USMB Coffee Shop IV

[gallantwarrior]

There is a kid in my neighborhood who has divined the perfect crime. He rides an off road dirt motorcycle. Not a light on the thing, he rides without a helmet. It has been said that if you don't think it's worth it to protect your head, you're probably right. He has modified his little motorcycle to make the exhaust system unnecessarily loud.

His crime is to coast his motorcycle down the street in front of the Luxurious Pimplebutt Estate during the wee small hours of the morning, usually around 3:30 am. Then he kick starts it to life, revs the engine and speeds away like a phantom. This wakes me, my dog, my neighbors and their dogs.

While I, like my neighbors, grumbles and tries to fall back to sleep, the dogs are not so easily calmed. They carry on making the human efforts to regain peace nigh on impossible.

It is the perfect crime. He serves his apparent purpose of disturbing the peace (why else would he coast down the hill in silence) while becoming impossible to be punished or caught. We cannot call the cops as he is gone before we can reach the telephone. We cannot prevent him from continuing his reign of din as it happens in the dead of night.

What compels him?

Privileged entitlement? Childhood frivolity? Stupidity? Blatant and total disregard for everyone but himself?
Maybe he's sneaking away from his girlfriend's parent's house by coasting and that little burst of noise is his way of bidding the fair damsel "farewell, adieu, until we meet again"?

That's rather romantic, the secret midnight assignation. But the little turd does it in bright daylight too!

I can hear him rattling down McKinnon Avenue to the south. I can hear him zooming along Maine Boulevard to the ear. I hear him tearing up Anderson Boulevard from the north. And I don't hear him on Orchard Grove Avenue until he stops at the corner right outside my living room and then ignite that engine designed by Lucifer forty feet away as I read or watch a movie.

Have you considered caltrops?

Okay. Please walk me through caltrops and their practical use.

In my feeble imagination, a caltrop could be anything from a fence to a laxative.

Caltrops were a common anti-cavalry device consisting of metal spikes twisted or bent in such a way that one point was always upright. They would be thrown across the path of advancing cavalry troops, laming the horses. They look a little like the jacks we used to play with. Modern caltrops are used to slow fleeing vehicles by puncturing tires. During WWII, very large, concrete or steel

caltrops were deployed to stop tanks (tank traps).

 

[ChrisL]

My Kindle appears to be dying. It started resetting itself yesterday (which has happened before), but did not want to finish loading after the reset. It was caught in a loop of restarting, beginning to load, and freezing. I eventually got it to work by plugging it into my PC. We took the little one to karate, and it started resetting itself again. This time it went to a completely black screen, which I've never seen before. Then, when it did eventually go back to normal, it moved on to a completely white screen. At this point, it seems as though I need to plug the Kindle into my PC almost every time I want to turn it on. Once I have it on, it works fine, but after I turn it off, turning it back on is an issue.

I went on ebay and bought a Kobo reader. Apparently they are made by Barnes & Nobles. The one I got is new, but an older version. It will require me to convert all of my mobi files into epub files, so I'm doing that on the second PC right now. It comes with 100 "classics," such as Pride & Prejudice, loaded on it; I'm curious what those books will be. It has less memory than my Kindle keyboard, but 1GB should be plenty of space, and it can take an SD card to expand the memory.

Mostly I'm just hoping that it will not cause issues when I load my books onto it, that the screen is as easy to read as the Kindle, that it is relatively comfortable to use, and that the battery doesn't drain super fast. I don't need extra features in an ereader. It only cost $27, so if it works well and I can use it for as long as I have my Kindle (just over 6 years), it will be great.

Luckily I still have a bunch of paper books if I continue to have ereader problems.

I think my laptop may be dying. A few times now when I've turned it on, it has lines going across the screen, as if my monitor is ready to kick the bucket, then it clears up and will be fine, but when I go to turn it on again, same thing happens. Could be time to invest in a new laptop.

I bought a new HP 17" about a month ago. I just couldn't get past the EFCI garbage that Microsoft forces manufacturers to put on their machines in order to install Linux. I tried several distributions and finally got the thing to boot up Linux Mint in what they call "compatibility mode" OK it WILL boot Linux, now I needed to figure out what "compatibility mode" was and pass those options to Kubuntu that I've been using for 5 years or so.
I'm happy to report that I am currently running a fresh install of Kubuntu 17.04. Now I just have to move a couple hundred Gigs of data from the old laptop HD to this one.

I am sure not that computer literate. I just use Windows. Lol. I would not attempt to install a complicated program on my computer because I would probably screw it all up.

 

[ChrisL]

I don't have a sound machine, but I have oodles of soothing sounds (white noise) saved in my collection at youtube. I also have this website to go to and its a loop....so turn off the monitor but keep the pc on, and listen to it all night..which is what I do often.

SimplyNoise -- The Best Free White Noise Generator on the Internet.

And this is my youtube collection:

My alarm clock is the sound of waves crashing on the beach.

I don't usually use an alarm clock but when I did, it would be music. Nothing is worse (to me) than waking up to an annoying buzzing sound. What a terrible way to be woken up!

 

[ChrisL]

Happy Sunday, Coffee Shop!

 

[ChrisL]

I just had a craptacular mowing experience.

I usually mow the lawn in an old pair of jeans. Today, I put on those jeans, and the hole where they button, which has been fraying over time, finally gave out. OK, not a big deal, I put on some shorts, instead. I was getting done with the front of the lawn, just one big square left to do, when I feel a sharp pain in my left leg. I look and reach down toward it, but don't see anything. Was I stung by a bee? Bitten by a particularly painful ant? I don't know. I've had a couple of instances in the past where I mowed over a yellow-jacket nest, so I am a bit worried.

I keep mowing, but a short time later, OW! A pain in my right leg. Again, I don't see the culprit, but now I'm pretty sure it's some sort of wasp. To make matters worse, now it's beginning to rain, and I hate mowing a wet lawn. I decide to at least finish the front yard, but I go to the other side of the square I'm working on, figuring I can work my way back toward the area I'd been stung and try to keep an eye out for a nest in the ground.

I get to the other side of the square of grass and start mowing, when OW! Another pain in my right leg. This time, when I look down, I see what I think is a yellow jacket. I can't be certain, since I am wearing sunglasses and I am trying to smack it with my hand, but I'm pretty sure. It may have stung me a fourth time before I get it off of me, and I don't even know if I hit the little bastard or it just flew away. The lawn mower is now rolling down the hill toward the trees, because I let it go as I started hopping and smacking at my leg with this latest sting. I have to run after it before it rolls into the trees and bushes.

I take the mower into the garage, go in the house, and replace the shorts with a regular pair of jeans. I don't get stung again, but I also don't see the nest.

I ended up finishing the yard, but did most of the back in the rain. It's probably an hour or more since I got stung, and my legs still hurt. I took a couple of ibuprofen, hopefully they will help soon. I can barely even see the spots I was stung, but damn! they still hurt a lot for hardly leaving a mark. I feel like pouring gas over that area of the lawn to try to make sure the stupid bug is dead.

Ouchie.

 

[ChrisL]

I just had a craptacular mowing experience.

I usually mow the lawn in an old pair of jeans. Today, I put on those jeans, and the hole where they button, which has been fraying over time, finally gave out. OK, not a big deal, I put on some shorts, instead. I was getting done with the front of the lawn, just one big square left to do, when I feel a sharp pain in my left leg. I look and reach down toward it, but don't see anything. Was I stung by a bee? Bitten by a particularly painful ant? I don't know. I've had a couple of instances in the past where I mowed over a yellow-jacket nest, so I am a bit worried.

I keep mowing, but a short time later, OW! A pain in my right leg. Again, I don't see the culprit, but now I'm pretty sure it's some sort of wasp. To make matters worse, now it's beginning to rain, and I hate mowing a wet lawn. I decide to at least finish the front yard, but I go to the other side of the square I'm working on, figuring I can work my way back toward the area I'd been stung and try to keep an eye out for a nest in the ground.

I get to the other side of the square of grass and start mowing, when OW! Another pain in my right leg. This time, when I look down, I see what I think is a yellow jacket. I can't be certain, since I am wearing sunglasses and I am trying to smack it with my hand, but I'm pretty sure. It may have stung me a fourth time before I get it off of me, and I don't even know if I hit the little bastard or it just flew away. The lawn mower is now rolling down the hill toward the trees, because I let it go as I started hopping and smacking at my leg with this latest sting. I have to run after it before it rolls into the trees and bushes.

I take the mower into the garage, go in the house, and replace the shorts with a regular pair of jeans. I don't get stung again, but I also don't see the nest.

I ended up finishing the yard, but did most of the back in the rain. It's probably an hour or more since I got stung, and my legs still hurt. I took a couple of ibuprofen, hopefully they will help soon. I can barely even see the spots I was stung, but damn! they still hurt a lot for hardly leaving a mark. I feel like pouring gas over that area of the lawn to try to make sure the stupid bug is dead.

If it's a yellow jacket you have an in-ground nest in your yard near where you were stung.

Yeah, but I didn't see the nest this time around. I've seen it in the previous experiences I've had with getting stung while mowing.

And my legs still hurt from the stings.

Happened to me once but I was swarmed, over 50 stings. I was in mild shock but thank God I'm not allergic.

 

[Ringel05]

There is a kid in my neighborhood who has divined the perfect crime. He rides an off road dirt motorcycle. Not a light on the thing, he rides without a helmet. It has been said that if you don't think it's worth it to protect your head, you're probably right. He has modified his little motorcycle to make the exhaust system unnecessarily loud.

His crime is to coast his motorcycle down the street in front of the Luxurious Pimplebutt Estate during the wee small hours of the morning, usually around 3:30 am. Then he kick starts it to life, revs the engine and speeds away like a phantom. This wakes me, my dog, my neighbors and their dogs.

While I, like my neighbors, grumbles and tries to fall back to sleep, the dogs are not so easily calmed. They carry on making the human efforts to regain peace nigh on impossible.

It is the perfect crime. He serves his apparent purpose of disturbing the peace (why else would he coast down the hill in silence) while becoming impossible to be punished or caught. We cannot call the cops as he is gone before we can reach the telephone. We cannot prevent him from continuing his reign of din as it happens in the dead of night.

What compels him?

Privileged entitlement? Childhood frivolity? Stupidity? Blatant and total disregard for everyone but himself?
Maybe he's sneaking away from his girlfriend's parent's house by coasting and that little burst of noise is his way of bidding the fair damsel "farewell, adieu, until we meet again"?

That's rather romantic, the secret midnight assignation. But the little turd does it in bright daylight too!

I can hear him rattling down McKinnon Avenue to the south. I can hear him zooming along Maine Boulevard to the ear. I hear him tearing up Anderson Boulevard from the north. And I don't hear him on Orchard Grove Avenue until he stops at the corner right outside my living room and then ignite that engine designed by Lucifer forty feet away as I read or watch a movie.

Have you considered caltrops?

Okay. Please walk me through caltrops and their practical use.

In my feeble imagination, a caltrop could be anything from a fence to a laxative.

Caltrops were a common anti-cavalry device consisting of metal spikes twisted or bent in such a way that one point was always upright. They would be thrown across the path of advancing cavalry troops, laming the horses. They look a little like the jacks we used to play with. Modern caltrops are used to slow fleeing vehicles by puncturing tires. During WWII, very large, concrete or steel View attachment 143398 View attachment 143399 View attachment 143400 View attachment 143401 caltrops were deployed to stop tanks (tank traps).

I thought it was slang for Cal Tech trollops......

 

[Foxfyre]

There is a kid in my neighborhood who has divined the perfect crime. He rides an off road dirt motorcycle. Not a light on the thing, he rides without a helmet. It has been said that if you don't think it's worth it to protect your head, you're probably right. He has modified his little motorcycle to make the exhaust system unnecessarily loud.

His crime is to coast his motorcycle down the street in front of the Luxurious Pimplebutt Estate during the wee small hours of the morning, usually around 3:30 am. Then he kick starts it to life, revs the engine and speeds away like a phantom. This wakes me, my dog, my neighbors and their dogs.

While I, like my neighbors, grumbles and tries to fall back to sleep, the dogs are not so easily calmed. They carry on making the human efforts to regain peace nigh on impossible.

It is the perfect crime. He serves his apparent purpose of disturbing the peace (why else would he coast down the hill in silence) while becoming impossible to be punished or caught. We cannot call the cops as he is gone before we can reach the telephone. We cannot prevent him from continuing his reign of din as it happens in the dead of night.

What compels him?

Privileged entitlement? Childhood frivolity? Stupidity? Blatant and total disregard for everyone but himself?
Maybe he's sneaking away from his girlfriend's parent's house by coasting and that little burst of noise is his way of bidding the fair damsel "farewell, adieu, until we meet again"?

That's rather romantic, the secret midnight assignation. But the little turd does it in bright daylight too!

I can hear him rattling down McKinnon Avenue to the south. I can hear him zooming along Maine Boulevard to the ear. I hear him tearing up Anderson Boulevard from the north. And I don't hear him on Orchard Grove Avenue until he stops at the corner right outside my living room and then ignite that engine designed by Lucifer forty feet away as I read or watch a movie.

Have you considered caltrops?

Okay. Please walk me through caltrops and their practical use.

In my feeble imagination, a caltrop could be anything from a fence to a laxative.

Caltrops were a common anti-cavalry device consisting of metal spikes twisted or bent in such a way that one point was always upright. They would be thrown across the path of advancing cavalry troops, laming the horses. They look a little like the jacks we used to play with. Modern caltrops are used to slow fleeing vehicles by puncturing tires. During WWII, very large, concrete or steel View attachment 143398 View attachment 143399 View attachment 143400 View attachment 143401 caltrops were deployed to stop tanks (tank traps).

And the modern day version:

 

[Foxfyre]

My Kindle appears to be dying. It started resetting itself yesterday (which has happened before), but did not want to finish loading after the reset. It was caught in a loop of restarting, beginning to load, and freezing. I eventually got it to work by plugging it into my PC. We took the little one to karate, and it started resetting itself again. This time it went to a completely black screen, which I've never seen before. Then, when it did eventually go back to normal, it moved on to a completely white screen. At this point, it seems as though I need to plug the Kindle into my PC almost every time I want to turn it on. Once I have it on, it works fine, but after I turn it off, turning it back on is an issue.

I went on ebay and bought a Kobo reader. Apparently they are made by Barnes & Nobles. The one I got is new, but an older version. It will require me to convert all of my mobi files into epub files, so I'm doing that on the second PC right now. It comes with 100 "classics," such as Pride & Prejudice, loaded on it; I'm curious what those books will be. It has less memory than my Kindle keyboard, but 1GB should be plenty of space, and it can take an SD card to expand the memory.

Mostly I'm just hoping that it will not cause issues when I load my books onto it, that the screen is as easy to read as the Kindle, that it is relatively comfortable to use, and that the battery doesn't drain super fast. I don't need extra features in an ereader. It only cost $27, so if it works well and I can use it for as long as I have my Kindle (just over 6 years), it will be great.

Luckily I still have a bunch of paper books if I continue to have ereader problems.

I think my laptop may be dying. A few times now when I've turned it on, it has lines going across the screen, as if my monitor is ready to kick the bucket, then it clears up and will be fine, but when I go to turn it on again, same thing happens. Could be time to invest in a new laptop.

I bought a new HP 17" about a month ago. I just couldn't get past the EFCI garbage that Microsoft forces manufacturers to put on their machines in order to install Linux. I tried several distributions and finally got the thing to boot up Linux Mint in what they call "compatibility mode" OK it WILL boot Linux, now I needed to figure out what "compatibility mode" was and pass those options to Kubuntu that I've been using for 5 years or so.
I'm happy to report that I am currently running a fresh install of Kubuntu 17.04. Now I just have to move a couple hundred Gigs of data from the old laptop HD to this one.

I am sure not that computer literate. I just use Windows. Lol. I would not attempt to install a complicated program on my computer because I would probably screw it all up.

Me too Chris. But I do enjoy games on my computer and all that I own are for Windows as is Microsoft Office and I do use Word and Excel a lot. So I just stick with Windows. Sometimes it is a little slow when the internet is busy, but I'm rarely in much of a hurry so a 4 or 5 second delay at times isn't a problem for me.

 

[ricechickie]

I've been a bit concerned since yesterday. My son went on a road trip with several friends to Virginia. And then all hell broke loose in Virginia. He says it's well south of where they are staying, but I'll be happy when he's home.

 

[Ringel05]

My Kindle appears to be dying. It started resetting itself yesterday (which has happened before), but did not want to finish loading after the reset. It was caught in a loop of restarting, beginning to load, and freezing. I eventually got it to work by plugging it into my PC. We took the little one to karate, and it started resetting itself again. This time it went to a completely black screen, which I've never seen before. Then, when it did eventually go back to normal, it moved on to a completely white screen. At this point, it seems as though I need to plug the Kindle into my PC almost every time I want to turn it on. Once I have it on, it works fine, but after I turn it off, turning it back on is an issue.

I went on ebay and bought a Kobo reader. Apparently they are made by Barnes & Nobles. The one I got is new, but an older version. It will require me to convert all of my mobi files into epub files, so I'm doing that on the second PC right now. It comes with 100 "classics," such as Pride & Prejudice, loaded on it; I'm curious what those books will be. It has less memory than my Kindle keyboard, but 1GB should be plenty of space, and it can take an SD card to expand the memory.

Mostly I'm just hoping that it will not cause issues when I load my books onto it, that the screen is as easy to read as the Kindle, that it is relatively comfortable to use, and that the battery doesn't drain super fast. I don't need extra features in an ereader. It only cost $27, so if it works well and I can use it for as long as I have my Kindle (just over 6 years), it will be great.

Luckily I still have a bunch of paper books if I continue to have ereader problems.

I think my laptop may be dying. A few times now when I've turned it on, it has lines going across the screen, as if my monitor is ready to kick the bucket, then it clears up and will be fine, but when I go to turn it on again, same thing happens. Could be time to invest in a new laptop.

I bought a new HP 17" about a month ago. I just couldn't get past the EFCI garbage that Microsoft forces manufacturers to put on their machines in order to install Linux. I tried several distributions and finally got the thing to boot up Linux Mint in what they call "compatibility mode" OK it WILL boot Linux, now I needed to figure out what "compatibility mode" was and pass those options to Kubuntu that I've been using for 5 years or so.
I'm happy to report that I am currently running a fresh install of Kubuntu 17.04. Now I just have to move a couple hundred Gigs of data from the old laptop HD to this one.

You couldn't just format the HD? Or were you setting up a dual boot?

I do need Windows for one site that's written in Silverlight which is a proprietary Windows Java-like system for vector graphics. My County Assessor's site uses it. It's obsolete and Linus and the boys stopped working on a fix a few years ago.
So, yes, the machine is dual boot, but irrelevant. The EFCI garbage is in BIOS and was loading a graphics system that Linux couldn't cope with. The work around was to let the install use native graphics at boot. and once I was into the installer, everything worked.
Haven't moved the data yet. My schedule is kicking hell out of me the last few days. My partners are on vacation and I have a lot on my plate until the 22nd.
Great night at Doc's last night! The Jason Abel project played 2 sets and rocked a full house. They closed about quarter to 11 and Heavy Funk was up and running in about 15 minutes. They are loud and Metal, not exactly what we usually have on stage. What was amazing was that about 1/3 of the folks that were there for J A P left and were replaced by an equal number of people wanting to see Heavy Funk.
The night was actually pretty calm except for the guy who told me to get off HIS bar stool. I assured him he could take his seat when he was through dancing (by himself) but he insisted I get up right then and there. I politely informed him that is was not HIS bar stool, it was MY bar stool, just like every other stool in the house.
Confused him for a while, but the bulb did eventually light up and a while later when he was starting some crap with 2 bad ass biker dudes, he informed security that he knew the owner.
Yeah, well, not all that well. When I told him that he would NOT be buying any more alcohol, he left, quite angry. My bouncer walked out behind him and saw him take a swig from a bottle in his truck, put it in reverse and run backwards into an SUV.
He then pulled forward hitting another car a bit more gently. I grabbed him up through the driver side window and unlocked the doors. My bouncer hopped in, shut off the F 150 and grabbed the keys.
Since there was damage to a customer's vehicle, I had to call the law. The idiot left in cuffs and the pick-up, belonging to his father's company, left on a hook.
No loss of business due to police in the lot and everyone but the idiot and his dad left the bar happy.
I will have to check my records, but if memory serves, the night was in the top 5 highest gross nights since we opened.

With EFCI you have to boot into BIOs and change the boot options to allow it to boot from the optical drive, unlike Dells HPs make it rather easy to do that.

 

[Foxfyre]

My Kindle appears to be dying. It started resetting itself yesterday (which has happened before), but did not want to finish loading after the reset. It was caught in a loop of restarting, beginning to load, and freezing. I eventually got it to work by plugging it into my PC. We took the little one to karate, and it started resetting itself again. This time it went to a completely black screen, which I've never seen before. Then, when it did eventually go back to normal, it moved on to a completely white screen. At this point, it seems as though I need to plug the Kindle into my PC almost every time I want to turn it on. Once I have it on, it works fine, but after I turn it off, turning it back on is an issue.

I went on ebay and bought a Kobo reader. Apparently they are made by Barnes & Nobles. The one I got is new, but an older version. It will require me to convert all of my mobi files into epub files, so I'm doing that on the second PC right now. It comes with 100 "classics," such as Pride & Prejudice, loaded on it; I'm curious what those books will be. It has less memory than my Kindle keyboard, but 1GB should be plenty of space, and it can take an SD card to expand the memory.

Mostly I'm just hoping that it will not cause issues when I load my books onto it, that the screen is as easy to read as the Kindle, that it is relatively comfortable to use, and that the battery doesn't drain super fast. I don't need extra features in an ereader. It only cost $27, so if it works well and I can use it for as long as I have my Kindle (just over 6 years), it will be great.

Luckily I still have a bunch of paper books if I continue to have ereader problems.

I think my laptop may be dying. A few times now when I've turned it on, it has lines going across the screen, as if my monitor is ready to kick the bucket, then it clears up and will be fine, but when I go to turn it on again, same thing happens. Could be time to invest in a new laptop.

I bought a new HP 17" about a month ago. I just couldn't get past the EFCI garbage that Microsoft forces manufacturers to put on their machines in order to install Linux. I tried several distributions and finally got the thing to boot up Linux Mint in what they call "compatibility mode" OK it WILL boot Linux, now I needed to figure out what "compatibility mode" was and pass those options to Kubuntu that I've been using for 5 years or so.
I'm happy to report that I am currently running a fresh install of Kubuntu 17.04. Now I just have to move a couple hundred Gigs of data from the old laptop HD to this one.

You couldn't just format the HD? Or were you setting up a dual boot?

I do need Windows for one site that's written in Silverlight which is a proprietary Windows Java-like system for vector graphics. My County Assessor's site uses it. It's obsolete and Linus and the boys stopped working on a fix a few years ago.
So, yes, the machine is dual boot, but irrelevant. The EFCI garbage is in BIOS and was loading a graphics system that Linux couldn't cope with. The work around was to let the install use native graphics at boot. and once I was into the installer, everything worked.
Haven't moved the data yet. My schedule is kicking hell out of me the last few days. My partners are on vacation and I have a lot on my plate until the 22nd.
Great night at Doc's last night! The Jason Abel project played 2 sets and rocked a full house. They closed about quarter to 11 and Heavy Funk was up and running in about 15 minutes. They are loud and Metal, not exactly what we usually have on stage. What was amazing was that about 1/3 of the folks that were there for J A P left and were replaced by an equal number of people wanting to see Heavy Funk.
The night was actually pretty calm except for the guy who told me to get off HIS bar stool. I assured him he could take his seat when he was through dancing (by himself) but he insisted I get up right then and there. I politely informed him that is was not HIS bar stool, it was MY bar stool, just like every other stool in the house.
Confused him for a while, but the bulb did eventually light up and a while later when he was starting some crap with 2 bad ass biker dudes, he informed security that he knew the owner.
Yeah, well, not all that well. When I told him that he would NOT be buying any more alcohol, he left, quite angry. My bouncer walked out behind him and saw him take a swig from a bottle in his truck, put it in reverse and run backwards into an SUV.
He then pulled forward hitting another car a bit more gently. I grabbed him up through the driver side window and unlocked the doors. My bouncer hopped in, shut off the F 150 and grabbed the keys.
Since there was damage to a customer's vehicle, I had to call the law. The idiot left in cuffs and the pick-up, belonging to his father's company, left on a hook.
No loss of business due to police in the lot and everyone but the idiot and his dad left the bar happy.
I will have to check my records, but if memory serves, the night was in the top 5 highest gross nights since we opened.

With EFCI you have to boot into BIOs and change the boot options to allow it to boot from the optical drive, unlike Dells HPs make it rather easy to do that.

Now see, there you guys go talking in that foreign language again. And you wonder why Chris and I just stay with Windows.

 

[Ringel05]

I think my laptop may be dying. A few times now when I've turned it on, it has lines going across the screen, as if my monitor is ready to kick the bucket, then it clears up and will be fine, but when I go to turn it on again, same thing happens. Could be time to invest in a new laptop.

I bought a new HP 17" about a month ago. I just couldn't get past the EFCI garbage that Microsoft forces manufacturers to put on their machines in order to install Linux. I tried several distributions and finally got the thing to boot up Linux Mint in what they call "compatibility mode" OK it WILL boot Linux, now I needed to figure out what "compatibility mode" was and pass those options to Kubuntu that I've been using for 5 years or so.
I'm happy to report that I am currently running a fresh install of Kubuntu 17.04. Now I just have to move a couple hundred Gigs of data from the old laptop HD to this one.

You couldn't just format the HD? Or were you setting up a dual boot?

I do need Windows for one site that's written in Silverlight which is a proprietary Windows Java-like system for vector graphics. My County Assessor's site uses it. It's obsolete and Linus and the boys stopped working on a fix a few years ago.
So, yes, the machine is dual boot, but irrelevant. The EFCI garbage is in BIOS and was loading a graphics system that Linux couldn't cope with. The work around was to let the install use native graphics at boot. and once I was into the installer, everything worked.
Haven't moved the data yet. My schedule is kicking hell out of me the last few days. My partners are on vacation and I have a lot on my plate until the 22nd.
Great night at Doc's last night! The Jason Abel project played 2 sets and rocked a full house. They closed about quarter to 11 and Heavy Funk was up and running in about 15 minutes. They are loud and Metal, not exactly what we usually have on stage. What was amazing was that about 1/3 of the folks that were there for J A P left and were replaced by an equal number of people wanting to see Heavy Funk.
The night was actually pretty calm except for the guy who told me to get off HIS bar stool. I assured him he could take his seat when he was through dancing (by himself) but he insisted I get up right then and there. I politely informed him that is was not HIS bar stool, it was MY bar stool, just like every other stool in the house.
Confused him for a while, but the bulb did eventually light up and a while later when he was starting some crap with 2 bad ass biker dudes, he informed security that he knew the owner.
Yeah, well, not all that well. When I told him that he would NOT be buying any more alcohol, he left, quite angry. My bouncer walked out behind him and saw him take a swig from a bottle in his truck, put it in reverse and run backwards into an SUV.
He then pulled forward hitting another car a bit more gently. I grabbed him up through the driver side window and unlocked the doors. My bouncer hopped in, shut off the F 150 and grabbed the keys.
Since there was damage to a customer's vehicle, I had to call the law. The idiot left in cuffs and the pick-up, belonging to his father's company, left on a hook.
No loss of business due to police in the lot and everyone but the idiot and his dad left the bar happy.
I will have to check my records, but if memory serves, the night was in the top 5 highest gross nights since we opened.

With EFCI you have to boot into BIOs and change the boot options to allow it to boot from the optical drive, unlike Dells HPs make it rather easy to do that.

Now see, there you guys go talking in that foreign language again. And you wonder why Chris and I just stay with Windows.

Actually it's UEFI and it's the modern Windows boot manager......... GRUB is the Linux boot manager. BIOs is easy to get to, that's the "F2 for Setup" and "F12 for Boot Options" you briefly see when your computer is booting up.

 

[Foxfyre]

I bought a new HP 17" about a month ago. I just couldn't get past the EFCI garbage that Microsoft forces manufacturers to put on their machines in order to install Linux. I tried several distributions and finally got the thing to boot up Linux Mint in what they call "compatibility mode" OK it WILL boot Linux, now I needed to figure out what "compatibility mode" was and pass those options to Kubuntu that I've been using for 5 years or so.
I'm happy to report that I am currently running a fresh install of Kubuntu 17.04. Now I just have to move a couple hundred Gigs of data from the old laptop HD to this one.

You couldn't just format the HD? Or were you setting up a dual boot?

I do need Windows for one site that's written in Silverlight which is a proprietary Windows Java-like system for vector graphics. My County Assessor's site uses it. It's obsolete and Linus and the boys stopped working on a fix a few years ago.
So, yes, the machine is dual boot, but irrelevant. The EFCI garbage is in BIOS and was loading a graphics system that Linux couldn't cope with. The work around was to let the install use native graphics at boot. and once I was into the installer, everything worked.
Haven't moved the data yet. My schedule is kicking hell out of me the last few days. My partners are on vacation and I have a lot on my plate until the 22nd.
Great night at Doc's last night! The Jason Abel project played 2 sets and rocked a full house. They closed about quarter to 11 and Heavy Funk was up and running in about 15 minutes. They are loud and Metal, not exactly what we usually have on stage. What was amazing was that about 1/3 of the folks that were there for J A P left and were replaced by an equal number of people wanting to see Heavy Funk.
The night was actually pretty calm except for the guy who told me to get off HIS bar stool. I assured him he could take his seat when he was through dancing (by himself) but he insisted I get up right then and there. I politely informed him that is was not HIS bar stool, it was MY bar stool, just like every other stool in the house.
Confused him for a while, but the bulb did eventually light up and a while later when he was starting some crap with 2 bad ass biker dudes, he informed security that he knew the owner.
Yeah, well, not all that well. When I told him that he would NOT be buying any more alcohol, he left, quite angry. My bouncer walked out behind him and saw him take a swig from a bottle in his truck, put it in reverse and run backwards into an SUV.
He then pulled forward hitting another car a bit more gently. I grabbed him up through the driver side window and unlocked the doors. My bouncer hopped in, shut off the F 150 and grabbed the keys.
Since there was damage to a customer's vehicle, I had to call the law. The idiot left in cuffs and the pick-up, belonging to his father's company, left on a hook.
No loss of business due to police in the lot and everyone but the idiot and his dad left the bar happy.
I will have to check my records, but if memory serves, the night was in the top 5 highest gross nights since we opened.

With EFCI you have to boot into BIOs and change the boot options to allow it to boot from the optical drive, unlike Dells HPs make it rather easy to do that.

Now see, there you guys go talking in that foreign language again. And you wonder why Chris and I just stay with Windows.

Actually it's UEFI and it's the modern Windows boot manager......... GRUB is the Linux boot manager. BIOs is easy to get to, that's the "F2 for Setup" and "F12 for Boot Options" you briefly see when your computer is booting up.

Mmmm uh huh, okay.

 

[Ringel05]

You couldn't just format the HD? Or were you setting up a dual boot?

I do need Windows for one site that's written in Silverlight which is a proprietary Windows Java-like system for vector graphics. My County Assessor's site uses it. It's obsolete and Linus and the boys stopped working on a fix a few years ago.
So, yes, the machine is dual boot, but irrelevant. The EFCI garbage is in BIOS and was loading a graphics system that Linux couldn't cope with. The work around was to let the install use native graphics at boot. and once I was into the installer, everything worked.
Haven't moved the data yet. My schedule is kicking hell out of me the last few days. My partners are on vacation and I have a lot on my plate until the 22nd.
Great night at Doc's last night! The Jason Abel project played 2 sets and rocked a full house. They closed about quarter to 11 and Heavy Funk was up and running in about 15 minutes. They are loud and Metal, not exactly what we usually have on stage. What was amazing was that about 1/3 of the folks that were there for J A P left and were replaced by an equal number of people wanting to see Heavy Funk.
The night was actually pretty calm except for the guy who told me to get off HIS bar stool. I assured him he could take his seat when he was through dancing (by himself) but he insisted I get up right then and there. I politely informed him that is was not HIS bar stool, it was MY bar stool, just like every other stool in the house.
Confused him for a while, but the bulb did eventually light up and a while later when he was starting some crap with 2 bad ass biker dudes, he informed security that he knew the owner.
Yeah, well, not all that well. When I told him that he would NOT be buying any more alcohol, he left, quite angry. My bouncer walked out behind him and saw him take a swig from a bottle in his truck, put it in reverse and run backwards into an SUV.
He then pulled forward hitting another car a bit more gently. I grabbed him up through the driver side window and unlocked the doors. My bouncer hopped in, shut off the F 150 and grabbed the keys.
Since there was damage to a customer's vehicle, I had to call the law. The idiot left in cuffs and the pick-up, belonging to his father's company, left on a hook.
No loss of business due to police in the lot and everyone but the idiot and his dad left the bar happy.
I will have to check my records, but if memory serves, the night was in the top 5 highest gross nights since we opened.

With EFCI you have to boot into BIOs and change the boot options to allow it to boot from the optical drive, unlike Dells HPs make it rather easy to do that.

Now see, there you guys go talking in that foreign language again. And you wonder why Chris and I just stay with Windows.

Actually it's UEFI and it's the modern Windows boot manager......... GRUB is the Linux boot manager. BIOs is easy to get to, that's the "F2 for Setup" and "F12 for Boot Options" you briefly see when your computer is booting up.

Mmmm uh huh, okay.

And I hate UEFI.........

 

[Montrovant]

I do need Windows for one site that's written in Silverlight which is a proprietary Windows Java-like system for vector graphics. My County Assessor's site uses it. It's obsolete and Linus and the boys stopped working on a fix a few years ago.
So, yes, the machine is dual boot, but irrelevant. The EFCI garbage is in BIOS and was loading a graphics system that Linux couldn't cope with. The work around was to let the install use native graphics at boot. and once I was into the installer, everything worked.
Haven't moved the data yet. My schedule is kicking hell out of me the last few days. My partners are on vacation and I have a lot on my plate until the 22nd.
Great night at Doc's last night! The Jason Abel project played 2 sets and rocked a full house. They closed about quarter to 11 and Heavy Funk was up and running in about 15 minutes. They are loud and Metal, not exactly what we usually have on stage. What was amazing was that about 1/3 of the folks that were there for J A P left and were replaced by an equal number of people wanting to see Heavy Funk.
The night was actually pretty calm except for the guy who told me to get off HIS bar stool. I assured him he could take his seat when he was through dancing (by himself) but he insisted I get up right then and there. I politely informed him that is was not HIS bar stool, it was MY bar stool, just like every other stool in the house.
Confused him for a while, but the bulb did eventually light up and a while later when he was starting some crap with 2 bad ass biker dudes, he informed security that he knew the owner.
Yeah, well, not all that well. When I told him that he would NOT be buying any more alcohol, he left, quite angry. My bouncer walked out behind him and saw him take a swig from a bottle in his truck, put it in reverse and run backwards into an SUV.
He then pulled forward hitting another car a bit more gently. I grabbed him up through the driver side window and unlocked the doors. My bouncer hopped in, shut off the F 150 and grabbed the keys.
Since there was damage to a customer's vehicle, I had to call the law. The idiot left in cuffs and the pick-up, belonging to his father's company, left on a hook.
No loss of business due to police in the lot and everyone but the idiot and his dad left the bar happy.
I will have to check my records, but if memory serves, the night was in the top 5 highest gross nights since we opened.

With EFCI you have to boot into BIOs and change the boot options to allow it to boot from the optical drive, unlike Dells HPs make it rather easy to do that.

Now see, there you guys go talking in that foreign language again. And you wonder why Chris and I just stay with Windows.

Actually it's UEFI and it's the modern Windows boot manager......... GRUB is the Linux boot manager. BIOs is easy to get to, that's the "F2 for Setup" and "F12 for Boot Options" you briefly see when your computer is booting up.

Mmmm uh huh, okay.

And I hate UEFI.........

Why? I haven't had any issues with it that I can recall. Of course, my dual boot PC starts with GRUB, and I don't know if I could do the same thing as easily in UEFI. I don't really mess with my boot loaders.

 

[Montrovant]

You couldn't just format the HD? Or were you setting up a dual boot?

I do need Windows for one site that's written in Silverlight which is a proprietary Windows Java-like system for vector graphics. My County Assessor's site uses it. It's obsolete and Linus and the boys stopped working on a fix a few years ago.
So, yes, the machine is dual boot, but irrelevant. The EFCI garbage is in BIOS and was loading a graphics system that Linux couldn't cope with. The work around was to let the install use native graphics at boot. and once I was into the installer, everything worked.
Haven't moved the data yet. My schedule is kicking hell out of me the last few days. My partners are on vacation and I have a lot on my plate until the 22nd.
Great night at Doc's last night! The Jason Abel project played 2 sets and rocked a full house. They closed about quarter to 11 and Heavy Funk was up and running in about 15 minutes. They are loud and Metal, not exactly what we usually have on stage. What was amazing was that about 1/3 of the folks that were there for J A P left and were replaced by an equal number of people wanting to see Heavy Funk.
The night was actually pretty calm except for the guy who told me to get off HIS bar stool. I assured him he could take his seat when he was through dancing (by himself) but he insisted I get up right then and there. I politely informed him that is was not HIS bar stool, it was MY bar stool, just like every other stool in the house.
Confused him for a while, but the bulb did eventually light up and a while later when he was starting some crap with 2 bad ass biker dudes, he informed security that he knew the owner.
Yeah, well, not all that well. When I told him that he would NOT be buying any more alcohol, he left, quite angry. My bouncer walked out behind him and saw him take a swig from a bottle in his truck, put it in reverse and run backwards into an SUV.
He then pulled forward hitting another car a bit more gently. I grabbed him up through the driver side window and unlocked the doors. My bouncer hopped in, shut off the F 150 and grabbed the keys.
Since there was damage to a customer's vehicle, I had to call the law. The idiot left in cuffs and the pick-up, belonging to his father's company, left on a hook.
No loss of business due to police in the lot and everyone but the idiot and his dad left the bar happy.
I will have to check my records, but if memory serves, the night was in the top 5 highest gross nights since we opened.

With EFCI you have to boot into BIOs and change the boot options to allow it to boot from the optical drive, unlike Dells HPs make it rather easy to do that.

Now see, there you guys go talking in that foreign language again. And you wonder why Chris and I just stay with Windows.

Actually it's UEFI and it's the modern Windows boot manager......... GRUB is the Linux boot manager. BIOs is easy to get to, that's the "F2 for Setup" and "F12 for Boot Options" you briefly see when your computer is booting up.

Mmmm uh huh, okay.

To put it more simply, if you had a Linux operating system on your PC instead of Windows, it would use a different program to load......but as with windows, you wouldn't need to know anything about that if you weren't trying to do anything unusual like loading two operating systems onto the PC.

Windows uses UEFI to load on your computer, Linux uses GRUB. It doesn't matter either way for casual use.

 

[Ringel05]

With EFCI you have to boot into BIOs and change the boot options to allow it to boot from the optical drive, unlike Dells HPs make it rather easy to do that.

Now see, there you guys go talking in that foreign language again. And you wonder why Chris and I just stay with Windows.

Actually it's UEFI and it's the modern Windows boot manager......... GRUB is the Linux boot manager. BIOs is easy to get to, that's the "F2 for Setup" and "F12 for Boot Options" you briefly see when your computer is booting up.

Mmmm uh huh, okay.

And I hate UEFI.........

Why? I haven't had any issues with it that I can recall. Of course, my dual boot PC starts with GRUB, and I don't know if I could do the same thing as easily in UEFI. I don't really mess with my boot loaders.

On my home builds it wasn't a problem setting up optical drive first boot device but on my Dell laptop it was a completely different story, the optical boot device has to be created first and mine wouldn't let me. Besides it's Microsoft's way of saying they don't want you to use anything but their operating system.

 

[gallantwarrior]

I don't have a sound machine, but I have oodles of soothing sounds (white noise) saved in my collection at youtube. I also have this website to go to and its a loop....so turn off the monitor but keep the pc on, and listen to it all night..which is what I do often.

SimplyNoise -- The Best Free White Noise Generator on the Internet.

And this is my youtube collection:

My alarm clock is the sound of waves crashing on the beach.

I don't usually use an alarm clock but when I did, it would be music. Nothing is worse (to me) than waking up to an annoying buzzing sound. What a terrible way to be woken up!

Unfortunately, when you use the TV as white noise while you sleep, music tends to be incorporated into your dreams. I have to put my annoying sound out of reach, too, so I have to get my feet on the ground to make it go away. By then, well, hell, I'm up anyways...

 

[gallantwarrior]

Privileged entitlement? Childhood frivolity? Stupidity? Blatant and total disregard for everyone but himself?
Maybe he's sneaking away from his girlfriend's parent's house by coasting and that little burst of noise is his way of bidding the fair damsel "farewell, adieu, until we meet again"?

That's rather romantic, the secret midnight assignation. But the little turd does it in bright daylight too!

I can hear him rattling down McKinnon Avenue to the south. I can hear him zooming along Maine Boulevard to the ear. I hear him tearing up Anderson Boulevard from the north. And I don't hear him on Orchard Grove Avenue until he stops at the corner right outside my living room and then ignite that engine designed by Lucifer forty feet away as I read or watch a movie.

Have you considered caltrops?

Okay. Please walk me through caltrops and their practical use.

In my feeble imagination, a caltrop could be anything from a fence to a laxative.

Caltrops were a common anti-cavalry device consisting of metal spikes twisted or bent in such a way that one point was always upright. They would be thrown across the path of advancing cavalry troops, laming the horses. They look a little like the jacks we used to play with. Modern caltrops are used to slow fleeing vehicles by puncturing tires. During WWII, very large, concrete or steel View attachment 143398 View attachment 143399 View attachment 143400 View attachment 143401 caltrops were deployed to stop tanks (tank traps).

And the modern day version:

Yup. Looks like. Not too many cavalry troops around much anymore.