Silicon Valley Redneck

How to clear the clipboard in Android

If, when you're using a phone app with a text box, you find the keyboard offering to paste in some text copied from somewhere, and you find this annoying, there's a simple way to get rid of it.

Using the Chrome browser on your desktop, and the search engine of your choice, look up android clear clipboard.  You'll find stuff that, when you try it, turns out not to apply to your phone.  Maybe it's outdated, maybe it's for a specific set of bundleware, but it's not useful.  Like, it refers to menus that simply don't exist on your phone, or to apps that you don't have installed and aren't too sure about.

Return to the phone app with the textbox.  Hey presto!  The clipboard contents are nowhere to be seen!  You've successfully cleared the clipboard on your phone by doing an Internet search from your desktop.

Mostly recovered

But, still got low-grade sniffles and sneezles.  Had to hit the pseudoephedrine again this morning.

ToasterCo apprentice is back at work after a multi-week vacation, and somehow the copy of the tools VM that he has on his laptop has gotten corrupted.  Trying to sort that out via e-mail.

Having distracted times, what with one thing and another.

Weather yesterday got impressively windy, with a bit of very loud rain.  Thee doesn't seem to have been all that much rain, but I guess it was hitting the window hard enough to sound like a lot.

Another didn't-sleep-well night, what with the sniffles.  Maybe I'll have an opportunity for a nap today.

Old trick for finding stuff works again!

Setting about a small project that I should have done months ago, I rounded up sundry bits & pieces.

I couldn't find my stash of miniature toggle switches.  C'mon, I know I have them!  I used one a few weeks ago.  They exist.

Search.  Search.  Search some more.

Grumpf.  Order more from Amazon, for Monday delivery.  It's a good thing to have a supply of in any case.

Replacements having been ordered, have another look around.  I already looked everywhere, didn't I?  Take a closer look in the storage box dedicated to barrel-style power connectors.  Move stuff around.  There are the switches!

Yep, hiding in a place I'd already looked more'n once, and they didn't show themselves until I ordered more.  Never fails.

Two lessons from the kitchen

Lesson the First:  If you open a can of baby corn, and don't immediately use all the contents, you should transfer the remainder to a well-sealed container, such as a Mason jar, before refrigerating.  One of those stretchy airtight-seeming can covers?  Won't keep the smell in.  I think it diffuses through the stretchy-film.  Not a bad smell, as such, but fantastically pervasive.

Lesson the Second:  When making muffins, there is such a thing as too much fruit.  I made a batch of banana-blueberry muffins this morning, using two bananas (and near half a pound of blueberries), and they came out very soft.  Tasty, but hard to coax out of the muffin pan.

Definitely seems to be a cold.

The good news is, it seems to be vaguely clearing up already, not hanging on full-force for a week.

Though I should probably refrain from overexertion and/or socializing for a couple of days yet.

I did break out the pseudoephedrine this morning; it seemed called for.

Naps may be needed.  I didn't sleep well last night; something about clogged-up sinuses (that being before I remembered the pseudoephedrine).

Additional, from yesterday:  Sorting out good vs. bad ideas for treating this cold.  Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory*: good idea.  A big mug of extra-strength hot chocolate: bad idea, especially after a dose of orange juice.  I should really be on low carbs now, but somehow life doesn't seem to work that way.

 

* Missed it when I was a kid, probably because I was annoyed that the title had been changed**.  I'd certainly read, and liked, the book at an earlier age.  Later in life I'd be even more miffed at Bond films that kept the title but changed everything else.  Anyway, that was yesterday's bit of catching up on pop culture.

** Apparently Roald Dahl was annoyed that other things had been changed.  It's now long enough since I read the book that I can't spot the changes.

Bleah.

Pretty sure what I have here is a common cold.

Which is a February thing, regardless of the current weather.

Stuffy head, sore throat, headache, and no fever the times I've checked (I was feeling a bit fevery during the night, but it's Summer weather and I was wearing my Winter pajamas).  The low-SpO₂ thing?  For all I know, that could be usual.  I never before checked that when I had a cold.  I'm sure the CCP's guidance says I should be forcibly subdued and put on a ventilator.

Maybe I need chicken soup and the stack of not-yet-watched movies.  Sounds better than that ventilator.

What month is this, anyway?

Going on 0530 now, and it's 72°F out there, with wind noisily gusting to 20 MPH or thereabouts.

This is February?

(OK, so the next-door neighbor says he's had to mow his lawn in February in at least one past year.  It still doesn't seem right.)

Additional: seems that, despite the recent rain, there's a brush fire in (where else?) the Wears Valley area.  The wind is making it extra spicy.

Low-grade crud

Still having the nose/sinus irritation, despite spending time outdoors.

Yesterday afternoon brought a sore throat, which doesn't seem related.  Also dragginess, wobbliness, and a vaguely fevery feeling.

Um.

Thermometer says no fever.

Pulse oximeter says 92.  Eep?  Very not good.  But if I think about breathing I can coax it up to 96 or so.

Check again after dinner: 97, but falling as I sit there.

This morning: 97 immediately after I sit down, but gradually falling into 92 territory.

Seems like sitting down is not good for me.  Funny, that.  (And maybe this has some connection to my tendency to fall asleep at my desk?)

Well, we are getting into outdoors season.  Maybe I can start taking brisk walks around the perimeter, and perhaps even getting out and exploring parks and such.

Still got the sore throat, tho'.  Maybe an infection, maybe just something random.

Update:  Gets to be evening, and I still have the sore throat, highly irritated schnoz & sinuses, and dragginess.  I did get a little stuff accomplished.  A perimeter walk helped somewhat (and I discovered that, sometime in the last few days, the far corner of the Annex has indeed gotten somewhat swampy).  I got some more dirt moved.

Had to spend some time on the phone, trying to help sort out the origins of some code I partly wrote, partly borrowed for a project a dozen years ago.  I hope I was helpful; unfortunately, the people I can think of who would have had key insights on how that project was structured are unavailable for various reasons.

Anyway, talking was not the best idea, but it was necessary.

More dirt moved.

Not done yet, but getting close.  (Then it'll need to be distributed properly, somewhat compacted, details like that.)

While I was out there without a proper camera, I noticed a bald eagle circling overhead. Think maybe having the chicken run screened over was a good idea?

Checks are in the mail...

... For sundry property taxes, plus the HOA fees for the Northward Territories.

Total of property taxes, for the homestead plus the family's investment properties, comes to almost what I was paying back in Sunnyvale... but this is for nearly four times as much house and roughly three hundred times as much land as I had back there.

And, YIKES!  I just looked up what the new owners of the Sunnyvale house are paying in property taxes.  Well over four times what we're paying here.  See why I had to stay in the same place all those years, and couldn't move within the Bay Area?  As long as I stayed put, my property tax could only be jacked up by so much per year.  Move, and that protection goes away.

Product idea: gaslighting clock

What the world needs now...

... Or at least what some households need...

... Is a digitally-controlled, analog-display clock that runs at inconstant speed.  Runs fast, by a configurable amount, during the day, and makes up for it by running slow at night.

So bedtime will happen earlier, and time to wake up will happen later, for the old person who has ingrained habits from decades of living by the clock but who really ought to be getting more sleep now.

Wearing redface

No, I'm not playing the Betty Bunnyburrow game of claiming indigenous descent, nor emulating Espera Oscar de Corti.

It's more a matter of not even having considered putting on sunscreen yesterday, what with it only being February.

Slightly ow.  Should be OK in a couple of days.

Sunday afternoon earworm

This:

Bits of it were running through my head whilst I was out burning dinosaur squeezin's.  I don't know why.  I think the last time I heard it was... at least a couple of decades ago?  And I was probably getting something else mixed in with it.

Mustn't binge on Tchaikovsky.  Last time I did that, I broke out in a rash.  But I do need to dust off some of the classics and put them on my mowing (and dirt-rearranging) playlist.

Improbably chilly out there.

Temperature close to 60°F most of the afternoon.  Fairly breezy.  Sunny much of the time.  Should be pleasant weather, but... somehow, it's chilly.

I did manage to get in some Tonka time; about 2/3 of the required topsoil for the perennials patch is moved but not yet leveled/compacted/whatever.

I had to do some faith healing of a hypochondriacal machine.  The tractor was making strange noises, suggestive of cavitation, and was struggling with the concept of "go fast" - in high gear, it whined and was actually slower than in mid gear.

Hydraulic fluid low?  Park on a level-ish surface by the barn and check the dipsticks.  Full right up.  Hm.  Start back up; resume work.  No strange noises.  High gear goes zoom, and the ride is way too jolty; back off to mid, and the machine now goes plenty fast.  Seems the laying on of hands, followed by a confident assurance that the problem is solved, works on this tractor.

Mnfxt.  Got mildly hypothermic, I think.  Just had some hot cocoa, which might be helping.  Maybe.

Sprouting is happening.

Got a bunch of tomato seedlings springing up, down there in the basement.

Guess I'll have to thin them soon.

I'm not sure when planting-out time will be.  Right at the moment, it's Spring already, and the warm'n'rainy forecast for the coming week or so sounds awfully planty, though according to the normal calendar it's still at least a month early.  On the other hand... if in fact the polar vortex has gone all wibbly-wobbly, March could get downright arctic.  Or not.

I can't do Spring tilling until things dry out a little anyway, and the coming rains will be pushing that back toward the normal season.  But maybe this afternoon I can get in some higher-ground Tonka time and move some topsoil around.

(I noticed yesterday, while out on errands, that the two gardeny places on the Chapman Highway between Tractor Supply and Wally World were still closed for the season.  Tractor Supply is starting to have trees.  I want to do some more tree planting, but I'm not sure where.  A grove of pecan & assorted fruit trees would be nice.  It'll soon be time for another trip to the seed company in search of additional plantables.)

Froggy times

The pond is nowhere near full, and the swamp isn't very swampy (though there's a small puddle in my garden patch, and the next-door neighbor's garden patch is very wet indeed), but the frogs are happy even in cold weather, and this was a middling-warm afternoon.  It's getting very noisy out there.

The coming week is supposed to be moderately rainy and quite warm, maybe.

Today... out shopping for critter supplies and groceries, then, while there wasn't much wind, changing the straw in the chicken coop and spraying fungicide on various fruit trees (which I should have done in December, and then maybe a second time around now, but I had a rather disorganized Winter).

And, pondering the rebuilt chicken run / enclosed perennials patch project.  The designated area for perennials is very slopey, which complicates fence-building, especially when the proposed fence support structure somewhat resembles the frame of a building.  This calls for some Tonka-toy time!  And... come to think of it, there's a Spring project that calls for getting a fair bit of topsoil out of the way.  I could scrape off the grass, scoop up the nice silt loam from the area in question, and dump it in the perennials zone - a little smoothing out & leveling, and it'll be all set for fencing in and planting.  Means a whole bunch of back & forth with the tractor, but what the heck.

Tomorrow is supposed to be warm & sunny, but kinda windy.  Probably a good day for some outdoors stuff.

Rainy day stuff.

Rain has resumed - we got 1.7" overnight, then it stopped, and the forecast called for it to go away for the afternoon, but here it is again.

Rain or not, things are muddy and it's cool, windy, and very humid out there.  Better to be indoors.

And, I don't need to use the ToasterCo loaner PC for a while, so it's a chance to borrow back port 4 on the KVM switch and try out the $77 small-form-factor PC (a refurbished Dell Optiplex 3020) that's been sitting in the garage for a while (during which time, the price for additional units went up to $87.49 if I want more of the same thing from the same vendor).

Connect USB, Display Port, Ethernet, and power.  Push power button.  It wakes up!  Launches the Windows 10 startup process.  Eventually asks questions.  No, I very much do not want the Microsoft Experience!  Create an offline account, only.  Turn off the wondrous goodies.  Do not sign up for anything.

Tell it to install updates, because Windows.  Wait while it downloads and installs a bunch, because Windows.  Reboot, because Windows.  Wait for it to install the next batch, because Windows.  Rinse, repeat.

Installing, installing, installing... meanwhile, it looks like creating a backup isn't something one can do via the menu; it involves using the search box to find the program.  Once the Windows preinstall is all updated, the plan is to do a backup to a thumb drive, swap in a cheap SSD to replace the hard drive of uncertain age, and do a restore.  Or something.  But I don't want to do that until all the updates are in place and the machine has been rebooted one last time.

OK, so all updates installed.  Looks like the Win7 backup tool is what's used to create a system image.  But it needs an NTFS-formatted drive.  And... oh fiddle-faddle!  I'd forgotten that, in the day and age, Windows does not recognize a USB external drive as a valid drive whereto a system image can be saved.  So off in search of some third-party tool, I guess...?

Hm.  Apparently using the search box to find "create a recovery disk" is the thing.  It seem to be doing something with that thumb drive... but it apparently only needs 16 GB?  Which I guess would work for a compressed backup of the system stuff.  Anyway, assuming it's really producing a system restore image, maybe I should bust out the supply of 64 GB thumb drives and create a permanent recovery drive for this machine, on the assumption that it may end up as the office Windows box.

Meanwhile, tech stonks are stonkered.  Bleah.

Later....

How very Microsoft.

That recovery disk?  Turns out the utility reformatted my 256 GB thumb drive as 32 GB, because Windows.  Swapping the drives went OK.  Turn the machine back on, the BIOS finds the thumb drive, it boots up, and...

... Yes, it re-installs Windows onto the new SSD.  But!  It's a generic Win 10 recovery image, not carrying along the configuration, user accounts, and suchlike.  So, lots more answering the same doggone questions as when I first turned the machine on.  And then, the installation being complete, it needs a bunch of updates, because apparently it recovers a pristine version of Windows instead of the updated version that wrote the image.  (Correction: not in fact pristine, but apparently not fully updated either.  It didn't need all the updates, but it needed some updates.)

Oh, well.  Looks like I now have a working Windows 10 installation on the SSD in the new-to-me PC.  That nothing else got carried along is of no consequence, given that I hadn't installed anything else, but this rigmarole is quite annoying.

Also: I did download a third-party tool earlier.  Despite my selecting "only back up used sectors", it wanted a destination drive at least as big as the source drive.  This kinda suggests a disconnect between what I was trying to do and what it can do.

Guess I'll create & tag a restore image on one of the lesser thumb drives, reformat this one back to its proper capacity, and get on with life.

(Detour to eBay.  Looks like not-so-refurbished, used PCs of the same nominal model, perhaps in different configurations, can be had somewhat cheaper.  The general pattern does seem well suited to some of my uses; maybe I should get a couple more.  And something with a slightly better CPU and more RAM, for $70 with shipping?  Worth a quick ponder.)

I wasn't the only one having a Monday yesterday.

According to the calendar, it was both Wednesday and the 15^th.  And we all know what that means!

Yup.  Amazon Day plus Subscribe&Save Day!

One big package and one lesser one the day before.  Two the morning of.  Five more, of various sizes, in the evening.  All these via USPS; UPS also dropped off a medium-sized box.

The evening driver was on loan from Morristown to help with the overload.

I don't know how Amazon picks the days, but if they're assigned by post office or by ZIP code that's kind of a guaranteed breakage, isn't it?  You'd think, for a given area, Amazon Day would be spread across the week, and Subscribe&Save across the month, thereby avoiding the everything-all-in-one-day effect.

The actual mail never did show up; I presume it'll arrive today, along with today's mail.

Monday come on a Wednesday this week.

And it brung Friday the 13^th along with it.

Joy started out the day with a totally debilitating migraine, possibly brought on by chocolate.

(She checked the Interwebs for how to get rid of a chocolate migraine.  First result: chocolate migraines aren't a thing.  Hey presto: you don't have one!  This message brought to you by the World Chocolate Alliance.)

And, as the morning progressed, I developed a really nasty combination headache (sinuses plus something or other else).

We do have carbon monoxide detectors (plural), and they haven't gone off, so it's not that.  Opened a couple of windows anyway, since it's a decent temperature outdoors and fresh air is generally a good idea.

Ugh.

Meanwhile, global financial markets are being wild and crazy, what with World War III and the Martians landing in Grover's Mill or whatever the news was.

Additional:  This was our first six-egg day, though one of the eggs was cracked by the time I got it to the kitchen.  The sixth hen had actually started laying a few days ago, but this was the fist time all six laid eggs on the same day.

(I think I need to encourage them to munch on more oyster shells.  The pellets I'm currently feeding them are supposed to have more calcium than the competing brands, but the shells have been thin lately.  Like, almost grocery-store thin.  They have been getting more treats than optimal, so maybe cutting back would help.)

Not dead, just having scattered days.

I thought  there was something bloggable Monday, but it kept slipping my mind.  Possibly something food-related.

Yesterday brought ToasterCo stuff sprinkled through the day - not a lot of hours, but mixed unpredictably with all the other unpredictability of a day around here.

I have been getting seeds into little pots under the grow lights in the basement - also staring some sunchokes.  I haven't actually eaten any sunchokes since I was a kid, back when they were called Jerusalem artichokes, but I figured I might as well try growing some.  Good thing I read up on them: it seems that for planting them out I'll want to acquire several large pots, because if planted in the actual ground they become invasive.  I also planted some cardoon seeds, because why not.

There's some unscheduled rain happening out there this morning.  I hope it clears up by afternoon; there's some late-Winter stuff I need to be doing, and also I was planning to change the straw in the coop this afternoon ahead of tomorrow's storm.

Oh, yes: the temporary housechicken is nearly healed enough to go back outdoors, but not quite.  The rest of the flock still isn't quite sure about here during afternoon lawn time, and we're trying to wait until after frost season before putting her out.  Meanwhile, she's been taking cat lessons and forgetting how to chicken.

Frost.  That.  Rumor has it that the Łukasiewicz vertex... I'm sorry, ill read that again - the polar vortex is going all wibbly-wobbly and the weather might get extra higgledy-piggledy in March.  Seems we're right in that fuzzy area between extra cold and/or wet to the North, and extra warm and/or dry to the South.  Planting season could be a mite unpredictable this year, on top of the rather dry Winter we've had so far.