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Fatwa Arbuckle: Misanthropologist

Snowbound Kitteh Caturday greetin’s, GN!

Hey can you blame them? That unruly mob milling around and taking selfies, well, it was pretty fearsome.

Putting their feet on a desk in Pelosi’s office and stealing her podium were absolutely beyond the pale.

dv8 (and Harper!!1!) --

Safe shopping and travels.

Paddy --

Glad your symposium was worth teh schlep; sorry your flights were delayed.

I see Joey the Feeb has decided to take the weekend off in Delaware; oh well, it’s not as though there’s anything going on which requires an active, alert POTUS.

==========================

The only known photo of Schrödinger’s cat:

schrödinger's cat photo.jpeg
Just Sven
Editor
2 years ago

Good morning, Fatwa -- that’s a nice looking kitty house in teh thread pic, Mac.

Why did Schrödinger choose a cat for his thought experiment? Why not a mouse or a dog or a rat?

Fatwa Arbuckle: Misanthropologist

Hey, Sven!

I actually tried to seek the answer to your questions some years ago and found nothing definitive.

There was some stuff which suggested that he liked dogs and didn’t like cats, but even that seemed pretty speculative..

Perhaps he simultaneously liked and hated kittehs. 😉

[Señor Wences]

“Open the box!”

“But if I do, I’ll collapse the wave function.”

“Don’t open the box!”

S’alright.”

“S’alright”.

Just Sven
Editor
2 years ago

Trust the experts. All the experts out there said Ukraine would collapse immediately and yet there they still are. Not to say that Russia won’t ultimately “win”, but I can’t find any “expert” anticipating this level of resistance.

The winds are back out here -- really tired of them. Our Polish friend is still hanging on -- he’s moving today from a hospital to a nursing home with hospice orders. We’ll go visit him today or tomorrow and I’ll avoid stairs.

Manners -- good morning, Mac!

Paddy O'Furnijur
Editor
2 years ago

Happy Not-Frozen Caturday, Gerbil Nation!
Good morning, Fatwa, Sven, and Mac!

I’ve been playing around with an Excel spreadsheet that Mrs. Paddy’s uncle sent me, hoping I’d be able to clean it up. It’s part of a data export/import from one accounting system to another. He’s been complaining for a few weeks about how laborious it is to get it into the correct format and I keep telling him to send it to me a let me have a crack at it. Well, he finally did. There are about 92,000 rows and the first thing I have to do is delete all the blank rows before I can figure out a macro to copy some data to some blank cells if certain other conditions are met. Mrs. Paddy’s uncle has been trying to do this manually. _facepalm_

I found a couple of macros online to delete the blank rows and the first problem I ran into was the number of rows of data. I had to redefine the variables to take care of that issue. I don’t know about any other problems, because I started running the macro when I started typing this post, and it hasn’t finished yet.

Oh boy, a day of coding! I had tools back in the DOS days that would have made this a simple task, but not anymore. Some progress.

Just Sven
Editor
2 years ago

HI, Paddy -- Excel seems to be the number 1 job skill that many corporations are looking for. Amazing.

Paddy O'Furnijur
Editor
2 years ago
Reply to  Just Sven

Well, I’m 0-2 so far. The first macro crashed at some point with an insufficient memory error. I added another macro that would allow me to work on a portion of the spreadsheet at a time, but excel wouldn’t let go of the memory and it crashed. I copied things over to my work computer and added some debugging code and found that the program quickly slowed to a crawl as it went through the spreadsheet line by line. The macro has code to prevent Excel from updating the screen as each line is processed in order to speed up the code. I think this is causing my memory problem. I’m going to delete that and see if it works.

Paddy O'Furnijur
Editor
2 years ago
Reply to  Mac

Microsoft sorcery -- the worst kind.

Just Sven
Editor
2 years ago

My friend and first tech writing instructor at CPAC -- Jennifer Oliver O’Connell:

dv8
Editor
dv8
2 years ago
Reply to  Just Sven

neato

dv8
Editor
dv8
2 years ago

Harper is sleeping soundly after the treatment from yesterday.

I spent around $250 at Sams Club yesterday. Mostly buying staples. Some experimental purchases.

we’re kinda new to Sam’s Club so… it’s a bit different from Costco.

I was looking forward to Pizza there, but by the time we were done shopping the snackbar was out of food. Toward the end of the day, they stop making new stuff and just let it all sell out.

Next time, I’ll know to go for the snack bar first and then shop, if it’s late in the afternoon.

I lived in Flagstaff for a while when I was attending NAU. I miss the big piles of snow everywhere that last for months. I remember walking around in the winter. It was nice up there. But strange. Like a alien world.

Just Sven
Editor
2 years ago

Here’s a weird thing. It’s been dry and windy out here for weeks and I’m picking up all types of static electricity walking around the house. Last week I touched a cabinet touch-type switch -- the kind that has a ground wire attached to the metal hinge -- and poof. Big spark and it blew out. Ouch.

So then yesterday I touched the answering machine for the land line. Big spark and the answering machine will power on, but not do anything else.

It’s most annoying. I’m trying to discharge before touching anything really critical.

Paddy O'Furnijur
Editor
2 years ago
Reply to  Just Sven

Have you considered asking Mrs. Sven to come over before you touch anything critical?

Just Sven
Editor
2 years ago

I’d been using the cat for that.

dv8
Editor
dv8
2 years ago
Reply to  Just Sven

It happens a lot up here, because the humidity tends to be low. You get used to touching big metal objects before touching electronics. But… what kind of shoes/slippers/socks you wear effects whether you build up static or not. Experiment with different kinds of footwear, you’ll see it makes a difference.

dv8
Editor
dv8
2 years ago

One of the experimental buys I we made at Sam’s Club was some 505 green chili sause. Curious to see how it does for Chili Verde. I used to use only Safeway brand, because it was low vinegar/acid. Higher acid makes for tougher meat.

Lately I found that Wal Mart’s store brand, while very different, makes a very nice CV. We’ll see how 505 does. Herdez is bad because it has too much vinegar. Other name brands tend to be to acidic also, in my experience.

Paddy O'Furnijur
Editor
2 years ago
Reply to  dv8

Good to know. What cut of meat do you like for your chili verde?

dv8
Editor
dv8
2 years ago

I think I get a kinda cube shaped shoulder roast, lately.

But I used to get whatever was cheapest.

I used to get “Pork Picnic” from winco, which was the cheapest. The fat made the end result taste great, and the bones added some flavor to it.

Now, that I’m in Sedona, I don’t always have a great selection of meat like I would in a major city, so I usually just get whatever is cheapest.

I have used much better cuts before, and the end result sometimes has slightly better texture, but other than that yields a congruent result.

Paddy O'Furnijur
Editor
2 years ago
Reply to  dv8

I’ll have to pick up a pork shoulder and give it a shot. Of course I also need to pick up a shoulder and smoke it for pulled pork. Of course I also need to refill my propane tanks.

dv8
Editor
dv8
2 years ago

I once had a bunch of high quality pork chops and I used them for it. It was also very good.

dv8
Editor
dv8
2 years ago

The roast I usually get is a 3 pounder. Boneless. It fits in the pressure cooker with some salt, and a few jars of green sauce. about 2 hours. Without pressure cooking, if I simmer it on the stove, it takes 24 hours.

Last edited 2 years ago by dv8
Paddy O'Furnijur
Editor
2 years ago
Reply to  dv8

Being without a pressure cooker, that’s good to know!

Paddy O'Furnijur
Editor
2 years ago

I think I got the spreadsheet problem figured out. I had to convert it to a .csv file, then break it into 10,000 record files and reconvert to .xls format. That allowed me to delete the empty rows, then I used another macro to fill empty cells. I sent the first 10,000 record file off to see if it’s what he wants, but haven’t heard back. It’s killing me because I want to get this issue resolved as it impacts a number of others.