Silicon Valley Redneck

The things you don't know you don't know

Looking ahead to planting time, and, hey, this calls for plant labels.

I've got various sorts.  For the trees, I have aluminum tags that I figure on stamping (not set up for engraving at this point) with the tree's identity.  For annuals, I have plastic stick-in-the-ground labels.  For perennials other than trees, metal stick-in-the-ground things to which labels may be affixed, or they can be written upon directly, the label zone having been painted white at the factory.

So, um.  For the non-tree ones... what to use for writing on them?  I assume I don't want to use a Sharpie for the perennials, because the dye will fade with sun exposure, right?  But it'd be OK for the annuals, maybe?

Do a bit of looking around on the Internet.  Normal Sharpie ink is expected to last maybe 3-4 months outdoors, which is rather less than a growing season.  There's something called a Sharpie Extreme, which is promoted as better for outdoors with sun exposure... but the reviews are not good.  At all.  Like, fades even faster than regular Sharpie ink.

So I guess I'll be using paint makers.  Time to order a several-pack of black fine-point paint markers.  In the meantime, I have at least a couple of maybe-suitable markers around here.

How do I e-commerce?

Hey, look!  Amazon Pantry is back!

Check it out; look at the things that crop up on high-level summary/suggestion-type pages.

Click on a few of them.  Currently Unavailable.  Every dagnab one that I click on.

And I don't see a way to filter by availability, a problem shared by Kroger's site.

Guys?  This shouldn't be difficult.  Digi-Key has had filters for "In Stock" and "Normally Stocking" since forever.  And filtering out the ones that aren't available now and won't be available in the foreseeable future before presenting the teaser page is just common sense, innit?

Busy day yesterday

Conditions were dry enough, and the wind held off for a while in the early morning, so...

Early morning: spray persistent herbicide around the barn, house, and assorted stonework.  Make sure to get the areas around the heat-pump external units; I'm reliably informed that having tall vegetation grow up around those is Bad News.  Then (as the wind is picking up, alas) spray insecticide on some bushes where wasps and such seem to be congregating.

Later: pull up a row of wooden posts in the area that's designated as the perennials patch - an extension of the area where I'd already planted toe blueberry bushes.  Then, while I'm at it, remove the wires and staples from the posts that are around one corner of the house, where once they supported blackberry vines or similar.  This, as always, takes longer than it should.

Afternoon: fire up the tractor, extend the perennials patch, and have another go at the victory garden.  Tippy the Tractor gets scary on uneven terrain - even on the bunny slopes - but I manage to get through the process without a serious panic attack, never mind a rollover*.  Just running right over the former raised beds, repeatedly, with the tiller does indeed turn out to be the way to flatten them - that and redistributing the loosened soil with a shovel (or with the loader, but on this scale the shovel was easier).

Today is supposed to be rainy, pretty much straight through.  Tomorrow afternoon looks like planting time!

Oh, and lessons for next time.  When preparing to turn an area of old lawn/hayfield/etc. into a planting zone, maybe start a week or so early, mark the corners with snow stakes or something, mow it, and spray it with non-persistent herbicide.

Also, I should probably have a drag harrow to pull across the area just after tilling.

* Going over even a modest-sized lump, on either tractor or mower, has me thinking: why doesn't this thing have a full roll cage and 5-point safety harness?  Not that anything I normally drive has such features, but somehow I feel much less secure on a tractor or mower than in a car.

Sometimes jargon means things

Headline:

China Created a Fail-Safe System to Track Contagions. It Failed.

A fail-safe system... how's that work?  I'm curious enough to skim the article.

I see nothing that in any way resembles a fail-safe system.

Fail-safe systems are a thing.  I deal with them from time to time.  Usually, once the product is in the hands of the customer, I have to add an override feature, because things that are designed to be intrinsically safe with regard to specified failure modes tend to be mighty inconvenient to install and troubleshoot.

What China had appears to be a sort of mandatory reporting and tracking system.  A fail-safe system for such a thing would have to involve automatically detecting missing inputs... and good luck with that. How do you detect that a case of a reportable disease hasn't been reported?  I mean, apart from having spies in all the hospitals... and making sure the spies don't have the same incentives as the doctors.  Or, perhaps, tracing usage of a drug that's uniquely used to treat an as-yet-undiscovered disease?

Awright, this has got to be wrong

Seen here, via this:

In Padua, the autoimmune medicine Tocilizumab has proven effective, but can only be used once it is established that no other viruses or bacteria are present in the patients’ bodies, he said.

Er... somehow, I think this has been mistranslated via journalistic discomprehension.

Where are you going to find a patient with no bacteria present in his body?  (Maybe the intended meaning was viral or bacterial pathogens?)

Bogus scapegoat of the day

Just saw someone blaming the current pandemic on...

Antivaxxers.

Yup, those antivaxxers who refuse the vaccine that doesn't exist yet.

Makes perfect sense.

(And is antivaxxing even a thing in China?  Doesn't seem like something the Communist Party would put up with.)

Sudden attack of weather

0550:  Trudge down to road to fetch the paper.  Hear distant thunder; see flashes on the horizon.

0605:  Lights flicker repeatedly.

0613:  Office window pelted with horizontal rain.

Yup, those scattered thunderstorms this morning do seem to be a thing.

Update:  Seen out my office window, with a long lens:

Yeah, that was a humdinger all right.

Update 2:  There's a small puddle in the basement, right under where the front porch meets the front of the actual house.  I'm not sure exactly how it got there, but there's also a wet area on the front porch, where the wind apparently drove the rain all the way back to the front of the house.  I think some supplemental caulking may be in order, once things get dried out.

Questions... always with the questions

Noticing something here:

Yesterday also brought news that some patients in Wuhan who had recovered from the disease and then tested negative later tested positive. Had they been re-infected by a different strain of COVID-19 or is China playing games with the numbers?

Or... just spitballin' here, you understand... maybe the tests aren't very accurate?  Those test kits exported from China to Czechia, Spain, and Ukraine sure turned out to be duds.

Speaking of which: those exported test kits were apparently advertised as "80% accurate."  WTF????  An 80% accurate test is crap.  Besides which:  is that 20% false negatives (1 in 5 infected subjects will test as OK), 20% false positives (a completely uninfected population will test positive at the same rate as the inmates of the Damnèd Pestilence), or some combination?

And the actual accuracy is reportedly 30%, which... isn't that worse than flipping a coin?  What does 30% accuracy even mean?

In pictures from overseas, we've all seen the images of disinfection squads in full Andromeda Strain gear (as worn by professional car-painters everywhere) cruising along on their Segways dispensing some sort of mist from fogzookas, right?

Two questions relating to this one:

What kind of fog juice are they using in those?

Why are they "disinfecting" the flippin' ground?

Public health theater, oh yes.

Afterthought:  About that bat soup... isn't that normally cooked?  Doesn't cooking destroy the virus?  I mean, we're talking a Corollavirus here, not a Prius.  A little boiling should defang it pretty good, no?

My symptoms

Let's see, now:

• Muscle aches
• Fatigue
• Bruises
• Sunburn

I must have a case of country livin'.

Update:  Apparently there's some kind of Kubota-virus going around overseas; unfortunately, the report is in some kind of furrin gibberish.

Update 2:  Via Peter Grant, this advice: Never Google Your Symptoms.

A summer afternoon in the countryside

It's perceptibly a weekend afternoon.  Despite all the shutdowns, today is different from a sunny weekday.

After several tries, I more or less got the hang of using the tiller.  Portions of the scenery are now chewed up - enough for sticking the blueberry plants in the ground, and planting the first area of the victory garden.  Yay!  Currently taking a break before digging holes, adding soil amendments, and inserting blueberry plants.

All around, sounds of the country: birds, lawnmowers, agricultural equipment, gunfire, processions of motorcycles.  There were sounds of children at play this morning, before it got hot and windy and, I suppose, everybody decided to go indoors and turn on the air conditioning.

Supposed to be thunderstormy tomorrow morning, with a moderate amount of rain.  Then dry through Monday, then rain again.  Scattered rain is good; it waters the crops - but I do need some dry time for stuff like mowing.  (The wind is also being non-helpful; by the time this morning that I was ready to start spraying herbicides in some places and insecticides in others, spraying was starting to look like a really bad idea.)

Oh, and this is indeed well-drained soil, so tilling shortly after rain is not a big deal.  Mowing after rain, on the other hand... well, when the vegetation gets tall, it can stay wet for a remarkably long time.

Update:  I got four of the nine blueberry bushes planted.  I'm tired!  Also, on re-examination, it seems that the initial victory-garden area is gonna need at least one more pass with the tiller, to break up the chunks.  Maybe I'll be able to do that tomorrow afternoon.

The sound of children at play has returned, in the form of a pair of little girls (near as I can tell from a distance) zooming around their back yard on an ATV.

My loader skills definitely need work.  I can use the pallet forks to carry a pallet around, no problem, but when I tried to do a silly little bit of earth-moving with the bucket (redistributing the mounds that used to be raised beds), I didn't get very far.  Since I've got a couple of fairly small earth-moving projects coming up, plus a medium-sized one that I'm hoping to do myself, I think I need to work on this.  (In this case, I could attack the problem with a combination of loader and box blade, but since I'll be needing the tiller again soon, I'd just as soon leave it on the tractor and skip the struggle of re-attaching it.)

Hm.  I guess, for this specific problem, I could use the tiller to chew up and redistribute the mounds... which is pretty much what I'd originally figured on, until I noticed that the mounds look a lot taller from the seat of the tractor than they do when one's standing up.

Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not an economist!

Headline:

Tennessee doctors, isolated from their families, urge governor to shut down the state

Hey, Doc: why don't surgeons shut down the patient for surgery, then reanimate him afterward?  Wouldn't it be much easier without all that pesky blood circulation and stuff?

Oh, right: because that doesn't work, and you end up with a dead patient.  Unless you have fancy expensive machines take over all those body functions temporarily, and you'd better have the machines, and the expertise to use them, on hand before you start.

Same thing with a state, or a nation, or the global economy.  Disrupt it too badly, and it dies.  And a lot of people die with it, before something new emerges in its place - and all bets are off as to what will take its place.

Feels like summer here

At the moment, anyway.  And my metabolism is definitely not set on "summer" at this point.

I did accomplish some little stuff.  Planted some high-vis marker stakes around the upper drain under the driveway, and a couple of other don't-drive-here features.  Found my big box of seeds, extracted the bag of California bay seeds, and stuck a few of them in pots to see what'll happen.  Did a little more sorting of the moving boxes out in the barn.

Oh, and I got around to yesterday's baking project; got a loaf of bread rising.

But, between the heat and a lot of sore muscles and whatnot left over from yesterday, I'm just not being very ambitious right now.  Doesn't help that I've almost completely lost track of what day of the week it is.

... Where did I leave the sun-repellent?  I've developed a pretty good tan the past couple of days; time to start blocking the deadly corona radiation.  (Or do I mean photosphere?)

Tired.

Well...

The tiller's slip clutch is slup, and re-adjusted, and the driveline is re-connected to the PTO.  I received quite a conspicuous bruise on my arm during this process, as there's a portion of the tractor's anatomy that keeps being where my arm tries to end up while I'm mucking about with the driveline.

At least it does appear that re-connecting the belly mower won't be such a headache, as the driveline is easily turned by hand.

And, I took the lawnmower for a spin.  On the lowest ground-speed range, and rather less than full throttle.  Methinks that at top mowing speed, that critter'll zip around right quick; for now, I was getting a feel for the controls.

Which... well, I guess it's just like driving a tank.  (It's one of these zero-turn-radius beasties.)  Thing is, tank-driving is not part of my skillset.  So, much learning to be done, preferably at low speed.

Anyway, I got the less-slopey areas of the back lawn somewhat neatened up, plus an area out past the barn.  I still need to work on slopes.  Slopes get scary.

Then, a strimmer session around the barn, hitting areas that were a little too close to things for the mower.  Next time I use the strimmer, I think I should break out the vibration-absorbing gloves.  Sometime soon, when it's not windy, I need to hit a strip around the barn (and one around the house, too) with persistent herbicide - especially the area where I'm parking the implements; the pallet forks have nearly disappeared in the tall grass already.

Maybe tomorrow I'll get the tilling done.  And then... well, though it feels like planting season, I'm not sure we're past the last frost yet.  There's some frost-hardy stuff I can stick in the ground, though.

Oh, and I need to adjust the drainage down by the driveway.  Probably use the loader-and-bucket, plus a hand shovel.  The low area of the driveway needs to drain into a nearby drainage ditch, and 'twould be better if the upstream portion of said ditch didn't overflow across the driveway.  So, dirt to be subtracted from one place and added to another.

Then there are some larger areas that'll need mowing Real Soon Now and that don't look particularly challenging, so it'll be time to put that belly mower back on the tractor and see what it'll do.

Afterthought:  I'd planned on making bread, but it somehow didn't happen.

There's a tool that maybe should exist

Perhaps my DuckDuckGo-Fu is weak; I haven't been able to conjure up such a thing for sale.

I want a specialty wrench for turning a PTO driveline.  I kept having to crank the driveline on the tiller around to get access to each of the slip-clutch bolts (twice around, loosening and tightening), and every time I need to reconnect the driveline I need to keep tweaking it around until it lines up.

I've been using a big honkin' screwdriver stuck through the U joint.  Maybe 2 feet of 3/4" pipe stuck through the U joint would work better.

What does the rest of the world use for lining up the splines on attachments that need a lot of torque to twist around?

Life continues not to follow the script

Yesterday morning, sometime between all-normal at 0615 and something's-not-right-here at 0645, one of the two additional cats developed a serious-right-now-medical problem.

We haven't made connections with an emergency vet yet, and it looks like the nearest one may be quite some distance away.  The local vet, to whom the cat had been introduced and who has the records on his chronic medical problems, opens at 0730.

(And the Pestilence makes everything even more complicated.)

Anyway: wait outside the local vet's office door.  Cat is the first patient in the door.  Actual vet doesn't arrive until 0800, but then promptly administers emergency treatment and sends him home with new meds.

He does seem to be doing better this morning.  We'll see how well he recovers.  Vet wants to see him again tomorrow.

No, I'm not including details just now. Maybe later.  Heck, I haven't even gotten around to introducing the additional cats to the audience yet!

Anyway, yesterday got seriously disrupted, and we're frazzled.  I need a nap.  It's shaping up to be a sunny day out there, so assuming I get awake enough to deal with power tools, I need to do some mowing and tilling before the rain resumes on Sunday.  Also ought to spray vegetation killer around the barn (and some other places), and maybe permethrin where the mosquitoes are.  And, sometime soon, I gotta make at least minimal repairs to the barn door frame.

In which the HuffPo gets it dangerously wrong

Predictably enough.

Here:

As a reminder, you don’t need to wear a mask unless you are sick.

Wrong.  Wrongity wrongity wrong.

You don't need to wear a mask to protect others unless you are infected.  A lot of infected people aren't perceptibly sick.

In fact, I believe the word as of a few days ago was that most transmission happened before symptoms showed up.  So by the time an infected person becomes sick, the mask is no longer particularly relevant.

"Masks are useless, and besides they're needed for the professionals."  Wait, isn't that the Party Line about some other products, too?

Regarding hand-washing songs

Turns out Share and Enjoy runs a little long for timing hand-washing.

Besides, it's more appropriate for timing a group hug, right?

Self-medication, cont'd

Now there's this:

New York for serious patience, will try injecting plasma/antibodies of those who have been cured, in an experiment.

(Is "for serious patience" anything like "for great justice"?)

Anyway... people are offering suggestions.  And, hey: I have a plasma cutter!  (Wait, is the plasma supposed to be cut, or straight up?)

Certainly plasma (the physics kind) will kill the virus on contact, but it's kind of for-external-use-only.  A wall'o'plasma at the doorway to sterilize the surfaces of anything coming in... hey, I'm dimly remembering a flash-skincinerator thing in The Andromeda Strain.

On a serious note, with reference to the biological sort of plasma, antibody transplants have been tried elsewhere, and the concept at least makes sense.  But you need a supply of blood from healthy youngsters who've already fought off the Pestilence.  Of whom there are probably quite a few, but they need to be identified, tracked down, and tapped; not exactly a DIY project.  Unless you're a supervillain, of course.

Yeah, preppers have already heard the warnings about this.

Self-medicating with veterinary drugs, that is.  Yes, you can buy some mighty powerful prescription drugs sans prescription, if you look under pet/veterinary/farm/aquarium supplies.

But, if you don't know what you're doing?  Don't just go gobbling the stuff.  Like these idiots.  Dosage matters, and if you're not sick, randomly trying an experimental cure for the disease you don't have is a dumb idea.  You can end up looking very silly, or dead, or both.

Note, though: the reporting on this includes a huge amount of wrong information.  In particular, chloroquine phosphate is one of the chemicals under discussion for treating the shinolavirus.  Right chemical, wrong dose, wrong situation.

Addendum:  Guys?  Stop calling it "fish tank cleaner."  The stuff the idjits took is a medication, sold in this case for treating certain illnesses in fish.  At a dosage of perhaps 4 milligrams per gallon of aquarium water, which doesn't translate directly into human dosage but somehow a spoonful in a glass of soda sounds like a whole heck of a lot more.

From Wikipedia:

Chloroquine comes in tablet form as the phosphate, sulfate, and hydrochloride salts. Chloroquine is usually dispensed as the phosphate.[7]

Yeah, hydroxychloroquine is newer and maybe safer... but chloroquine phosphate does basically the same thing, and is the common form of the older drug.  Your doctor prescribes chloroquine, chloroquine phosphate is what you'll likely get.  But it'll come in tablets calibrated to a proper dose for humans, and with proper instructions.

Scrappleface nails it.

COVID-19 Kills Plans to Eventually Meet Neighbors

Yeah... we were planning to meet various neighbors, once we got settled in.  But before we managed to get settled in, the Pestilence got rolling, and now it's everybody-play-in-their-own yards.

Oh, well.  Sooner or later the Pestilence shall pass.  We really should make introductions with the various front-neighborhood neighbors, plus the ones over the back fence, especially given that the back fence will need mending at some point and I think that'd be more easily done from the other side than from ours.

(In our defense: we've been here a heck of a lot less than 63 months.)