The Evolution of Science Fiction discussion

How's the weather?
What's happening in your part of the world?
How's your job?
What is your wife/kid/SO or pet up to?

IOW, just a place to chat about something other than SF.

I'm hoping this is our last day of cold weather for a while. It was warmer than expected this morning, a blistering 6°F (-14C). They were calling for 0°F in Lexington, KY & they're usually a few degrees warmer than us.

We're not used to weather quite this cold for this long. We went 2 weeks well below freezing, then it got warm, all the way up to the 60s for a while & now back down with snow. I didn't make it into work yesterday & froze my butt off on my tractor pushing the snow off our lane & 2 of the neighbors. The ones directly south are my kids. Not a pleasant day, but we haven't lost power, thankfully.

I live in Toronto and generally don't mind winter, except this year. It was way too cold for a couple of weeks in December but it is finally easing up. Oh, well. It gives me a good reason to stay inside and read.

I live in Wellington, New Zealand. We are having a really hot summer. Day after day of 30 degrees C.

30C is pretty typical for summer around here. Unless there's a drought, it's not a problem. This bouncing around is awful, especially hard with our horses since they have to be clean to get a blanket on & they love to roll in mud. My pony, Chip, looked like a walking mud pile last week. At least now with the snow he's cleaned himself up.

Our horses get like that too. There seem to be continuous piles of muddy rugs and blankets to be washed in the washing machine. At least with the hot weather they dont need to be covered.

Today is a bit colder and raining for a change. We can use the water. I've just taken my daughter to work.

Not looking forward to this weekend. Weather is supposed to drop down to 64F! And some rain too I think.

Hope no one leaves their cats outside.

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

Jim wrote: "froze my butt off on my tractor pushing the snow off our lane & 2 of the neighbors."

Hope your neighbors were okay after you pushed the snow off of them. ;-)

Here in the subtropics we're having the coldest winter in recent memory. I met with clients yesterday who had just flown in from Cincinnati. We met with a local official who was actually wearing a scarf (in the conference room.) I was wearing a jacket. My clients were wearing shorts and tee shirts. They said it was 4F when they left and 63F when they arrived here. Balmy they said. Brrrr I said. I haven't had the top down on my car since the beginning of 2018. Temp is falling as I type. Into the 30s tomorrow. It almost never gets that cold here. My spouse is futiley hoping for snow. She's from Upnorth.

Lily, my English Pointer, woke me up at 3am. I thought she wanted to go out, but she just wanted to get into bed & cuddle. This is the second night in a row. Tiring since I usually wake up at 4:30 & have trouble going back to sleep that late in the morning.

Besides, we have to be careful not to disturb Amber, our small Jack Russell who sleeps under my covers. She's a small lump that explodes into fury if stepped on by one of the other dogs, similar to a landmine. The circular snapping action reminds me of the Tasmanian Devil on the Bugs Bunny cartoons.

Lily has never done this before since there are 2 dog beds, the couch, & chairs all available for her sleeping comfort. She occasionally would start out the night sleeping with me, but never decided to start in the middle of the night. Bad dreams or what?

I wonder if it's the weather. This should be the last of the super cold for a while. It was 4°F when I left the house & it usually drops until 7:30 or so when the sun comes up.

My Scoodle dog, Rocio, my three cats, Frida, Remedios, and Lucia, and even my ferret Ronaldo, all sleep with me every night. The last couple of weeks it has been a little cold at night here in Querétaro, Mexico - close to freezing, which is unusual - and the animal warmth has been especially welcome. But even when it is hotter, I like having the pets on the bed. It is very comforting somehow.

It all sounds a bit crowded.

Did you get a lot of snow with the storm, JuniperGreen?

Patrick, do they leave you enough room? Sounds like a trip to the bathroom might mean losing your spot.
;)

We didn't get too much snow, either. Just 4", but it was the fluffy sort due to the cold & piled up too high on the lane in places so I had to plow it off. The road snowplow also built an ice wall across the end of my lane that had to be broken up by the tractor & shoved off to the side. The school bus that my wife drives wouldn't have a problem with it, but it would have killed my little commuter car.

The cold is breaking! It got up to 28°F (-1C) today. Yay!!! Tomorrow is supposed to be above freezing & then we're supposed to get really warm into the 50s (10C+) over the weekend. We'll likely get rain with that, so it's going to be a muddy mess.

Well, it's a good excuse to work in the shop. I'm finishing up a 3D puzzle, a hummingbird sipping at a flower that I used a scroll saw to cut out of poplar. I spent the evening painting it & putting polyurethane on the frame before I glue it up.

Jim wrote: "Did you get a lot of snow with the storm, JuniperGreen?

Patrick, do they leave you enough room? Sounds like a trip to the bathroom might mean losing your spot.
;)"

There is truth to that, but they allow me to push them around just a little.

We got up to 40F (4.4C) today! It was wonderful to have such warm weather. I didn't even have to wear gloves while moving hay over to the horse barn with the tractor. I really didn't feel like doing it today, but I don't want to tear up the fields doing it later as it gets warmer.

The two mounting blocks arrived today, too. We've been wanting one down by the kids' house & another out in the north field for ages, so I finally just bought them since they were on sale. Still pricey & they're purple, but at least they're the 19" (tall) 2 step ones. They're difficult to find.

Some days I wonder how I'm going to survive any future technology. I've been fighting with my phone for a week for dinging occasionally. I could not figure out what was notifying me. Thankfully, my daughter found the offending app for me tonight. Kids can be useful, eventually.
;)

I also had a fight with my Kindle. I don't know if I insulted it by not turning it on for too long or what, but I was looking for a book the other day & could have sworn I had several new ones for the Kindle. I sync'd it & it said no. I stumbled across an email about one today & finally found my way to my Kindle book site where I had to manually send half a dozen new books down to my default device. Sheesh!

At least my pony & scroll saw worked well today.
:)

I totally empathize. All these 'smart' technologies seem like a bad idea, to me....

I don't even like the programmable thermostat in this house; I can't imagine one that I control with my phone... when it's too cold or too hot I want something that isn't vulnerable to power or internet failures!

And yet I still love SF. Hypocritical?

Smart tech is OK individually, it's that there's so much of it & everything requires a fair amount of knowledge to deal with. None of it is brain surgery, but I sometimes wonder if that by itself might not be easier than all these little things. Even deciding what tech to use is tough.

Like you, I have no need of a programmable thermostat. I have a wife. She does windows, too.
;)

One of my coworkers recently had trouble sleeping one night. He couldn't turn off his lights because the internet connection was down!

I do not need that in my life!

That's what I'm talking about, Ed! Ain't it scary, turning over control like that? It's like the big bad Multivac stories, if you ask me.

Seriously?!!! Couldn't turn off lights because of a lack of Internet? Wow. That's definitely taking things too far. Don't they know that HAL needs manual overrides? Haven't we learned anything from SF. SMH

And that's only a light in your bedroom. What about the self-driving cars?

I am terrified at the thought of self-driving cars.

Rosemarie wrote: "I am terrified at the thought of self-driving cars."

Based on what I see on the roads every day, I am terrified of people-driven cars.

Randy, I have to agree with you there. There are some horrible drivers on the roads.

I'm on the fence about self-driving cars which probably seems odd coming from a guy who detests automatic door locks & electric windows. So much depends on the implementation & it won't be geared toward the consumer, but toward conspicuous consumption.

We had to spend over $1000 replacing the front hubs on my wife's truck because the ABS sensors went bad. I pulled the fuse for the system, but after a year or so the front brakes would occasionally not release properly. Why I have to pay to replace an entire 4WD hub that costs $550 each because a $1 sensor fails is beyond me, but that's the way they're built.

I think they'll be great for highway driving in a perfect car, but I want manual control for country roads. There are just too many odd things they designers are sure to get wrong about them such as dodging deer or staying in the lane.

I hate the thought of driving by wire. I want a mechanical linkage to my steering for the times there's a glitch in the system & there will be glitches. Not only do I work with computers for a living & see them flake out constantly, but my company has had to deal with a vehicle that drives by wire & I was horrified by it.

The manufacturer made us put the radio/amplifier in an exposed spot where it was hit by a rock on a rainy day. The case fractured & the vehicle went into 'emergency shut down' mode in the middle of a busy freeway. The operator had just minutes to get to the shoulder & was stuck in terrible weather because the radio was put on the primary power system. The steering was sporadic & the vehicle wouldn't do more than 30 mph. Stupid & short sighted, but they also refused to put a capacitor on the horn which caused the sound system no end of problems. It was a high-end vehicle, too.

It's dumb stuff like this that's going to keep cropping up with automatic systems. Maintenance is going to be mandatory & expensive. I'm too used to letting minor items slide & that won't be an option. My current car has no gauges for anything & the idiot light is always on simply because I won't spend $700 to fix a broken gas gauge. (That requires dropping the gas tank & replacing the fuel pump.) I use the odometer to tell me when I need gas & check the codes manually.

The O2 sensors went out on my car and so the check engine light has been on for 12 years or so. Dealers and chain garages charge over a hundred dollars to connect their diagnostic computer to a car. I've heard about phone apps that can connect to the car's system, but haven't checked into it yet. It'd be nice, if when the check engine light comes on, you can see what the problem is.

Buck, you can buy a OBDII scanner from most catalog tool companies for $30. I got mine from Harbor Freight. It's the Centech model I found on Ebay here:
https://www.ebay.com/i/282822350857?c...

It will only read & clear codes. It's about twice as much for ones that you can change codes with. I decided I'm not mature enough to be trusted with that sort of power, though. Seriously, I just know I'd blow something up.

I got it for the same reason - 02 sensors. I have one out on my pickup. It's been out for 6 or 8 years. Marg's truck has one pop up occasionally, but I can clear it by just flooring the truck for a while.

Jim wrote: "We had to spend over $1000 replacing the front hubs on my wife's truck because the ABS sensors went bad. I pulled the fuse for the system, but after a year or so the front brakes would occasionally not release properly. Why I have to pay to replace an entire 4WD hub that costs $550 each because a $1 sensor fails is beyond me, but that's the way they're built."

Don't even get me started. I remember when cars were built to last but unfortunately now cars are built with cheap plastic parts. Manufacturers expect the car to require major repairs in a few years so you will have to a) bring it into the service department or b) buy a new car.

Before buying my latest piece of crap automotive wonder I asked a few people in the auto industry which car I should buy if I wanted it to last more than 5 years. Their response, each and every single time I asked, was: "why would you want to keep your car more than 5 years?" *sigh*

I don't remember when cars were built to last. I've never had one. When they hit 100K miles, they start costing too much & are never reliable enough now. My 2003 S10 has about 135K miles on it & is fine around the farm, but there's some sort of electrical short no one can track down so the battery goes dead too often. That problem came up at about 115K miles. At 103K miles it blew a head gasket & at 110K miles the transmission blew out, so I finally just got a car to commute in. I dearly love that little truck, though. I really wish they still made them or something similar.

Back in the 70s & 80s, cars rusted out. My old Pinto station wagon was running great when I took it to the junk yard simply because the body was so rusted out. I had a 2x4 holding up the front seat & it was sagging to one side, no support left. Mom hit a bump in her Vega & the grinding sound was from the whole body falling down so the drive shaft was scraping on the metal gas tank.

So, what we need is not self-driving cars, but self-repairing cars, right?

Leo wrote: "So, what we need is not self-driving cars, but self-repairing cars, right?"

I'd prefer self-driving, self-repairing jet-packs.

Or elf-driving cars.

Whichever.

In SF they have robot taxis. And flying cars. Where are the flying cars? I want my flying car.

I bought a 72 VW bug convertible in 1977 and a new Mazda Miata in 2001. 2 cars in 41 years. My spouse has had quite a few more than that.

Leo wrote: "So, what we need is not self-driving cars, but self-repairing cars, right?"

I'd buy that for a dollar!
;)

Buck wrote: "In SF they have robot taxis. And flying cars..."

I guess we need to debate the meaning of SF some more because I thought you meant "San Francisco"! And, no, we don't have robot taxis yet in Cali.

But Phoenix does.

Buck wrote: "...and a new Mazda Miata in 2001...."

I bought a 1993 Miata back when I was young and a 2-seat sports car wasn't hopelessly impractical. That thing would have run forever as long as I kept the hamsters fed. I sure wish I'd kept it, but I was living near the beach at the time my daughter was born and I needed a bigger vehicle (2003) and I just didn't have the parking space.

The plastic bellows broke on my scroll saw which means the sawdust sits on the line making it tough to see. Bending down to blow it off works, but interrupts the flow. To finish the project I was working on, I jury rigged a connection to my air compressor, but that was definitely a temporary measure since it's loud, way over-powered, & I had to stretch an air hose across the floor of the shop.

My scroll saw is 25 or 30 years old, a 16" Ryobi SC-160, but doesn't have many hours on it. Ryobi doesn't even show it on its site any more. I hate that. A couple of third parties sell parts for it, but not the bellows which is a cheap little plastic syringe with a spring in it that is pushed by the arm of the saw. It's never been very good. Unless the nozzle was very close to the cut & precisely aimed, it didn't work.

I had the idea to use an aquarium air pump & googled it to see if anyone else had tried it. Oh yeah. Apparently my issue is common. Unfortunately, I couldn't get any idea of what size aquarium pump I should buy & they're so cheap that most don't even come with any sort of rating like cubic inches per minute or something, so it's kind of a moot point, anyway.

The local pet store that is undergoing some remodeling, so out of a lot of stock, but the owner said he thought he had some used ones around. He sold me a tiny one, only a few inches on a side, for $3. I didn't see how I could go wrong at that price & it was a neat place to look around. They have a lot of fish & various reptiles that were fun to look at.

I plugged the pump into a 4 gang box I made up that has a switch & a duplex receptacle in it with a 3' cord I made from a PC power cord. The hose hooked right up & it works far better than the bellows ever did. I just use a different switch to turn the scroll saw on with. If I don't, I'm afraid I'll forget & leave the air pump running. It's super quiet.

Yay! I'm impressed; good job.

Is anyone else going to do the Great Back Yard Bird Count? It's really easy & a lot of fun. I saw a lot more birds a lot better when I did it last year, just 2 times for 15 minutes each. I'm not a real birder, but we spend a fair amount of money feeding them & I have a lot of bird houses up around the farm.

Anyway, it's really easy to do. Go to
http://gbbc.birdcount.org/
create an account & then you can get a list of birds based on your location using your zip code. That list helps identify almost all the birds. For questionable ones (Who can tell the differences between sparrows?) there are easy links to do that, too. Doing this helps out Cornell's Ornithology department, too.

Good for you! I'd do it if I weren't too blind to see birds, and if we actually had something like a back yard.

For those of you not in the US, the GBBC is a world wide thing, so take a look.

I'm sorry you can't see well, Cheryl. Our backyard is only a 1/2 acre, far too small for Lily, my English Pointer. Couldn't find her at dinner time so I drove down to my daughter's house & found her there. No one was at home except the kids' 2 dogs, 2 cats, & rabbit, but Lily was there curled up on their couch. Just made herself at home after jumping the 2 gates separating their place from ours. Thankfully none of the other dogs can do that or we'd never keep the 5 of them separated.

:chuckle:

Here's a chuckle to start out your day. I bought a new PC with Windows 10 on it. There were issues, so I ran Dell's online test to see what it thought. Here are the results.



Vista isn't even supported anymore. This AI certainly needs an update.
;)

Funny.
My Windows 10 machine picked last saturday to committ suicide. I had to reinstall the operating system. Fun times! 🎈

We got up to 80 today! It was gorgeous out. Windy, but that helped dry the place out enough that I could go riding around the place on Chip. When we got down to the pond, Lily, my bird dog, pointed out a garter snake up in the weeds on the edge of the pond. It was a couple of feet long & pretty much on the top of them. Cool sight.

envious, but happy for you!

Back to the goo & cold. It's down to 60 & falling into the 30s with rain forecast for the next 5 days.

:sigh:

We are taking our niece and her two little girls out on a sunset cruise this evening, looking for dolphins. Temps in the upper 80s. They've been visiting this week from Upnorth, having fun on the beach, shelling and swimming.

That sounds nice & warm. It's getting raw here.

:sigh:

On the plus side (in the northern hemisphere), there is sunshine, and it is one month from the equinox!