Good morning!!!!

[daugen]

for bicyclists and maybe even motorcycles, dropping walnuts can be dangerous.
But nothing is in the league of what is now falling out of trees around here...
heavy softball size osage orange fruit. Also known as hedge apples.
I would not want to get hit with one of them.

Amazon.com

even Amazon is selling them...

 

[Popgadget]

Good Morning.
It’s 59 in fog that is quickly burning off, going to 75. Looks like it will be a nice day.

Made good progress on the speaker yesterday, spent too much time wrestling with my computer, it was still running Win7 and would no longer run software I needed. Tried to install Win10 online, with no success. Ended up going to Best Buy and getting it on a USB drive.

Had a nice breakfast with a friend, and ended the day with a zoom meeting for the airport authority.

Today wife and I are going to take a ride to a long time client’s sheep farm in Blue Bell to return a sweater that she left in the plane on Tuesday. I’ve know her and her late husband for probably 30 years.

Then it’s back to the shop when I get home.

The digital vs analog music debate is complex, the sample rate has a huge impact in the result. I have done double blind tests with a high quality CD player and an audiophile quality turntable/tone arm / cartridge, and the subjects chose the vinyl every time.

However even a cheap CD player will blow a cheap turntable or lousy vinyl out of the water. Then there is the convenience of playing digital music into your ear buds or into your car audio system.

Studio recording is done at higher sample rates than the 44.1 kHz of a CD, moving the result ahead of what can be done on tape. Plus the dynamic range and signal to noise ratio is far better with a digital system, which is more dramatic than frequency response alone.
Think of a higher sample rate as the number of dots in a printed photograph, and compare a newspaper to National Geographic to get an idea what a difference it makes.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

Good Morning!!!! 53F @ 5:00AM. Abundant sunshine. High 79F. Winds NNW at 10 to 20 mph.
There's a Red Flag Warning out for the Fire Weather Zone immediately west of here, just the other side of the canyon. The PSPS power outage warnings have been coming fast and furious, and the predicted cutoff time of 1-4AM has come and gone, but the grid is still up here. Wonder how long it'll last this time?

Welcome to the GM thread, Phil. Always good to have another upside down perspective.

Glad the NWS predicted gloom and doom stayed away, Bird. Hope it stays that way.

Nice clean install on the lights, Ron. It's that time of year when all of us start using more artificial light, and start thinking about upgrades like yours.

This MedCram video discusses lots of details about the CV19 RNA vaccines, but at 17 minutes time mark, it covers how it could be developed in and tested in such a small amount of time. More of that at 31 minutes, too.

Funny you should mention Mecca dates, Don. I'm headed there the weekend before Thanksgiving for another annual camp out. Yes, there are a LOT of date groves in Mecca! Unfortunately, dates are moderately high in oxalate, something I try to avoid.

I'm still pretty happy with the predictions from Weather Underground, Paul. They also have an app, but I just use the website. Any app or website that shows weather radar in real time should let you dodge an unwelcome shower.

Did a little more cleanup on the red bike yesterday, just need to check air and oil before the next trip to Mecca. Depending in weather, though, it might not be the best choice if the trip involves cold and wet. All the big touring bike needs is a tank of gas and an oil and air check, so I'll leave the red bike empty for now.

The top of the old water tank is badly oxidized, so it got a good scrubbing with a red 3M pad yesterday. Once the wind stops blowing, it'll get a couple coats of Krylon Fusion in silver, and maybe the water inside will stay a little cooler.

I also noticed water inside the van after the last rain storm, and found the Dicor sealant around the skylight had peeled away in a couple places. A new tube of that should be here tomorrow if Amazon's prediction holds true.

The weather is supposed to be calm and warm tomorrow, perfect for that paint job and the one on the fuel tank for the white bike. I'll get some masking done on it today, but not sure what else I'll get into.

Hang in there, gang, Friday's comin'!

 

[wngsprd]

Great job on the lights, Ron.

Dense Fog is even heavier that at first light...haven't ever seen it any denser...so thick it is dripping off the roof, and put .01 of water in the gauge.

 

[txdon]

Don, not sure you understood my question. When I was in the Alzheimer research study, the Dr.s would talk about where the new drugs were in their development, which lead to discussions on how much testing was done prior to full drug approval. The 4 year period to bring vaccine to market was based on the same testing levels. Have you heard or seen if Moderna, Pfizer and J&J are finishing the normal amount of testing?

RNG answered this through his posted link at 17 and 31 minutes. This was not a normal vaccine testing, it had billions of dollars and the testing and manufacturing were done quickly. Normal testing time is now redefined with mRNA vaccines that have urgency and $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.

Good morning! Still warm and muggy, 69˚F heading to the 80s south wind. Our big rain event last night produced 2.7". The garden seeds should be loving it. Hope to see sprouts popping in a few days. I was going to mow yesterday and then saw the temps for this weekend will be in the upper 40s so why sweat, just wait a few days.

Hand and foot tournament tomorrow with prize money. Hoping for good cards and savvy partners.

 

[txdon]

Funny you should mention Mecca dates, Don. I'm headed there the weekend before Thanksgiving for another annual camp out. Yes, there are a LOT of date groves in Mecca! Unfortunately, dates are moderately high in oxalate, something I try to avoid.

"Removing fruits and veggies can make your dietary oxalate intake go down, but your body produces its own oxalate internally as a waste product, that you have a more difficult time getting rid of without the alkalizing effects of fruits and vegetables on our urine pH. This may help explain why those eating plant-based get fewer kidney stones (but it also may be due to their cutting animal protein intake, which can have an acid-forming effect in the kidneys). We’ve known this for 40 years. Just a single can of daily tuna fish can increase your risk of forming stones 250%. And even just cutting back on animal protein may help cut kidney stone risk in half."

https://nutritionfacts.org/video/oxalates-in-spinach-and-kidney-stones-should-we-be-concerned/

 

[PJSprog]

72°F and cloudy this morning, falling through the 60s throughout the day. Expecting rain again most of the day and into tomorrow.

Welcome to the GM thread, Phil.

That's a fun version of that song, Kyle. Those guys still sound great. Most likely, Tom Johnston recorded his video, and the rest used that to play along in their individual videos, then it was all edited together.

Most of the rock musicians I know have some level of hearing loss, Mostly_ ... including me. There is a long standing tradition of playing as loud as possible, and everyone uses a variety of excuses (tone from the amp, feeling the music, blah blah blah). Very few ever wore hearing protection. These days, though, many are using in-ear-monitors which make it a lot easier to control the volume and sound pressure levels that reach your ears.

I had a Win7 issue at work last week, Paul. Tried to download an eDrawings Viewer and kept getting a long list of errors when it would try to open. A quick chat with the folks at SolidWorks helped clarify that the new software isn't compatible with Windows 7 Professional. I also tried to load it on a remote desktop, but found that it's also not compatible with Windows Server 2012. I looked around on the inturwebs and found a few sites where I could download an older version of the program (app?), but had no success getting any of them to actually download. Guess I just need to pressure our IT people to upgrade my OS. Computers are so much fun ...

 

[Bird]

daugen said, "for bicyclists and maybe even motorcycles, dropping walnuts can be dangerous.
But nothing is in the league of what is now falling out of trees around here...
heavy softball size osage orange fruit. Also known as hedge apples.
I would not want to get hit with one of them."

Yep, osage orange, hedge apple, Bois d' arc, horse apple. When I was a kid, we knew them as Bois d' arc or horse apple. I'm sure I've posted it before, but I had 3 horses, one at a time, when I was a kid. The first was an old tall sorrel gelding that we were told was a retired rodeo bucking horse. At that time, we had no horse apple trees in our pasture, but there were some across the fence in the next pasture. Several times, I went and got some of them to see if that old horse wanted them and he ate them like a kid going after candy. But I NEVER saw another horse that would touch one.

 

[PJSprog]

We knew them as hedge apples. If you had someone in the neighborhood who would keep your baseballs or footballs if they landed in their yard, you could boil up some hedge apples to soften them and splatter them against their garage door, which requires a considerable amount of scraping and repainting to fix ...

... or so I've been told.

 

[riptides]

LOL.

About this time of year we go to a special place and collect them.

They are supposed to help control rodents and insects, so we use them around our out buildings.
Plus they make excellent décor this time of year, and I get quality time with the SO on the walk.

We knew them as hedge apples. If you had someone in the neighborhood who would keep your baseballs or footballs if they landed in their yard, you could boil up some hedge apples to soften them and splatter them against their garage door, which requires a considerable amount of scraping and repainting to fix ...

... or so I've been told.