Brilliant Plumbing

[art...@yahoo.com]

I seem to recall Harlan Ellison claiming that someone had "All the insight of a sump pump". This seems like a good challenge. With "The internet of things" one can easily imagine a sump pump with some wisdom. Has it been done?

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <ab0e4a90-d44b-41ae...@googlegroups.com>,

Dunno. We had a sump pump under our house a while back --- the
driveway slanted *down* from the street, and the puddle would
sometimes overflow the back door. It certainly wasn't on the
Internet, but it had, I won't say intelligence, but something to
make it "know" when its environment was damp and pump till it
tried out.

I would say, provisionally, that that sump pump had as much
"intelligence" as it needed.

(We now live in a basement flat that never floods, however rainy
it gets, 'cause it's atop a hill.)

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com

[Greg Goss]

I thought that when it rained in California, all the hills changed
their shapes?

--
We are geeks. Resistance is voltage over current.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <fc2hrs...@mid.individual.net>,

Not all of them, no. I haven't looked too closely at the recent
mudslides in Southern California, but I wonder whether the slopes
have been altered in the process of putting suburbs on them.
California's been getting wildfires and very wet rainstorms since
the memory of man runneth not to the contrary; other things being
equal, a slope that was going to slide would have slid already.

One of the things that happen in the process of road- and
freeway-building is that the engineers tend to do "every mountain
and hill made low," even if they don't exalt every valley. This
results in a steeper slope than you'd have in nature -- for very
long, anyway.

[Greg Goss]

djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:

>I would say, provisionally, that that sump pump had as much
>"intelligence" as it needed.
>
>(We now live in a basement flat that never floods, however rainy
>it gets, 'cause it's atop a hill.)

Our townhouse complex has a "sewage sump" at one corner, with a pump
that lifts the sewage into the city's system. I wonder how long the
power could be out before that sump fills up and starts flowing
backwards?

I'm not worried about runoff water. The prairie parts of my city has
a requirement for "flood parks" in newer construction. There are four
such sunken playgrounds within my semi-crippled walking distance.
I've only seen one of them used. When we moved here in 2005, a nearby
baseball park was about 8 inches deep. All of the others have "keep
away if it's raining" signs, but never get used.
http://tinyurl.com/y7xrmmpx

My city is about 1/3 open prairie, 1/3 rolling foothills and 1/3 deep
river valley. My older brother lives in the rolling foothills zone of
the city -- even so, there's a flood park near him to gather up the
water and slow it down before it reaches the rather disgustingly named
"nose creek".

A few years back, our city got hit with a billion or two dollars
damage from rain flooding. But that was all from rainfall eighty
miles east of us, into snowpack in the hills. Then all the water ran
down several rivers, the join of two of which forms the floodplain
that Calgary's core is built on.

[Ninapenda Jibini]

djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in
news:p2Kux...@kithrup.com:

A common scenario is the wildfires kill all the vegetation on the
hillside, and just long enough aftewwards for the root systems to
really start to rot (and weaken), so it doesn't hold the dirt
together as well. This contributed greatly to Montecito, for
instance.

--
Terry Austin

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

[Ninapenda Jibini]

Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote in
news:fc2ogb...@mid.individual.net:

The town I lived in in high school had a creek that ran alongside
town. The creek itself wasn't an issue, as such, but it went under
a railroad bridge just past town, and the railroad ignored required
maintenance for years, until it was so choked up with vegetation
that every time it rained, the creek would back up and flood half
the town.

After a few rounds of that, the city council voted, on the record,
to dynamite the bridge the next time it rained (a federal crime),
and sent a copy of the minutes to the railroad. Oddly, the railroad
came out within a week and cleaned up their brigde, and it never
flooded the town again.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <p2Kux...@kithrup.com>,

I should have added that the hills in Vallejo are in the same
shape they've been since whenever, and the roads aren't cut into
them, they go up and down hill.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <XnsA86AD161BFF8F...@69.16.179.43>,

Gosh, I wonder why.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <fc2ogb...@mid.individual.net>,

Ouch. That'll do it.

[Greg Goss]

djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:

>Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:

>>A few years back, our city got hit with a billion or two dollars
>>damage from rain flooding. But that was all from rainfall eighty
>>miles east of us, into snowpack in the hills. Then all the water ran
>>down several rivers, the join of two of which forms the floodplain
>>that Calgary's core is built on.
>
>Ouch. That'll do it.

The jet stream has being acting weird for the last decade or so. (of
course people who disagree with my global warming claims will say
we've only been studying the jet stream for thirty or so years - too
short a time to establish what "normal" is. This isn't the place for
that argument, though.)

For that storm, a curl of the jet stream "pinned" a storm against the
mountains. The rain fell into the snowpack, ran down the streams and
flooded the farm fields and ranchlands and other rather level prairie.
Then the storm lasted long enough for that spread-out water to
evaporate and join in the ongoing storm dumping into the mountains.
Lather, rinse, repeat.

Then the rain and the snow it had melted all ran down to the first big
city downstream.

The stadium on the city's fairgrounds was flooded six feet deep - ten
or thirteen rows into the stands just two weeks before the city's
annual festival and all the big-name stars booked into the
"Saddledome". They managed to clean up the festival park and the rail
transit in time for the annual stampede, but didn't get the stadium
cleaned up until too late. A couple of the stars rebooked into
smaller venues in town, but most rebooked the show for four months
down the line. The T-shirts on sale at the stampede all said "Hell or
High Water".

Here's a google images collection of photos from the flood. Scroll
down to see the LRT tracks along the edge of the fairgrounds. Imagine
fixing that in less than ten days. The newspaper headline on the LRT
tracks pic was "We thought that the wild rides were supposed to be
INSIDE the Stampede grounds." http://tinyurl.com/ybfmp7up

[Quadibloc]

On Sunday, January 14, 2018 at 9:35:01 PM UTC-7, Ninapenda Jibini wrote:

> The town I lived in in high school had a creek that ran alongside
> town. The creek itself wasn't an issue, as such, but it went under
> a railroad bridge just past town, and the railroad ignored required
> maintenance for years, until it was so choked up with vegetation
> that every time it rained, the creek would back up and flood half
> the town.

> After a few rounds of that, the city council voted, on the record,
> to dynamite the bridge the next time it rained (a federal crime),
> and sent a copy of the minutes to the railroad. Oddly, the railroad
> came out within a week and cleaned up their brigde, and it never
> flooded the town again.

That is good, as far as it goes.

But it is not a happy ending.

A happy ending would be that the government with jurisdiction over the
railroad, presumably the Federal government, would, through its laws as upheld
by the courts, would have caused the railroad to pay every last cent of the
damage caused by its culpable neglect, so that the people of the town would be
saved utterly harmless from all expenses and all damage thereby caused.

That is justice - when the negative consequences of people's bad choices are
strictly limited and confined to them themselves.

John Savard

[Jack Bohn]

art... wrote:
> I seem to recall Harlan Ellison claiming that someone had "All the insight of a sump pump". This seems like a good challenge. With "The internet of things" one can easily imagine a sump pump with some wisdom. Has it been done?

There's the joke about the refrigerator with and embedded microchip: "What's a microchip do in a refrigerator? It keeps itself cool, anyway."

Douglas Adams has automatic doors smugly satisfied to open and close for you, and elevators with predictive circuitry that's much better than needed for them to know what floor they will be called to, to the elevators' frustration.

--
-Jack

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <2be27a2d-636f-404e...@googlegroups.com>,

I remember the last time we shopped for a toaster, one of them boasted
a "bread brain", which, in a way, does not sound that impressive..
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

[Jack Bohn]

Greg Goss wrote:

> Our townhouse complex has a "sewage sump" at one corner, with a pump
> that lifts the sewage into the city's system. I wonder how long the
> power could be out before that sump fills up and starts flowing
> backwards?

You don't want to find out, trust me.
My brother had a power failure during a heavy rain that flooded his basement with just rainwater. It's one of those events when you might as well move, because you'll never trust the house again. He got a new sump pump with and emergency feature that on loss of power opened a valve to divert flow from his tap water through a rotor and turn the pump (at a reduced rate). I was visiting him during one of these deluges with power failure. During one inspection of the rising water level in the sump, I said that it looked so tempting to just bail it out, but it was just a bucket-sized window into a lake, and he glumly nodded.

--
-Jack

[Bill Gill]

On 1/14/2018 3:32 PM, art...@yahoo.com wrote:
> I seem to recall Harlan Ellison claiming that someone had "All the insight of a sump pump". This seems like a good challenge. With "The internet of things" one can easily imagine a sump pump with some wisdom. Has it been done?
>
>

In Alan Dean Foster's "Codgerspace" all the "smart" devices start
looking for a higher intelligence. While they are doing it they
refuse to perform their normal functions; toasting bread, mowing
yards, directing traffic, running banks, etc.

Bill

[Kevrob]

On Monday, January 15, 2018 at 9:17:55 AM UTC-5, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:

> I remember the last time we shopped for a toaster, one of them boasted
> a "bread brain", which, in a way, does not sound that impressive..

There's a history of using breadboards in electronis, so....

OBSFTV: the Talkie Toaster from "Red Dwarf."

Kevin R

[Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha]

djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in
news:p2L2B...@kithrup.com:

Purely coincidence, I'm sure.

--
Terry Austin

Vacation photos from Iceland:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/QaXQkB

[Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha]

Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote in
news:663f3679-02fa-4fd5...@googlegroups.com:

Couple of problems with that, on a practical level.

First, the court case would take at least five years, during which
the town would be flooded multiple times a year. This solved it in
a week. They're very practical people, there.

Second, the town itself was run by (and inhabited by) inbred, drunk
redneck hillbillies who spent a few (and by a few, I mean a lot)
too many generations marrying first cousins. It really wasn't
bluster; the minutes included a discussion of how long their prison
sentences were likely to be.

Also, this was a town flooded deliberately just a few years earlier
by the Army Corp of Engineers in 1973, when they dynamited a levee.
This was done to protect St. Louis (50 miles to the south along the
Mississippi), when The River was at something like 30 feet of flood
stage, to the top of the levees, and still rising.[1] It wasn't
that they deliberately flooded the town (and several others) that
pissed off the locals to a murderous rage, it was that they did it
in the middle of the night, without any warning. (The guy in charge
of the lock & dam, where this plan was conceived, was told point
blank if they ever did something like that again, everybody working
there would be hunted down and murdered, and the locks dynamited
out of spite.) There wasn't any trust in the federal government in
the first place, and that made it far, far worse.

This is also the town the generated 80% of their annual revenue
from speeding tickets on the highway through town, with their speed
trap (in a state where it's specifically illegal for towns to
generate more than 10% of their revenue from traffic enforcement -
and got caught doing so. The fines were something like 5 years of
their total revenue, at the finalted rates. I'm not sure the town
even exists any more.) (In a county that elected a convicted hog
rustler as sheriff, multiple times.) So in addition to not trusting
the federal government, being law abiding wasn't exactly high on
their list of priorities anyway.

Small town, rural America (especially in uncle/grandpa country) is
a completely different world from anything you can possibly
imagine. Be thankful for that.


[1]There are two lines of levees along the Missisipps, at least in
central Missouri. The inner, higher one, contains the river in
normal times. The outer one creates a reservoir that can hold a
hell of a lot of water, which is then let out slowly, when The
River is running high. By dynamiting the outer leveel, that
reservoir went from being a few hundred feet wide to being over a
mide wide. This would, and did, contain any possible amount of
flood water and keep St. Louis from billions of dollars in damage
at a time when that was a *lot* of money. Probably saved lives,
too.)

--
Terry Austin

Vacation photos from Iceland:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/QaXQkB

[Quadibloc]

On Monday, January 15, 2018 at 9:58:56 AM UTC-7, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha wrote:

> Also, this was a town flooded deliberately just a few years earlier
> by the Army Corp of Engineers in 1973, when they dynamited a levee.
> This was done to protect St. Louis (50 miles to the south along the
> Mississippi), when The River was at something like 30 feet of flood
> stage, to the top of the levees, and still rising.[1] It wasn't
> that they deliberately flooded the town (and several others) that
> pissed off the locals to a murderous rage, it was that they did it
> in the middle of the night, without any warning.

I remember reading about a similar incident in the Readers' Digest; it
was in an article explaining how the flood prevention system worked, and
this was viewed as a tragic necessity in the article.

Since events such as this could result in the loss of one or more human
lives,

and the cost of resurrecting a human being from the dead is essentially
infinite, since we don't have the technology to do it yet in the general
case,

obviously the cheaper alternative is to dig a trench to the Carribean Sea
from the headwaters of the Mississippi and Atchafalaya big enough to
handle all the excess water that may need to be withdrawn from them.
Ever. Or at least on the basis of the highest water levels expected in
10,000 years.

It is simply irresponsible to contemplate permitting any *externalities*
to come out of one's choices or decisions. Intentionally flooding
someone's land is an act of aggression, therefore it is not an option.
Declaring the potential floodwaters of the Mississippi and Atchafalaya
unfit for human habitation, on the other hand, as long as everyone who
owns property there is compensated, involves no aggression, and is
therefore permissible.

Essentially, one expects politicians to have hardwired into them an
inability to harm any innocent human being, or, through inaction, to
allow any innocent human being to come to harm - First Law, with three
exceptions; they may punish and deter criminals, and they may levy taxes,
and they may wage war. Otherwise, government couldn't function at all.

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

On Monday, January 15, 2018 at 9:58:56 AM UTC-7, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha wrote:

> This is also the town the generated 80% of their annual revenue
> from speeding tickets on the highway through town, with their speed
> trap

Yes, it's hard for me to comprehend why the Department of Justice doesn't
have roving FBI teams searching the country for "speed traps", followed
by sufficient penalties for the perpetrators to deter others. Part of the
reason is that the FBI can't (or couldn't) arrest people itself, it had
to call upon state police.

Of course, I know it's hard to fully deter crime. After all, in a
democracy, we can't punish the innocent spouses and children of criminals
the way they do in places like North Korea. However, that is more of a
deterrent to good people against unlawful behavior than a deterrent to
depraved criminals anyways.

John Savard

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <XnsA86B5B5D17B...@69.16.179.43>,

I have to ask: were any lives lost in the small redneck town that
was flooded in the middle of the night?

And congratulations on having gotten the hell out of
Dodge^H^H^H^H^Hwherever that was.

[Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha]

Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote in
news:6ce384a6-59f4-4164...@googlegroups.com:

> On Monday, January 15, 2018 at 9:58:56 AM UTC-7, Jibini Kula
> Tumbili Kujisalimisha wrote:
>
>> Also, this was a town flooded deliberately just a few years
>> earlier by the Army Corp of Engineers in 1973, when they
>> dynamited a levee. This was done to protect St. Louis (50 miles
>> to the south along the Mississippi), when The River was at
>> something like 30 feet of flood stage, to the top of the
>> levees, and still rising.[1] It wasn't that they deliberately
>> flooded the town (and several others) that pissed off the
>> locals to a murderous rage, it was that they did it in the
>> middle of the night, without any warning.
>
> I remember reading about a similar incident in the Readers'
> Digest; it was in an article explaining how the flood prevention
> system worked, and this was viewed as a tragic necessity in the
> article.

That was, more or less, the view of the people in the area. They
didn't like it, but saw the logic. It was the "middle of the night
with no warning" part that nearly got people killed (both
townspeople, and the idiots at the Corp of Engineers).

>
> Since events such as this could result in the loss of one or
> more human lives,
>
> and the cost of resurrecting a human being from the dead is
> essentially infinite, since we don't have the technology to do
> it yet in the general case,
>
> obviously the cheaper alternative is to dig a trench to the
> Carribean Sea from the headwaters of the Mississippi and
> Atchafalaya big enough to handle all the excess water that may
> need to be withdrawn from them. Ever. Or at least on the basis
> of the highest water levels expected in 10,000 years.

Such a trench already exists, and has for longer than human
history. It's called "the Mississippi River valley." If you dig
another one, people will be living in *that* one, too.

(There are river rats who live between the levees. Their houses are
all two story, with nothing on the bottom floow, because it's
flooded for three months ever year. The inahbitants boat in and out
during that time.)

>
> It is simply irresponsible to contemplate permitting any
> *externalities* to come out of one's choices or decisions.

It's - literally - delusional (you're hallucinating again) to
believe anything more could be done than is being done now without
- literally - bankrupting the entire country.

> Intentionally flooding someone's land is an act of aggression,
> therefore it is not an option. Declaring the potential
> floodwaters of the Mississippi and Atchafalaya unfit for human
> habitation, on the other hand, as long as everyone who owns
> property there is compensated, involves no aggression, and is
> therefore permissible.

How much are you, personally, willing to pay to compensate the -
literally - millions of people (the city of St. Louis is there,
after all, as is New Orleans, and a number of other cites) who live
there now? Or would you, in your typical psychotic, racist zeal,
just nuke them for being inconvenient?

Plus, of course, there's nowhere to put all those millions of
people that is any safer. Literally, *no* *where*.

Retard.

>
> Essentially, one expects politicians to have hardwired into them
> an inability to harm any innocent human being, or, through
> inaction, to allow any innocent human being to come to harm -
> First Law, with three exceptions; they may punish and deter
> criminals, and they may levy taxes, and they may wage war.
> Otherwise, government couldn't function at all.
>

Take your meds, Johnny, you're hallucinating again.

Fucking moron.

[Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha]

Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote in
news:04453517-1aed-41b7...@googlegroups.com:

> On Monday, January 15, 2018 at 9:58:56 AM UTC-7, Jibini Kula
> Tumbili Kujisalimisha wrote:
>
>> This is also the town the generated 80% of their annual revenue
>> from speeding tickets on the highway through town, with their
>> speed trap
>
> Yes, it's hard for me to comprehend

the difference between your ass and a hole in teh ground.

> why the Department of
> Justice doesn't have roving FBI teams searching the country for
> "speed traps", followed by sufficient penalties for the
> perpetrators to deter others.

That would be because it's not a criminal offense, federal or
otherwise, it's a civil offense. As it should be. (Plus, of course,
this was a violation of *state* law, not federal, so the FBI and
the Justice Department would be *specifically* prohibited from
betting involved. Dumbass.)

The correct solution (which is the progress right now, I believe)
is to fine them as specified in the law, and if they can't pay it,
force the city into bankruptcy, and revoke the city's charter.

Sane, rational people do not indulge in your brand of insane,
violent masturbatory revenge fantaies.

Dumbass.

> Part of the reason is that the FBI
> can't (or couldn't) arrest people itself, it had to call upon
> state police.

Since when? Dumbass.

Take your meds, son. Seriously. You're hallucinating again.

[Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha]

djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in
news:p2LzG...@kithrup.com:

To the best of my knowledge, no. (If there had been, there would
have been murders in retribution.) But it was a matter of luck. And
there was a lot more property damage than was necessary, including
the loss of a lot of irreplacable personal stuff (like family
photos, etc.) for no reason.

>
> And congratulations on having gotten the hell out of
> Dodge^H^H^H^H^Hwherever that was.
>

As I have said many, many times, Missouri is a great place to be
from, and the farther from, the better.

[Quadibloc]

On Monday, January 15, 2018 at 11:32:11 AM UTC-7, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha wrote:

> Plus, of course, there's nowhere to put all those millions of
> people that is any safer. Literally, *no* *where*.

Does that mean that despite the flood hazard, these people are living
in the safest place on Earth?

Or are you just saying that there's no completely empty place that's
safer?

In the latter place - well, I was thinking about squeezing them in to
existing safe places. The United States isn't that crowded yet, or it
would have stopped accepting immigrants.

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

On Monday, January 15, 2018 at 11:32:11 AM UTC-7, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha wrote:

> Such a trench already exists, and has for longer than human
> history. It's called "the Mississippi River valley." If you dig
> another one, people will be living in *that* one, too.

If I'm being a little hyperbolic, it is to *point out* that specific
problem.

Humans need to stop behaving this way.

And just how would that be achieved?

1) Birth control.

2) Not being divided into competing groups, each of which wishes to
outbreed and displace the other.

You know, have the human race behave sensibly because it is organized
under One World Government as envisaged by the great H. G. Wells!

Oh, uh, that's slightly impractical, and Wells gushed over Lenin, so it
might not be wise to take his advice?

Yes. There are _problems_. But if one's goals are ambitious, one must
expect to face challenges.

John Savard

[Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha]

Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote in
news:c52bd020-b582-4490...@googlegroups.com:

> On Monday, January 15, 2018 at 11:32:11 AM UTC-7, Jibini Kula
> Tumbili Kujisalimisha wrote:
>
>> Plus, of course, there's nowhere to put all those millions of
>> people that is any safer. Literally, *no* *where*.
>
> Does that mean that despite the flood hazard, these people are
> living in the safest place on Earth?

Only to a drooling retard who snips out his ridiculous, retarded
claims that everyone should be forced to live only in places of
absolute safety for their own good, so that he could lie about what
he'd said.

Idiot.

>
> Or are you just saying that there's no completely empty place
> that's safer?
>
> In the latter place - well, I was thinking about squeezing them
> in to existing safe places. The United States isn't that crowded
> yet, or it would have stopped accepting immigrants.
>

There is no place on earth that is safe from all natural disasters,
and there never can be.

Moron.

[Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha]

Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote in
news:26fe6258-ac04-464c...@googlegroups.com:

> On Monday, January 15, 2018 at 11:32:11 AM UTC-7, Jibini Kula
> Tumbili Kujisalimisha wrote:
>
>> Such a trench already exists, and has for longer than human
>> history. It's called "the Mississippi River valley." If you dig
>> another one, people will be living in *that* one, too.
>
> If I'm being a little hyperbolic, it is to *point out* that
> specific problem.
>
> Humans need to stop behaving this way.
>
> And just how would that be achieved?

The only way is genocide, and the total extinction of the human race.

Which, appaerntly, you'd be fine with (except for white people, of
course).

Retard.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <c52bd020-b582-4490...@googlegroups.com>,

Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>On Monday, January 15, 2018 at 11:32:11 AM UTC-7, Jibini Kula Tumbili
>Kujisalimisha wrote:
>
>> Plus, of course, there's nowhere to put all those millions of
>> people that is any safer. Literally, *no* *where*.
>
>Does that mean that despite the flood hazard, these people are living
>in the safest place on Earth?
>
>Or are you just saying that there's no completely empty place that's
>safer?

There is no place on this planet that is completely safe. If
it isn't floods, it's earthquakes, blizzards, heat waves, fire,
or more floods and mudslides.

>
>In the latter place - well, I was thinking about squeezing them in to
>existing safe places.

See above. There are no existing safe places, for any genuine
value of "safe".

I still occasionally google, trying to find out who it was who
originally said, "We live in a wild universe, not a tame one."

And the places that are, not necessarily safer than others, but
more pleasant to live in than others, are getting more crowded
for that very reason. San Francisco, e.g. I'm not even going to
try to get into what's "more pleasant," because that's in the eye
of the behilder. There are people who choose to live in Buffalo,
NY, land of the lake effect; or at least, having been born there,
have not (yet) chosen to get the hell out.

Terry could probably write paragraphs on why everybody hasn't
striven to get the hell out of Missouri. Inertia, I suppose --
or lack of funds.

>The United States isn't that crowded yet, or it
>would have stopped accepting immigrants.

Heh. The current administration's trying.

(In every sense of the word.)

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <XnsA86B8394354...@69.16.179.42>,

Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha <taus...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote in
>news:c52bd020-b582-4490...@googlegroups.com:
>
>> On Monday, January 15, 2018 at 11:32:11 AM UTC-7, Jibini Kula
>> Tumbili Kujisalimisha wrote:
>>
>>> Plus, of course, there's nowhere to put all those millions of
>>> people that is any safer. Literally, *no* *where*.
>>
>> Does that mean that despite the flood hazard, these people are
>> living in the safest place on Earth?
>
>Only to a drooling retard who snips out his ridiculous, retarded
>claims that everyone should be forced to live only in places of
>absolute safety for their own good, so that he could lie about what
>he'd said.
>
>Idiot.
>>
>> Or are you just saying that there's no completely empty place
>> that's safer?
>>
>> In the latter place - well, I was thinking about squeezing them
>> in to existing safe places. The United States isn't that crowded
>> yet, or it would have stopped accepting immigrants.
>>
>There is no place on earth that is safe from all natural disasters,
>and there never can be.

I think I just said that.

[Quadibloc]

On Monday, January 15, 2018 at 1:57:15 PM UTC-7, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha wrote:

> The only way is genocide, and the total extinction of the human race.

I guess I'm not as pessimistic as that.

1) Human beings have intelligence. I know that animals will just breed
so as to increase their population until they run out of food or room.
But people can foresee the consequences of their actions, and restrain
themselves from acting impulsively on instinct.

2) War comes about because of bad politicians. The ordinary people of
the world want peace, but they can't get it because bad politicians
in power in some countries commit aggression. Therefore, clearly war
isn't something that is an automatic built-in consequence of human
nature, and instead could be eliminated simply by removing a few
individuals from office. (That some of the ambitious tyrants have
nuclear weapons means that it won't be _easy_; it's just not
_fundamentally_ impossible, even if it is not currently possible in
practice.)

And so on.

John Savard

[Dimensional Traveler]

But if they moved out they couldn't watch Niagara Falls freeze solid
every winter!


--
Inquiring minds want to know while minds with a self-preservation
instinct are running screaming.

[Robert Carnegie]

It seems to be treated as a version of "the trolley problem";
my answer to which is, protecting my fellow human beings may
be my duty, but sacrificing others isn't my duty, my liability,
or my job. And if the terms are altered so that it /is/ my
job to minimise casualties but I can't perform it without killing
somebody who would have been fine if I'd called in sick, well,
I don't know what I'll do about the trolley, but I will acknowledge
professional failure, and will also do whatever I reasonably can
to put the blame on someone else, like whoever designed the system.

[Peter Trei]

On Monday, January 15, 2018 at 4:15:05 PM UTC-5, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> In article <c52bd020-b582-4490...@googlegroups.com>,
> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> >On Monday, January 15, 2018 at 11:32:11 AM UTC-7, Jibini Kula Tumbili
> >Kujisalimisha wrote:
> >
> >> Plus, of course, there's nowhere to put all those millions of
> >> people that is any safer. Literally, *no* *where*.
> >
> >Does that mean that despite the flood hazard, these people are living
> >in the safest place on Earth?
> >
> >Or are you just saying that there's no completely empty place that's
> >safer?
>
> There is no place on this planet that is completely safe. If
> it isn't floods, it's earthquakes, blizzards, heat waves, fire,
> or more floods and mudslides.
> >
> >In the latter place - well, I was thinking about squeezing them in to
> >existing safe places.
>
> See above. There are no existing safe places, for any genuine
> value of "safe".
>
> I still occasionally google, trying to find out who it was who
> originally said, "We live in a wild universe, not a tame one."

Le'Engle once wrote:
"We live in a wild universe — a universe in which the truth is frightening."

pt

[Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha]

djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in

news:p2M7B...@kithrup.com:

Some people can't imagine not marrying their first cousin, I
suspect, too. (If you got rid of all the people, Missouri is a
beautiful place. Much more so than southern California. As long as
you don't have to look at The River, which was disgusting long
before man arrived.)

>
>>The United States isn't that crowded yet, or it
>>would have stopped accepting immigrants.
>
> Heh. The current administration's trying.
>
> (In every sense of the word.)
>

Not at all. Just the illegal ones.

[Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha]

Dimensional Traveler <dtr...@sonic.net> wrote in
news:p3j9ma$8hg$1...@dont-email.me:

I'm sure there's a web cam somewhere for that.

[Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha]

djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in

news:p2M8H...@kithrup.com:

Anybody with any sense has said that many, many times.

[Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha]

Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote in
news:ff1a016d-518e-4762...@googlegroups.com:

> On Monday, January 15, 2018 at 1:57:15 PM UTC-7, Jibini Kula
> Tumbili Kujisalimisha wrote:
>
>> The only way is genocide, and the total extinction of the human
>> race.
>
> I guess I'm not as pessimistic as that.

No, you're as stupid as that.

[Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha]

Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote in
news:efe5a40c-33f8-4ac5...@googlegroups.com:

See, Quaddie, this is a clue for you:

You're so fucking stupid that Bobbie has agreed with *me*.

[Moriarty]

On Tuesday, January 16, 2018 at 8:15:05 AM UTC+11, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> In article <c52bd020-b582-4490...@googlegroups.com>,
> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> >On Monday, January 15, 2018 at 11:32:11 AM UTC-7, Jibini Kula Tumbili
> >Kujisalimisha wrote:
> >
> >> Plus, of course, there's nowhere to put all those millions of
> >> people that is any safer. Literally, *no* *where*.
> >
> >Does that mean that despite the flood hazard, these people are living
> >in the safest place on Earth?
> >
> >Or are you just saying that there's no completely empty place that's
> >safer?
>
> There is no place on this planet that is completely safe. If
> it isn't floods, it's earthquakes, blizzards, heat waves, fire,
> or more floods and mudslides.
> >
> >In the latter place - well, I was thinking about squeezing them in to
> >existing safe places.
>
> See above. There are no existing safe places, for any genuine
> value of "safe".
>
> I still occasionally google, trying to find out who it was who
> originally said, "We live in a wild universe, not a tame one."

The concept, but not the prose, is very Lovecraftian.

-Moriarty

[art...@yahoo.com]

On Monday, January 15, 2018 at 9:25:42 AM UTC-5, Bill Gill wrote:
> On 1/14/2018 3:32 PM, art...@yahoo.com wrote:
> > I seem to recall Harlan Ellison claiming that someone had "All the insight of a sump pump". This seems like a good challenge. With "The internet of things" one can easily imagine a sump pump with some wisdom. Has it been done?
> >
> >
> In Alan Dean Foster's "Codgerspace" all the "smart" devices start
> looking for a higher intelligence. While they are doing it they
> refuse to perform their normal functions; toasting bread, mowing
> yards, directing traffic, running banks, etc.

I seem to remember a Clifford Simak short story along similar lines. I don't remember the title. Anybody?

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <p3j9ma$8hg$1...@dont-email.me>,

I've seen that on television. That's enough for me.

(I have a similar attitude toward volcanoes in Hawaii.)

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <58f82c91-a88a-4f6a...@googlegroups.com>,

>"We live in a wild universe -- a universe in which the truth is frightening."

Well, that's close.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <4fd79b13-7a76-4723...@googlegroups.com>,

Yeah, Lovecraft would have put in many more adjectives, most of
them polysyllabic.

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 1/15/18 10:11 AM, Kevrob wrote:
> On Monday, January 15, 2018 at 9:17:55 AM UTC-5, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
>
>> I remember the last time we shopped for a toaster, one of them boasted
>> a "bread brain", which, in a way, does not sound that impressive..
>
> There's a history of using breadboards in electronis, so....
>
> OBSFTV: the Talkie Toaster from "Red Dwarf."
>


And the genocidal Toaster in Fallout New Vegas: Old World Blues.

"Ahahaha! I am on-line once again! Tremble, world, before my electric
heating coil of doom!"

"Soon, pitiful worms! Soon I will rule, and your lives will have their
doneness setting turned to... darkest!"



--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Website: http://www.grandcentralarena.com Blog:
http://seawasp.dreamwidth.org

[Cryptoengineer]

djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in

news:p2MGF...@kithrup.com:

> In article <58f82c91-a88a-4f6a...@googlegroups.com>,
> Peter Trei <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>On Monday, January 15, 2018 at 4:15:05 PM UTC-5, Dorothy J Heydt
>>wrote:
>>>
>>> I still occasionally google, trying to find out who it was who
>>> originally said, "We live in a wild universe, not a tame one."
>>
>>Le'Engle once wrote:
>>"We live in a wild universe -- a universe in which the truth is
>>frightening."
>
> Well, that's close.

Poul Anderson also wrote the first clause, but in a different
context.

pt

[Dimensional Traveler]

But most people don't have a walk-in freezer to get the freezing to
death slowly aspect of the real life experience! :P

[Dimensional Traveler]

Someone has to stay home and water our plants and feed our pets while
the rest of us go have lives. :)

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <p3jrud$kk4$1...@dont-email.me>,

That's not a bug. That's a feature.

[Dimensional Traveler]

Only to those with working brains. :D

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On Tue, 16 Jan 2018 00:07:58 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt)
wrote:

Sensible. It was -25C/-15F when I saw it frozen and it's not as
impressive as it looks on telly. My eyes felt like they were icing over
too.

Cheers - Jaimie

[Quadibloc]

On Monday, January 15, 2018 at 3:55:51 PM UTC-7, Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha wrote:

> You're so fucking stupid that Bobbie has agreed with *me*.

At least I can take consolation in the fact that his post was a
direct response to one of my posts, rather than a response to your
reply to my post, and so he was spared the blow to his pride that
would have come from an explicit admission on his part that it was
you that he was agreeing with.

Thus leaving open the possibility that the level of stupidity on my
part required for him to that is one that I have not yet reached.

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

On Monday, January 15, 2018 at 3:35:15 PM UTC-7, Robert Carnegie wrote:

> It seems to be treated as a version of "the trolley problem";

Oh, yes. And all these ethical dilemmas where a First Law violation seems unavoidable just make my head hurt, no doubt due to conflicting potentials.

Thus, let's rest our minds with a musical interlude:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmx1L8G25q4

> I don't know what I'll do about the trolley, but I will acknowledge
> professional failure, and will also do whatever I reasonably can
> to put the blame on someone else, like whoever designed the system.

Now that's certainly a reasonable point of view with which I agree.

When it comes to a situation like Flight 93, I have no problem with
the direct killing of a small number of innocents when that is
clearly the only way to save a large number of innocents. When there
is no alternative, to hesitate is squeamishness, not morality.

But the case of Mississippi flood control remains disturbing to me.

What is the difference?

Well, the situation isn't a surprising one that came out of the blue.
People are aware in advance that there is seasonal flooding on the
Mississippi, the network of dams and runoffs and all that has been
built well in advance.

So if one has had time to prepare - one has had time to choose a
morally unproblematic alternative. Or at least _so it would seem_.

I'm certainly *not* claiming that it's wrong to point out that
slapping storm sewers on the Mississippi for a supportable cost is a
tad beyond our current engineering competence. And people live on the
slopes of Mount Vesuvius and all that.

But I dream of a world where things could be better!

And I see the path towards such a world to be as follows: put more
expenditures into developing technological progress, so that the pace
of its advance is faster than the pace of population growth. The more
we get *ahead of the game*, the less people will be forced by
necessity to eke out a living in the less prepossessing portions of
our planet.

So I am not devoid of practicality and of useful suggestions after
all.

John Savard

[Greg Goss]

Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha <taus...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> But if they moved out they couldn't watch Niagara Falls freeze
>> solid every winter!
>>
>I'm sure there's a web cam somewhere for that.

The couple of times I visited Niagara in the winter, there was a
coating of ice over everything. (The first time it was pure clear
glass over every twig. The second time was dirty frost over
everything - much less romantic.) Do they make heated webcams for
outdoor winter use?
--
We are geeks. Resistance is voltage over current.

[Greg Goss]

djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:

>>But if they moved out they couldn't watch Niagara Falls freeze solid
>>every winter!
>
>I've seen that on television. That's enough for me.
>
>(I have a similar attitude toward volcanoes in Hawaii.)

Hawaiian type volcanos don't explode. There are a few in the US
portion of the ring of fire that might.

[Greg Goss]

Bill Gill <bill...@cox.net> wrote:

>On 1/14/2018 3:32 PM, art...@yahoo.com wrote:
>> I seem to recall Harlan Ellison claiming that someone had "All the insight of a sump pump". This seems like a good challenge. With "The internet of things" one can easily imagine a sump pump with some wisdom. Has it been done?
>>
>>
>In Alan Dean Foster's "Codgerspace" all the "smart" devices start
>looking for a higher intelligence. While they are doing it they
>refuse to perform their normal functions; toasting bread, mowing
>yards, directing traffic, running banks, etc.

In Building Aphrodite's Moon, the brother of one of the characters
died when the AI running Ganymede's environmental systems got bored or
otherwise distracted and stopped running the planet.

[Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha]

Dimensional Traveler <dtr...@sonic.net> wrote in

news:p3jrud$kk4$1...@dont-email.me:

That's what WiFi is for. Go to your local butcher shop.

[Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha]

Dimensional Traveler <dtr...@sonic.net> wrote in

news:p3k4vh$rvj$1...@dont-email.me:

So, less than 1%, then?

[Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha]

Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote in
news:90c06186-a3e2-4b8d...@googlegroups.com:

> On Monday, January 15, 2018 at 3:55:51 PM UTC-7, Jibini Kula
> Tumbili Kujisalimisha wrote:
>
>> You're so fucking stupid that Bobbie has agreed with *me*.
>
> At least I can take consolation in the fact that his post was a
> direct response to one of my posts, rather than a response to
> your reply to my post, and so he was spared the blow to his
> pride that would have come from an explicit admission on his
> part that it was you that he was agreeing with.

If you find consolation in that, then you've reached a new long in
stupidity.

>
> Thus leaving open the possibility that the level of stupidity on
> my part required for him to that is one that I have not yet
> reached.
>

You left that level in the dust with this one.

"Nothin' but taillights."

[Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha]

Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote in news:fc6kn2Flm1kU1
@mid.individual.net:

> Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha <taus...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> But if they moved out they couldn't watch Niagara Falls freeze
>>> solid every winter!
>>>
>>I'm sure there's a web cam somewhere for that.
>
> The couple of times I visited Niagara in the winter, there was a
> coating of ice over everything. (The first time it was pure clear
> glass over every twig. The second time was dirty frost over
> everything - much less romantic.) Do they make heated webcams for
> outdoor winter use?

If not, you could do a Kickstarter!

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On Tue, 16 Jan 2018 08:41:37 -0700, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:

>djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>
>
>>>But if they moved out they couldn't watch Niagara Falls freeze solid
>>>every winter!
>>
>>I've seen that on television. That's enough for me.
>>
>>(I have a similar attitude toward volcanoes in Hawaii.)
>
>Hawaiian type volcanos don't explode. There are a few in the US
>portion of the ring of fire that might.

Mt. St. Helens is active again.




--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
My latest novel is Tom Derringer in the Tunnels of Terror.
See http://www.watt-evans.com/TomDerringerintheTunnelsofTerror.shtml

[Robert Woodward]

In article
<phds5d5q0qvd1tar7...@reader80.eternal-september.org>,

Lawrence Watt-Evans <misencha...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, 16 Jan 2018 08:41:37 -0700, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>
> >djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
> >
> >
> >>>But if they moved out they couldn't watch Niagara Falls freeze solid
> >>>every winter!
> >>
> >>I've seen that on television. That's enough for me.
> >>
> >>(I have a similar attitude toward volcanoes in Hawaii.)
> >
> >Hawaiian type volcanos don't explode. There are a few in the US
> >portion of the ring of fire that might.
>
> Mt. St. Helens is active again.

? I haven't heard that and I live a bit closer to it than you do.

--
"We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."
Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_.
-------------------------------------------------------
Robert Woodward robe...@drizzle.com

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On Tue, 16 Jan 2018 10:38:27 -0800, Robert Woodward
<robe...@drizzle.com> wrote:

>In article
><phds5d5q0qvd1tar7...@reader80.eternal-september.org>,
> Lawrence Watt-Evans <misencha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 16 Jan 2018 08:41:37 -0700, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>>
>> >djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> >>>But if they moved out they couldn't watch Niagara Falls freeze solid
>> >>>every winter!
>> >>
>> >>I've seen that on television. That's enough for me.
>> >>
>> >>(I have a similar attitude toward volcanoes in Hawaii.)
>> >
>> >Hawaiian type volcanos don't explode. There are a few in the US
>> >portion of the ring of fire that might.
>>
>> Mt. St. Helens is active again.
>
>? I haven't heard that and I live a bit closer to it than you do.

Really? I saw it mentioned somewhere around New Year's. No real
threat (because there hasn't been time to build up pressure) but
rumblings.

I'm afraid I didn't pay much attention, since I'm on the far side of
the country.

Here, this is the story I saw:

https://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2018/01/03/mount-st-helens-is-rumbling-again-with-40-earthquakes-since-new-years-day/&refURL=https://www.google.com/&referrer=https://www.google.com/

[Dimensional Traveler]

I don't want to go to your local butcher shop if they let random people
into their freezer unsupervised.

[Dimensional Traveler]

On 1/16/2018 10:55 AM, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
> On Tue, 16 Jan 2018 10:38:27 -0800, Robert Woodward
> <robe...@drizzle.com> wrote:
>
>> In article
>> <phds5d5q0qvd1tar7...@reader80.eternal-september.org>,
>> Lawrence Watt-Evans <misencha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, 16 Jan 2018 08:41:37 -0700, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>> But if they moved out they couldn't watch Niagara Falls freeze solid
>>>>>> every winter!
>>>>>
>>>>> I've seen that on television. That's enough for me.
>>>>>
>>>>> (I have a similar attitude toward volcanoes in Hawaii.)
>>>>
>>>> Hawaiian type volcanos don't explode. There are a few in the US
>>>> portion of the ring of fire that might.
>>>
>>> Mt. St. Helens is active again.
>>
>> ? I haven't heard that and I live a bit closer to it than you do.
>
> Really? I saw it mentioned somewhere around New Year's. No real
> threat (because there hasn't been time to build up pressure) but
> rumblings.
>
> I'm afraid I didn't pay much attention, since I'm on the far side of
> the country.
>
> Here, this is the story I saw:
>
> https://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2018/01/03/mount-st-helens-is-rumbling-again-with-40-earthquakes-since-new-years-day/&refURL=https://www.google.com/&referrer=https://www.google.com/
>
>

I think the "again" part is misleading. Mt. St. Helens is considered an
active volcano simply because there has been activity there in the last
few decades or so.

[Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha]

Dimensional Traveler <dtr...@sonic.net> wrote in

news:p3lnbn$h3b$1...@dont-email.me:

Then I guess you'll just have to pack your body with ice while
watching the web cam.

[Robert Carnegie]

On Tuesday, 16 January 2018 15:40:23 UTC, Greg Goss wrote:
> Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha <taus...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> But if they moved out they couldn't watch Niagara Falls freeze
> >> solid every winter!
> >>
> >I'm sure there's a web cam somewhere for that.
>
> The couple of times I visited Niagara in the winter, there was a
> coating of ice over everything. (The first time it was pure clear
> glass over every twig. The second time was dirty frost over
> everything - much less romantic.) Do they make heated webcams for
> outdoor winter use?

Well... there's a USB cup-warmer product. But not meant
for outdoors But something of the kind seems feasible.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <XnsA86C5607AB6...@69.16.179.43>,

Would the WiFi *work* inside the walk-in freezer? I only ask
because I want to know. (Hal does not trust WiFi in any context
and won't use it. Our daughter and son-in-law do, and haven't
met disaster so far. As for me, I wouldn't know how to turn the
WiFi on if it were sitting there in front of me with instructions
in 48-point type.)

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <robertaw-81AE6A...@news.individual.net>,

Robert Woodward <robe...@drizzle.com> wrote:
>In article
><phds5d5q0qvd1tar7...@reader80.eternal-september.org>,
> Lawrence Watt-Evans <misencha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 16 Jan 2018 08:41:37 -0700, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>>
>> >djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> >>>But if they moved out they couldn't watch Niagara Falls freeze solid
>> >>>every winter!
>> >>
>> >>I've seen that on television. That's enough for me.
>> >>
>> >>(I have a similar attitude toward volcanoes in Hawaii.)
>> >
>> >Hawaiian type volcanos don't explode. There are a few in the US
>> >portion of the ring of fire that might.
>>
>> Mt. St. Helens is active again.
>
>? I haven't heard that and I live a bit closer to it than you do.

Here's the USGS webpage thereon:

https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/volcanoes/st_helens/

And it says, "This website contains the most up to date
information." And it doesn't mention any recent activity.
Take that as you will.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <fc6kpu...@mid.individual.net>,

Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>
>
>>>But if they moved out they couldn't watch Niagara Falls freeze solid
>>>every winter!
>>
>>I've seen that on television. That's enough for me.
>>
>>(I have a similar attitude toward volcanoes in Hawaii.)
>
>Hawaiian type volcanos don't explode.

I know they don't. That's not the point. The point is that
volcano buffs like my husband would want to climb up the volcano*
and stand at the edge of the crater and look into it. And that's
unduly dangerous, in my book.

_____
*Well, maybe now, as he pushes 70, he'd decide not to try.

[Scott Lurndal]

djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) writes:
>In article <XnsA86C5607AB6...@69.16.179.43>,
>Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha <taus...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>>>
>>> But most people don't have a walk-in freezer to get the freezing
>>> to death slowly aspect of the real life experience! :P
>>>
>>That's what WiFi is for. Go to your local butcher shop.
>>
>Would the WiFi *work* inside the walk-in freezer?

Generally not[*]. However, provision could be made such
that it would[**].

[*] Most walk-ins are effective faraday cages.

[**] Add an access point inside the freezer.

[John Dallman]

In article <p2o1r...@kithrup.com>, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt)
wrote:

> In article <XnsA86C5607AB6...@69.16.179.43>,
> Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha <taus...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >That's what WiFi is for. Go to your local butcher shop.
> >
> Would the WiFi *work* inside the walk-in freezer? I only ask
> because I want to know.

Probably not. They tend to have metal casings, which will form a crude
Faraday cage when the door is shut, blocking the radio signals that WiFi
uses to communicate. The temperature wouldn't be a problem in itself, but
consumer computers aren't generally built to operate in a freezer.


John

[Lynn McGuire]

Sounds like a typical guy. Walk up to the edge and spit in it. If no
one else is around, pee in it.

Hey, I thought you are 75. Did you marry a younger guy ?

FYI, my wife is 2.3 years older than me.

Lynn

[Robert Carnegie]

I think I just lost a post, so I'll repeat briefly: T is a troll.
His goal is to verbally abuse people repeatedly. He's quite skilled
at it making this happen and it isn't easy to distinguish his civil
conversation from luring of victims, and anyway the latter is
always how it ends up, so there is no real difference.

So I don't talk to him. I don't even read him except by accident.
What he says is of no interest to me. What I say is of interest to
him, which has unfortunate results.

On the point of the day, I think you went wrong, but he isn't
right; he is irrelevant.

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On Tue, 16 Jan 2018 20:49:55 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J

Heydt) wrote:

>In article <fc6kpu...@mid.individual.net>,
>Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>>djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>>
>>
>>>>But if they moved out they couldn't watch Niagara Falls freeze solid
>>>>every winter!
>>>
>>>I've seen that on television. That's enough for me.
>>>
>>>(I have a similar attitude toward volcanoes in Hawaii.)
>>
>>Hawaiian type volcanos don't explode.
>
>I know they don't. That's not the point. The point is that
>volcano buffs like my husband would want to climb up the volcano*
>and stand at the edge of the crater and look into it. And that's
>unduly dangerous, in my book.

Having recently visited Kilauea, rest assured that the Park Service
won't LET you get near the most active craters, only look at them from
a safe* distance.

You can climb down into some of the others, though -- I did that, in
fact, and it was fascinating. The black stone beneath your feet is
warm, and there are steaming vents here and there, but no exposed lava
or deep crevasses.

If you're feeling suicidal, though, the most dangerous places aren't
the craters, but the lava flows below the craters, some of which are
accessible** because they're outside the national park. They're
mostly crusted over, but the crust is sometimes VERY thin -- as in,
you can fall through it into flowing magma. And people have. One guy
who fell in even survived, because he had a rope and a quick-thinking
buddy; thanks to protective gear he was wearing he didn't even lose
his leg, and was walking again after a couple of months in the
hospital. (There's a write-up about him at the visitor's center.)

Some of those steam vents I mentioned above are producing toxic vapor
and sulfur fumes along with the steam. People have managed to fall
into those, too, though it takes some doing.


==

* "Safe" meaning it's been more than ninety years since an eruption
hurled a boulder that far.

** If you're willing to hike several miles over rough terrain.

[Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha]

djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in
news:p2o1r...@kithrup.com:

Depends on the freezer. And the WiFi.

> I only ask
> because I want to know.

Generally speaking, I suspect only poorly at best, unless it's
specifically set up to. In point of fact, my place of empoloyment
used to be a grocery store, and much of the office is in what was
then the meat locker. So the walls are reinforced concrete. Cell
phones and WiFi are sketchy.

> (Hal does not trust WiFi in any context
> and won't use it.

It works when it works, and doesn't when it doesn't. It doesn't
normally work, then not work, unless something changes (like the
neighbors all setting up their own, and flooding all the
channels).

Security on it is pretty much non-existent, though. WPA and WPA2
can be broken in real time with a smart phone app. WPA3 is
supposed to be much better, but isn't available yet. (If you're
browsing the web, though, anything that matters should be
encrypted on your computer before gets to the WiFi.)

> Our daughter and son-in-law do, and haven't
> met disaster so far. As for me, I wouldn't know how to turn the
> WiFi on if it were sitting there in front of me with
> instructions in 48-point type.)
>

That would be a problem yes.

[Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha]

j...@cix.co.uk (John Dallman) wrote in
news:memo.2018011...@jgd.cix.co.uk:

Concrete is a decent insulator for freezers, and when used for
building construction, is virtually always reinforced with rebar.

[Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha]

djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in
news:p2o1v...@kithrup.com:

There's a spot in Hawaii where you can walk out onto the still
cooling lava flow (well indulsated boots strongly recommended), and
use a rock hammer to make your own souvenir by embedding a quarter in
hot lava. The park rangers apparently do *not* like it, but they
don't stop you.

[Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha]

Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote in
news:fba1d6a3-78ff-4921...@googlegroups.com:

> On Tuesday, 16 January 2018 13:02:13 UTC, Quadibloc wrote:
>> On Monday, January 15, 2018 at 3:55:51 PM UTC-7, Jibini Kula
>> Tumbili Kujisalimisha wrote:
>>
>> > You're so fucking stupid that Bobbie has agreed with *me*.
>>
>> At least I can take consolation in the fact that his post was a
>> direct response to one of my posts, rather than a response to
>> your reply to my post, and so he was spared the blow to his
>> pride that would have come from an explicit admission on his
>> part that it was you that he was agreeing with.
>>
>> Thus leaving open the possibility that the level of stupidity
>> on my part required for him to that is one that I have not yet
>> reached.
>>
>> John Savard
>
> I think I just lost a post, so I'll repeat briefly: T is a
> troll.

For whom you bear such an obsessive blind hatred that you are
incapable of passing up any opportunity to tell the world that you
hate me.

> His goal is to verbally abuse people repeatedly.

Not at all. My goal is to amuse myself. Some people are amusing in
ways that don't involve acting like cats around laster pointers.
You, of course, are not one of them.

> He's
> quite skilled at it making this happen and it isn't easy to
> distinguish his civil conversation from luring of victims,

You say that like there's a difference. Ther isn't. I'll always be
civil until you're stupid. You haven't noticed, of course, because
you're *always* stupid.

> and
> anyway the latter is always how it ends up, so there is no real
> difference.

Only for you, and other especially stupid people.

>
> So I don't talk to him.

But you *can't* stop talking *about*. Ever.

> I don't even read him except by
> accident.

Heh. I'll bet.

> What he says is of no interest to me.

Then why can't you stop talking about me? And I do mean *can't*.

> What I say is
> of interest to him, which has unfortunate results.

Mostly, you dangling on the hook, eternally.

>
> On the point of the day, I think you went wrong, but he isn't
> right; he is irrelevant.
>

And the focuse of your entire existence, as you well know.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <XnsA86C8F31D7B...@69.16.179.42>,

That's what Hal's concerned with, that it isn't secure. He
worked as a programmer all his adult life, and he frequently
remarks that programming for a living makes one professionally
paranoid.

[Dimensional Traveler]

I don't want to watch it on the web cam, so No.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <memo.2018011...@jgd.cix.co.uk>,

Depends on the computer, of course. Somebody in Antarcitca set up
a webcam attached to a Raspberry Pi a while back, to watch penguins.
The ambient temperature got down to somewhere below -42 C before it
quit, and that was not because the Pi conked out, but because its
battery froze.

Hal comments:

"There was always the guy who was seriously into overclocking, and
he built a PC and put all the non-moving parts in a foam ice chest,
and filled a second ice chest with liquid nitrogen, and put
fluorocarbon coolant, such as was used in the Cray machines,
and pumped it with a heat exchanger with liquid nitrogen. He
used the nitrogen to cool the computer, and it worked great
until the coolant *gelled.*"

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <XnsA86C8F61E80...@69.16.179.42>,

Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha <taus...@gmail.com> wrote:
>j...@cix.co.uk (John Dallman) wrote in
>news:memo.2018011...@jgd.cix.co.uk:
>
>> In article <p2o1r...@kithrup.com>, djh...@kithrup.com
>> (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>>> In article <XnsA86C5607AB6...@69.16.179.43>,
>>> Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha <taus...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> >That's what WiFi is for. Go to your local butcher shop.
>>> >
>>> Would the WiFi *work* inside the walk-in freezer? I only ask
>>> because I want to know.
>>
>> Probably not. They tend to have metal casings, which will form a
>> crude Faraday cage when the door is shut, blocking the radio
>> signals that WiFi uses to communicate. The temperature wouldn't
>> be a problem in itself, but consumer computers aren't generally
>> built to operate in a freezer.
>>
>Concrete is a decent insulator for freezers, and when used for
>building construction, is virtually always reinforced with rebar.

Hal notes: "Depends on how much rebar, and what the frequency is
you're trying to block. The holes in the Faraday cage need to be
smaller than the frequency of the signal. Take a look at the
holes in the door of the microwave."

He talks like this a lot. Sometimes I understand him, and
sometimes it's like the man talking to his dog, who understands
her own name, and to his cat, who understands nothing.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <XnsA86C8FA7E6C...@69.16.179.42>,

Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha <taus...@gmail.com> wrote:
>djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in
>news:p2o1v...@kithrup.com:
>
>> In article <fc6kpu...@mid.individual.net>,
>> Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>>>djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>>But if they moved out they couldn't watch Niagara Falls freeze
>>>>>solid every winter!
>>>>
>>>>I've seen that on television. That's enough for me.
>>>>
>>>>(I have a similar attitude toward volcanoes in Hawaii.)
>>>
>>>Hawaiian type volcanos don't explode.
>>
>> I know they don't. That's not the point. The point is that
>> volcano buffs like my husband would want to climb up the
>> volcano* and stand at the edge of the crater and look into it.
>> And that's unduly dangerous, in my book.
>>
>> _____
>> *Well, maybe now, as he pushes 70, he'd decide not to try.
>>
>There's a spot in Hawaii where you can walk out onto the still
>cooling lava flow (well indulsated boots strongly recommended), and
>use a rock hammer to make your own souvenir by embedding a quarter in
>hot lava. The park rangers apparently do *not* like it, but they
>don't stop you.

They need have no fear about me. I'm not going anywhere near
their volcano.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <p3lqq7$87r$2...@dont-email.me>,

Yes. He was born in 1949 (1942 for me), and he'll be 69 this
March.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <XnsA86C8FA7E6C...@69.16.179.42>,

Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha <taus...@gmail.com> wrote:
>djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in
>news:p2o1v...@kithrup.com:
>
>> In article <fc6kpu...@mid.individual.net>,
>> Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>>>djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>>But if they moved out they couldn't watch Niagara Falls freeze
>>>>>solid every winter!
>>>>
>>>>I've seen that on television. That's enough for me.
>>>>
>>>>(I have a similar attitude toward volcanoes in Hawaii.)
>>>
>>>Hawaiian type volcanos don't explode.
>>
>> I know they don't. That's not the point. The point is that
>> volcano buffs like my husband would want to climb up the
>> volcano* and stand at the edge of the crater and look into it.
>> And that's unduly dangerous, in my book.
>>
>> _____
>> *Well, maybe now, as he pushes 70, he'd decide not to try.
>>
>There's a spot in Hawaii where you can walk out onto the still
>cooling lava flow (well indulsated boots strongly recommended), and
>use a rock hammer to make your own souvenir by embedding a quarter in
>hot lava. The park rangers apparently do *not* like it, but they
>don't stop you.

I read that off to Hal, and he says, "That sounds a *little*
riskier than I would want."

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <uass5dhpfsktjr5lk...@reader80.eternal-september.org>,

>* "Safe" meaning it's been more than ninety years since an eruption
>hurled a boulder that far.
>
>** If you're willing to hike several miles over rough terrain.

I read that off to Hal, and he says, "Yeah. No, thank you."
He's not completely daft.

[Dimensional Traveler]

I'll add a second data point supporting Hal on that.

[David Duffy]

Lawrence Watt-Evans <misencha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Having recently visited Kilauea, rest assured that the Park Service

A friend got a mild "sunburn" on his legs from straddling a small lava
flow - one goes at night, I understand.

[Quadibloc]

Ah. Actually, the holes need to be smaller than the wavelength of the
signal. Of course, if you don't understand him, you might have
remembered it wrong.

[Lynn McGuire]

I've been a programmer for 42 years now.

You know, Hal is not wrong.

Lynn

[J. Clarke]

FWIW, my motherboard has configuration options for use immersed in
liquid nitrogen. This apparently is not uncommon anymore. I don't
think a freezer is any real obstacle.
>
>
>John

[J. Clarke]

In the sense that it is possible for someone with sufficient
determination to hack it, it isn't secure. However it takes more
effort than it's worth.

Where I work there's over a half a trillion dollars for somebody to
steal if they can figure out how to hack everything properly, and the
company has no qualms at all about using wifi.

[Ninapenda Jibini]

djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in

news:p2o7n...@kithrup.com:

It's less so than it sounds. Deaths are very rare. (It is, in fact,
probably less dangerous than climbing up to the rim of an active
volcano, though the poisonous gasses there are less obviously
dangerous.)

--
Terry Austin

[Ninapenda Jibini]

Dimensional Traveler <dtr...@sonic.net> wrote in

news:p3m09g$gj4$1...@dont-email.me:

There's no making some people happy.

[Ninapenda Jibini]

djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in
news:p2o7B...@kithrup.com:

It also depends on how thick the concrete is, and what kind of
aggregate is put into it. And other factors. Generally, industrial
freezers aren't friendly to radio.

--
Terry Austin

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <p3maua$ffd$1...@dont-email.me>,

I've known that for 46 years and counting.

[Ninapenda Jibini]

djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in
news:p2o77...@kithrup.com:

I recall seeing an account once (with pictures) of some guys who
wanted to play Doom on a 386. So they overclocked it to well beyond
what it could really handle, while cooling it inside a refrigerator
freezer with frozen vodka. They got it working (sort of - the frame
rate was so slow they could only swivel the point of view in 30
degree increments). Until they started drinking the coolant, at
whifch point the refrigerator caught on fire.

[Ninapenda Jibini]

djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in

news:p2o6s...@kithrup.com:

I'm not a programmer, but I am responsible for computer security
at work. And he's right, it's not secure. But a realistic
assessment tells you what is important or sensitive enough to give
a damn about, and what is protected by other means.

--
Terry Austin