Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss

Website so bad I wish I'd bookmarked it

54 views
Skip to first unread message

Joy Beeson

unread,
Feb 14, 2014, 12:37:16 AM2/14/14
to

It's been weeks now, and that web site is still bugging me. I clicked
on a link somewhere that said "learn more about go bags". Instead of
information about go-bags, it contained a list of "excuses" for not
having a go bag, each cavalierly dismissed with an airy handwave.

The one that infuriated me the most was:

Excuse: I don't have a go bag because I don't know what to put in it.
Airy hand wave: that information is readily available on the Web.

Why in (expletive) do you think I'm going to be inspired to search
around for more pages like this (truly vile expletive) page?

The other "excuse" that I remember showed that the writer knew nothing
whatsoever about either poverty or emergency preparation:

Excuse: I can't afford a go bag.
Airy hand wave: You can buy the things a little at a time.

Um . . . guy? Giving up food doesn't stop being a sacrifice just
because you skip part of three lunches instead of all of one lunch.

Not to mention that a proper go bag is filled with stuff you already
have in the house; you just gather it together to make it easy to grab
when you have to leave the house at a dead run. There are some things
created just for go bags, but those tend to be lists, photocopies, and
other things that take time but not much money.

Well, no, I don't know what goes into a go bag -- that site pretty
thoroughly discouraged me from trying to find a list. But I know that
when you're under stress, it's not a good time to eat unfamiliar food
or try to use gadgets you've never operated before.

I can guess some of the items that would be included. First and
foremost would be my prescription meds. I have two pill sticks for
the purpose of making sure that I always have one that's full. Had I
a go bag, it would be a good place to stash the bottles.

Next would be all kinds of data (here's where I need a list).

Cash, plastic, papers-please, cell phone, knife, handkerchiefs,
sunscreen (in season), and lipstick live in the pockets of the pants I
put on when I leave the house; they don't need to be duplicated in the
go bag.

When I was a teenager fretting over packing my bag for a trip, my
father said "If you are fully dressed when you leave the house, you
are going to be all right." But a change of socks and underwear would
be nice.

Food is another necessity, but keeping it fresh would be harder than
dressing out of your go bag every washday to keep your clothing fresh.
My best bet would be to store the go bag near the crisper tray where I
keep the food bars that I put into my pocket when I don't have time to
eat breakfast. If I don't have time to fill the bag, I could yank out
the whole drawer.


--
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://joybeeson.home.comcast.net/
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.

rksh...@rosettacondot.com

unread,
Feb 14, 2014, 11:13:58 AM2/14/14
to
Joy Beeson <jbe...@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:
>
> It's been weeks now, and that web site is still bugging me. I clicked
> on a link somewhere that said "learn more about go bags". Instead of
> information about go-bags, it contained a list of "excuses" for not
> having a go bag, each cavalierly dismissed with an airy handwave.
>
> The one that infuriated me the most was:
>
> Excuse: I don't have a go bag because I don't know what to put in it.
> Airy hand wave: that information is readily available on the Web.
>
> Why in (expletive) do you think I'm going to be inspired to search
> around for more pages like this (truly vile expletive) page?

They could at least put a link.

> The other "excuse" that I remember showed that the writer knew nothing
> whatsoever about either poverty or emergency preparation:
>
> Excuse: I can't afford a go bag.
> Airy hand wave: You can buy the things a little at a time.
>
> Um . . . guy? Giving up food doesn't stop being a sacrifice just
> because you skip part of three lunches instead of all of one lunch.
>
> Not to mention that a proper go bag is filled with stuff you already
> have in the house; you just gather it together to make it easy to grab
> when you have to leave the house at a dead run. There are some things
> created just for go bags, but those tend to be lists, photocopies, and
> other things that take time but not much money.

Certain things are probably going to end up needing to be duplicated
(utensils and such) because people tend to get tired of living their
lives out of a bag. And if it's not in the bag all the time there's a
good chance it won't end up there when you need it.

> Well, no, I don't know what goes into a go bag -- that site pretty
> thoroughly discouraged me from trying to find a list. But I know that
> when you're under stress, it's not a good time to eat unfamiliar food
> or try to use gadgets you've never operated before.
>
> I can guess some of the items that would be included. First and
> foremost would be my prescription meds. I have two pill sticks for
> the purpose of making sure that I always have one that's full. Had I
> a go bag, it would be a good place to stash the bottles.
>
> Next would be all kinds of data (here's where I need a list).
>
> Cash, plastic, papers-please, cell phone, knife, handkerchiefs,
> sunscreen (in season), and lipstick live in the pockets of the pants I
> put on when I leave the house; they don't need to be duplicated in the
> go bag.

Seems to be a decent starting list (general categories anyway) here:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bug-out_bag>
and more information at:
<http://www.ready.gov/basic-disaster-supplies-kit>

> When I was a teenager fretting over packing my bag for a trip, my
> father said "If you are fully dressed when you leave the house, you
> are going to be all right." But a change of socks and underwear would
> be nice.
>
> Food is another necessity, but keeping it fresh would be harder than
> dressing out of your go bag every washday to keep your clothing fresh.
> My best bet would be to store the go bag near the crisper tray where I
> keep the food bars that I put into my pocket when I don't have time to
> eat breakfast. If I don't have time to fill the bag, I could yank out
> the whole drawer.

Another suggestion...make sure your bag is packed with non-perishable
foods that you'd eat normally. Rotate your purchases through the bag.
That way the bag foods are always fresh and sealed. What you do with
bottled water depends on whether you drink it normally and how concerned
you are about chemicals leaching from the plastic over time.
You can do the same sort of rotation with prescription medication.

Robert
--
Robert K. Shull Email: rkshull at rosettacon dot com

Scott Dorsey

unread,
Feb 14, 2014, 1:51:14 PM2/14/14
to
Joy Beeson <jbe...@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:
>
>It's been weeks now, and that web site is still bugging me. I clicked
>on a link somewhere that said "learn more about go bags". Instead of
>information about go-bags, it contained a list of "excuses" for not
>having a go bag, each cavalierly dismissed with an airy handwave.

This page was not intended to be informative. This page was intended to
have as many keywords on it as possible, and repeat the word "go bag" as
many times as possible, in order to make it appear high on the list of
pages indicated when you do a web search.

The _only_ reason the page exists is to display click-through ads for
products unrelated to go-bags. It is designed to attract people looking
for information and instead divert them into clicking ads for which the
web page owner gets paid.

Pages like this appear frequently on the internet and they are an
expected result of advertisers who pay a website owner per click.

Welcome to Internet 2.0.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Keith F. Lynch

unread,
Feb 15, 2014, 10:16:17 AM2/15/14
to
Scott Dorsey <klu...@panix.com> wrote:
> The _only_ reason the page exists is to display click-through ads
> for products unrelated to go-bags. It is designed to attract people
> looking for information and instead divert them into clicking ads
> for which the web page owner gets paid.

> Pages like this appear frequently on the internet and they are an
> expected result of advertisers who pay a website owner per click.

A good way to discourage such pages is to go ahead and click through
lots of times -- though not enough that it could be considered a
denial-of-service attack -- but not buy anything. Advertisers will
respond by paying less and less per click, except on legitimate sites.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

Keith F. Lynch

unread,
Feb 15, 2014, 10:40:44 AM2/15/14
to
Joy Beeson <jbe...@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:
> The other "excuse" that I remember showed that the writer knew
> nothing whatsoever about either poverty or emergency preparation:

> Excuse: I can't afford a go bag.
> Airy hand wave: You can buy the things a little at a time.

> Um . . . guy? Giving up food doesn't stop being a sacrifice just
> because you skip part of three lunches instead of all of one lunch.

However, for whatever reason, many people, unlike you and I, do reason
this way. Otherwise there wouldn't be so much credit card debt.

I only buy things when I can afford them.

> Not to mention that a proper go bag is filled with stuff you already
> have in the house; you just gather it together to make it easy to
> grab when you have to leave the house at a dead run.

As Robert said, people will get tired of living out of a bag. So as a
practical matter you'd need two of everything that's in the bag.

> Well, no, I don't know what goes into a go bag -- that site pretty
> thoroughly discouraged me from trying to find a list.

Why let that site discourage you? If you found a really bad site
about fire extinguishers, would you avoid getting one of those, too?

What goes in a go bag depends on what disasters you're most concerned
about, and on how you're likely to leave (by car, by bus, by bicycle,
on foot). If you're determined to stay no matter what, you don't need
such a bag, but may want to stock up on things that would make staying
easier and safer. For instance if you're in New Orleans you might get
a few scuba tanks, and stash an axe in the attic.

> Cash, plastic, papers-please, cell phone, knife, ...

If you're likely to leave by plane, skip the knife.

> When I was a teenager fretting over packing my bag for a trip, my
> father said "If you are fully dressed when you leave the house, you
> are going to be all right."

Certainly a very heavy bag limits your options. A bag that seems
light no longer seems light after you've walked 20 miles -- trust
me on this.

rksh...@rosettacondot.com

unread,
Feb 15, 2014, 11:51:54 AM2/15/14
to
Keith F. Lynch <k...@keithlynch.net> wrote:
> Joy Beeson <jbe...@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:
>> The other "excuse" that I remember showed that the writer knew
>> nothing whatsoever about either poverty or emergency preparation:
>
>> Excuse: I can't afford a go bag.
>> Airy hand wave: You can buy the things a little at a time.
>
>> Um . . . guy? Giving up food doesn't stop being a sacrifice just
>> because you skip part of three lunches instead of all of one lunch.
>
> However, for whatever reason, many people, unlike you and I, do reason
> this way. Otherwise there wouldn't be so much credit card debt.
>
> I only buy things when I can afford them.

To be fair, unless you're living on the ragged edge it's usually possible
to skimp a bit and make small purchases, exactly as the site suggested.
It IS a sacrifice and whether it's worth doing is up to the individual.

>> Not to mention that a proper go bag is filled with stuff you already
>> have in the house; you just gather it together to make it easy to
>> grab when you have to leave the house at a dead run.
>
> As Robert said, people will get tired of living out of a bag. So as a
> practical matter you'd need two of everything that's in the bag.

Having seen people attempt to do so on camping trips, cruises, tours,
etc. the most likely thing that will happen is the stuff ends up spread
around the house. It's after you grab the bag and go that you realize
the can opener is beside the stove, the flashlight is next to the bed,
the lighter is on the table next to the candles, your socks and underwear
are in the laundry, etc.

>> Well, no, I don't know what goes into a go bag -- that site pretty
>> thoroughly discouraged me from trying to find a list.
>
> Why let that site discourage you? If you found a really bad site
> about fire extinguishers, would you avoid getting one of those, too?
>
> What goes in a go bag depends on what disasters you're most concerned
> about, and on how you're likely to leave (by car, by bus, by bicycle,
> on foot). If you're determined to stay no matter what, you don't need
> such a bag, but may want to stock up on things that would make staying
> easier and safer. For instance if you're in New Orleans you might get
> a few scuba tanks, and stash an axe in the attic.

This, of course, is the big problem. The lists try to come up with
general suggestions, but it's impossible to plan for everything. Fire,
flood, blizzard, earthquake, plague, nuclear attack, invasion, insurrection.
Personal, local, regional, national or global in scope.
The typical assumption is that you'll be on your own until help arrives
in about 72 hours and won't have access to much of anything beyond what's
in the bag. That usually means not preparing for specific disasters unless
you have reason to to think they're particularly likely.
And as you say, planning to stay on-site requires entirely different
preparation. In that case you have to start thinking more like a
survivalist, which requires a degree of paranoia that many are
uncomfortable with.

>> Cash, plastic, papers-please, cell phone, knife, ...
>
> If you're likely to leave by plane, skip the knife.

Things you can't take with you in certain cases can always be dumped. If
it's a concern, place things like knives, matches/lighter, fuel, etc. in
a bag of their own inside the larger bag and trash them if necessary.
On the good side, if things are organized enough that they're flying you
out there's most likely something waiting at the other end.

>> When I was a teenager fretting over packing my bag for a trip, my
>> father said "If you are fully dressed when you leave the house, you
>> are going to be all right."
>
> Certainly a very heavy bag limits your options. A bag that seems
> light no longer seems light after you've walked 20 miles -- trust
> me on this.

The weight of food and water is, OTOH, a self-correcting problem. And
again, if your pack turns out to be too heavy for the distance or terrain
you're facing you can always go through it and dump, or divide the
contents into categories in advance: being moved by car/bus, being moved
by plane, walking a few miles, walking tens of miles, walking a few hundred
miles, etc.

Keith F. Lynch

unread,
Feb 15, 2014, 12:46:21 PM2/15/14
to
<rksh...@rosettacondot.com> wrote:
> Keith F. Lynch <k...@keithlynch.net> wrote:
>> I only buy things when I can afford them.

> To be fair, unless you're living on the ragged edge it's usually
> possible to skimp a bit and make small purchases, exactly as the
> site suggested. It IS a sacrifice and whether it's worth doing
> is up to the individual.

Unless you're living on the ragged edge it's usually possible to buy
everything for the bag at once, rather than a little at a time.

> This, of course, is the big problem. The lists try to come up with
> general suggestions, but it's impossible to plan for everything.
> Fire, flood, blizzard, earthquake, plague, nuclear attack, invasion,
> insurrection. Personal, local, regional, national or global in scope.

Exactly. Here in Northern Virginia, we're not at high risk for many
natural disasters. Unlike, say, California, where whenever they're
not at risk for mudslides they're at risk for wildfires, and they're
*always* at risk for major earthquakes. Or Florida where nor only are
there hurricanes, but a sinkhole may suddenly open up and swallow and
crush your whole house.

Well, we did get a foot (30 cm) of snow on Thursday. Some around here
consider that a major disaster. (The governor declared an emergency.)
They obviously haven't read much SF.

My biggest worry is false arrest and false conviction. If I thought
I would be likely to be able to escape from prison, I'd consider a
buried cache of cash, clothes, wig, fake ID, etc. But, realistically,
the best preparation is a little knowledge and a *lot* of money for a
good lawyer. It's been said that anyone who can afford to buy a house
out of pocket can afford a basic defense against a felony charge.

ObSF: Stirling's _Dies the Fire_ series. To prepare for that, don't
bother to pack a flashlight, a radio, or a gun. A sword and a bicycle
would be useful. And a lifetime supply of any prescription medicine,
and of food. (The series now has eleven volumes, which is about ten
too many. Not to mention assorted short stories. At least two more
novels are pending.)

Kevrob

unread,
Feb 15, 2014, 3:50:26 PM2/15/14
to
On Saturday, February 15, 2014 12:46:21 PM UTC-5, Keith F. Lynch wrote:

> My biggest worry is false arrest and false conviction. If I thought
>
> I would be likely to be able to escape from prison, I'd consider a
> buried cache of cash, clothes, wig, fake ID, etc. But, realistically,
> the best preparation is a little knowledge and a *lot* of money for a
> good lawyer. It's been said that anyone who can afford to buy a house
> out of pocket can afford a basic defense against a felony charge.

Even for "natural disasters," cash on hand is useful. People who tried to gas up after Hurricane Sandy were often surprised to find that, even if the station they found open could pump gas using power generated on-site, credit and debit card processing was down, because their phone line (from local telco or internet) was disrupted. That a station selling gasoline to folks trying to run home generators wouldn't have a backup system to power the pumps didn't amuse many who went home with empty tanks and cans. So, cash was king. It didn't even have to be gold or silver.

Somewhere out there is a tale of someone who bought gas by bartering D batteries. Couldn't find those for love nor money in the run up to Irene.

In the bad old days, I can remember running charge cards through the old imprinter by hand, when selling books during power outages, like 14 August 2003. The phones were not usually out, though. Not too many hurricanes off Lake Michigan. Tornadoes/waterspouts and ice storms were more prevalent, and some Milwaukee neighborhoods I've worked in have buried power and phone lines. That's not common in the parts of Connecticut I've lived in, as there's too much rock in the ground in too many places.

Kevin

Keith F. Lynch

unread,
Feb 15, 2014, 5:09:04 PM2/15/14
to
Kevrob <kev...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> Even for "natural disasters," cash on hand is useful.

Yes. However, there are several places in the US where motorists
are routinely stopped by the police and shaken down for cash. Any
non-trivial amount of cash found is seized as suspected drug money,
and the motorist sent on his way.

The obvious solution is to hide it. But in some states, if you get
caught hiding cash, they won't only seize it, they'll charge you with
a serious felony. And convict you.

References to both on request.

> People who tried to gas up after Hurricane Sandy were often
> surprised to find that, even if the station they found open could
> pump gas using power generated on-site, credit and debit card
> processing was down, because their phone line (from local telco
> or internet) was disrupted.

> ... In the bad old days, I can remember running charge cards through
> the old imprinter by hand, when selling books during power outages, ...

I'm surprised gas stations don't do this. Presumably they ask to see
the driver's license for any credit transaction, so it's not as if
they're at risk of bad debts.

rksh...@rosettacondot.com

unread,
Feb 15, 2014, 6:04:01 PM2/15/14
to
Keith F. Lynch <k...@keithlynch.net> wrote:
> Kevrob <kev...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>> Even for "natural disasters," cash on hand is useful.
>
> Yes. However, there are several places in the US where motorists
> are routinely stopped by the police and shaken down for cash. Any
> non-trivial amount of cash found is seized as suspected drug money,
> and the motorist sent on his way.

I'm familiar with this one. Uses the wonderful theory that cash and property
have no rights and if you can't prove they're legitimately yours you have
no right to keep them. The only times I've carried more than a trivial
amount of cash I've kept the withdrawal and/or exchange receipts.

> The obvious solution is to hide it. But in some states, if you get
> caught hiding cash, they won't only seize it, they'll charge you with
> a serious felony. And convict you.

Is this the "should have known" concept under the money laundering laws?
I don't of any place in the US where simple possession of cash, absent
evidence that the possessor knew or should have known the cash was "dirty",
is a crime.
OTOH there's the wonderful Ohio "concealed compartment" law.

> References to both on request.
>
>> People who tried to gas up after Hurricane Sandy were often
>> surprised to find that, even if the station they found open could
>> pump gas using power generated on-site, credit and debit card
>> processing was down, because their phone line (from local telco
>> or internet) was disrupted.
>
>> ... In the bad old days, I can remember running charge cards through
>> the old imprinter by hand, when selling books during power outages, ...
>
> I'm surprised gas stations don't do this. Presumably they ask to see
> the driver's license for any credit transaction, so it's not as if
> they're at risk of bad debts.

In the states I'm familiar with (all of which permit self-serve gas sales)
virtually all credit sales are automated and at the pump. In many places
the billing ZIP code is entered as verification. In any case the Mastercard
and Visa merchant agreements prohibit requiring further identification as a
condition of purchase. For those who've had it happen, note that they don't
prohibit requesting it...they just prohibit requiring it.
AFAIK manual credit transactions are still possible but carry a much higher
fee and the merchant is liable for chargebacks since there's no authorization
code. I don't know what they'd do in a longer-term emergency situation but
all of the local merchants I'm familiar with, gasoline or general retail,
halt sales when their systems go gown.

rksh...@rosettacondot.com

unread,
Feb 15, 2014, 6:33:39 PM2/15/14
to
Keith F. Lynch <k...@keithlynch.net> wrote:
> <rksh...@rosettacondot.com> wrote:
>> Keith F. Lynch <k...@keithlynch.net> wrote:
>>> I only buy things when I can afford them.
>
>> To be fair, unless you're living on the ragged edge it's usually
>> possible to skimp a bit and make small purchases, exactly as the
>> site suggested. It IS a sacrifice and whether it's worth doing
>> is up to the individual.
>
> Unless you're living on the ragged edge it's usually possible to buy
> everything for the bag at once, rather than a little at a time.

Less than $200, possibly much less depending on your location and if you
shop carefully. One thing to keep in mind is that you're buying for a
rare, if not unique, event. The gear needs to last for 72 hours, not a
long lifetime of daily use.

>> This, of course, is the big problem. The lists try to come up with
>> general suggestions, but it's impossible to plan for everything.
>> Fire, flood, blizzard, earthquake, plague, nuclear attack, invasion,
>> insurrection. Personal, local, regional, national or global in scope.
>
> Exactly. Here in Northern Virginia, we're not at high risk for many
> natural disasters. Unlike, say, California, where whenever they're
> not at risk for mudslides they're at risk for wildfires, and they're
> *always* at risk for major earthquakes. Or Florida where nor only are
> there hurricanes, but a sinkhole may suddenly open up and swallow and
> crush your whole house.

The most likely natural disasters in this part of Texas are flood and
tornado, and my house isn't subject to flooding of less than Biblical
proportions. Tornados tend to be small enough in scope that assuming we
survive at all the main needs would be medicine and cash or credit cards,
and even the medicine could be replaced within a day. For man-made
disasters we're likely better off staying here unless things got really bad,
in which case we probably wouldn't be moving on foot.

> Well, we did get a foot (30 cm) of snow on Thursday. Some around here
> consider that a major disaster. (The governor declared an emergency.)
> They obviously haven't read much SF.

Well, it would certainly paralyze this area, but I'm not sure it would count
as a disaster. Snow doesn't tend to take out the power grid.

> My biggest worry is false arrest and false conviction. If I thought
> I would be likely to be able to escape from prison, I'd consider a
> buried cache of cash, clothes, wig, fake ID, etc. But, realistically,
> the best preparation is a little knowledge and a *lot* of money for a
> good lawyer. It's been said that anyone who can afford to buy a house
> out of pocket can afford a basic defense against a felony charge.

I think your estimate might be on the high side by close to an order
of magnitude unless the case is very complicated.

> ObSF: Stirling's _Dies the Fire_ series. To prepare for that, don't
> bother to pack a flashlight, a radio, or a gun. A sword and a bicycle
> would be useful. And a lifetime supply of any prescription medicine,
> and of food. (The series now has eleven volumes, which is about ten
> too many. Not to mention assorted short stories. At least two more
> novels are pending.)

I haven't read the Stirling. I don't object to "post-disaster" novels
but the particular setup didn't appeal to me.
For anyone with a serious chronic illness, "lifetime supply" tends to be
the shorter of how much you can afford to buy and the shelf life of the
medication.

Philip Chee

unread,
Feb 16, 2014, 12:17:14 AM2/16/14
to
On 15/02/2014 23:40, Keith F. Lynch wrote:

>> Cash, plastic, papers-please, cell phone, knife, ...
>
> If you're likely to leave by plane, skip the knife.

Swiss Army knife, roll of duct/duck tape. And a chocolate bar or two or
three (McGuyer pilot episode).

Phil

--
Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my>, <phili...@gmail.com>
http://flashblock.mozdev.org/ http://xsidebar.mozdev.org
Guard us from the she-wolf and the wolf, and guard us from the thief,
oh Night, and so be good for us to pass.

Philip Chee

unread,
Feb 16, 2014, 12:21:32 AM2/16/14
to
On 16/02/2014 01:46, Keith F. Lynch wrote:

> Well, we did get a foot (30 cm) of snow on Thursday. Some around here
> consider that a major disaster. (The governor declared an emergency.)
> They obviously haven't read much SF.

ISTR the whys and wherefores of declaring an emergency had been
explained to Keith at least once before in rasff. So I consider Keith is
being disingenuous about this.

Keith F. Lynch

unread,
Feb 16, 2014, 9:35:20 AM2/16/14
to
<rksh...@rosettacondot.com> wrote:
> One thing to keep in mind is that you're buying for a rare, if not
> unique, event. The gear needs to last for 72 hours, not a long
> lifetime of daily use.

It's not always possible to find something that shoddy that works at all.
Especially since you also want it to have an indefinite shelf life.

One example, however, is a small LED flashlight that can be recharged
by repeatedly squeezing it. My landlord has given every tenant one
of those twice. And my mother had an identical one from some other
source. It's so shoddily built that it falls apart after a few hours
of use.

> The most likely natural disasters in this part of Texas are flood
> and tornado, and my house isn't subject to flooding of less than
> Biblical proportions.

Likewise here. We do get tornados, but they're rare. I think the
last one anywhere in the DC area was a few days after 9/11, and that
was on the Maryland side. There's sometimes flooding in parts of the
area, but the only way this apartment will ever flood, other than
from plumbing malfunctions or careless upstairs neighbors, is if a
mile-wide asteroid strikes the Chesapeake Bay, as last happened in
the Eocene.

> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>> Well, we did get a foot (30 cm) of snow on Thursday. Some around
>> here consider that a major disaster.

> Well, it would certainly paralyze this area, but I'm not sure it
> would count as a disaster. Snow doesn't tend to take out the
> power grid.

Snow *does* tend to take out the power grid around here, so often that
it made the front pages that this time it *didn't*. I lost power for
a few hours a week earlier during a much smaller storm.

>> It's been said that anyone who can afford to buy a house out of
>> pocket can afford a basic defense against a felony charge.

> I think your estimate might be on the high side by close to an order
> of magnitude unless the case is very complicated.

That depends on what you're trying to accomplish. Any lawyer can
negotiate a bad plea bargain. It takes a good lawyer to negotiate a
good plea bargain. And it takes a great lawyer to prevail at trial.

The US "justice" system has become more and more a plea bargain
system. To encourage this, penalties for those who lose at trial have
become more and more severe. It's not unusual to have the choice
between accepting one year in prison in a plea bargain or going to
trial and getting life without parole if you lose. If you choose the
latter, you'd better be very, very sure you'll win despite the usual
prosecution tactics of suborning perjury by threatening witnesses and
of using prosecution-friendly crime labs which are told exactly what
results the prosecution wants them to find, and which are directly
financially rewarded for convictions. (Cites on request.)

> I haven't read the Stirling. I don't object to "post-disaster"
> novels but the particular setup didn't appeal to me.

Likewise. Especially since he wanted to do something so uninteresting
with it, i.e. endless medieval-style warfare between rival kingdoms in
what used to be the US. If I was into that sort of thing, I'd read
the Game of Thrones series instead.

I'm currently reading Turtledove's much more realistic Supervolcano
series, about what happens when Yellowstone next blows its top.
Chronic unemployment, cold weather, FEMA refugee camps, lung diseases
due to the hundreds of cubic miles (!) of volcanic ash in the air,
and shortages of food and fuel, but life mostly goes on except in the
states closest to the volcano. That strikes me as much more plausible
than, e.g., rule by stylish motorcycle gangs.

> For anyone with a serious chronic illness, "lifetime supply" tends
> to be the shorter of how much you can afford to buy and the shelf
> life of the medication.

Not very realistic, I know. As is bugging out on foot with a lifetime
supply of food, as I also suggested. Also, your medication needs
are likely to change over a lifetime -- unless your lifetime is very
short, as is likely in Stirling's scenario. You'd probably soon end
up eaten by roving cannibal gangs.

Keith F. Lynch

unread,
Feb 16, 2014, 9:55:37 AM2/16/14
to
<rksh...@rosettacondot.com> wrote:
> Keith F. Lynch <k...@keithlynch.net> wrote:
>> Yes. However, there are several places in the US where motorists
>> are routinely stopped by the police and shaken down for cash. Any
>> non-trivial amount of cash found is seized as suspected drug money,
>> and the motorist sent on his way.

> I'm familiar with this one. Uses the wonderful theory that cash and
> property have no rights and if you can't prove they're legitimately
> yours you have no right to keep them. The only times I've carried
> more than a trivial amount of cash I've kept the withdrawal and/or
> exchange receipts.

Those won't help. They use a drug dog. If it "signals" on your
vehicle, that may not be enough to charge you with a crime, but it's
enough to seize all your cash. If they don't like your attitude, they
may "search" your car for drugs by completely dismantling it, and when
they don't find anything they'll leave you by the side of the highway
with a pile of scrap metal that used to be your car and tell you that
you're free to go.

As for the reliability of drug dogs, Google "Clever Hans."

>> The obvious solution is to hide it. But in some states, if you get
>> caught hiding cash, they won't only seize it, they'll charge you
>> with a serious felony. And convict you.

> ... OTOH there's the wonderful Ohio "concealed compartment" law.

Yes, that's what I was mostly thinking of. Google "Norman Gurley."

There's a similar bill pending here in Virginia, introduced by "my"
state senator (a Democrat). It's even worse than Ohio's law in
that it would allow the car to be seized whether or not you're ever
convicted, or even charged, with any crime. See
http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?ses=141&typ=bil&val=sb234

Note that that's an official state government web page, not something
written by slanted journalists or conspiracy theorists.

Philip Chee

unread,
Feb 16, 2014, 11:41:40 AM2/16/14
to
On 16/02/2014 22:35, Keith F. Lynch wrote:

> Not very realistic, I know. As is bugging out on foot with a lifetime
> supply of food, as I also suggested. Also, your medication needs
> are likely to change over a lifetime -- unless your lifetime is very
> short, as is likely in Stirling's scenario. You'd probably soon end
> up eaten by roving cannibal gangs.

Or "end up eaten by roving zombie gangs" brainsssssss. How many seasons
of Walking Dead so far?

How well does Keith think it stands up to the premise?

rksh...@rosettacondot.com

unread,
Feb 16, 2014, 11:57:47 AM2/16/14
to
Keith F. Lynch <k...@keithlynch.net> wrote:
> <rksh...@rosettacondot.com> wrote:
>> One thing to keep in mind is that you're buying for a rare, if not
>> unique, event. The gear needs to last for 72 hours, not a long
>> lifetime of daily use.
>
> It's not always possible to find something that shoddy that works at all.
> Especially since you also want it to have an indefinite shelf life.

I'm primarily thinking about the bigger ticket items, like tent and
sleeping bag. You can go over $200 each just on those if you insist
on "professional" level gear. But yes, what you get needs to handle
indefinite storage and work for the period you need it. It's one reason
that "camp matches" tend to be preferred over lighters.

> One example, however, is a small LED flashlight that can be recharged
> by repeatedly squeezing it. My landlord has given every tenant one
> of those twice. And my mother had an identical one from some other
> source. It's so shoddily built that it falls apart after a few hours
> of use.

I've accidentally crushed a few of those. For 72 hours you're better off
with a regular LED flashlight and disposable lithium batteries (very
long shelf life). For longer periods maybe rechargable batteries and a
solar charger. And a better flashlight. Although, again, it's possible to
get into the hundreds of dollars if you insist on the best.

>> The most likely natural disasters in this part of Texas are flood
>> and tornado, and my house isn't subject to flooding of less than
>> Biblical proportions.
>
> Likewise here. We do get tornados, but they're rare. I think the
> last one anywhere in the DC area was a few days after 9/11, and that
> was on the Maryland side. There's sometimes flooding in parts of the
> area, but the only way this apartment will ever flood, other than
> from plumbing malfunctions or careless upstairs neighbors, is if a
> mile-wide asteroid strikes the Chesapeake Bay, as last happened in
> the Eocene.

I'm 300 miles from the Gulf and over 500 feet above sea level...if I get
flooding from there I suspect I'll have much worse things to worry about.

>> "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>>> Well, we did get a foot (30 cm) of snow on Thursday. Some around
>>> here consider that a major disaster.
>
>> Well, it would certainly paralyze this area, but I'm not sure it
>> would count as a disaster. Snow doesn't tend to take out the
>> power grid.
>
> Snow *does* tend to take out the power grid around here, so often that
> it made the front pages that this time it *didn't*. I lost power for
> a few hours a week earlier during a much smaller storm.

Freezing rain is what does it here, although I'm not sure we've ever had
a foot of snow in the same year, let alone at the same time.

>>> It's been said that anyone who can afford to buy a house out of
>>> pocket can afford a basic defense against a felony charge.
>
>> I think your estimate might be on the high side by close to an order
>> of magnitude unless the case is very complicated.
>
> That depends on what you're trying to accomplish. Any lawyer can
> negotiate a bad plea bargain. It takes a good lawyer to negotiate a
> good plea bargain. And it takes a great lawyer to prevail at trial.
>
> The US "justice" system has become more and more a plea bargain
> system. To encourage this, penalties for those who lose at trial have
> become more and more severe. It's not unusual to have the choice
> between accepting one year in prison in a plea bargain or going to
> trial and getting life without parole if you lose. If you choose the
> latter, you'd better be very, very sure you'll win despite the usual
> prosecution tactics of suborning perjury by threatening witnesses and
> of using prosecution-friendly crime labs which are told exactly what
> results the prosecution wants them to find, and which are directly
> financially rewarded for convictions. (Cites on request.)

>> I haven't read the Stirling. I don't object to "post-disaster"
>> novels but the particular setup didn't appeal to me.
>
> Likewise. Especially since he wanted to do something so uninteresting
> with it, i.e. endless medieval-style warfare between rival kingdoms in
> what used to be the US. If I was into that sort of thing, I'd read
> the Game of Thrones series instead.

I waiting to see whether it reaches an end or grinds to a halt under its
own weight.

> I'm currently reading Turtledove's much more realistic Supervolcano
> series, about what happens when Yellowstone next blows its top.
> Chronic unemployment, cold weather, FEMA refugee camps, lung diseases
> due to the hundreds of cubic miles (!) of volcanic ash in the air,
> and shortages of food and fuel, but life mostly goes on except in the
> states closest to the volcano. That strikes me as much more plausible
> than, e.g., rule by stylish motorcycle gangs.

I'll have to check it out.

>> For anyone with a serious chronic illness, "lifetime supply" tends
>> to be the shorter of how much you can afford to buy and the shelf
>> life of the medication.
>
> Not very realistic, I know. As is bugging out on foot with a lifetime
> supply of food, as I also suggested. Also, your medication needs
> are likely to change over a lifetime -- unless your lifetime is very
> short, as is likely in Stirling's scenario. You'd probably soon end
> up eaten by roving cannibal gangs.

It's certainly much harder to hold them off if firearms don't work.

Keith F. Lynch

unread,
Feb 16, 2014, 1:38:21 PM2/16/14
to
<rksh...@rosettacondot.com> wrote:
> Keith F. Lynch <k...@keithlynch.net> wrote:
>> Especially since he wanted to do something so uninteresting with
>> it, i.e. endless medieval-style warfare between rival kingdoms in
>> what used to be the US. If I was into that sort of thing, I'd read
>> the Game of Thrones series instead.

> I waiting to see whether it reaches an end or grinds to a halt under
> its own weight.

How can any alternate history reach an end (except with the extinction
of mankind)? History, real or alternate, just keeps going on and on.

As long as people keep buying it, he'll presumably keep writing it.

What I'd like to see in that series is a science lab. What happens
when classic experiments are replicated? For instance if you rub
amber, does it still pick up bits of lint?

The author has answered some of those questions directly, mostly in
response to objections. He's said that metals and solids have all
become non-conductors. Salt water still conducts, since otherwise
nerves, neurons, and muscles wouldn't work, which would make for a
very short novel and no sequels. I pointed out how a liquid-state
radio could be built under the new rules. He didn't like that idea.

The new laws of physics could often be used to our benefit. For
instance gold foil would make an excellent dielectric.

>> You'd probably soon end up eaten by roving cannibal gangs.

> It's certainly much harder to hold them off if firearms don't work.

Not necessarily. If firearms still worked, they'd be armed too.
Without firearms on either side, it's more practical to hold them off
with physical barriers. Sure, with enough work they could get through
any barrier, but they'd probably give up on you and go look for easier
targets.

Keith F. Lynch

unread,
Feb 16, 2014, 1:45:59 PM2/16/14
to
Philip Chee <phi...@aleytys.pc.my> wrote:
> Keith F. Lynch wrote:
>> You'd probably soon end up eaten by roving cannibal gangs.

> Or "end up eaten by roving zombie gangs" brainsssssss. How many
> seasons of Walking Dead so far?

> How well does Keith think it stands up to the premise?

Which? Stirling's series or Walking Dead? I've never seen the
latter, so I have no opinion on it, except that I've never found
zombies plausible.

I find Stirling's series somewhat implausible since, even after
decades, nobody seems to have tried replicating basic science
experiments. And since Americans all seem to accept a return to
kings, nobles, serfs, etc. In the real world, nearly all Americans
have a very strong belief in democracy, and I don't think this could
change that quickly. Sure, they'll accept things that aren't very
democratic, but it has to at least *pretend* to be democratic. We
might have a king, but he'd call himself president and hold events
that pretended to be free elections.

rksh...@rosettacondot.com

unread,
Feb 16, 2014, 2:51:23 PM2/16/14
to
Keith F. Lynch <k...@keithlynch.net> wrote:
> <rksh...@rosettacondot.com> wrote:
>> Keith F. Lynch <k...@keithlynch.net> wrote:
>>> Especially since he wanted to do something so uninteresting with
>>> it, i.e. endless medieval-style warfare between rival kingdoms in
>>> what used to be the US. If I was into that sort of thing, I'd read
>>> the Game of Thrones series instead.
>
>> I waiting to see whether it reaches an end or grinds to a halt under
>> its own weight.
>
> How can any alternate history reach an end (except with the extinction
> of mankind)? History, real or alternate, just keeps going on and on.
>
> As long as people keep buying it, he'll presumably keep writing it.

I was thinking of Game of Thrones which, unless GRRM has changed his
mind, is supposed to have a definite end. I'm not interested in the
Stirling.

> What I'd like to see in that series is a science lab. What happens
> when classic experiments are replicated? For instance if you rub
> amber, does it still pick up bits of lint?
>
> The author has answered some of those questions directly, mostly in
> response to objections. He's said that metals and solids have all
> become non-conductors. Salt water still conducts, since otherwise
> nerves, neurons, and muscles wouldn't work, which would make for a
> very short novel and no sequels. I pointed out how a liquid-state
> radio could be built under the new rules. He didn't like that idea.
>
> The new laws of physics could often be used to our benefit. For
> instance gold foil would make an excellent dielectric.

The problem with this situation is that the "laws" are authorial fiat
so there's no way to rationally analyze them. The behavior of any
particular material is whatever the author decides it needs to be and
the only thing the reader can hope for is internal consistency.

>>> You'd probably soon end up eaten by roving cannibal gangs.
>
>> It's certainly much harder to hold them off if firearms don't work.
>
> Not necessarily. If firearms still worked, they'd be armed too.
> Without firearms on either side, it's more practical to hold them off
> with physical barriers. Sure, with enough work they could get through
> any barrier, but they'd probably give up on you and go look for easier
> targets.

Firearms, especially modern semiautomatics, provide a tremendous advantage
to a small cohesive force. In this particular case the biggest advantage
is that the cannibal gangs would need strong motivation to go after heavily
armed defenders rather than the hordes of people streaming out of the urban
areas who've never seen a gun that wasn't on a screen. Authors tend to
supply the defenders in their stories with a MacGuffin to offset this.

David Goldfarb

unread,
Feb 17, 2014, 11:52:26 PM2/17/14
to
In article <ldr117$dva$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>Which? Stirling's series or Walking Dead? I've never seen the
>latter, so I have no opinion on it, except that I've never found
>zombies plausible.

_The Walking Dead_ has a couple of problems with its premise. The
biggest one is that the zombies as portrayed should not have been
able to overthrow civilization. If one fit adult wearing riot armor
and armed with an axe can kill dozens of zombies at basically no
personal risk, why didn't the fit adults put down the zombie uprising
more or less as it started?

(The series glosses over this.)

Also the series treats zombies as basically infinite. There's at least
one website article that runs the numbers and concludes that at the
point in the story we're at, there should be almost no zombies left.

--
David Goldfarb |"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and
goldf...@gmail.com | uncertainty!"
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | -- Douglas Adams, _The Hitchhiker's
| Guide to the Galaxy_

Joy Beeson

unread,
Nov 19, 2022, 10:37:50 PM11/19/22
to

TLDNR


Wednesday, 3 August 2022

Owing to a mysterious disaster and inept use of backups, I lost my
"sent" file and all of rec.arts.sf.fandom, and didn't notice either
until it was far too late to retrieve them.

I moped around for a few weeks hoping that I would think of something,
then restarted rec.arts.sf.fandom from scratch. I found that my
provider's retention goes all the way back to 2013, though many
messages scrolled off before I could read them.

Lots of these old messages are interesting, particularly those from
Dorothy, and I don't want to mark them all read by downloading new
headers. It was only a few days ago that I started reading messages
from 2014. We were a talkative bunch back then, and there were more
long civil threads.

yesterday I packed a go bag. talk later, sew now!




Wednesday, 10 August 2022

Talk later, feed the cat and go to bed now.





Sunday, 14 August 2022

Couldn't find said go bag this morning. Luckily, I had a list of its
contents. It will turn up when I'm not desperate to get dressed and
get out.

I must re-organize my medical-appointment go bag by Wednesday.

I hope I can remember what I meant to say when I finally get time to
write.

I'm up to April 2014 now. I thought I could read the recent posts on
Google Groups, but I lack the time to puzzle out their interface.




Wednesday 17 August 2022

Go-bag organized and in car. Pity I have no time to talk about it.




Friday, 19 August 2022

Trip went well -- I'm released for normal activity, and we were home
about the time we usually get up.

Still no time to write, but I washed clothes this morning, and got a
bit of sewing done in the afternoon.




Thursday, 25 August 2022

I'm now reading 2015. Have a lot to say about it, but no time to say
it.

Partly because another computer disaster (two fried capacitors) and
failure to keep backups fresh have made updating my diaryzine and my
sewing blog take 120% of the available time, and my Web sites aren't
being maintained at all.

I seem to have been a much more-active poster eight years ago.




Monday, 5 September 2022

Can't sleep, don't remember what I wanted to say.

Original go-bag remark referred to the purse I take to church. I got
tired of arriving at the church to find that I'd forgotten my keys or
some other essential, and started a checklist.

(Yesterday, despite the checklist, I had to go back for my phone after
trying to check the time when I crossed the bridge, and when I needed
the nail clippers attached to the Sunday key ring, I found that I'd
forgotten the keys.)

While composing the checklist I realized that most of the stuff in the
purse could be left in it from one Sunday to the next, and it's on the
list grouped under "already in purse".

I have two go bags for medical appointments. When they told me that I
might want to bring a lunch to my Mohs surgery early in July, I
switched from the attaché case to the Trafalgar carry-on, and never
switched back.

They got the cancer on the first pass. (Even with the magnifying
mirror I bought to change dressings with, I can't find the scar to put
sunscreen on it, and just smear the general area.) The only hardship
was being forbidden to ride my bike for the rest of July and half of
August. Having to drive the car every time I went farther than I
could walk was pretty close to house arrest.

I'm reading September 2015.




Tuesday, 6 September 2022

Reading February 2016




Wednesday, 14 September 2022

Being short of time wastes a lot of time. I have to open
shoppinglists.txt this morning and search through my bag of canned cat
food, because I haven't yet found time to mark them "X" and "O" for
"Doesn't have juice for morning medication" and "has juice for morning
medication".


Can't do it this morning because I have to leave the house before ten.





Friday,16 September 2022

Marked 'em, haven't yet put them in order in the cupboard.

Leafing through unread posts, the subject line "Our human right to
self defense" caught my eye.

Pbbbbt! *Everything* has a right to self defense. A rock can't
exercise that right, but if a chip flies into your eye while you're
drilling a hole for a charge of dynamite, you can't blame the rock.

If something you're trying to kill bites your leg off, you've no call
to set off on a crazed campaign of vengeance.





Thursday 22 September 2022

I'm stuck in July of 2017, reading a 702-post thread that I started.

I seem to have been more provocative back then.





Wednesday 28 September 2022

6 April 2018, and I'm still provoking long threads. Only forty-two
posts this time.





Thursday 29 September 2022

Each year takes a little less time to read than the previous one.

And not because I'm skipping more; it takes fewer page downs to get
from one year to the next.





Monday, October 2022

> Subject: Filk
> Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2018 19:17:46 -0300

Only eighteen replies, most of them about the definition of "filk".

I think I come down on the side of those who would restrict "filk" to
a particular sub-genre of contrefait, but how could I use _contrefait_
as a subject line when I can't spell it?

Upon reading it half a decade later, I'm impressed that I posted

Never start your Roomba
When the cook is in the kitchen
There'll be plenty of time for sweeping
When the eating's done

confident that people would recognize the tune by the scansion alone
-- and most of them did.

Of course it would have been polite to mention the name and author of
the original, but I didn't have that information.

> --
> Joy Beeson
> joy beeson at comcast dot net

I don't know whether to be surprised that it was that long ago that we
fought free of Comcast (the final straw was a "security update" that
turned out to be a trojan), or that it was that recently.





Friday, 7 October 2022

Beginning to read 2018




Monday 10 October 2022

I found time to count the number of page downs it took to see each
year.

2013, beginning in April: 30
2014: 21
2015: 15
2016: 16
2017: 19
2018: 14
2019: 11
2020: 12
2021: 7
First five months of 2022: 3


So what happened in 2014?




Wednesday, 12 October 2022

Now starting 2020. Should move quickly now, since I read a lot of the
remaining posts soon after their headers were downloaded.

A few screens back, discussion turned to what to say when someone
demands "your pronouns". One person said "Thee, thou, and thy".

I'd be tempted to say "That was an offensive question, but I'll
pretend that I didn't hear it so we can start over."

As for why it's offensive, that's a long essay I don't choose to spend
any of my remaining ~84,400 hours writing.





Thursday, 13 October 2022

Just as I was saying "Hey, I'm pretty sure I spent March collecting
mask patterns, and undressing into the washing machine and taking a
shower every time I came back to the house. Where's all the fussing
and feathering?"

And the very next post was "Effect of Covid" on March the third.




Saturday 15 October 2022

I've reached a bit of flurry over my first Mohs Surgery in May, 2020.
That was a cancer on my nose where excision had failed more than once,
and it had dug in so deep that I had to have skin grafts afterward.

The second cancer, which came off in July 2022, had been around for
years because I thought it was a skin tag. I casually mentioned it to
the practioner doing my annual skin exam and she said that'e not a
skin tag and took a biopsy. I flunked the biopsy and I was driven to
Fort Wayne with a sack lunch in my go bag. (Hey! On-topic for the
thread!) They got it on the first pass and we were home before we
usually get up. The hole was smaller than the head of one of my
glass-head pins, a tad larger than the heads of my silk pins. (About
the same diameter, but the heads are shaped like nail heads: flat
disks.)

No restrictions on activities, (except for "being a lazy bum" the
first two days), but changing a dressing on an eyelid every day for
six weeks is a *bummer*.

Now Dave is scheduled for Mohs on his lip. He's apt to fall asleep
in the recliner, and I often find him asleep in his office chair, so
having to keep the wound elevated probably won't deprive him of sleep.

And there will be some *clearance* when he changes the dressing.

Don't grow up in Florida or Texas.





Wednesday 19 October 2022

"Stocking Up" is pretty close to on topic for "Go Bags".

The first consideraton is to stock up on things that you will need
when you are too sick to shop.

I did moderately well.

The west end of the top shelf in the pantry cupboard is piled to the
ceiling with boxes of nose tissue -- and I haven't come close to
emptying any of those that were already down and open.

Consumption of toilet paper and paper towels also goes up if one uses
both for nose tissue. (Paper towels don't go all to lint in one's
pocket, and toilet paper can be flushed.)

The paper-towel stocks are Hoo Boy!, mostly because I saw an ad for
half-size paper towels, reflected that we were running low, decided to
buy them, and didn't re-think when I saw that I could just barely get
the package off the shelf and into the cart. We also had a knee-high
box of full-size towels.

It's time to re-stock toilet paper, but what's under the sink will
last for weeks.

Cough drops: perfect. I ran out of certain flavors, but not out of
any type. There are still three opened packets and two unopened
packets in the freezer.

Fizzwater: I hadn't thought of seltzer as stuff for sickness, but
it's sometimes easier than plain water to get inside the patient, and
easier to prepare than hot drinks. But I'm drinking plain
exclusively, so I'll have to buy more than two plain the next time I
buy one of each flavor. There are two twelve-packs left, plus what's
in the fridge, so it should last until Saturday. (I've *got* to be
fit to go out by Saturday; I'm *so* sick of house arrest!)

Absolute flunk: When it was time to take three little red pills to
drain my sinuses, there wasn't any Sudafed in the house. There were
two boxes of twelve-hour cold relief, but it doesn't allow the "take
enough to do the job" part of the prescription, and is an absolute
disaster for the "AND THEN DON'T TAKE ANY MORE" part.

By the way, if you ever voted in favor of making pseudoephedrine hard
to buy, or voted for anybody who ever voted in favor of making
pseudoephedrine hard to buy, please try to get to my house before I
stop shedding virus. I want to sneeze on you.




Sunday,23 October 2022

When reflecting that fizzwater will settle an uneasy stomach -- one
way or the other -- I recalled a tip my father picked up during World
War I.

I was having my first period, lying in bed upstairs with a washbowl on
the floor beside me and newspapers all over, and he climbed up the
stairs to see how I was doing. He said that when he was on the troop
ship, he learned that "oranges taste good both ways." It was the only
time he ever mentioned his time in the war. I wouldn't know he had
been in the Marines if I didn't have his sharpshooter's medal.

I believe that most fruits work. I have a vivid memory of spewing
partly-digested apple juice all over a starched white uniform, but
don't recall what I was in the hospital for.

I thought sure I'd stop "hacketyhacketyhacketyhackety hack hack
HAWK"ing by now.

I did go for a ride yesterday -- and slept most of the rest of the
day. Since I was nowhere near recovered from the six weeks of house
arrest in July when I started all this bed rest, I took a copy of
Analog and chose a route that had benches at frequent intervals.

Turned out that I not only didn't use the benches, I didn't stop to
take notes. I'll have to go back; there was a lot of new stuff along
the trail, and I couldn't find any of it on the map without knowing
what order I'd seen it in.


For a long time, I've been saying that frozen dinners go a long way
toward keeping the old folks in their own home: When you are too
tired to cook, you can still have a hot meal.

But it had been a while since I stocked up on frozen meals when I got
too sick to shop, and now they are getting picked-over.


1/5/2022, Snow in Virginia, Keith Lynch:

"Who ever heard of people stocking up *after* a storm?"

All sensible people replenish their diminished supplies after a
crisis.

But not in panic mode.




Monday 24 Octber 2022

I climbed up on the Kik-Step today, so the next time I see
marble-patterned boxes of tissues, I can buy one.

If I ever again see the inside of a grocery store.

Counted the canned cat food today, and we can hold out until the end
of the week. I'll need AREDS2 somewhat sooner.

Found half a bag of chicken-fried rice for tonight in the freezer, and
I'm making smoked-porkneck soup for tomorrow.

I downloaded fresh Fandom posts yesterday, but I spend too much time
in bed to read them.

I opened Dorothy's last post, but didn't read all of it. I had read
it in rec.arts.sf.written, so the screen had gone all blurry before I
got past the introduction.




Tuesday, 25 October, 2022

Prepping? I *knew* the plumber was coming, but didn't think of
drawing out a pitcher of water until I turned on the faucet and
nothing happened.

Fortunately, it doesn't take long to pull out a broken faucet and push
in a new one. He was nearly finished before I noticed scraping noises
outside. (DH was more alert even though he's sicker than I am.)

Checked my pill stick and found a section that had three AREDS2
instead of two, so I'm all right through Saturday. If I'm not well
enough to shop by then, I can call Zale's and ask them to have it
ready for me at the counter, which is close to the door.

Spent most of the day in bed. We had Clancy's corn chips with the
soup instead of cornbread. And the corn flour was on top of the pile
of cannisters in the freezer. I was doing well to clear the table and
set out the relish plate, which is mostly apple pieces at the moment.



Wednesday, 25 October 2022

I woke up feeling good this morning, so I didn't wash the dishes.

I'd planned to spend today decreasing the entropy in the house, and
thought I could get at least as far as clearing off the counter, but
when I saw that I *could* buy medicine and cat food and lots and lots
of ready-to-eat dinners, I decided not to put it off to tomorrow, as
I'd planned.

I'm not sure I'd have done it if I'd remembered that the town is still
a roach motel on account of the concrete we need to open up King's
Highway went to Florida.

So I began a four- or five-block trip by driving 1.9 miles east and
2.1 miles west. Then I missed the turn onto Center and had to turn on
the notorious intersection at Parker, then come back to Center on
Harrison.

And it's definitely bedtime. I'm tempted to skip the tooth cleaning.



Thursday, 27 October 2022,
05:00 a.m.

Need to sit up until my lungs drain.

Wouldn't have been so stressful if I'd remembered to bring my water
bottle in to Kroger. I did remember, but I was halfway to the store,
it was very windy and cold, and I'd left my coat in the car because I
didn't need it for a quick dash from warm car to warm store. But
doing it *twice* was entirely out of the question. And Kroger has a
water fountain, but it turns out that a fountain is good when you are
thirsty, but quite useless when you need frequent sips to suppress a
cough.

And I didn't think to bring a pocket snack when I'd got such a late
start that I'd be out after lunch.

Lying awake, I realized why the cough-drop displays at Zales and
Kroger were identical -- you had to look close to see that the house
brands had different names -- and why there were only four or five
choices where Kroger used to have a display of two or three square
yards.

This is the first cold I've gotten since 2020. And everybody has been
revelling in not coughing all winter.

05:20 I think I can get back to sleep now.



Friday, 28 October

Finished clearing off the counter this morning -- and promptly dirtied
three cat dishes, a freshly-laundered baking tray, a mug, and the "big
tweezer" tongs.

The last session of the farmer's markets is tomorrow, and I can't go.
Bonneyville Mill closes for the season on Halloween and I haven't
bought flour. Spring Creek has flours, but it's going to take a long
time to build up from weeks of bed rest to thirty miles -- I was only
halfway recovered from the house arrest when I started coughing.

Pout, grumble, etc. I intend to take a second ride up the Heritage
Trail tomorrow, and whenever I think about it, the scenery is in
Technicolor.

1:45 pm: time for my regular afternoon nap.


[Saturday 19 November 2022: found a huge bag of white-wheat flour
while we were cleaning the chest freezer on our first cold-enough day.
Filled two half-gallon cannisters and put them on the
cannisters-of-flour pile. Thermometer still reads ten above; we are
going to have to twiddle the thermostat in the morning.]


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

6:14

The earliest a Brightspeed technician can get here is November the
eighth.

No Usenet, no Web, no e-mail, no funnies, no updating my Website, no
off-site backups, no television (but DH is resurecting over-the-air so
the dying cat can get his lap fix), no ten-day forecast, no printing
out a map to take notes on during tomorrow's tour of the Heritage
Trail(maybe I'll go to the fairgrounds market instead), and above all
NO PHONE.

It's true that 99.9% of the incoming calls are from people and robots
who want to bring down the communication system, but the remaining
calls tend to be close to "life and death" in importance.

Such as the one that sent me to Fort Wayne to get a basal-cell
carcinoma cut off.

7:12 p.m.

Counter is clear again. Still a lot of cleaning to do. I'm about to
lie down for a five- or ten-minute rest. My wind-up timer broke, and
Alexa stopped playing relaxing music for five minutes a couple of
weeks ago. She probably still does, but the change happened at the
exact moment I finally figured out the old system, so I'm not going to
bother this time around.

And if I did know what command to give, she'd light her ring up red
and start blithering about how to reconnect before I could say
anything. No, Alexa, unplug, wait ten seconds, and replug isn't going
to do it.

Shame Amazon won't allow one to change the wake-word to something less
inappropriate.


9:45

And no casually looking up "dog fennel" to see whether my family was
the only one that had that weed growing between the wheel tracks in a
mostly-dirt lane.

Dave remembered that we had some chamomile tea left over from when the
vet prescribed it for the cat and the cat wouldn't drink it, and made
himself a cup. I said "what a great idea!", made one for me, and told
him the story of how as a child, I'd sent off for an exotic herb. I
planted the chamomile, it came up, and it was nothing but DAWG FENNEL.

That's almost as good a story as the one Mom told about sending off
for magical potted-plant fertilizer, and when it arrived it was
something she could have picked up in the sheep pasture.

Every child should have a story like that. Sending off for a box of
"2-D" toy soldiers in a sturdy paperboard footlocker is *much* cheaper
than learning the same lesson as an adult.




Saturday, 29 October 2022

10:30 p.m.

I thought "Well, if I can't read usenet or the funnies, I can get
caught up on polishing the October Banner, moving recipes from the
.txt file to COOKBOOK, and so forth." I forgot that the time reserved
for reading the monitor is time when I'm too stupid to do anything
else.

I think that I made good on the snark I made many, many snowstorms
ago. (Being an auxillary fireman at the time, I had a scanner set for
all of the channels where people might say "We're going to need a
washdown" or "We need New Salem's brush truck.", and was pretty
well-informed about emergencies.)

During one storm, the snowmobilers were making emergency deliveries of
common ordinary groceries only hours after the storm started.

I snarfed "If I woke up to six feet of snow in the driveway on a day
when I'd planned to do a major shopping, I'd be terribly embarrassed
if it took less than a week for my menus to get wonky."

When I opened Quicken to enter my receipts for the eye pills and cat
food run, I found that my previous trip to a grocery was sixteen days
before -- and that was on a Monday to pick up an Aldi Find that I'd
noticed during a shopping trip the previous Friday.

On the day of the shopping trip, my menus had not yet gotten wonky,
though we'd begun digging around under the snack foods to find supper
for two.

And we'd had hot meals every day despite being too sick to cook.

But I did need medicine, and it had been a while before the shut-in
since I'd been able to get to a place where I can buy more than two
weeks of cat food.




31 October 2022

We *are* getting low on bread. There's only a loaf of Hillbilly
Bread, about a quarter bag of miniature bagels, five flatbuns, and a
half dozen double-size slices of good sourdough bread in the freezer.
Plus some waffles and other things not counted as bread, and lots of
flour.


========================

Saturday, 18 November 2022

I figured that when the cable was repaired, I'd have lots of Fandom to
catch up with, but there were very few posts, and many days pass
without any. Is r.a.sf.f dead?

But there's been a lot of Real Life(TM), and I still need lots of
rest, so I haven't resumed posting yet.

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at centurylink dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/





Keith F. Lynch

unread,
Nov 20, 2022, 8:52:07 AM11/20/22
to
Joy Beeson <jbe...@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:
> I figured that when the cable was repaired, I'd have lots of Fandom
> to catch up with, but there were very few posts, and many days pass
> without any. Is r.a.sf.f dead?

Not dead. By my count, there have been 920 rasff posts by 53 people
so far in 2022. And that doesn't count people in my killfile.

Things have been relatively quiet for the past couple years due to
fewer cons, which in turn is due to covid.

People whose opinions I trust say that Twitter is certain to soon
unrecoverably crash, due to its new owner firing half the employees,
then giving a "pep talk" which caused most of the best remaining
technical employees to quit. And even if it doesn't crash,
advertisers -- the source of 99% of its income -- are fleeing
it like the Titanic. When it fails, rasff will get many of its
fannish refugees.

Alan Woodford

unread,
Nov 20, 2022, 9:16:46 AM11/20/22
to
On Sun, 20 Nov 2022 13:52:05 -0000 (UTC), "Keith F. Lynch"
<k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:

---snip---

>People whose opinions I trust say that Twitter is certain to soon
>unrecoverably crash, due to its new owner firing half the employees,
>then giving a "pep talk" which caused most of the best remaining
>technical employees to quit. And even if it doesn't crash,
>advertisers -- the source of 99% of its income -- are fleeing
>it like the Titanic. When it fails, rasff will get many of its
>fannish refugees.

I wonder how many of the Twitterati have even heard of Usenet, let alone want
a Twitter "alternative" whare you can't post pictures or video...

And no, I don't have a Twitter account!

Alan Woodford

The Greying Lensman

Gary McGath

unread,
Nov 20, 2022, 11:40:40 AM11/20/22
to
On 11/20/22 8:52 AM, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
> Joy Beeson <jbe...@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:
>> I figured that when the cable was repaired, I'd have lots of Fandom
>> to catch up with, but there were very few posts, and many days pass
>> without any. Is r.a.sf.f dead?
>
> Not dead. By my count, there have been 920 rasff posts by 53 people
> so far in 2022. And that doesn't count people in my killfile.
>
> Things have been relatively quiet for the past couple years due to
> fewer cons, which in turn is due to covid.
>
> People whose opinions I trust say that Twitter is certain to soon
> unrecoverably crash, due to its new owner firing half the employees,
> then giving a "pep talk" which caused most of the best remaining
> technical employees to quit. And even if it doesn't crash,
> advertisers -- the source of 99% of its income -- are fleeing
> it like the Titanic. When it fails, rasff will get many of its
> fannish refugees.

A lot of people are fleeing to Mastodon, though they may not understand
its distributed model. I can be found at https://liberdon.com/@gmcgath

--
Gary McGath http://www.mcgath.com

Peter Trei

unread,
Nov 27, 2022, 6:34:00 PM11/27/22
to
As is well known, I'm a bit of a Musk fan. But I too am appalled by the whole
Twitter adventure.

OTOH, I'm also a Twitter user, and I've seen no signs of problems, even though I
expected many.

Keith operates on the delusion that Usenet still matters. 90+% of internet users have
never heard of it.

Pt
0 new messages