Anybody home?

[James Warren]

Anybody home?

[Mike Spencer]

James Warren <jwwar...@gmail.com> writes:

> Anybody home?

<LURCH> You rang? </LURCH>

--
Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada

[lucreti...@fl.it]

On 06 Oct 2016 18:11:51 -0300, Mike Spencer

<m...@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:

>
>James Warren <jwwar...@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Anybody home?
>
><LURCH> You rang? </LURCH>

Yes, I'm here lol

[James Warren]

I was just testing to see if anyone besides me didn't
delete this newsgroup from their reader. Apparently I'm
not the only one. :)

[James Warren]

On 10/6/2016 6:11 PM, Mike Spencer wrote:
> James Warren <jwwar...@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Anybody home?
>
> <LURCH> You rang? </LURCH>
>

Trick or treat, anyone?

[Mike Spencer]

James Warren <jwwar...@gmail.com> writes:

> I was just testing to see if anyone besides me didn't
> delete this newsgroup from their reader. Apparently I'm
> not the only one. :)

I have about 100 groups in my "subscribed" list, such that my reader
checks for a count of unread messages whenever I start news. I only
read or browse fewer than a dozen groups as a rule but occasionally
check in on others when I have a relevant question or problem.

I just happened to notice that this group had upped its count by one.
alt.org.pugwash is also awaiting new messages as is ns.nstn.usergroup.
The latter was newgrouped when NS's first ISP, NSTN, went on line in
the early 90s. It has been many years since NSTN went public under a
new name, was borged, merged, spun off, merged and spun off again. A
few people still have accounts passed down through all that to
inter.net and, amazingly, mail to us...@nstn.ca is still getting
delivered to such people at their current ca.inter.net address.

[James Warren]

I use Thunderbird for newsgroups. It does not automatically check for new
messages. It checks only when I ask. I have about 20 subscribed to but I
routinely only check on 2 or 3. alt.atheism.satire used to be active and
funny as was rec.humour. sci.physics is still very active but it filled
with kooks and cranks. There are a few yahoo science groups that are active
but they have been taken over by kooks and cranks too.

It seems that a great chunk of the internet is a forum and playground for
kooks and cranks. It is fun to take them on for a while but it gets tiring
quickly.

On Facebook and Twitter I subscribe to or follow mostly news outlets, science
sources, philosophy and various prominent spokesmen for those sources. I rarely
post there. If you choose carefully FB and Twitter can be informative, entertaining
and interesting. Like everything, it is all in how you use it.

--
-jw

[Mike Spencer]

James Warren <jwwar...@gmail.com> writes:

> It seems that a great chunk of the internet is a forum and
> playground for kooks and cranks. It is fun to take them on for a
> while but it gets tiring quickly.

I only ever saw one serious nutcase crank screed (if you ignore such
things as the "scientific" homeopathy journal) before the internet, a
hectographed, hand-block-printed-on-both-sides rant that was stuck
under our door circa 1958.

I subscribe to a couple of serious mailing lists populated by people
who are highly educated, smart, wise, accomplished or some combination
of same. Both have deteriorated to posts consisting of URLs pointing
to hot (occasionally interesting) news and one-liner remarks on same.

Maybe nobody who has (a) the ability to write coherent prose and (b)
any ideas, insights, suppositions, inferences etc. has the time to do
so. Or maybe it's the inclination, given that the guys -- they're
mostly guys -- on these lists are mostly retirees.

Maybe they've been reading (or experiencing) Ecclesiastes:

1:6 The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the
north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again
according to his circuits.

1:7 All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto
the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.

1:8 All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the eye is
not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.

1:9 The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that
which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new
thing under the sun.

1:10 Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new?
it hath been already of old time, which was before us.

[snip]

1:14 I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and,
behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.

1:15 That which is crooked cannot be made straight: and that which
is wanting cannot be numbered.

1:16 I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to
great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have
been before me in Jerusalem: yea, my heart had great experience of
wisdom and knowledge.

1:17 And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and
folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit.

Ho-hum. I'll just go and watch some reality TV, have a glass of port?

Well, I have some firewood to deal with, some tomatoes to process.
Huh.

[lucreti...@fl.it]

I like Twitter because as you say, one can follow who one likes, plus
it's a good place to express dislike of policies to politicians. Yes,
I realise they are not monitoring them but I am sure in many cases
someone does and perhaps tells them 'there were 50 adverse tweets on
that'

[James Warren]

Oh yes, the politicians do monitor them is you reference them by @politician-handle.

In choosing who to follow I not only follow liberal sources but also right wing
sources. This keeps me from seeing only one side and keeps me up to date at what the
loonies are up to. :)


--
-jw

[James Warren]

On 2016-10-08 3:55 PM, Mike Spencer wrote:
> James Warren <jwwar...@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> It seems that a great chunk of the internet is a forum and
>> playground for kooks and cranks. It is fun to take them on for a
>> while but it gets tiring quickly.
>
> I only ever saw one serious nutcase crank screed (if you ignore such
> things as the "scientific" homeopathy journal) before the internet, a
> hectographed, hand-block-printed-on-both-sides rant that was stuck
> under our door circa 1958.
>
> I subscribe to a couple of serious mailing lists populated by people
> who are highly educated, smart, wise, accomplished or some combination
> of same. Both have deteriorated to posts consisting of URLs pointing
> to hot (occasionally interesting) news and one-liner remarks on same.
>
> Maybe nobody who has (a) the ability to write coherent prose and (b)
> any ideas, insights, suppositions, inferences etc. has the time to do
> so. Or maybe it's the inclination, given that the guys -- they're
> mostly guys -- on these lists are mostly retirees.

Most guys with those skills have probably become bloggers.

If we had watched The Apprentice we would have a better understanding of
the demagogue now running for the GOP.

>
> Well, I have some firewood to deal with, some tomatoes to process.
> Huh.
>

I'm to old and sore to deal with firewood anymore. I burned 8 cords
a winter for several years; no more. Laziness now works for me.

I agree about the glass of port though; or shiraz.

--
-jw

[lucreti...@fl.it]

Before I moved into town and condoland I had a pellet stove, clean and
easier to move a bag of pellets than chop and haul wood.

[Mike Spencer]

James Warren <jwwar...@gmail.com> writes:

> If we had watched The Apprentice we would have a better understanding of
> the demagogue now running for the GOP.

I recall reading about what I surmise was the first reality TV program
in der Spiegel circa 1980 -- crazy Germans doing crazy stuff. I
confess I've never watched one.

>> Well, I have some firewood to deal with, some tomatoes to process.
>> Huh.
>
> I'm to old and sore to deal with firewood anymore. I burned 8 cords
> a winter for several years; no more. Laziness now works for me.

Jeez, how old *are* you? I'm 74 and just finishing up this years 8
cord with a 7# maul. There's always about 1/4 cord that I can't
split, even with wedges, due to stringy grain and knots. The loss is
too little to justify a $1,500 hydraulic machine to recover it.

[James Warren]

You're made of better genes than I am Mike. When I gardened a 1200 sq ft
garden in the Spring I could work to exhaustion and I enjoyed it. I also
shoveled a 300 foot driveway in the winter. Today I am sore and creaky
just like my mother.

Enjoy your genes while you can.

--
-jw

[Mike Spencer]

James Warren <jwwar...@gmail.com> writes:

> I also shoveled a 300 foot driveway in the winter.

Now that would do me right in. Our lane is about 200' and we've
shoveled it by hand just once, when we had two teenaged boys at home.

We have a neighbor with a tractor. And another neighbor as backup
should a problem arise with the first.

[James Warren]

I stopped doing it regularly more than a decade ago. Every fall I now have
to make calls, watch ads on poles and look on kijiji to find someone to plow
me out regularly.

I tried using a snow blower for a few years but the cost of buying, maintaining
and fueling a snowblower exceeds the cost of paying someone to plow.

Once in the 90s we had about 4 feet, or more, of snow in the driveway. It could
not be shoveled, blown or plowed. I call in a guy with a front loader who installed
our septic system. He spent the morning dumping the snow bucket by bucket across the
street down a slope towards the Shubenacadie river. It was worse than the snow of 2014.

We had a few winters when we had the foresight to park at the bottom of the driveay
and left it unplowed for the remainder of the winter, hefting groceries up the 30 degree
slope to the house. The worst winters were ones where just after Christmas we had a foot
of snow followed by a couple inches of rain followed by a deep freeze that lasted until
March. Fun, fun, fun.

Them were the days!

--
-jw

[lucreti...@fl.it]

I didn't have that much but it took me a week in increments to get to
the road after white Juan - the plough came the day after and got
stuck anyway trying to get back up the hill! That's when I called
the local real estate guy and said 'sell' and he said to me 'You're
about the 8th person to call me today'

[James Warren]

I'm not ready for condo life just yet but it might be in my future.

--
-jw

[lucreti...@fl.it]

I love hearing the snow removal men clearing the fire escape steps and
just turn over and pull the duvet closer :) Also when the garden
company fires up the lawn mowers that's another thing I really don't
miss.

I enjoy being here, got to know many of the people and they are all
friendly but not too much so. If and when you go for a condo the
main thing to look for is a building that has existed awhile and how
it has been cared for. Ours, built in the 70s was well built and has
been well maintained. A real estate friend was telling me about
another condo building in town where they would never agree to spend
money on what others would see as regular maintenance (just as you
would have in a house) and now they are faced with re=mortgaging the
building to do all the work which should have been done.

I like a condo and having a say in the direction it takes, I wouldn't
want to rent. I have heard some horror stories about rental buildings
out at Larry Utek, you would have they would be good being brand new
but I guess that's not a guarantee.

[James Warren]

My wife has an indirect connection with some apartment buildings out Larry
Uteck way. What are some of these horror stories so that we can avoid them
should she get an urge to move there. lol

--
-jw

[lucreti...@fl.it]

On Sun, 9 Oct 2016 19:50:34 -0300, James Warren

The worst I heard was someone who signed a lease and the rent was
$1300 pm but what she didn't see buried in the lease was after two
years it would go to $1500 per month. Granted she should have been
more careful, but it is a very unusual clause. Dodges around the
legal percentage of raise I suppose. Other complaints were noise from
other appts and managements could care less attitude.

[James Warren]

Apartments often have low introductory rents to get them filled quickly.
Aren't those appartments fairly new?

Putting up with other tenants is a part of apartment living. I can imagine
a noisy condo owner being even more of a problem because you can't evict
an owner.


--
-jw

[lucreti...@fl.it]

On Sun, 9 Oct 2016 21:06:34 -0300, James Warren

There is quite a bit that can be done, and is frequently. When you
purchase you sign the condo agreement and that is binding. All sorts
of stuff covered in there.

However in this building you would have to be pretty loud, it's
concrete. I stayed with a friend in her condo, very new and
expensive, to help her after an op and woke in the night and thought
it was her walking around but in actuality it was the man on the floor
above. Wooden construction, so that's something to avoid.

[James Warren]

More modern condos and the more upscale apartments do have fairly good
soundproofing. Older ones not so much. There will always be that one
bad tenant or neighbour. If you're unlucky he'll be adjoining you. If
you're lucky you can live a quiet life.


--
-jw

[lucreti...@fl.it]

All I know is the people to the side of me and opposite have changed,
but it is still quiet. There was a case of a woman who had a barky
dog - she was told she had to solve the problem, she sold her unit.

[James Warren]

Lucky you. Many owners are not cooperative and there is nothing you
can do about it.

--
-jw