I thought I'd add this future post, so it will always be at the top of my list as I've seen several people do. Feel free to use this as a place to send me general comments not related to my other posts posts, or request that I post some kind of information.  Also, now I'm adding links people may want to be able to reference quickly.

Persistent information:

Saturday morning Tea:
Just in case the world goes to hell:

( Comments will be screened, but I reserve the right to cut and paste them into a current dated entry of my own to start a topic unless you request otherwise. )

Hey Amazon.com, friend bought a chrome book via credit card, it was broken, returned it, the rep they talked to refunded the purchase to an Amazon Gift card so a new one could be ordered without waiting for the refund to process on the card. Second chrome book had problems as well, and a return was initiated. Now they're being told they can't get the money back because it was purchased from a gift card, except it wasn't, it was purchased via credit card, the rep said the gift card was so that the purchase could be made immediately instead of waiting for the refund. Who would I talk to when I get home to get this resolved?

Any day you can type a word beginning with mn or pn is a good day.

Watching a Disturbed video ... are those rings on his chin for contact-charging when he's put into his dock?

Whoo, got un-friended over posting a supportive comment on something someone posted. I can't say I'm disappointed, or surprised.

I love Micah (cat) whenever I floof the blankets to straighten them out he jumps under like we did with the giant parachute in gymnclass.

Oh, hey, my Win10 VM was only using 2 processors, now that I have it running on 8 it's working a LOT peppier, and Netflix actually plays pretty well.

Temperature from my Nest Thermostat is now being logged into my database as well, so I'll be able to view historical records of house temperature. What should I log next?

New favorite way to say someone's "not quite all there." ... "There's no laptop in the dock."

Power monitoring revelations : My cat litter box uses about $.022 every time it cleans itself, so I spend between $4-5 a month to not have to clean a cat box myself. Worth it!

Theory : Kurt Vonnegut is a reincarnation of Mark Twain. Convince me otherwise!

Fun audience participation post, a bit different from the "If you like me, do this." posts. Like me, hate me, indifferent, no matter. If you like to write, reply with your original introductory paragraph to a story you might right. (as a bonus I'll post one I wrote for just such a task years ago). Like the idea, copy it, or don't up to you.

Nature doesn't have a spell checker, when it texts itself from generation to generation it makes typo's. Be glad of this, that's why you breathe air, and can live on land, why you have hands, and ears, and eyes, and why sun doesn't destroy your body instantly." Sure it also causes diseases, but next tine you do anything remotely human, be thankful life has it's spell check turned off.

For those of you having trouble getting the new Skype to install, where it just spins starting up the first time. Try connecting to a different network. I was able to get mine to update by tethering with my phone and afterwards it was just fine.

I'm looking for a game some of the things I want: Travel to interesting locations A bit of work to keep the game going, but not super-grindy. An interesting plot. Non-constrained world building that makes exploration, and day to day game work easier. A game that's not done in a week. So like Factorio combined with Telltale Walking Dead, and mix in a heavy dolop of No Man's Sky.

Bad product name : "Power Bank Surprise" ..... um, no I want it to work, and charge my phone, no surprises.

I have answers to questions... Can you treat a tortilla like French toast?... Yes. Can you rap said tortilla French toast around a hot dog with cheese before cooking them together into a tasty tasty thing?... Yes!

Do I know anyone who can mill aluminum? I want to build a .... special ... flashlight and need a body for it.

I feel like it's been WAY TO LONG (TM / TWSS) since I've gone and seen Rocky Horror. I know there's at least one showing around Chicago, who wants to go some weekend?

If you see someone with a cut-out hole in their clothing, where a Nike swoosh used to be, those holes shall be from now on known as Asshole Windows #assholewindows.

Has anyone else seen AXL Movie? I really enjoyed the movie, even thought it's meant for a younger audience clearly. I also saw a significant number of references that seemed to tie back to movies such as Short Circuit, Terminator, Electric Dreams, and I think even more than those 3. I'll have to re-watch it to see if I find more now that I realize I'm looking for them. I mean, the main character is Miles (not Moles saddly) and his ... interest ... is Sara. Is Fontaine a reference to Eliminators? It would fit too. It seems like it might have been rushed through production a bit, it seems like a few parts of the plot rely on guessing what might have happened in moments prior. I know I don't mind that kind of thing, reading between the lines. But the people who like movies spoon fed to them probably didn't enjoy that.

A moment of silence please for my soldering iron, RIP heater element, you served me well.

Recon!

You'd think with as popular as 3D printing is, some company would make filament that matched the 4 typical colors of household switch/outlet plates :P There's bright white, grey and brown, but nobody makes a reasonably priced ivory white.

Related to a dream I had last night. Are there any Linux Distros specifically built to be a very minimal set of tools that would be useful during a huge natural disaster? For example, mesh networking, remote communication replication, simple beginner facing email service, GPS tracking and weather sensing. Ideally built to run on a Raspberry Pi with solar power.

Anyone know what 3D printing filament best matches the color of ivory switch and outlet covers?

If I were an 80's cartoon character, what shows do you think I would have been in (80's or otherwise)?

Yay, on the way home yesterday I ran into a foot stool that had fallen off someone's car. It jammed under the car and a passer by helped me get it loose. Now my car's leaking coolant, and nobody seems to fix radiators anymore, a new one is over $400 then labor on top. Joy.

I just picked up season passes to Noah's Ark Waterpark for 2018+2019. Going this Saturday and a few times next year (weekends most likely, but perhaps a weekday trip too), if you want to go with us sometime grab your own pass. I'm thinking perhaps a revival of the old Dells Camping trip might be in order too at some point, people still interested in it?

We've been playing Pandemic Season 2 Legacy at work and just finished. It got me thinking, it'd be cool to write an open source game where you're a galactic civilization and you explore worlds, each world could be designed by someone individual, with pieces you 3D print after you unlock some clue or at the end of each round perhaps, by some kind of scoring method.

If this is working like I think it is, I now have Windows 10 running under Ubuntu 18.04 with a direct connection to the video card so that 3D acceleration works in Windows. It sees my second video card at least, drivers are downloading. The goal, to be able to run Windows over top of Ubuntu as the main GUI. With direct video access for Windows so that graphics speed is fast, but having Ubuntu behind the scenes so I can run multiple OSs together at the same time. I don't have 64gb ram and 32 cores just to run one OS :)

Anyone in the market for a 75-300mm USM lens for a Canon EOS? Cheap for friends, otherwise it goes to eBay.

Did you know you can 3D-print a Chicago Pizza by stacking a dozen NY City pizzas?

I know it's not exciting to many of you, but this is the output I can now get from my Java Library for parsing the data from my Rainforest EMU-2 power-meter interface. {"InstantaneousDemand":{"Demand":1.44,"MeterMacId":"0x00135005001543ec","DeviceMacId":"0xd8d5b90000006a59","TimeStamp":"2018-07-29 11:06:43.0"}} {"InstantaneousDemand":{"Demand":1.503,"MeterMacId":"0x00135005001543ec","DeviceMacId":"0xd8d5b90000006a59","TimeStamp":"2018-07-2911:06:58.0"}} {"InstantaneousDemand":{"Demand":5.13,"MeterMacId":"0x00135005001543ec","DeviceMacId":"0xd8d5b90000006a59","TimeStamp":"2018-07-29 11:07:13.0"}} {"InstantaneousDemand":{"Demand":4.923,"MeterMacId":"0x00135005001543ec","DeviceMacId":"0xd8d5b90000006a59","TimeStamp":"2018-07-2911:07:28.0"}} {"InstantaneousDemand":{"Demand":4.905,"MeterMacId":"0x00135005001543ec","DeviceMacId":"0xd8d5b90000006a59","TimeStamp":"2018-07-2911:07:43.0"}} {"InstantaneousDemand":{"Demand":4.905,"MeterMacId":"0x00135005001543ec","DeviceMacId":"0xd8d5b90000006a59","TimeStamp":"2018-07-2911:07:58.0"}}

Pondering, could fried zucchini be spiced to that it might make a reasonable alternative to pepperoni on a pizza? I ask only because I have zucchini and I baked it on a pizza and it was good, but could have been better!

I don't know what my fortune was from tonight's meal, I accidentally ate part of it. Always check to make sure you've extracted the FULL fortune strip.

Just canceled my Movepass account, I'm going to fashion the card into a small gravestone and place it in my garden with two 3D printed gnomes to watch over the grave.

Took my lunch today to drive half an hour to Best Buy in Gurnee because they advertised the Ready Player One Movie on 3D Blu-ray for the best price, releasing today. The sales folks were nice enough to check the computer which said "Unavailable for sale" I could have ordered on online and had it delivered, but I wanted to have it in-hand today. Not good customer service, not sure if Best Buy or the movie company dropped the ball, but maybe actually have the product you've been advertising for weeks?

Ok, at what point do we stop damning celebrities for things they tweeted in their past, and admit that people can learn and grow, and that accepting and verifying that change in people is far far more important than shaming them for something they once believed. I mean, I look back to High School, where "gay" was an insult, almost universally among people. It's not now obviously because as we learn more about the world our views change, and we realize we were wrong, and learn. Shouldn't we be putting more emphasis on that learning process that everyone has to go through, and less on shaming someone for what they thought 20 years ago before experience changed them?

Tonight's Goodwill find : Canon 75-300 USB IS lens for $99 Then came home and I got my ceiling fan installed in my computer room.

Two weeks ago I was pulling CAT6 wire through the wall, I do this with a length of twine tied onto it so I can pull more wires later. When I was done I cut off the last 8 inches of wire and twine, they were still tied together. Tonight Micah (my cat) brought it to me as a present.

Moviepass is charging "peak" pricing to see a movie at 9:30 in a theater with 6 whole other people. It was nice while it lasted ... #peakmyass

Who wants to do a group outing to a water park in August? Somewhere like Magic Waters or Noah's Ark?

Every time I passed a sign that says mulch, I think that would be the name of the Moon Moon of the Klingon Empire

I'm not sure what game I'm part of, but I'm a part of some game my cat plays. When I go to the washroom at night, I walk out into the hall and a lot of times he's waiting just around the corner for me to walk out, at which point he runs as fast as he can to the other side of the room with his tail twitching frantically in the air. My awareness of my involvement does not seem to be important.

Ok, let's see how smart Amazon is, I needed 2 $5 parts for my 3D printer, to get it tomorrow adds $5.99 each, so I ordered one rush-delivery and one free-Prime. Logically it's cheaper to send both together tomorrow because each weighs about 1/2 an ounce. Will their computer figure that out and ship them together?

Does anyone have any Google Home actions setup/installed that will relay whatever I tell it to a local server? For example "Ok Google have computer turn on light" and it will send "turn on light" or something similar to a URL.

Noah's Ark Waterpark please tell me you haven't roped off the deep end of your wave pools the way MTO (not linking them, they don't deserve any recognition) did.

Recently I visited Mount Olympus - Wisconsin Dells and took advantage (or they took advantage of me) of their "All Inclusive" resort. Everything involving Mount Olympus (They abbreviate it MTO because that's the amount of effort they put into everything there) Saturday checking is 4pm, we're texted days in advance to come to their new checking facility which is about 3 miles from the main park. We checked in at about 5pm with a very nice person who spoke little English and seemed to be confused about the question "Which building are we in." as MTO owns everything north of the main street it seems. Finally realized we were in the same building as the check-in, 3 miles from the park. Get to our room, the "headboard" is painted on the wall, and the "furniture" is some kind of a shop class project made out of 2x4's (well made, but still...) There's a microwave, and a fridge, no tea, coffee, etc. It's a room I'd pay $25 for just to sleep in overnight on a long road trip, and is clearly a bargain at the just under $200 MTO charges. It's all inclusive I remind myself, despite not being anywhere near the park. The all inclusive food stops being served at 5pm as well, so we obviously missed it Saturday. However with a 4pm check in time, loading into the room, and then racing to the park miles away, I can't imagine many people actually make it to "dinner". We get to the indoor water park, which is open from 7pm till 10pm for "resort guests only" which as they own 1/2 the Dells is everyone who wasn't smart enough to go to Kalahari, Great Wolf or Noah's Ark. There's an activity pool for people to just float and swim in, and there's quite a lot of activity in the pool, apologizing to people you bump into, glaring at people who kick you, and generally trying to defend your 2x2ft spot in the pool, because everyone in the Dells is is there. We lasted maybe 25 minutes before going to the lazy river. Their lazy river is under 3ft deep, meaning an adult can't float in it without dragging some part of themselves along the rough bottom of the river. We went around once. We left had some awesome food at Bobbers, seriously, that place looks like a warehouse, and has some of the best food, go there, skip MTO. The next morning it was raining, yay, that meant less people at the park. We spent $60 to go ride the Ducks, a much better deal than MTO even when it rained on us sideways, and our phones announced a tornado watch. I might be biased, the rain and tornado actually made it better for me. Finally we go over to MTO around 2:30 to go swimming. I didn't mention above but their parking for the park is about 4 blocks away from the entrance to the water park (why not have a second entrance? Well MTO would have to spend money on more staff and barcode scanners, and clearly guest service isn't their gig) I drop people at the entrance, labeled "No drop offs" but who cares at this point honestly. Drive around some crazy maze of fences for god knows what reason, and park the car, before walking back to the entrance. Off to the wave pool, my old childhood friend, who I've swam in dozens of times when I was a kid and Family Land had yet to merge into MTO. They have a rope roping off the wave pool at around the 3ft depth ... WTF (really WTEGDSAYSF in my mind) is the point of a wave pool where I can't even sit my ass on the bottom and get my nose wet. The guard makes sure to scream at anyone who even dares to touch the precious rope. We swam for about 30 minutes. Tried their outdoor lazy river, it as well is 3ft deep, we go around once scraping along the bottom as we go. "Let's get food" words uttered with enthusiasm only once, never again. The all inclusive "food" was either an hour line to get pizza, or an hour line to get hot dogs and a side. Hot Dogs is is, we're allowed two of the precious meat sticks, and a generous side for each of potato chips, or coleslaw. Get the potato chips, the coleslaw was just cabbage, whatever they mixed it with was so thin that it had no taste at all. Which might be for the best since it was served from a large bowl floating in another bowl of what was probably once ice. Good times, fortunately I didn't get sick, probably because there was nothing in the coleslaw to go bad. Let's go check out the new wave pool, certainly it's been built better so that people can enjoy the deep end. Nope, it's walled off possibly even shallower, and there are specific no-no zones around which people are verboten to stand, but no actual signs to tell you that, just another lifeguard yelling at you. I got 2 waves and we left. At this point we're sick of the park, it's nearing 5pm and we want to get home not too late, so we get the car, and start off towards home. We got some great cheese on the way back, smoked Bleu, nom! So for $200, we got a $25 hotel room miles away from the "All Inclusive" park. "Exclusive" access to the indoor water park along with 50% of the rest of the people in the Dells. The next morning we spent more time in line than we did in the pools, waiting for the "All Inclusive" hot dogs and cabbage "meal". Quite the bargain. NEVER, EVER, EVER AGAIN. It was so bad I had dreams of going to other water parks the next night and finding out they'd roped off their wave pools as well and woke up yelling "Damnit!!" (true story!) I literally would have been better just getting a $50 hotel with a pool and just enjoying their pool, it would have been far more enjoyable. The Ducks and Bobbers were spot-on though, can't say enough about how much I enjoyed them.

Has anyone been to Noah's Ark lately? Do they rope off the "deep" (4+ft) end of the wave pool so you can't swim in any water deeper than your balls like Mt Olympus does? Because that's just pathetic.