We have been "ordered" to evacuate.

In a bizarre example of cartography, we are in Evacuation Zone A, while right across the street, at eye level, is Zone C.

Mandatory evacuation for Zone A.

Zone C... you're good.

I think the difference in elevation is less than a foot, and I know that flooding is "a game of inches," but we're not leaving. It's crazy. I'm pretty confident the worst of Milton will remain well to the south. There will be some storm surge, but nothing that's going to flow up Deep Creek and into the cul-de-sac at the end of our street, on up into our neighborhood.

I will keep a weather eye out, but it's this sort of nonsense that really makes people skeptical about these evacuation orders.

Sadly, our former neighbor's mother lives in Fort Myers in a second floor condo. She's 80 years old and is not leaving. We hope she makes it.

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Originally posted at Nice Marmot 16:26 Tuesday, 8 October 2024

Since I seem to be blessed with an abundance of energy this afternoon (I'm usually crashing in the recliner about now.), I spent some time screwing around with the IIe with some interesting, if ambiguous, things to report.

I pulled the 8MB RAM card and re-installed the 64KB card. I also pulled the Yellowstone Liron clone from Big Mess O'Wires. (This will, or may, allow me to connect a 32MB virtual Smart Port HD to the IIe.)

Next, I ran the onboard diagnostics for the SpeedDemon. Went through the whole series of 9 tests, error-free. The SpeedDemon is good!

So I had to get the utility program for configuring the RAM card onto a 5.25" floppy, so I could use it on the IIe. The Floppy Emu is quite particular about disks having contiguous blocks. (It resembles Apple UCSD Pascal in that regard.) So the procedure I've developed is to keep a copy of the IIc's external HD image on my iMac's desktop. I mount that in Virtual II, and then copy the files I need from the disk images I've downloaded from Garrett's Workshop within Virtual II. (The Virtual II is configured as a IIe with two 5.25" disk drives in Slot 6, and two hard drives in Slot 7.)

Then I pull the micro-SD card from the Floppy Emu and mount that on the iMac. I use Disk Utility to erase all the files, and then copy the "temporary" image to the micro-SD card. (This includes another 32MB HD disk image, and dozens of 5.25" floppy disk images in another folder.) This ensures that all the files are contiguous.

The only mistake I made today was that I'd added another lo-res routine to the fidget spinner program, and didn't copy that program over to the "temp" image. Not a huge deal, but it reminds me that I'll have to be careful and copy all the files from the micro-SD card first, as a backup, just in case.

Moving on... I got the utility to configure the RAM card onto the Smart Port HD image, mounted that on the IIc and then copied the config program over to a 5.25" floppy on the IIc.

If it sounds like a hassle, it kinda is. But I'm getting used to it.

Back to the IIe with my floppy disk. I plugged the 8MB RAM card into the Aux slot. Stuck the floppy into Drive 1 and booted the IIe, pressing "Escape" before the SpeedDemon kicked in, forcing the IIe to run at regular speed. It booted fine.

I ran the configuration utility and set the card to appear as a 1MB RAMWorks card. (1MB is plenty for the kinds of things I like to do.)

I power-cycled the IIe and let the SpeedDemon take control, and it booted right into ProDOS and BASIC.SYSTEM. Hurray! Success!

Believing I'd just solved my problem, I shut down the computer and put the Yellowstone card back in Slot 5. I have another Floppy Emu inbound that's going to live on the IIe.

Just to make sure, I started the IIe... and we never made it past the ProDOS splash screen.

Doh!

I wondered if it was a speed issue, so I powered down, pulled the SpeedDemon and set the dip-switch for Slot 5 to "slow," so whenever the computer polls Slot 5 it'll do so at 1MHz.

Reinstalled the SpeedDemon and turned the computer back on. Same problem.

Doh! Doh!

Well, my energy level remains normal, but my enthusiasm is a bit diminished. I decided to just pull the Yellowstone card and try again with the new Emu gets here. It may be that the card has to have something to talk to besides the cpu. I could figure that out with the Emu I have on hand, but I'm not sure I want to know right now. Maybe later.

I had the Yellowstone in Slot 5 because the 5.25" disk controller is in Slot 6 and the ribbon cables from the 5.25" drives really crowd into the space for Slot 7, putting some strain on the card in Slot 7.

As the IIe is currently configured, it resembles the IIc here in the office. I have the IIc configured to boot from the 5.25" internal floppy, but it sees the 32MB Smart Port HD image as a drive in Slot 5.

If connecting an Emu to the Yellowstone solves the problem, I'll keep that configuration. If it doesn't, I'll move the 5.25" controller to Slot 5, and put the Yellowstone in Slot 7 with an Emu attached. The empty Slot 6 will leave room for the ribbon cables without them pressing on the Yellowstone in Slot 7.

The IIe will try to boot from the highest slot that it finds a controller in. I'll start with the Emu configured to emulate a 5.25" floppy and see what happens. If that works, I'll try an 800KB 3.5" disk emulation. That'd give me Apple Pascal 1.3 all on one disk, and I can run a script to copy all the modules I need to the RAM drive, and we're back in business.

And if all that works, I'll try a 32MB HD image.

For now, I'm pretty happy that I know the SpeedDemon is good and I've got the AUX RAM card configured for 1MB.

I just spent a couple of hours not doom-scrolling! Of course, Mitzi has been doom-scrolling and giving me updates. (Cranes in downtown Tampa that they couldn't secure in time. If you live near a crane, hide.)

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 14:13 Tuesday, 8 October 2024

I'm sure we've all seen the videos of the Tesla self-immolating in a garage after a flood, but if you keep them dry (and "well lubricated"?), they will perform for you!

We rented an EV6 in Baltimore for the reunion. I enjoyed driving the car. It was the first time I'd experienced regenerative braking. It didn't take long to get used to it, and I really appreciated it. The dash was a bit of a mystery, and figuring out the "forward" and "reverse" thing took a few double glances.

The only things I didn't like about it were the seats (not enough lateral support), and the turning radius seemed pretty huge.

Anyway, as we adapt building codes to our new climate, we'll have to take into consideration using EVs as emergency backup power for household loads.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 12:49 Tuesday, 8 October 2024

The cleaning was, thankfully, relatively uneventful. Great tech and she gave me some kind of "ozone" treatment that's supposed to reduce tooth sensitivity.

To test that hypothesis, I stopped at Publix and bought a pint of Ben & Jerry's. Hey, you can't argue with research.

But Publix was very busy. The checkout bagger said it was nothing compared to yesterday.

I don't know. I think we're going to be fine. There's a front that passed over yesterday that looks like it's keeping the worst of Milton to the south of us. We will have some storm surge issues, and for folks in St Augustine, that's going to be a problem. But I don't see the Intra-Coastal flooding. I could be wrong, but I'm not worrying about it.

Milton was a big topic at the reception desk at the dentist's. I think it's because we haven't had a hurricane affect us around here very recently, and Helene was such a catastrophe, so folks' sense of anxiety is elevated.

There was no gas at the Shell station by Publix. Apparently they've been shifting the stock west to keep those stations full as the evacuations take place. They'll backfill us after. Again, I'm not worried, but we were down to half a tank and I figured I'd top it off. We don't have to do any driving, so the batteries should be adequate for the time being.

The bagger also said they were out of propane too. Everyone bought that up expecting to have to cook all the food in the fridge when the power goes out.

I don't think the power will go out. Again, most of the worst of it is going to be to the south of us and, this part of Florida has much of its utility infrastructure buried. Now, that may be a problem with severe flooding, but it pretty much limits the damage from a wind event. I think folks are just going to have a lot of extra propane for a while.

But the real insanity is constantly electing Republicans who are more interested in waging culture wars than dealing with the catastrophe unfolding before them. Part of me wants to say that we deserve everything that's going to happen to us. But I also happen to think that nobody deserves to experience this type of thing.

We didn't have to. But we didn't do anything about it either.

I guess it's like Clint says to Gene Hackman at the end of Unforgiven.

"Deserve's got nothin' to do with it."

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 11:29 Tuesday, 8 October 2024

Gotta head out to the dentist's for a cleaning. Not looking forward to it with this tooth. Maybe an x-ray?

Anyway, I used Program Writer, an editor for Applesoft BASIC, to do a global search and replace on all the real variables and converted them to integer (added "%" after the variable name). Compiled the program and ran it, and it made no difference.

So I'm guessing that if Beagle Compiler doesn't see a decimal point in the value, it bypasses Applesoft's variable handler and treats it as an integer.

Anyway, gotta run...

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 08:09 Tuesday, 8 October 2024

It's always kind of an odd time in Florida, as we're staring at an oncoming hurricane.

It's too soon to know exactly what we might expect here in northeast Florida. It won't be "nothing," but the range is fairly wide.

Anyway, spent some time distracting myself this afternoon playing around with old computers.

As I mentioned before, the Apple IIe is working in nearly all respects. I think the McT SpeedDemon hung on its self-test. I'm guessing it may have something to do with the 8MB Aux Slot memory card. In all other respects, it works just fine.

I received some old DOS 3.3 disks today, the "original" disks Apple included with the IIe. They all booted and ran fine, even accelerated, so I'm pretty confident it's solid.

This morning, I cut and pasted the Applesoft code for the fidget spinner program into an Applesoft emulator web site. It ran in 25 seconds, which is about a minute faster than it ran on real hardware. I'd been wondering how fast it would run on real hardware using Beagle Compiler, a program that came out late in the II's life that would "compile" Applesoft programs and run them much faster, depending on how much floating point math they used. Floating Point didn't "accelerate" at all after compiling.

I had to do some hunting around for the "latest" (last) version of Beagle Compiler, because earlier ones had conflicts with later versions of ProDOS or BASIC.SYSTEM. In any event, I did find one from 1990 and it was able to compile the fidget spinner and it ran in about 30 seconds. I may be able to eek some additional speed out of it if I convert all the variables to integer variables. In normal Applesoft, there's usually no value in using integer variables, except to save space as array indices. Otherwise, Applesoft converts all numbers to their floating point representation, and handles them accordingly, which eats up some time. Beagle Compiler will treat declared integer variables (n%) as integers, and that saves a decent bit of time. Haven't done that yet, but probably will, just out of curiosity.

So then I wanted to see it run on the IIe with the SpeedDemon running. That's when the fun and games started.

I couldn't seem to get booted into ProDOS. It would get to the splash screen, then crash into the monitor. It would work if I turned off the SpeedDemon first, but that would kind of defeat the purpose of having the accelerator. That was with contemporary versions of ProDOS (2018). I thought I'd try with earlier versions, more contemporaneous with the SpeedDemon and see if I'd have more luck.

Well, after working successively back, I got the original ProDOS release, 1.0.1 from 1984, to boot. From there, I first ran the fidget spinner just using the accelerator. Ran in about 25 seconds. (I should have taken notes.) About as fast Javascript emulator.

I was able to get the compiler system into memory, I worried that it might have been incompatible with the early version of ProDOS. Crossing my fingers, I ran the fidget spinner from the compiler under the accelerator.

Ran in about 8 seconds! About 10x faster than regular hardware.

If I tweak the index variables, I might get another second out of it. We'll see.

It's a bit of a bear to pull the IIe out from under the monitor stand to open it up. I'll do that tomorrow sometime and pull the 8MB Aux Slot card and put the original 64K card and see if that makes any difference on the self-test for the SpeedDemon, and then see what happens with more recent versions of ProDOS.

I may have a conflict between cpus. The motherboard has the OG NMOS 6502A installed, while the SpeedDemon is running a 4MHz CMOS 65c02. I've ordered a 65c02 for the motherboard, which was part of Apple's original IIe "enhancement" kit. But I'll swap out the memory cards first and see what difference that makes.

Anyway, something to do rather than fret about hurricanes, war in the Middle East, half of America wanting a senile ex-gameshow host, wannabe dictator as their next president, and all the other stuff that makes life "interesting."

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Originally posted at Nice Marmot 17:36 Monday, 7 October 2024

This is kind of what I had in mind when I bought the IIc. I sat in the recliner yesterday with the IIc in my lap, wired to the 32" TV on the wall, playing around with Applesoft and lo-res graphics.

I'd do one routine, then change it a bit to do something else and again and again. Of course there were glitches, but it's simple stuff so it was easy to find them.

It was relaxing. The *click* of the Alps key-switches on the 4100 IIc are mellow, but "techie." Just a way to pass the time.

(I guess I should warn anyone susceptible to adverse visual stimuli that this might be problematic.)

Hey, it's better than doom-scrolling.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 06:05 Monday, 7 October 2024

As a distraction from everything else that's going on in the world, I played around with the Apple IIc and Apple IIe yesterday.

I can sit in the recliner with the IIc in my lap and type in little BASIC programs to draw lo-res graphics on the screen. I have a composite to HDMI adapter connected to the video expansion port on the IIc, and it does a pretty great job. The only weakness is that it's essentially doubling the screen and outputting a 640x480 signal. The TV doesn't really recognize that aspect ratio, so it's somewhat stretched. Not a big deal, it's not really noticeable.

The thing that was useful, in terms of improvement, was turning up the settings in the TV to "Vivid." Much better. I'm even able to read 80-column text sitting in the recliner.

So I did that for a while, but I still find myself running out of gas at some point. I didn't sleep well on Friday night, so I spent a lot of time napping yesterday. (I also still have some residual crud going. Yesterday, I was hoarse and had to keep clearing my throat. Tooth is still sensitive, but seems to be improving, albeit slowly.)

Anyway, I rallied yesterday evening and decided to go look at the IIe. I hadn't checked out the disk drives on it yet, and I wanted to see if they were working. I have a diagnostic program on a 5.25" floppy, and it booted that okay. I ran through all the CPU tests, and they all passed, as I'd kind of expected.

I wanted to do a read/write test on the drives, so I needed to format a blank 5.25" floppy. I just got a box of 10 "new, old stock" disks on Friday, so I pulled one of those out and stuck it in Drive 1 to format it. The drive made all the usual noises, so I went on to do the read/write test.

Failed.

Hmmmm...

I figured I'd try Drive 2, and since Drive 1 had failed, I'd do the format all over again with Drive 2. Well, looking at the disk I'd just removed from Drive 1, "Saint Hopper be praised!" there was a desiccated dead long-winged fly on the disk. Probably from inside the drive. Now, I don't know if that was the source of the failure, because it was on top of the disk and it's read from the bottom. But I blew the corpse away and stuck the disk in Drive 2.

All tests passed.

Figured I'd try Drive 1 again, and likewise.

So far, everything on this machine has checked out. It came with a parallel interface card, two 1200 baud internal modems (one just lying loose inside the cabinet, a 64K Aux Slot memory card, and the drive controller. I'd removed the cards but the Aux Slot and drive controller, and it works like a champ.

I bought a new-production 8MB Aux Slot memory card and installed that in place of the 64K card and ran the memory test again. The diagnostic software only seemed to recognize the first 64K, but it passed the card.

It's awkward working on the IIe with the monitor stand and the System Saver, so I decided that was enough for one evening. I figured I'd play with it a bit this morning.

I'd spotted an McT SpeedDemon accelerator card on the auction site, and one thing led to another and I bought it. A pretty good deal, compared to the Applied Engineering Transwarp, and the Titan accelerators. They each have onboard memory that essentially replicates the IIe's motherboard memory. The Transwarp actually has 256KB, and will use the additional memory as a RAM disk, or to "expand" AppleWorks (allow you to have more files active on the desktop). The SpeedDemon has 16KB of cache memory, 8KB of code, and 8KB of "tag" memory. In terms of performance, it's usually just as fast as the others, sometimes faster. If you're really bored, or interested, you can check the comparison here. Note that it includes a number of "modern" accelerators. I had a FastChip before, and it was a screamer. The SpeedDemon is impressive though.

It has a built-in self test, and it'll test Aux memory. It's running now. It's either hung, because of an incompatibility with the modern card, or it just takes a long time to test 8MB of memory. It hasn't failed though, because that would give an unambiguous result. I'm just going to let it run for a couple of hours and see what happens. When I turn the machine on, I get the little SpeedDemon accelerated Apple logo on startup, so I'm pretty sure it's working just fine.

My big challenge now is to get it into the office somehow. I recall really enjoying playing with Apple Pascal on the IIe I had back in 2019. It ran out of a RAM disk, with the Transwarp accelerator. It wasn't as fast as using a ROM-based interpreter, like Applesoft, but it wasn't unbearable either. All the modules were available on the RAM disk, and the accelerator made compiling tolerable. I expect a similar experience with this setup. Just need to make space.

Anyway, a harmless distraction from all the awful going on in the world. Grateful to have it.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 10:28 Sunday, 6 October 2024

So Milton is a thing. (Unsure what happens to these links as time goes by.)

Pretty sure the folks on Florida's west coast aren't looking forward to Hump Day this week.

It's a good thing that Florida's Republican legislature has spent so much time, laser-focused on the important issues facing Florida. Things like de-funding public schools, attacking trans people, voter fraud, insurance "reform," micro-managing the state university system, warning people not to get the Covid vaccine. Just a remarkable display of courage and responsibility, shouldering the burdens of managing the third largest state in the Union and seeking the best possible outcomes for its citizens.

The idea of leaving Florida is beginning to take root in Mitzi's imagination.

We need to get out of here before the rush to the exits begins.

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Originally posted at Nice Marmot 08:52 Sunday, 6 October 2024

This report from Reuters says that less than .5% of the homeowners in "the state's flood-stricken west" have flood insurance.

They put a couple on camera who were initially required to have flood insurance by their mortgage company, but after the flood maps were redrawn, they were no longer required to have it by the bank, and so they dropped it.

They don't say when they were no longer required to have it, just that they were required to have it for the first three years of their mortgage. The husband stated, "We're not wealthy people, so we opted out of that coverage."

Later in the report, the wife says something to the effect, "if it's $600 a month, and you have a mortgage on top of that."

The report is confusing and misleading. At some point, they could afford flood insurance, because for the first three years they did. Supposedly after the flood maps were redrawn, they were no longer required to have it, so presumably the risk was considered lower.

Now, flood insurance rates have bounced around in the last fifteen years or so. Congress mandated that FEMA make NFIP rates "actuarily sound," which meant raising them significantly, like 200-300% or more in some cases. Constituents screamed, and they revised the requirement. So I suppose it's possible that at some point they looked at flood insurance rates and were quoted $7200/year ($600 a month).

I doubt that, but I don't know where she's getting that figure. My premium in a "low risk" area is only $1000 a year. I suspect theirs would have been about that, or less.

In any event, it's a familiar argument. When I was president of our condo association board, I insisted we buy flood insurance every year. We weren't in a "flood zone," as every condo owner who scrutinized the budget for wasteful spending liked to point out. But we were less than a mile from the beach and between the ocean and the Intra-Coastal Waterway.

We could afford flood insurance. What we couldn't afford was a flood loss.

"We're not wealthy people," is an admission that you're exactly the people who should be buying insurance.

And if you can't afford the insurance, then you can't afford to live there!

This has been the great "moral hazard" of the NFIP. The rates don't reflect the risk, so people make calculations based on bad data. Our flood insurance premium has been going up more than the rate of inflation every year. I believe FEMA is trying to get rates closer to being "actuarily sound." I expect them to continue to go up every year. At some point, they may tip the scale regarding whether we stay here or not.

But, by then, I think it'll be past the optimal time to leave.

I think now is the best time to get out of here.

Before everyone else realizes it too.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 10:40 Friday, 4 October 2024

Maybe scratch the Carolinas off your list of "climate havens."

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 15:53 Thursday, 3 October 2024

Florida insurance "reform."

“There’s nothing normal about these high denial rates,” according to Martin Weiss, founder of Weiss Ratings. “They’ve been creeping up steadily for nearly two decades and have now reached alarming levels, especially among some of the biggest providers in disaster-prone states like Florida and California.”

You have to be crazy to live here.

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Originally posted at Nice Marmot 15:50 Thursday, 3 October 2024

I imagine someone objecting to my previous post, saying that no place is completely without risk. A pipe could rupture and your house floods. You could have a catastrophic house fire. (Probably started by a lithium ion battery - Just kidding.)

And that's true.

What I'm looking at here in Florida, and what all those folks are experiencing today and many others have experienced before, is a large scale disaster event. While enormous resources are brought to bear in those cases, it remains an enormous challenge.

If a single homeowner's home floods, or burns down, they file their claim and they hire a contractor and do what they need to do to get on with it.

When thousands of homeowners' homes flood... Well, good luck.

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Originally posted at Nice Marmot 10:41 Thursday, 3 October 2024

We're all preppers now.

For those affected, they're still in shock. For those of us who are unaffected, what more of a prompt would you need to begin thinking about how you assess risk, how you manage it, and what you can do to prepare for a disaster?

We're vulnerable to flooding here. It's not in a "flood zone," per se (It has a risk rating.), but virtually all of Florida is at risk for flooding.

We have flood insurance. I put the Powerwalls above the floor. We have some experience with evacuating. Mitzi has all the paperwork in a fireproof box that we can grab when we leave.

Gaps in my knowledge are what our options are in the event of a catastrophic loss. Assuming a total loss, flood insurance coverage for the structure is more than enough to pay off the balance of the mortgage. I don't know if any of our contents would be covered by our regular homeowner's policy, but I suspect not. I need to find out.

I do feel a lot better since we got the place in New York. While our homeowner's does cover "loss of use," which I think would still be in force even in a flood event, we'd be competing for housing with thousands of other people around here. Family isn't an option, and they would probably be facing their own challenges anyway. Bolting to New York would be my plan.

The question then becomes what to do about this property. If the house is a total loss, who is responsible for demolition and removal? Even if we were to rebuild, that would have to take place. I recall our condo association was responsible for that when one of our buildings burned. I suspect that, as homeowners, we would be responsible.

At that point, could we simply put the slab on the market? (I suspect we'd have to demo the slab as well. No builder is going to want to build on someone else's old slab.) Lot or slab, we'd still be responsible for HOA fees and property taxes, though I would expect the assessed value to reflect that absence of an actual house.

I used to think that any storm surge that would threaten us would include wind damage, which would invoke our regular homeowner's policy. The geography and hydrology of the gulf coast isn't the same as this part of Florida, so maybe that's still a good assessment. But the gulf is basically a basin, and when water piles up it has nowhere else to go but inland.

Trying to imagine a "worst case" scenario, I'd have to think it's one where it's not a total loss. What to do then? Is there a scenario where we take the interior down to the studs and then try and sell it? Do we have to try and do a total repair and then try and sell it? Repairs are going to be difficult, competing with everyone else for materials and labor, and then hoping you get a competent contractor.

It seems that the wisest course of action, from a risk mitigation point of view, would be to sell now and move. No history of flood. No questionable repairs.

Something to think about. I'm not sure Mitzi is there yet. I am.

She did say she thought she might be able to handle a New York winter.

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Originally posted at Nice Marmot 09:22 Thursday, 3 October 2024

It's a beautiful day, as Florida days go. I've still got some remnants of Covid lingering. My nose has been running again, and some upper respiratory congestion. No fever or chills, aches or pains. And the damn tooth still hurts. And I periodically seem to run out of gas.

Slept ok last night. Wearing ear plugs again. Woke up at 0400, but fell right back to sleep. Got up at 0500. By 0930 I needed to get in the recliner and close my eyes. Didn't work very well, because the dog started whining about 5 minutes into my 15 minute snooze. I took him out and resumed for 10 minutes.

That seemed to be enough to rally for working on the IIe. Got that done and figured I'd go for a bike ride.

I worry a little bit about those folks who went charging off after supposedly being "over" Covid and developing some kind of muscle fatigue issue. So I'm taking it easy. Haven't been walking, with or without sticks. But the bike is fairly low effort.

With the 3-speed hub I have, about the max assist I can manage is level 3 (out of 5). I get going faster than I can pedal and it just feels silly. So I set it at level 2 and pedaled along with some modest resistance. Gave me an average speed of 14mph, which is still much faster than without the motor, and with far less effort.

Did my 10K loop and didn't really break a sweat. But after sitting here for a bit and then standing, I could feel it in my legs. So I did get a bit of a workout. And I did feel warm once I was inside, even in the AC. Turned the office fan on for a while to cool down.

Battery was down to two leds (40% ?), so it's on the charger.

Anyway, the beat goes on...

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Originally posted at Nice Marmot 12:46 Wednesday, 2 October 2024

The vice presidential debate was everything I expect in my American politics.

Boring.

Apart from the fact that I can't stand J.D. Vance, even when he's on his best behavior, it was a snoozer. I went into the office to read some old computer stuff and kind of half-listened for anything exciting.

I did catch the part where the whining punk was bitching that he was being "fact checked," and the moderators tried to talk over him. The producers blew it on that, I think. They should have muted his mic immediately. They left their moderators out there trying to wrangle that misogynistic asshole, and it wasn't a good look for anyone.

Even at his best, J.D. Vance just sounds condescending to me. Anyway, that's me. I'm biased.

Nothing-burger. Just the way I like a VP debate. No flies, no hits, no errors, nothing meme-worthy.

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Originally posted at Nice Marmot 12:37 Wednesday, 2 October 2024

I didn't get around to it yesterday, but this morning I went out to the garage to poke around in the IIe and remove any unexploded filter capacitors.

The Apple II power supply is built like a tank, and I'd forgotten what a pain in the ass it is to work on. But, perseverance paid off, and I got the circuit board out of the enclosure. (Leave it wired to the plug, you can still work on it. Ideally, you'd remove the plug and it looks like it's crimped on. I think I left it connected the first time I did this several years ago.)

Sure enough, the RIFA was still there and intact. I was kind of surprised, given the age of this IIe (a Rev A, probably manufactured in 1982). But the machine came as part of a package that included a Kensington System Saver (a fan and surge suppressor that would hang off the side of the Apple II and draw air across the card bus). Maybe the ventilation offered a cooler environment and helped to increase its longevity. I wasn't going to gamble on it though.

The power supply works without the capacitor, so rather than dig through my parts drawer, I just unsoldered it. Now I should add a sticker to the power supply noting its removal. If I should die and someone gets the IIe, they'll know they don't have to worry about the "magic smoke."

I still need to hook up the two Disk ][ drives and check them out, but I'm pretty confident they'll work.

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Originally posted at Nice Marmot 12:23 Wednesday, 2 October 2024

Got the replacement keys I ordered for the //c. Seller didn't have an up-arrow in stock, so I've ordered one of those from another seller for a much higher price. Replaced the broken key switch and got the keycaps all installed. The replacement "D" key is a different color or shade of gray, but it's not super-noticeable.

I discovered the space bar was damaged. The little clips that secure the metal bar are broken, so the right side of the bar won't depress the key switch. I'm looking for a replacement, but there don't seem to be any available at the moment. The little brown clips are also on the shift keys, so I may order one of those and try to graft them onto the space bar.

I may go out this afternoon and open up the IIe again, and pull the power supply. I just need to see what the Rifa capacitor situation is. They may have blown years ago, in which case no big deal. If not, I need to pull them and spare myself the "magic smoke" ordeal.

The larger issue is finding space for the IIe and the //c. I'm reluctant to leave the IIe in the garage because, while it's largely climate-controlled these days, the leaf blower is often used to remove debris from Mitzi's landscaping efforts. Stuff goes everywhere. I sometimes find the workbench covered with fine dirt and crud, and there's little I can do about it. I hate yards and yard work.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 13:09 Tuesday, 1 October 2024

I now have a runny nose again. Not as bad as it was at first, but still a surprise.

My tooth is somewhat(?) better. It's still quite sensitive, but it's in the 8-9 range. If I'm careful, I can manage to eat nearly anything I want, although there will be some pain.

Mitzi and I are back in the same bed, and we're dog-sitting. I suspect that's kind of affecting my sleep. I'm actually feeling more tired now than I was when I was taking the Paxlovid. But a nap mostly restores my energy level, for a while anyway.

If the tooth didn't hurt, I'd say I was pretty much done with Covid.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 13:02 Tuesday, 1 October 2024

For those who may feel that I'm being a little too harsh on Mr. Millinor, please note that I know we're living here on borrowed time. If we have a catastrophic loss, we are not "rebuilding" here.

There may be questions regarding HOA requirements and so on, but the "concept of a plan" is to use the insurance proceeds, such as they may be, and pay off the mortgage. Do what we have to to scrape off the slab, sell the lot and move. Get the hell out of Florida. Let some other fool assume this risk.

Borrowed time.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 06:46 Tuesday, 1 October 2024

This video tells a different story. Same place, different people.

And a closing shot that offers at least a glimpse of the truth.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 06:45 Tuesday, 1 October 2024

It seems Shannon Millinor, Good Ol' Boy from the preceding post, is something of a community spokesperson and this ain't his first rodeo.

Or hurricane.

Where can we find an accounting of state and federal dollars that went into Keaton Beach a year ago after Idalia?

Put a number on what "we" are doing.

Year after year.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 06:36 Tuesday, 1 October 2024

Uh, who is "we," kemosabe?

Here it is, the archetypal disaster report, closed on a note of earnest, homespun resilience. "We will rebuild."

Nowhere in the report is our stalwart survivor interrogated as to just exactly how, or who "we" represents.

Because, as sure as I'm sittin' here, our straw-hatted Good Ol' Boy doesn't have the resources to rebuild. And by "we" he means that you and I and every other sucker is going to have to pitch in and help him enjoy "our little paradise."

At least between catastrophic storms anyway.

We already subsidize living on the beach for those who wish to embrace that risk. We shovel tens of millions of taxpayer dollars into the ocean to "renourish" the sand the ocean washes away. An ocean that's rising, and wave action that's growing more energetic with increasing average wind speeds. We pay higher insurance rates all over the state, in part, to offset the risk Good Ol' Boy takes on to live where he does.

Folks in Kenosha, Wisconsin are helping Good Ol' Boy live in his little paradise with their federal tax dollars spent by FEMA.

Good Ol' Boy doesn't care.

I love the way PBS just ignores the question. Sure, it might be too much to put it directly to Good Ol' Boy in his hour of suffering. But they could have asked someone. Illuminated this illusion that "we" isn't just Good Ol' Boy and his fishin' buddies.

"Other folks got their stuff." Yeah, "their stuff" is subsidizing his dumb ass.

Florida. You have to be insane to live here.

Or a dumb ass.

Unsure which category I'm in.

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Originally posted at Nice Marmot 06:14 Tuesday, 1 October 2024

I'm at the point in my life when so many of my early favorites are reaching the end of theirs. A remarkable artist and human being.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 08:43 Monday, 30 September 2024

Meant to mention this earlier, but Garret has been on a photographic excursion out west and posting some remarkable photos! (So be sure to check the earlier ones too.)

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 07:32 Monday, 30 September 2024