain periods of play. Coach Franklins’ biggest fan.. I aint..

        • Penn State told the kid from nearby who dreamed growing of playing for Penn State taht he wasn’t wasn’t good enough to play for Penn State … so he went out to the wilderness, Kansas, and then ended up Portaling to Ohio State where he beat their ass!!

          Talk about poetic justice! I certainly got a chuckle at the irony of it all.

Comments are closed.