World of Tanks (WOT) and how to play Artillery (arty)

Each persons selection of tank types - those being light, medium, tank-destroyer (sniper), heavy, and self-propelled guns (artys) - is an individual selection as to what they prefer.  Me, I have enjoyed playing the arty lines because it's slow, its un-appreciated, and it can really save the game IF you know how to play it.  So let me offer some tips from my perspective.

The advantage I get from playing arty is that you can look down from above and see how everyone plays ... what works and what fails.  That perspective will help you with other tank lines.  Yes, watching QuickyBaby on Twitch also helps, but you gotta jump in and try yourself.

So, what works ... for me.

When I'm first getting into position, I look to see if there's a bunch of trees in my area.  Because if there is, if I need to re-position, I don't need the red arty seeing trees falling and knowing where I am.  So as I'm getting into position, often I will knock down most of the trees around me because at the very start, few pay attention to falling trees and you can do that with impunity.  Take Prokhorovka as an example ... from North or South spawn points, on the west side of the RR tracks are lots of trees and I like to park in there ... and move around if I got spotted.  By dropping the trees in my area at the very start, I can move around with impunity during the game as they will never see any "indicators" as to where I moved to.

Now that the shells are less accurate and less deadly, you have to select your targets carefully.  So when someone is in a scrimmage with an enemy, you need to be thinking about both your lead times (cause those shells arc WAY high) but also where the enemy is going to go.  When he starts to receive shots, typically they will hit the REVERSE key, so aim behind.  Also, watch him for awhile if you can ... sometimes they will go FWD/REV/FWD/REV so you will need to shoot to the middle of them.

One advantage of watching the game unfold is that you learn where people always perch / snipe.  So at the very start, I usually put at least one shell (called a blind shot) into one of those areas ... and get about a 33% hit rate.  Even if I don't see it HIT something, I suspect that at least 50% of the time, I cause damage to an enemy.

Another aspect of "watching" is knowing where to point your arty where you know the enemy always advance ... pre-aim or "getting ready".  If you don't get ready, your reticle bloom will delay your shots by 20 or so seconds while the reticle calms down.

Change targets ... hitting someone on one flank, them moving to the middle gets them to all be careful because they really don't know where your aiming, so all of them think "he could be aiming at ME".

Stop being an arty ... when the game is getting down to the final tanks and being an arty isn't of much value (map depending of course), put yourself in an aggressive mode and go and harass the enemy.  A few days ago I had two instances where I did this.  In the first case, I rolled in front of the enemy to distract them ... yes, I died, but my teammate killed them and won the game.  In the second case, I was going up the hill to harass a "red" (because my team mate and a red were trying to "get" each other and both were on low HP).  Well, half way up, my team mate dies, so I stop on the path and pre-aim at the path coming down as I figured they would come down that way (they knew I was there ... intuition).  Anyway, some artys cannot aim straight ahead, so I backed up onto a rock to push my nose down, and waited.  About 10 seconds later, the heavy comes down and I "shot gun" him and win the game.

Another tactic is watching your flanks and seeing which flanks are failing.  Earlier today, I saw that the west flank "good guys" had all died, so I figured the enemy would come that way.  I was able to move east and pre-position my shots to that location.  Sure enough, my arty teammate (who would not follow me) dies as he lights up an enemy ... and I took him out.

Finally, watch the map carefully ... you can, but the other tanks cannot ... they are too occupied trying to not die and kill the "reds".  When I see a flank die, I call it out and hit my HELP key (F7) ... sometimes it get's others attention and they re-position ... but I stress "sometimes", like 10% of the time.  Usually your ignored but it's worth a try.

And remember what Vince Lombardi once said ... "it's not like it's life or death ... it's much more serious than that".

Generator powering house using Conntek 60837-00 14-50P ... diagram

I am not an electrician ... just a hacker ...
NOTHING I say here should be taken as gospel !!

A stand-by auto switching generator (thinking like a Generac unit) is well north of $10K ... doesn't make sense to me, so I bought a portable generator to run the house in the event that we lost power for long.  In years past. losing power was common at my location, but with the build up in our area, it's not so common any more.  And while it's nice that it's un-common, the down side is that portable gas generators needs lots of routine maintenance that I don't want to do any longer (mainly having to drain out the gas).  So instead I bought a dual fuel Pulsar G12KBN generator (solid wheels ... no airing them up) that is rated to 50 amps at 240 VAC, or 12KW surge, 9.5KW continuous ... won't handle the A/C load, but everything else is covered (I use oil for heat, so not a big draw in the winter).  With "dual fuel", I could use it w/ propane for short periods, but be able to switch back to gas if the "grid" is down for an extended time (note ... gas provides more power out, while propane de-rates the output power).

HOW TO CONNECT THE GENERATOR ...
or how I did it ... 
YOU SHOULD NOT DO THIS. 

I didn't want to invest in an auto switch-over circuit for the generator as that's thousands of dollars ... and now that power is so stable, I may never need to switch or at most, maybe once every 24-36 months ... but I want to be ready.  So since I know "house power" and 240 VAC wiring fairly well, I setup a 50 amp "camper outlet" outside on the wall, and I run a MALE TO MALE cable to connect them.  I'm smart enough with house power that I'm careful with how to connect them, but if you don't know what your doing, THIS CAN KILL YOU !!!  The simplified steps you take to connect it are:

1. Shut off house main panel breaker.
2. Shut off camper outlet.
3. Connect male to male cable.
4. Fire up generator.
5. Switch on camper outlet.

To make using the generator a tolerable NOISE experience, I decided that parking the generator right outside the house sucked, so I decided I'd park it far away ... I figured 75' should do (to my detached garage).  A little calculations showed that 75' needs a minimum of 6 gauge, but it was "iffy" so I went with 4 gauge wire (which is rated for 60 amps) for lowest voltage drop.  This resulted in me buying a 75' section of 4/4 cable that is 1" in diameter.  I bought some of the common 90 degree NEMA 14-50P connectors to put on the ends, but the 90 degree connectors makes flexing the 4 gauge cable pretty impossible.  Also, the pins were no where near large enough for the 4 gauge wire.

Someone suggested a straight-in connector, so I bought two of the Conntek 60837-00 for $30 each ... and while not 100% perfect, it's about 99.9% perfect, which is close enough for me.  They are rated at 12,500 watts, so a bit more than the peak of my generator.

There's two little issues in my application with these connectors.  The first is that the cable is 1 inch in diameter, and the "compression ferrule" on the Conntek is also 1 inch, so it's snug, but not too bad. Just makes it tight to screw on the compression stage.

The next thing that's a little iffy is the wire diameter.  Ideally, the .24 inch diameter of MY 4 gauge stranded wire (charts say from .20 to .26, so I mic'd it) should fit into the pins just fine, (using drill bits, I find that the max size that you can fit is .25 or so ... a few pins are a bit larger then that, so I just documented the smallest).

But unless you have tools for cutting big wire like this, using everyday handyman tools means that the strands come apart some and you can't get the wire into the slot without leaving "wire hairs" dangling out.  So I decided to put a lot more thought into it, and get creative ... here's what I did:

I stripped off about 8 inches of the outer jacket, then took off 6" from the individual wires ... thus leaving 1 to 2" of "working room" (note ... 2" is the MAXIMUM).  You need the 6" of bare copper so it stays TIGHTLY together.

The Conntek takes about 5/8" of bare wire into it's connection zone, so I took out a propane torch and soldered each wire so they were solid from 1/4" to 3/4" from the insulation end... this means you need to know how to solder, and it requires you to rotate the cable around and solder 2-4 times ... to expose the whole wire ... this makes sure that solder is all around on each wire ... the final result is shown here:

Then, cut through the soldered area leaving 5/8" of bare wire ... like this (I found a pair of pliers worked well for the 5/8" spacing and to hold the wire cause it get's hot while cutting it):

Assembled:

In case a diagram helps clarify, try this:

Step 1 ... strip off 8" of jacket

Step 2 ... strip off 6 to 7" of insulation to show 6 to 7" of copper wire (depending on if you want 1 or 2" or working room).

Step 3 ... tin the wires from 1/4" out to 1/2" out

Step 4 ... cut the wires off at 5/8" (I used a Dremel cut-off wheel).

Step 5 ... and you are left with this

This makes the ends nice and clean ... there may be burrs on the ends so polishing the ends with sand paper maybe necessary ... once you do that it goes right in.

In case you don't know how to solder, and want to try a different approach, you can probably clip off some strands to make the wire smaller.  The cable I bought says it uses 119 strands in each wire, so I figured that if 119 strands is rated at 60 amps, that's about 1/2 amp/strand, so 50 amps means no less than 100 strands.  So you could probably clip off 9 of the strands and make it fit well.  And 110 strands should be good for 55 amps, so that's a 10% tolerance.  Is this the perfect way?  NO !!!  It's not perfect or MIL-SPEC, but it probably should work just fine. I was about to do that myself when I thought of this soldering approach.

Just a note ... my garage is on a separate line, so it's easy to look over to the garage from the house and if the garage outside lights are ON, then residential power is back.  When that happens ...

1. Switch off the camper outlet
2. Switch off the generator
3. Disconnect and wrap up the cable.
4. Turn the house main panel back on

Review: Vevor

I bought the Vevor Manual Winch Stacker Material Lift 72" Max Height ... left the title as only "Vevor" so that more people might find this review.  I figure most of Vevor parts will fall into this catagory of issues.

Vevor doesn't allow reviews on their web site, so I figure people who buy it need to publish the results.

I bought the unit so that I could easily remove/replace the 70 pound "over range" microwave ... at 70, the body is getting a little weaker, so I figure this would help.  Also, the window AC/Heater in the garage is broke, so I need to take it in for service, and again, a little heavy for me.

First time I ordered, for some reason Fed Ex returned it to the shipper ... no explanation ... but Vevor refunded my money within 1 day.  So I re-ordered and it got to me in about a week.

Note ... 'googled' a bit to find "Vevor coupon" and found lots of places with $10 off coupon codes.

The parts inside the box are heavy, and are not secured ... they just bounced around while in transit.  While each part was wrapped in paper-thin foam and very little paint scratching occurred, it destroyed the parts container inside so all the parts were floating around inside the shipping box ... which had holes in it from the heavy parts hitting the sides, so many many many of the nuts and bolts were lost in transit ... I had to dip into my personal inventory to put it together.  Worst of all was the lack of a manual or parts list ... had to use the pictures to figure out how to put it together (even though the web site says it has a "user guide".

Where's my manual !! ??

And NO, the manual is not on their web site.

I think there was a stamped flat wrench in the box "at one time" to put the wheels on, but it was missing ... and you really really need something like that.  Anyway, once I put the wheels on, most pieces go together using the pictures as a guide.  The two other things to note are:

1) the hand crank mechanism "floats" on the rail ... there is no way to lock it in place ... so I'll probably hammer in a wedge to lock it down.  It is possible there is some sort of locking mechanism that got lost, but no way to tell without a manual of some sort).

2) my case came with an extra "A frame" piece that does not show up in any pictures ... just an extra piece of metal to float about and do more damage.  It's about 18" x 24" and heavy, so it's not like I can overlook where it goes from the pictures.

The plywood base and back-drop are pretty flimsy but easy enough to replace ... if I like it, I might go to my sheet metal shop and get some replacements made with "diamond plate".

I've written them on the parts and manual ... we'll see how they respond.

How Stupid Are California's Recall rules ??

 So Gavin Newsome need to get over 50% of the vote, or he is out.  Well, do the math !!

Let's say 10 million people vote, and Gavin only gets 4.9 million of the votes to stay, and 5.1 million vote for him to be kicked out.  Well,  the rules say that the person that got the most of those 5.1 million votes is the winner.

There are 46 people running, so if 45 of them each got 110,000 votes, that leaves Candidate 46 with 150,000 votes ... and WINS ... so 1.5% of the population gets to decide who is Governor ... how crazy is that ??

Getting a Third Covid Shot ...

I was fully vaccinated seven months ago. I walked into a pharmacy this week and got another Pfizer shot. I didn’t tell the pharmacist it was my third; she didn’t ask ... but I did lie in that I said it was my second, so now I have TWO vaccine cards !!  Since the U.S. has no central database of immunization records, the store had no way to know I’d been vaccinated at the local health department.  I did not provide any ID or Medicare numbers (just checked the boxes that said "no insurance"), so I doubt I'm tracible. 

Justification ... Israel’s Health Ministry recently announced that after five months a double dose of the Pfizer vaccine remains 91% effective at preventing severe disease but only 39% effective against infection. Israelis over 60 who received their last shot at least five months ago are eligible for a third dose. Germany said it will offer third shots to the elderly and sick starting next month, and White House officials told reporters they will soon advise Americans who are over 65 or immunocompromised to get them. I’m 69, so why shouldn’t I get one too?

CNN Health reports that a third dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine can “strongly” boost protection against the Delta variant – beyond the protection afforded by the standard two doses, new data released by Pfizer on Wednesday suggests.

The data posted online suggest that levels of antibodies that can target the Delta variant grow fivefold in people 18 to 55 who get a third dose of the vaccine.  Among people ages 65 to 85, the Pfizer data suggest that antibody levels that should protect against Delta grow 11-fold more than following a second dose.

The second dose cause a slight fever, 1 day of body aches, and a really sore arm ... but that's it.  The third dose has caused a mild fever, a little bit of tiredness, and a sore upper arm at the injection site ... small price to pay.

Recently, Bloomberg published this chart about how the immune system reacts to the third shot:

So I took the plot and inserted (in RED) 8 months ... so got mine at the 6th's month.  You can see here (in RED) how I think the antibodies did.

Death of Dick Farrel, a longtime conservative radio host from West Palm Beach, Florida ... planetary IQ just shot up.

Let’s be clear here … I’ve had my dual shots of the vaccine, and the “hard NO” vaccine people have made peace with themselves.  Since break-thru Covid cases are very rare (recent UK numbers put the rates down in the 0.1% range) and the death rates even lower, if you’ve had the vaccine, then the morbidity of Covid is approaching that of the flu.  

When Covid first hit, hospitals were swamped and morgues were over-whelmed, we were all scared thinking “I didn’t sign up for this”.  Then, science came thru and gave us the vaccine.

Now, if a MASS Covid event occurs and hospitals and morgues are again swamped, it’s the “hard NO” group and THEY DID SIGN UP FOR THIS. 

So, why should I care?  I don't.  This is Darwin at it’s finest … the dumb will die (like Farrel who try to convince others to NOT take it) and the smart will live.  The immune compromised will hold onto their social distance behavior and wear face masks because they accept the risk Covid possess, and have come to accept the behavior that keeps them alive.  "It’s not a pandemic of ignorance," quipped the Santa Monica Daily Press in an editorial about Los Angeles County's spike in cases and hospitalizations. "This is a surge of straight stupidity."

The smart will live and the dumb will die … seems about right.  I just wish the hospitals would STOP giving the lung transplants to the un-vaccinated who recover ... they don't deserve them.

EMR Telemetry ... the end

Prologue:

Most of the people involved have passed on, and I’m one of the few remaining that was on the inside to witness the decisions.  While this is my opinion, I will try to be as honest as possible.

Introduction:

During my time at EMR, I met many talented and smart people, who shaped my time there to be something I recall with fond memories.  People like Joe Keller, Jud Strock, Art Kelly, Gary Schumacher, Marvin Edgeworth, Bud Thurmond … the list could go on, but these guys helped me extensively and their memory will live with me always.

I landed my dream job at EMR Telemetry (aka; Fairchild-Weston) in 1983 as a Senior Applications Engineer.  The company, located in Sarasota Florida, employed about 1200 people.  In a town as small as Sarasota was back then, the company was a major force there.  

This article will highlight three times where decisions were made which helped destroy the company, with a fourth one at the end for the “final nail”.  Sure, corporate decisions didn’t help, but the lack of success that these decisions caused forced the stakeholders to make decisions which eventually closed the company.

The Company:

At the company were four Strategic Business Units … mine was telemetry (known as EMR Telemetry from its founding name), and the second borrowed ideas and product from EMR and it was called Signal Processing … they did classified projects for the “three letter agencies”.  The third was the “black box” business for commercial airlines, and the fourth was Data Recorders (which then was mostly the old “reel to reel” magnetic analog units).

EMR had provided equipment to all of the space programs up thru the 1980s, and commanded over 80% of the market … so indeed, going to work for EMR was fantastic … we had money … we had prestige … and we commanded the market.

The EMR Product:

Telemetry systems, were for the most part, a huge bank of “front end” signal capturing equipment, connected to a large “main frame” computer with disk farms, and custom software (the software alone often ran to six figures).  As a result, most systems were in the one million dollar range (sure, today, a system that powerful is a Dell PC and a few plug in cards, but back then, we were in the stone ages).

My First Act:

I had established myself there as someone brash enough to “fight the good fight” and “think outside the box”.  I got that reputation, I think, because when I first joined, about 1 year in I was given the task of “Capture Manager” for a major pair of Request for Proposals (RFPs) from a major aerospace company.  The first thing I did was tell the President, Joe Keller, that he was wrong, and that the Request for Proposals (RFPs) should be ignored … the spec was asking for something we could not do.  In the end, we requested an audience with that company, made our pitch, and got awarded a major contract from them.  I was a hero.

Myopia at its best:

A friend from the Data Recorders unit came to me one day and said “we have this huge RFP that involves recording lots of videos … you think outside the box, so how would you architect a solution?” (back then, video was an analog signal about 5 MHz bandwidth).  So I spent a few hours and sketched out a diagram that showed a box converting the analog signal to bits, and using new high capacity disk drives to store the data.  I told him that using his current analog recorders would result in an expensive solution that was based on aging technology, and that my approach was based on new approaches that were started to be embraced by industry.  Note that neither of these products truly existed then, but today, video encoders, decoders, and digital storage are everywhere.  

Anyway, my friend floats this up the chain of command, and shortly thereafter, our CTO comes into my office to explain to me that I clearly don’t understand video signals.  If he had seen the wisdom in my approach, EMR would be “the name” in video encoding and digital recording.  Now, I could have fought for the idea, but it was not my SBU, was not my project, and not my product line … so I just shrugged and got back to my work.

A House Divided:

At one point in time, Signal Processing had been contracted to write “high end” software for their customer that did data visualization and data storage.  While at the same time, the EMR Telemetry side had their own software … so sure enough, the two products were being pushed simultaneously to the same customer sets.  So Marketing, Sales, Engineering, Customer Support, Training, everyone, was trying to figure out which product to invest time and resources into.

Finally, management called everyone together where the two different development teams got to pitch their product so that a winner could be chosen … so we would have one core product, one marketing vision, one product to train, and sales would know which product to support.

At the end, management decided to keep both … support both … invest in both.  The house was now divided.

Money Dried Up:

In the late 1980’s, PCs were coming of age, and some OEMs were trying to develop low cost telemetry systems to compete with EMR.  Their problem was that the customers had lots of money to buy “good” systems, developed by the professionals at EMR, so they didn’t get much traction.

However, in 1991, the Cold War came to an end, and Congress started using the term “the peace dividend” to justify cutting DoD budgets.  The result was that our customers, who had money before, now had little, and they were being forced to buy PC based systems instead of the huge “main frame” systems of before since they had little money, but a continuing mission.

To address this, I assembled a few engineers, borrowed some software, and took some old signal processing hardware, put it together, and showed management how EMR could be the solution for PC-based telemetry systems … allowing our customers to have “the EMR brand for 5% of the cost of a main frame system”.

I can still hear the words … “Tim, I can’t keep 1200 people employed selling $50K telemetry systems”.  At this point, I knew the end was near, and started looking for a place to move to.  And indeed, it came to pass that they could not keep 1200 people employed while offering million dollar systems either.

Final Act:

One of my last programs I led was a new data multiplexer, running what was, at the time, the incredibly high rate of 50 Mbps.  It was successful, and management decided that they wanted to take that product, modify it for the commercial world, and market it to a new customer set.  Well, in Product Management, we call that the “Launch Risk Matrix” … where basically, new product brought to new customers is the highest risk.  

At about this time, I decided to leave the company because after all the other stupid moves, and figuring this was just not going to work (IMHO), I needed to get away.  They offered me the position of lead on that team, but I knew it was the wrong product to the wrong market, so I politely declined.

Indeed, after I left and they demo’d the new product to the new customer for the first time, it caught fire.

Epilogue:

Today, the SBUs are gone, the buildings are gone, and the only ones left in Sarasota are retirees.

Texas boy, 3, dies after accidentally shooting himself in the chest at birthday party

Original Story

Until we learn that guns with ONLY split trigger safeties, like the GLOCK line, these things will continue to happen.  It's why I love Rugers ... they have the split trigger for "dropped discharge" prevention, but also have a lever.

Acesori A-World clock / charger

 The device sorta works ... I love the display ... setting the controls via the instructions is difficult, but not impossible ... and having a CR2032 button battery as the backup is nice.

However, if you use it to charge your phone, via the wireless pad or via the USB port, once your phone reaches 100%, it stops charging.  Thus, if you do like I did one night, I connected my phone while it was at 90%, so in the morning about 8 hours later it was at 67%.  This is because about 1 hour after I plug it in, it reached 100% and turned off the charger function ... and this happens if you use either the WIRED OR WIRELESS charging function.

Manual

My Favorite Sayings ...

I've collected these few gems over the years ...

--------------------------------------

Rabindranath Tagore

The one who plants trees, knowing that he will never sit in their shade, has at least started to understand the meaning of life.

--------------------------------------

Augusten Burroughs

I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.

--------------------------------------

Isaac Newton

Truth is never to be found in simplicity.

--------------------------------------
Ralph Waldo Emerson said: 

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you lived and lived well.”

--------------------------------------

God grant me … 
• the strength to change the things that I can change,
• the tolerance to accept the things that I cannot change,
• and the wisdom to know the difference.

--------------------------------------
From the Persian poet Rumi, 

Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.

--------------------------------------

Remember this when trying to teach someone who won't listen or learn:
It's like trying to teach a pig to sing ...It wastes your time and it irritates the pig.

--------------------------------------

From StarTrek:

There can be no justice, so long as laws are absolute. Life itself is an exercise in exceptions.

It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not weakness, that is life.

What we leave behind is not as important as how we lived. 

--------------------------------------

Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail.

— Confucius

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Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.

— Nelson Mandela

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I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.

— Maya Angelou

--------------------------------------

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.

— Samuel Beckett

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Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it’s less good than the one you had before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you’ve lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something that’s good.

— Elizabeth Edwards, attorney and activist

--------------------------------------

Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare.

— Angela Lee Duckworth, author

--------------------------------------

Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.

— Helen Keller

--------------------------------------

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.

— Winston Churchill

--------------------------------------

If your heart is broken, make art with the pieces.

— Shane Koyczan, poet

--------------------------------------

Grief and resilience live together.

— Michelle Obama

--------------------------------------

1. Money cannot buy happiness but...somehow, its more comfortable to cry in a Mercedes Benz than it is on a bicycle.

2. Forgive your enemy, but remember the bastard's name.

3. Help a man when he is in trouble & he will remember you when he is in trouble again.

4. Many people are alive only because it’s illegal to shoot them.

5. Alcohol does not solve any problem, but then neither does milk.

John Wayne

--------------------------------------

Vicki Harrison, author

Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim.

99% to 70% Alcohol

Standard 70% rubbing alcohol is in short supply right now ... I most recently checked Walgreens, CVS, and Wal-Mart, and all were out.  So I stopped in at the distillery down the street from me as they are making hand sanitizer (like many are right now) and I thought I'd buy some (didn't need it, but thought I should make sure I have some).  

While chatting, I told them that 70% isopropyl is in short supply and they volunteered that they buy 99% isopropyl as part of their production process ... so they sold me a gallon.  But 99% pure isn't all that valuable "as is" as it doesn't kill bacteria very well (lots of articles about why, so I won't go into detail).  

So I wanted to reduce it to 70% and re-fill the 3 partial bottles I have of 70%.  So the formula (without getting into all the math) is:

4 parts water, then 9.7 parts 99% isopropyl gives you 70% isopropyl.  If you want easy math, then:
4 parts water, then 10 parts 99% isopropyl gives you 70.7% isopropyl ... but weaker is probably best, so ...
4 parts water, then 9 parts 99% isopropyl gives you 68.5% isopropyl

And yet another way ... you want a quart of 70% isopropyl, then it's 9.34 ounces of water and 22.65 ounces of 99% gives you a quart of 70% isopropyl.

How to Win on eBay ...

DISCLAIMER:  I HAVE NO FINANCIAL INTERESTS IN ANY WEB SITE MENTIONED HERE.

We've all had it happen ... you find something you want on eBay and then lose it in the last few seconds of "open bidding".  While frustrating, it's easily fixed.

eBay veterans call it "sniping" ... you wait until the last 3 seconds of the "open bidding" window and put your bid in just as it closes.  This way, you "sneak in" under the wire and take it from someone who isn't right there at their computer.

You can, however, buy software that will do that for you on your computer.  I used to use that, but it's a maintenance hassle.  No now I've found a BETTER way ... it's an on line service that does it for you ... called MYBIDDER.COM.  


You setup an account and it verifies that the name and password are correct.  Then, you simply put in the item number and max bid, and within a set number of seconds before it closes, the software puts in your bid to steel it away from others.  I won't say it's 100%, but my win rate has gone WAY up.

Website wants to show notifications ... ALLOW or BLOCK

Seems that everytime you go to a web site, it ways "such and such website wants to show notifications" and you get to ALLOW or BLOCK.  I find that so irritating ... and even if you tell them BLOCK on Monday, by Wednesday, they are asking yet again.

To solve that, there is a plug-in called "No Thanks" that blocks this annoying feature.  And the owner will even do "specials" for you (for example, I download some torrents and the search engine I use always pops up an advertisement for their VPN service.  For 10 Euro's, he stopped it.

FULL DISCLOSURE:  I HAVE NO FINANCIAL INTEREST OR OBLIGATION TO THE OWNER OR SERVICE.  I'm just a happy customer.

Why we Love Larry Hogan

You've probably heard of "the Metro" ... the subway system that serves DC, Maryland, and Virginia (the DMV).  Each line has a color assigned, and every budget item needs to be approved by the leaders of the DMV.  Well, Gov. Hogan earned my respect when he said he'd veto the Metro Expansion for the Purple Line ... said it was too expensive and we could not afford it.  So what happened ???  The steering committee cut back on a few stops to make it "affordable" ... so then Hogan approved it, saying "now THAT we can afford". 

Then when he disagreed with Ass-Hat Trump, well, couldn't love him more.

He's been very public with his cancer battles ... In 2015, Hogan revealed he’d been fighting skin cancer and appeared in public with his white mane gone and bandages on his face. “Before you get into speculation about what the other guy looked like, I wanted to tell you about it,” he joked.



Man's got a sense of humor !!!

But what impressed me most, I think, is when in early March, he announced that he was signing over all duties of governor to his Lt. Governor because "running the state is easy when compared to fighting a pandemic, and as of today, that will be my only job".

Taken from NBC's web site 

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/maryland-gov-larry-hogan-emerges-leader-early-action-coronavirus-n1164256

By Corky Siemaszko

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan emerges as a leader in early action on coronavirus

The GOP governor took action while Trump was still calling the pandemic a ''hoax."

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan went before the cameras last week and broke some bad news to his constituents — the state had recorded its first death from the coronavirus.

“We pray for his family,” Hogan said of the victim, a man in his 60s with an underlying condition. “Unfortunately, we are only at the beginning of this crisis and while this is the first death in Maryland it will not be the last.”

Hogan also noted that a 5-year-old girl was among the confirmed coronavirus cases in the state, a development all the more alarming because the vast majority of infected people have been older.

“This fight against pandemic is a race against time and we must take action now,” Hogan said. “We cannot afford to delay.”

That has been Hogan’s mantra from the start of the crisis. The Republican governor took steps to protect Marylanders on Feb. 27, when he first inked parts of emergency legislation to increase funds for the fight, cancelling out-of-state travel for state workers, establishing a help-line for the public and meeting regularly with his coronavirus response team. In comparison, on the following day, Trump called the coronavirus “new hoax” drummed-up by Democrats to damage him and his administration.

Hogan also declared a state of emergency in Maryland on March 5 — more than a week before President Trump made a nationwide emergency declaration.

The end result is that Hogan and fellow governor Andrew Cuomo, Democrat of New York, have at times eclipsed Trump as a national leaders in the battle against the deadly pandemic. And the steps Hogan has taken in Maryland to combat the coronavirus have been as aggressive as those taken by other take-charge governors in hard-hit states like Mike DeWine of Ohio, who is also a Republican, and Jay Inslee of Washington and J.B. Pritzker in Illinois, both Democrats.

Hogan hasn't been shy about criticizing the Trump administration’s slow response in the first days of the crisis or its inability to say for sure when badly needed supplies like masks, ventilators and test kits will be available.

“I can tell you that there's quite a bit of frustration on the part of all of the governors that we don't have answers to those questions,” Hogan said earlier in the week. “And the first answer is no, we don't have enough test kits and neither does any other state, and no, the federal government does not have an answer.”

Hogan’s frustration comes from a deeply personal place — he is a 63-year-old cancer survivor, putting him in one of highest risk categories for coronavirus complications. So his life depends on this.

But the fact that Hogan has been willing to criticize the Trump administration does not come as a surprise for people who have followed the career of a Republican who was first elected governor in 2014 and was re-elected four years later in a deep blue state.

Hogan, who is only the second Republican to be re-elected in the state’s history, was “never a fan” of Trump and made that clear even before he won the GOP nomination in 2016, said Todd Eberly, associate professor of political science at St. Mary’s College of Maryland.

“What set Hogan apart from other Trump critics, however, is that most of those critics eventually fell in line behind Trump or left office,” Eberly said. “Hogan governs in a different manner and has rarely hesitated to criticize or disagree with Trump — sometimes forcefully and sometimes more subtly.”

Last July, when Trump lashed out against revered Baltimore congressman Elijah Cummings, a Democrat, and called his Baltimore district “dangerous” and “disgusting,” Hogan fired back via his spokeswoman saying “Baltimore City is truly the very head of our state.”

When it comes to Hogan's aggressive approach to the coronavirus crisis, none of the academics and journalists interviewed by NBC News found fault. "I haven't heard a whiff of serious criticism," said Josh Kurtz, editor of the Maryland Matters news site, who has covered Hogan for years.

"Gov. Hogan has been way ahead of the federal government in addressing and responding to the coronavirus,” Kurtz added. “He's been proactive and open with Marylanders. In his role as chairman of the National Governors Association, he's been involved in some of the earliest federal briefings on the virus and has been good about relaying that information to his team and to his constituents."

When NBC News reached out to Senate President Bill Ferguson, a Democrat who has sparred with Hogan in the past on various issues, Ferguson's spokesman gave an assessment of Hogan that could pass for praise in these politically fraught times: "We have nothing negative to contribute at this point," said Yaakov Weissmann in an email.

Hogan, unlike Trump, was quick to recognize the coronavirus threat and quick to mobilize the other U.S. governors, Eberly said.

“As chair of the National Governors Association, Hogan was already in a leadership role and I think he used that role quite wisely to get people to understand just how serious the situation was,” Eberly said.

How has Hogan managed to thrive in a blue state like Maryland during a period of intense political polarization?

Part of it is Marylanders just like Hogan, the experts said. He is married father of three, grandfather of four, and his wife Yumi Hogan is the "first Korean-American first lady in United States history," according to his official biography.

“He exudes competence and confidence,” said Stella Rouse, associate professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland.

And Hogan’s not afraid to tell off his constituents when he sees them straying from the rules that have been set in place to protect them.

“Despite our warnings, despite rapid escalation of virus, some people are treating this like vacation with parties and large gatherings,” Hogan said during his Thursday update. “If you are engaged in this type of activity, you are in violation of state law and are endangering lives of fellow Marylanders.”

Another reason Hogan thrives, Kurtz said, is that “Maryland isn't as liberal as people assume it is.”

“Hogan has found the sweet spot where a lot of the voters are,” Kurtz said. “He's held the line on taxes and a lot of people like that. He's a pretty unassuming guy, and handled a cancer diagnosis early in his tenure with good humor, grace and grit.”

In 2015, Hogan revealed he’d been fighting skin cancer and appeared in public with his white mane gone and bandages on his face. “Before you get into speculation about what the other guy looked like, I wanted to tell you about it,” he joked.

Rouse said Hogan is more a pragmatist and less of an ideologue, which is a rarity in the national Republican Party these days.

“The result is he has a lot of political capital in a state that is 2 to 1 Democratic,” Rouse said.

Eberly agreed.

“He made clear when he ran for governor that abortion and marriage equality were settled law and he had no desire to re-litigate them,” Eberly said. “On gun control, he made no mention of dialing back what Democrats had accomplished.”

Now, Eberly said, Hogan maintains a statewide approval rating that “seems to defy gravity.”

Kurtz said there is already talk of Hogan running for Senate in 2022 when his term ends, but what might dissuade him is that he would have to take on Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who is a Democrat.

“Van Hollen is pretty popular, and a Republican hasn't won a Senate race in Maryland since 1980,” Kurtz said.

Hogan could also, conceivably, run for president in four years.

“Hogan likes to describe himself as a John McCain/George H.W. Bush kind of a Republican,” Kurtz said. “If that kind of a Republican ever comes back in fashion, he could be a serious contender.”

--------------------------------

28 June 2020 Update ... his last press release continues to be the man I want as president ... compare this to Arizona, Texas, and Florida:

“While yesterday the United States saw a record number of COVID-19 cases, in Maryland, our key health metrics continue to trend in a positive direction. Our daily positivity rate reached a new low of 4.38%, and our seven-day positivity rate fell to 5.05%. Our total current hospitalizations have dropped to 511, their lowest level in 83 days. We have now conducted more than 600,000 tests, and have nearly 200 testing sites available across the state.

“As we continue to safely reopen, it is important to remember that this crisis is still not behind us. More than 65,000 Marylanders have been infected, and more than 3,000 Marylanders have now lost their lives to this deadly virus. We mourn each and every loss.

“Because of our early and aggressive actions, Maryland is better positioned for an economic comeback than nearly every other state in America. Our unemployment rate is more than one-third better than the national average. We have led, and will continue to lead, on the road to economic recovery.

“Now more than ever, as we begin to come into contact with more people, we must all continue to remain vigilant. Our health and economic recovery depends on all of us continuing to exercise personal responsibility in order to keep ourselves, our family members, our neighbors, and our coworkers safe. We encourage all Marylanders to get tested, wear a mask, and practice physical distancing.

“Throughout this crisis, Marylanders have been strong, resilient, and they have never lost hope. And now, while we still have miles to go on our road to recovery, I have no doubt that the people of our great state will continue setting an example for the rest of the nation.”

Obtaining a Handgun Qualification License (HQL) in Maryland

It's pretty straight forward ... and I applaud the process ... I am all for ownership rights, but also all for keeping guns out of the hands of assholes.

Bought a handgun from grabagun.com ... good price and reviews gave the gun I choose good marks for the price.  They cannot ship you the weapon (either handgun or long gun) ... it has to go to an Federal Firearms Licensed dealer in your area.  Grab A Gun has a good link to ones in your area, so use their list.  The FFL will receive the gun and you go in with your HQL and Drivers License to get it handed over.  The FFL I choose charges $50 for a long gun handover and $100 for a handgun.

Anyway, the process is straight forward ... get your training on handgun safety ... you can find places that can do the process here.  I did not need to do this as I am ex-military, so I used my DD214 to get it waived.

Then, go here to get the process moving with the Maryland State Police (you need to setup an account).  Only thing to note is that the web site is not very intuitive ... just note the menu system on the left of the page and you won't have any issues.  I found one person / site that said you needed to use Microsofts browser, but I use Chrome and had no issues.

You'll need to input your DD214 or Training Certificate information while filling out the application.  Once that's gone as far as you can, you need to get finger printed via the "LiveScan" system ... you can find all the people who can do it here.  You can also use Google Maps, bring up your area, and search for "Live Scan" ... you'll find tons of groups that do it in your area.  They all should charge around $50, and some require appointments, but for myself, I found one in a small town and was able to walk in ... zero wait time.  You get a receipt that has your file number.

NOTE:  That file is only available to the Maryland State Police for a few days, so don't delay (at least that's what I was told).

Now, go back to your application site here to continue ... input your fingerprinting receipt number, answer 20 questions (like "am I nuts" ... yes / no) and then you can PAY FEEs ... $50.  Careful on the questions ... you get into the habit of answering NO, then at the end it asks "are you a US citizen" and "is everything the truth" so I'd advise switching over to YES for those two (but that's just me).

Wait up to 30 days and the license arrives (assuming you did everything right).  But, your not yet done.

You now need to complete your form 77R at the Maryland State Police Licensing Portal.  So yet another web site here ... and there you input pretty much the same information, except now you need to input your Handgun Qualification License number.  Within an hour, you will get an email with your PIN number.  Take that PIN number to the FFL where your handgun is located (or about to be bought) and you AND they fill out a form to submit (and pay the transfer fee).  From there, you wait 7 days and THEN you can take your gun.  Note that 7 days is not 7 FULL days, but 7 days, so if, like me, you fill out your paperwork on a Tuesday at 3 PM, you wait thru:
Day 1:  The Tuesday you completed the form.
Day 2:  Wednesday
Day 3:  Thursday
Day 4:  Friday
Day 5:  Saturday
Day 6:  Sunday
Day 7:  Monday
So on the following Tuesday, you can pick up the gun.

Hacking Digital Signatures in PDFs

The following is done on a Windows 10 machine.

The new W4 statements [Form W-4 (2020)] you have to fill out were created with digital signatures, so when you look at permissions, you find:
      Changing the Document:  Not Allowed
      Document Assembly:  Not Allowed

So I wondered ... how do you unlock "signed PDF" files ... you can only input where they allow you to input ... pre-set form fields!  Personally, I find this un-acceptable ... I have my signature in a pre-scanned TRANSPARENT PNG file so that (since I have Acrobat), I can drop in that signature so the form is complete.

In the past I just printed it to a PDF, but digital signatures retain the security of "NOT ALLOWED" ... sigh.  Well, it took me a few hours to figure this out, and "technically" your not unlocking it ... but instead "re-creating it" (which, if I'm being honest, that is what I do when I PRINT to a PDF and then put in graphics and text boxes. 

Anyway, to do this, do a PRINT to your standard printer, and you:
1) in the PRINT dialog, click ADVANCED
2) click the boxes PRINT TO FILE and PRINT AS IMAGE ... I choose 600 DPI
3) OK it and print it ... and it prints to a PRN file.
4) PRN is Post Script, so change the extension to .PS

Now, go to the web site:  www.ps2pdf.com ... you don't need to install anything (but I was so impressed, I did install the CHROME extension) and you upload the PS file ... and in about 1 minute, I was able to download a PDF. 

Once downloaded, open in Adobe Acrobat and do the RECOGNIZE TEXT function to turn it into something that you can more easily use.  Once done, you can insert or edit away.

Wendy's Breakfast Sucks ...

as of 3 March 2020 ...

First shot try got both sandwiches wrong ... and found shell in the egg.

Second try got us soggy bacon, and "cheese" seems to be put on with a paint brush.  I find the sausage patty too spicy and my last bite of sandwich (only could stomach half) found under cooked egg.

Fries/Potatoes under-whelming.

I will say, however, that I do like the Honey Chicken Biscuit ... that was good ... you can actually smell the honey when your un-wrapping it.

Free Faxing

You can pretty much do free faxing if your willing to use 2 sites.  The only limitation is that "free" on the sending means 1 page.  Please note that I have NO FINANCIAL ARRANGEMENT WITH EITHER SITE.  This information is based on using them over the past year.

SENDING:

For sending, I use "gotfreefax.com".  The "free" means you need to send only 1 page, which I have found FITS just fine ... just be careful and clear.  Just about all my needs fit on 1 page.

You can send PDFs, Docs, and JPGs.  Never used JPGs, but DOCs and PDFs work just fine.

If you use the FREE approach (red circle in picture), you get 3 emails from them ...
1:  Verify your email address (I have never gotten SPAM from them).
2:  It's in process
3:  It's done.

However, if you need to send multiple pages, you can buy blocks of pages ... see the black circled item ... 100 pages for $10, so 10 cents/page.  I bought a block over a year ago and I'm still using them whenever the FREE doesn't fit my needs.

RECEIVING:

For receiving faxes, I use "faxburner.com" ... the only limitation is that the phone number you give to people is only good for 24 hours.  If you pay them, they will give you a permanent number, but for my needs, 24 hours is just fine: