analog_kidd

Did any of you guys have one of these? It came with a bunch of little wires, and the little pegs on the board were these little springs. You could bend the spring, insert the wire and create all kinds of circuits. I spent hours making all kinds of stuff. One of the things you could make was an AM radio, which was the coolest thing to an 8 year old.

These were short lived, and intended to replace floppies. 100mb seemed massive at the time. Now you can get 1000's of times that capacity on a tiny thumb drive

I think you have to sign up. You need to log in thru the app that installs to your streamer. I rarely get any emails from them.

The free channels on Plex includes a couple from the History channel. I see "History and Warfare" and "Military Heroes". Look at their site, uncheck the "Show Local Channels" and browse the channels they have to offer. These are all free, with ads. https://www.plex.tv/live-tv-channels/

We cut Comcast TV a few years ago, but kept their Internet. I need fast internet for work, and they are really the only option where I live. We tried both Hulu with Live TV, and You Tube TV, and decided we liked YTTV better. I hated the Hulu interface, especially the guide which at the time could not be sorted. The DVR was not as good, and you couldn't fast forward thru commercials. Hulu had better content than YTTV, but we never really watched any of that. We mostly used it for recording stuff on ABC/NBC/CBS/Fox, and for watching news. We mostly kept it around to watch Fox news <ugh>. We have since detached ourselves from watching cable news and are way more happier for it. We have since cut out YTTV. I like Tech stuff and roll my own now. This might be a little too nerdy for some, but I use Plex. You can sign up for free and load the Plex app on your streaming device and get 100's of free live channels, just like Comcast gives. Granted, it's 90% crap you probably don't want to watch, but for totally free you can find something. There is also a large library of movies you can stream for free, but there are a lot of commercials. Here's the nerdy part... I built a Plex server. Cost like $150 for a small desktop on EBay, plus another $100 for a big hard drive. Then I got an antenna for $50, and a device called an HDHomerun tuner. I got the better one, but the cheapest one would have done fine for what I use it for. I think it was like $150 for what I got, adn the cheaper one is maybe $80-ish. I also have a Plex Pass I paid for. It's like $30 annually, or you buy a lifetime for $100 on sale. I bought mine several years ago, so that didn't count toward my recent cost. So, for about $450, I was able to put all this together. The HDHomerun is a tuner that you connect to the antenna, and then streams video out across your home network. The Plex server sees it, and can connect to it. There is a lot Plex can do for free without the paid for pass, but connecting to this, the pass is required. Once it sees the HDHomerun, you get this really cool TV guide of all your channels, and can schedule recordings. Works just like the Comcast Guide and DVR. You can watch live TV, pause rewind, all that. Plex even has a cool commercial skip button for any shows you record. Any streaming device in my house can watch the live TV or the recordings. I can even watch on my phone / laptop when I'm away. You can also make a library of your own movies or TV shows for any video file you can gather. If you have a collection of DVDs, you can easily rip them to a video file and watch them any time on Plex. And that library can be shared with friends and family. The TV recordings too. I would record UT games for my out of state son, where he may not have gotten the game in his area, but he could watch on my Plex server. One other feature I just started using, is Plex can also stream your music. I copied my MP3 Files over to the server, and installed the Plex Music app on my phone and computer, and now I can stream all my music commercial free. And its all songs I like. You don't get to sample new stuff tho, so that is one bummer. Truth be told, this thing has become sort of a hobby of its own.

I found the miniseries Fall of the House of Usher to be really good. It takes a lot of Edgar Allen Poe elements from his various works and weaves them into the plot / dialog. Skim thru the titles of his works, and read a few of his poems / stories, and you'll pick up on them in the show. Some of it will be obvious, like names and titles (Pit and Pendulum for one).

I probably don't want to know the answer to this, but... Is there really a market out there for Transgender Prostitutes? If I'm a guy looking for a good time and I discover I just paid for a dude, I'd be really upset. They don't really have the parts for it anyway. Are there people out there that get of on that thing?

The story of Murderous Mary the elephant, who met her demise in Erwin is an interesting read: https://blueridgecountry.com/archive/favorites/mary-the-elephant/

I've kinda gotten out of it for a while, but I used to go all the time. here's me on Bald River Falls over by the Tellico

Yeah, we got TSA Pre-Check because my son moved his Family out to Vegas, and with cheap Knox flights out there, we figured we'd be doing a lot of flying. TSA-Precheck is great everywhere EXCEPT Vegas. Every time we have flown out of Vegas coming home, the Precheck line is closed. They scrutinize us at the scanners like we are Precheck, so we don't have to do the body scan/shoe removal and what-not, but we do have to schlepp our way thru the long line, like a couple of commoners

I'm with you in the fact that I wouldn't want to carry the passport around, and so would never use it domestically. However, they do make a wallet, driver's license-sized card that you can use as a passport. Its not valid for International air travel, but is fine for domestic, and land / sea ports of entry. https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/need-passport/card.html I would have gotten one when I renewed my passport a few years ago, but it costs EXTRA, and I'm cheap. I also noticed on that link above that they are modernizing the passport, which I was not aware of. They started in 2021. Won't require a replacement until you have to renew.

I must not be doing it right... I have a fence line in the back 40 that I fight with every year. It's always overgrown with these hellish thorn bush things and thorny blackberry bushes. They get me every time I mow past them. I want that fence line to be a wasteland, a foot on either side. After reading here about diesel being effective, and also reading more about it on Google, I was willing to give it a try. I got a couple gallons, put it in a sprayer and doused every living thing along that fence. Covered all the leaves, and gave a spritz to the ground as well. Several days later I could still see diesel residue on the leaves, but the weeds looked even healthier. So I gave them all another treatment. A week later and they are still going strong. AND to make matters worse, my entire back yard smells like a truck stop disaster. So, what is the correct method for applying diesel, and why won't these weeds die?

If there is not wailing and gnashing of teeth from the media and usual suspects by now, then I'm betting the shooter does not fit the normal stereotypes, and they just want this story to go away.

The Rock Band RUSH is one of my favorites, and they have a song called The Analog Kid. I'm an IT Engineer, working with computers every day. On that same album is a song named Digital Man, and you would think with my profession I would identify more with that song. However, even tho I work on Nerdy stuff, I'm definitely not a Nerd. I don't like video games, and once work is done, I turn of the tech. I'm into outdoor stuff, and am more happy when there is no electricity nearby. So, Analog Kid fits better

Yep, been to each of those places too, and you are right, they are amazing hikes. Other one in BSF that is fantastic is the Honey Creek loop. Back at Cumberland Gap, the 3 day backpacking trip along the entire ridge is on my bucket list.

I'm convinced the massive number of pumps at Buccee's is to allow you to pull up to a pump, get gas and then just stay parked there while you go in and leisurely shop. At a place like Love's, you feel rushed to move away from the pump to let the line behind you pull in for gas. A buddy and I stopped in the Crossville one a few weeks ago after a weekend backpacking trip to Virgin Falls. Virgin Falls is one of the most beautiful places on the planet. It's absolutely spectacular, but Buccee's was one of the highlights of the weekend for my friend.

And for some people, taking the meds is what makes them easy going, "regular" people, who are perfectly capable of owning and possessing a gun. In some cases, someone might just not take the meds anymore so they can own guns, which could result in their becoming unstable and doing something rash. Thereby, this law would cause the exact thing they think it will prevent.

It's been decades since I had a reason to know what a bag costs. I somehow stumbled upon an article the other day listing the average cost of an ounce (seriously, I wasn't looking). I was surprised to learn that where it is legal, they are selling it for $300-ish an ounce. Seems like that was what the going rate was back in the early 90's. It may be the only thing not affected by inflation.

And this happened today: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/four-children-killed-pre-school-attack-southern-brazil-2023-04-05/ Guy with an axe jumps the fence and kills 4 kids at school. Crazy people will always do crazy. It's just that for the U.S version of crazy, a gun is the most convenient tool. If crazy doesn't have that tool, they will find another. You know what did stop this crazy guy? A good guy with a gun

There are armed guards at the White House. There are armed guards at the Capitol There are armed guards at the Supreme Court There are armed guards at the Governor's Mansion There are armed guards at the State Capitol There are armed guards at my local courthouse Seems like the .gov folks all think some people are worth paying for armed guards for their safety.

We used to be diehard Fox news consumers. We left Comcast and went with a couple different streaming providers, and the ONE deal breaker was they had to have Fox. We got tired of paying for the streamers too, but couldn't quit them because there was no other way to get Fox. Sadly, that was the ONE and ONLY reason we wouldn't cut them. Then they just started going off the deep end. Every prime time talking head repeated the same exact stories and events as the one that came on before them. It was mind numbing. Then Hannity, with his drama queen delivery got to be too much, so we stopped watching him. Tucker just seemed to be off the rails, so we stopped watching him. More and more we just stopped watching it. Now-a-days, if I need to see wall to wall reporting on something of a national scale, I'll watch NewsMax. They have a free app and you don't need a carrier to log into it, like Fox does. All the contributors that left Fox, or got fired, are all working for NewsMax. But NewsMax is also very unappologetically slanted to the right. The good thing is, we pretty much stopped watching Fox alltogether, which allowed us to just cut cable and all the streamers. I put up an antenna. I bought an HDHomerun tuner device and connected it to my Plex server, so now I have full DVR capability of anything I can pull in over the air. Our evenings consist of watching some local news, and the wife has to watch wheel of fortune. Our TV is free now, and we are saving a ton of money on subscriptions. Oh, and life without constant news running in the background is SO MUCH BETTER.

Old enough to know what's right, Young enough not to choose it

We have a couple rental properties in Oak Ridge (that are currently rented out), but are managed by Asset Realty Management. I don't know how they are from a tenant's perspective, but they have been good to us as landlords. They have some listings available on their web site: https://www.knoxvilleproperty.management/knoxville-homes-for-rent#properties?

So, if a bank I have DEPOSITS in goes under and the bank says, "sorry all your money is gone", what happens if I have a LOAN with that bank? Does that go away too and the house I have mortgaged is now mine free and clear?