I've not heard of the specific programming method you speak to in order to get an output. However, I can visualize something like that already existing or soon to be at a kiosk near you. Artificial intelligence is very capable of taking natural language and turning it into programming commands. If you owned an iPhone or an Android you would know all about this and not realize what you are doing. "Hey Google, show me the earnings trend line for Apple computer for the last ten years!" You would be amazed at how quickly that damned clever phone will come up with a graph that you would spend hours researching and programming (or filing in a spreadsheet) if done manually. The first miracle is that the phone recognizes what you are asking of it. Your southern drawl and my midwest accent would not be a problem. Most variations of English in fact can easily be interpreted now and days by your clever phone. So ... why not ask some AI machine to make a web page for you?
This website is based on a version of php specifically designed for bulletin boards. There are several standard modules that actually turn out to be directories with specific functioning programs. Everything you see here is done by an individual module contained within the broader phpBB package. I told you earlier that there are some updates waiting to happen. Those updates are simply additions to the existing modules so that features can be modified and upgraded. If I wanted to I can add the lines of code, one by one, and complete the update in that fashion. I'd have to look for a file, find the lines of code before the mod, and then insert the new lines of code at that point. In some cases old coding would require commenting out, or deletion. So, yeah, I know of what you speak. And, yeah, I agree that is not programming. LOL
Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
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Re: Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
I'll bet the day will come that we rely so much on AI to do everything, that there will be a shortage of, and eventually no one who knows how to code in binary. It was all done for them for so long they all forgot how, or were never taught how.
When that day comes, and AI eventually fails, it will be the end of virtually everything we know how to do.
I was talking to the son of an old farmer who's farm had grown to well over four thousand acres while he was alive.
There were many basics the farmer had to learn to perfect his crops and manage the soil, before technology simplified the work.
Naturally, they made good use of the technology to maintain the farm and crops over the years, expanding their equipment and methods to become a top producer of the only two crops they eventually raised.
Sure, the kids had no problem taking over after dad passed away, as long as nothing of what they were doing changed.
But then they started having problems they couldn't figure out, and their fancy testing equipment was no help.
Pesticide resistant bugs, pesticides that used to work they could not buy anymore since they were outlawed.
Crop yields were way down, and they were hiring brains that were supposed to figure it out for them.
They had to invest in more equipment to apply what was supposed to be the remedies presented.
Then they had one total crop failure after another. They could borrow no more money. So they sold off the farm to developers before they were flat broke.
The son I had talked to went to work for a humongous farm, his brothers got into other businesses.
The big farm he went to work for had the same problems about the same time, but were able to correct them.
But not until they too had several total crop failures. They were just able to sustain the farms until the problem was solved. The sad thing was, it was something the kids should have known, as well as the kids now running the big farm.
What goes down, must come up. Almost like having too much of a good thing became a detriment.
The key was to neutralize all the old stuff used for years previous that was coming back up again.
And the reason some of those pesticides were outlawed, is they didn't break down and ended up in the water tables.
My point is, as the older generation dies off, the new generation with all their knowledge and technology, have simply forgotten the basics, things their parents had to learn to become successful.
When that day comes, and AI eventually fails, it will be the end of virtually everything we know how to do.
I was talking to the son of an old farmer who's farm had grown to well over four thousand acres while he was alive.
There were many basics the farmer had to learn to perfect his crops and manage the soil, before technology simplified the work.
Naturally, they made good use of the technology to maintain the farm and crops over the years, expanding their equipment and methods to become a top producer of the only two crops they eventually raised.
Sure, the kids had no problem taking over after dad passed away, as long as nothing of what they were doing changed.
But then they started having problems they couldn't figure out, and their fancy testing equipment was no help.
Pesticide resistant bugs, pesticides that used to work they could not buy anymore since they were outlawed.
Crop yields were way down, and they were hiring brains that were supposed to figure it out for them.
They had to invest in more equipment to apply what was supposed to be the remedies presented.
Then they had one total crop failure after another. They could borrow no more money. So they sold off the farm to developers before they were flat broke.
The son I had talked to went to work for a humongous farm, his brothers got into other businesses.
The big farm he went to work for had the same problems about the same time, but were able to correct them.
But not until they too had several total crop failures. They were just able to sustain the farms until the problem was solved. The sad thing was, it was something the kids should have known, as well as the kids now running the big farm.
What goes down, must come up. Almost like having too much of a good thing became a detriment.
The key was to neutralize all the old stuff used for years previous that was coming back up again.
And the reason some of those pesticides were outlawed, is they didn't break down and ended up in the water tables.
My point is, as the older generation dies off, the new generation with all their knowledge and technology, have simply forgotten the basics, things their parents had to learn to become successful.
Re: Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
Let me see here ...
4000 acres of farm land
$5000/acre is a typical price
= $20,000,000
I find it hard to consider that a failed business. LOL
I was just talking to a farmer the other night. His farm is something like 700 acres down in Louisiana. When we first met I learned he has three degrees related to computer science but is a bit of a rebel. He took up maintaining the family farm and made it totally organic. He loves it. The reason we got to talking was that he suffered a heart attack and will not be able to farm anymore. Being a family owned farm his dad fired him and is going to lease out the property to a hunting lodge ... or something. The guy was devastated because he has two sisters and would have to buy them out, and his dad, in order to keep the farm. There is a good chance he will kill himself if he continues farming, so, reluctantly he sold off a lot of equipment and is looking for jobs in the IT industry. This is a case where the family farm (developed by dad) didn't mean anything to the kids save for this one. While he didn't say it explicitly, I'm sure all the heirs are looking forward to their share of the $3.5 million they could get if they sold the land.
One time back in the Motorola era, one of my coworkers could not understand how the stock market works. He knew I was investing, but figured I was doomed to total failure. His logic was, "What goes up, must come down." He could not understand where the money comes from to pay for the ever increasing price of stocks. Well, the market has come down, but it also went back up many times over since those days. The price increases and the up and down movements do not follow the laws of physics. When it comes to economics, what goes up does not necessarily come back down. It is those same kind of changes in environment that guarantee Artificial Intelligence will not fail. It will be replaced by the gods only know what, but it has a brilliant future. The reason for that is not only due to economic growth, but also due to the needs of society and the people therein. Kids in school today are not taught how to write script, for example. I could not get out of the fifth grade until I had it mastered. But, when I was in the fifth grade computers were not even dreamed of yet.
Farming in the future will not be done in the fields as we know it today. Those fields will be way too contaminated to grow anything edible. Future farms will be inside tractor trailers and warehouses. They will be vertical instead of horizontal and, you guessed it, hydroponic. LOL There are places doing this already and they have some highly automated equipment planting and harvesting the crops. Very few people are needed to run these "farms" and the output is superior quality. I've not read anything about the prices of this kind of agriculture so that there likely are some drawbacks.
4000 acres of farm land
$5000/acre is a typical price
= $20,000,000
I find it hard to consider that a failed business. LOL
I was just talking to a farmer the other night. His farm is something like 700 acres down in Louisiana. When we first met I learned he has three degrees related to computer science but is a bit of a rebel. He took up maintaining the family farm and made it totally organic. He loves it. The reason we got to talking was that he suffered a heart attack and will not be able to farm anymore. Being a family owned farm his dad fired him and is going to lease out the property to a hunting lodge ... or something. The guy was devastated because he has two sisters and would have to buy them out, and his dad, in order to keep the farm. There is a good chance he will kill himself if he continues farming, so, reluctantly he sold off a lot of equipment and is looking for jobs in the IT industry. This is a case where the family farm (developed by dad) didn't mean anything to the kids save for this one. While he didn't say it explicitly, I'm sure all the heirs are looking forward to their share of the $3.5 million they could get if they sold the land.
One time back in the Motorola era, one of my coworkers could not understand how the stock market works. He knew I was investing, but figured I was doomed to total failure. His logic was, "What goes up, must come down." He could not understand where the money comes from to pay for the ever increasing price of stocks. Well, the market has come down, but it also went back up many times over since those days. The price increases and the up and down movements do not follow the laws of physics. When it comes to economics, what goes up does not necessarily come back down. It is those same kind of changes in environment that guarantee Artificial Intelligence will not fail. It will be replaced by the gods only know what, but it has a brilliant future. The reason for that is not only due to economic growth, but also due to the needs of society and the people therein. Kids in school today are not taught how to write script, for example. I could not get out of the fifth grade until I had it mastered. But, when I was in the fifth grade computers were not even dreamed of yet.
Farming in the future will not be done in the fields as we know it today. Those fields will be way too contaminated to grow anything edible. Future farms will be inside tractor trailers and warehouses. They will be vertical instead of horizontal and, you guessed it, hydroponic. LOL There are places doing this already and they have some highly automated equipment planting and harvesting the crops. Very few people are needed to run these "farms" and the output is superior quality. I've not read anything about the prices of this kind of agriculture so that there likely are some drawbacks.
Re: Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
That's how one of my first wife's uncle got so rich.
His grandfather bought their 200 acre for like a buck an acre.
He had like 6 sons, and only one was interested in keeping the farm going.
It was only valued around 20 to 30 dollars an acre when his grandfather died.
So he sold off a 4 acre corner to a gas station then several 2 acre lots on either side for commercial stores.
Made enough money from that to buy out his brothers.
After about 30 years of farming, he sold everything except a front corner lot of 4 acres where he built his house with a pond. It sold for only like 500 thousand, but he invested most of it, and with the rest also started a Wynn's Friction Proofing distributorship which grew to him having control of 7 or 8 states.
He had no children, but did name many of his relatives children in his Will. Each one getting a share of something like 5 or 6 million bucks, but none got over 300k, just too many of them.
When I talked to the Orthwein boys nearly every day, they found something they considered better than stocks.
One boy bought oil paintings, and another china and artifacts. I don't know much about what exactly the second boy did with them, but the boy with the oil paintings would buy up everything he could from older artists who were already popular and their paintings fetched high prices. He had several collectors item paintings that always increased in value, but had to sit on the stockpile until after the artist passed. Then he was shrewd enough not to let anyone know he had tons of them from that artist, and would only bring out one or two to sell, then he would actually pay someone to try and buy them back for him at an inflated price. Once he got both of those painting back, then he would offer them again, and now with the price for that artists work established, he would pull out maybe two or three to sell in different areas of the country. Usually through an acquaintance who would not name their source. Over the course of the five years I was around him, his net worth increased by well over 5 million bucks just from selling those paintings. And he was still buying more and filling up leased storage areas with them.
Oh my Yogi, I wish you could have seen the rooftop hydroponic installations I set up. Some of them were totally automated, and this was back before computers too. Commercial buildings with flat roofs were ideal, but getting the permits after the building owner approved our projects was a total nightmare.
A few of them had conveyor growing beds too. Some had chain systems.
Speaking of which, my Wonder Plant building was all roller conveyors, with the planting at one end of the building, and the sales at the other end of the building. It takes about six weeks for the hydroculture plants to mature in my system, and we were selling them faster than that, so we had to add a second floor of roller conveyors, which actually worked out great. Didn't have so many struggling plants visitors to the first floor could see. They only saw three week old and older plants on the first floor. By then they were not dropping lower leaves and had built up their root systems and started filling out like they should. This also helped sales to franchise operations when they saw all the plants and how well they looked.
His grandfather bought their 200 acre for like a buck an acre.
He had like 6 sons, and only one was interested in keeping the farm going.
It was only valued around 20 to 30 dollars an acre when his grandfather died.
So he sold off a 4 acre corner to a gas station then several 2 acre lots on either side for commercial stores.
Made enough money from that to buy out his brothers.
After about 30 years of farming, he sold everything except a front corner lot of 4 acres where he built his house with a pond. It sold for only like 500 thousand, but he invested most of it, and with the rest also started a Wynn's Friction Proofing distributorship which grew to him having control of 7 or 8 states.
He had no children, but did name many of his relatives children in his Will. Each one getting a share of something like 5 or 6 million bucks, but none got over 300k, just too many of them.
When I talked to the Orthwein boys nearly every day, they found something they considered better than stocks.
One boy bought oil paintings, and another china and artifacts. I don't know much about what exactly the second boy did with them, but the boy with the oil paintings would buy up everything he could from older artists who were already popular and their paintings fetched high prices. He had several collectors item paintings that always increased in value, but had to sit on the stockpile until after the artist passed. Then he was shrewd enough not to let anyone know he had tons of them from that artist, and would only bring out one or two to sell, then he would actually pay someone to try and buy them back for him at an inflated price. Once he got both of those painting back, then he would offer them again, and now with the price for that artists work established, he would pull out maybe two or three to sell in different areas of the country. Usually through an acquaintance who would not name their source. Over the course of the five years I was around him, his net worth increased by well over 5 million bucks just from selling those paintings. And he was still buying more and filling up leased storage areas with them.
Oh my Yogi, I wish you could have seen the rooftop hydroponic installations I set up. Some of them were totally automated, and this was back before computers too. Commercial buildings with flat roofs were ideal, but getting the permits after the building owner approved our projects was a total nightmare.
A few of them had conveyor growing beds too. Some had chain systems.
Speaking of which, my Wonder Plant building was all roller conveyors, with the planting at one end of the building, and the sales at the other end of the building. It takes about six weeks for the hydroculture plants to mature in my system, and we were selling them faster than that, so we had to add a second floor of roller conveyors, which actually worked out great. Didn't have so many struggling plants visitors to the first floor could see. They only saw three week old and older plants on the first floor. By then they were not dropping lower leaves and had built up their root systems and started filling out like they should. This also helped sales to franchise operations when they saw all the plants and how well they looked.
Re: Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
On rare occasions I sit down in front of a television and watch it. That's usually right after I get out of bed and before the dog wants to be taken out for a walk. I detest television broadcasts as much as ever, but the public broadcast channels offer fewer uninterrupted shows than any of the other mindless channels. It is on one of these PBS shows that I saw a story about a start-up company which grew hydroponic plants. The owner started out inside a tractor trailer and grew things mostly on the walls. This gave him the idea for vertical farming which he eventually took to an indoor warehouse. It was all very fascinating and I was thinking of you all the time I watch the show. LOL This young entrepreneur started to franchise the business and that's what the show was all about. It's unfortunate that I didn't get the name of the company or I could probably have shared a hyperlink with you.
There are no doubt zillions of ways to become wealthy in this country. All it takes is a high degree of motivation and the ability to think outside the box. Your story reminds me of why I've always been suspicious of auctions. There is ample opportunity for plants to be in the audience whose sole purpose for being there is to bid up the price. The value of art is all in the mind, which is not always the case for stocks in a company whose net worth can be measured. Taking advantage of what people think is the value of an item is perfectly legitimate. It requires that you the seller be a little smarter than the buyer, but the rewards can be phenomenal.
There are no doubt zillions of ways to become wealthy in this country. All it takes is a high degree of motivation and the ability to think outside the box. Your story reminds me of why I've always been suspicious of auctions. There is ample opportunity for plants to be in the audience whose sole purpose for being there is to bid up the price. The value of art is all in the mind, which is not always the case for stocks in a company whose net worth can be measured. Taking advantage of what people think is the value of an item is perfectly legitimate. It requires that you the seller be a little smarter than the buyer, but the rewards can be phenomenal.
Re: Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
Before Alibaba became so popular, I got in contact with a few of the companies they listed and purchased several items in bulk that I knew were hot sellers. The hard thing was making sure they were selling you want you wanted and not using the cheap components you didn't want and that don't sell well.
I would buy enough to get a really low price, sometimes as low as 3 bucks for something that sold here for 30 to 35 bucks. But by the time you add shipping, customs import tax and a few other things, they were then up to around 6 bucks. Even so, it was still a good profit. Unfortunately fad type items die out real quick, hi hi.
Back when I was in hydroponics, I knew most of those in the field, including those who took a couple of my ideas I was doing and ran with them big time. Only they didn't think theirs through as well as I did, so those sales they made, they eventually lost out on. Heck, even the growing unit I established at the St. Louis Zoo they decided to use to hatch birds for their aviary. I was really surprised at this because they were cutting feed costs for the animals fed from the growing unit more than in half, and that included labor, water, and electric too. However, raising the birds was a more profitable project for them, even if they had to buy the food for the animals again.
My brother got involved with a product similar to Segway, but before the little hoverboards became popular.
I really thought it would take off for him. The design was better than Segway, safer, and smoother riding.
It used a caterpillar type rubber tread, with three wheels on each side of the unit. Two of the wheels were at ground level and one wheel was up high for the tread to go over. The tread area was covered with a fender skirt for safety.
The platform you stood on remained perfectly level whether you were going up a hill, down a hill, or on level ground.
It had a single stick to hold on to, push it forward to go forward, pull it back to back up, push it left or right to turn.
Compared to a Segway, they were much easier for folks to learn, and keep their balance on.
Unlike a Segway, that if you lean forward it will speed up to keep you in balance, these did not work that way.
You were supposed to just stand on them, perhaps lean a little as you took off from a stand-still, but how you stood on the flat platform was not a part of it's control mechanism. The stick did everything. Just let go of the stick to stop. It had a button on the top of the stick to turn it on and off completely.
He had hoped to set up places in tourist areas for people to rent them for an hour or so. But many places were already banning the use of Segway's. His next attempt was to sell to Mall Security Companies. He sold quite a few to those companies. He had a few at golf courses for those who didn't want to rent a cart, so they rented for like half the price of a cart. But sadly every single one he had at golf courses got stolen. Not right away, but one every so often until they were all gone. He approached the Park Police and Park Rangers, sold a few there.
He decided not to buy anymore, and managed to sell all of what he did have left to some Landscapers and Housing Contractors. The main problem with them is they were way too heavy to lift into and out of a car trunk. More than double the weight of a Segway and Segway's are already heavy.
But they did run more than twice as long as a Segway on a single quick charge, all day on a full charge.
I really thought that design would take off for him and sell like hotcakes. He wasn't so lucky, hi hi.
I would buy enough to get a really low price, sometimes as low as 3 bucks for something that sold here for 30 to 35 bucks. But by the time you add shipping, customs import tax and a few other things, they were then up to around 6 bucks. Even so, it was still a good profit. Unfortunately fad type items die out real quick, hi hi.
Back when I was in hydroponics, I knew most of those in the field, including those who took a couple of my ideas I was doing and ran with them big time. Only they didn't think theirs through as well as I did, so those sales they made, they eventually lost out on. Heck, even the growing unit I established at the St. Louis Zoo they decided to use to hatch birds for their aviary. I was really surprised at this because they were cutting feed costs for the animals fed from the growing unit more than in half, and that included labor, water, and electric too. However, raising the birds was a more profitable project for them, even if they had to buy the food for the animals again.
My brother got involved with a product similar to Segway, but before the little hoverboards became popular.
I really thought it would take off for him. The design was better than Segway, safer, and smoother riding.
It used a caterpillar type rubber tread, with three wheels on each side of the unit. Two of the wheels were at ground level and one wheel was up high for the tread to go over. The tread area was covered with a fender skirt for safety.
The platform you stood on remained perfectly level whether you were going up a hill, down a hill, or on level ground.
It had a single stick to hold on to, push it forward to go forward, pull it back to back up, push it left or right to turn.
Compared to a Segway, they were much easier for folks to learn, and keep their balance on.
Unlike a Segway, that if you lean forward it will speed up to keep you in balance, these did not work that way.
You were supposed to just stand on them, perhaps lean a little as you took off from a stand-still, but how you stood on the flat platform was not a part of it's control mechanism. The stick did everything. Just let go of the stick to stop. It had a button on the top of the stick to turn it on and off completely.
He had hoped to set up places in tourist areas for people to rent them for an hour or so. But many places were already banning the use of Segway's. His next attempt was to sell to Mall Security Companies. He sold quite a few to those companies. He had a few at golf courses for those who didn't want to rent a cart, so they rented for like half the price of a cart. But sadly every single one he had at golf courses got stolen. Not right away, but one every so often until they were all gone. He approached the Park Police and Park Rangers, sold a few there.
He decided not to buy anymore, and managed to sell all of what he did have left to some Landscapers and Housing Contractors. The main problem with them is they were way too heavy to lift into and out of a car trunk. More than double the weight of a Segway and Segway's are already heavy.
But they did run more than twice as long as a Segway on a single quick charge, all day on a full charge.
I really thought that design would take off for him and sell like hotcakes. He wasn't so lucky, hi hi.
Re: Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
Those Seqway devices looked a little dangerous to me. A tractor vs wheels seems like it could be safer, but I can see that taking away from it's main attraction, i.e., being portable. My instincts would want that contraption to stop as I push forward. If I'm falling face first the last thing I need is to be accelerating. Plus, in an emergency my instinct might be to jump off and let go, but letting go seems like a counter intuitive maneuver during normal use. I guess my brain is build backwards, which might explain why I never took an interest in a personal transporter.
I'm sitting here watching a line of thunder storms pass through. Apparently we are done with the hot weather for this year and Canada is sending us all the cold air it can spare. The line of storms, and cold front, stretches nearly across the entire country. The thing that's different about this one is that out west it's producing ... snow. Say it isn't so. I'm not ready for winter.
I'm sitting here watching a line of thunder storms pass through. Apparently we are done with the hot weather for this year and Canada is sending us all the cold air it can spare. The line of storms, and cold front, stretches nearly across the entire country. The thing that's different about this one is that out west it's producing ... snow. Say it isn't so. I'm not ready for winter.
Re: Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
I've ridden on both Segways and Hoverboards. The Segway is fairly safe, it does it's best to keep you balanced. Lean forward and it goes forward, etc. The Hoverboards are a little harder, more for younger kids, hi hi.
The ones with the tracks on them were taller and much larger. They could also be used to haul materials on as well. The flat area you stand on never tilts, it always remains level, even going up a steep hill.
The company that made them also had another model that would climb stairs, but my brother didn't get any of those.
They are supposed to be able to be connected together, one behind the other with a cable for hauling things like drywall or lumber, but he never got the cables to do that either. He just wanted to get them in and get them sold.
Temp here last night was like 59 I think, it is only 70 right now. A friend I talk to in the morning said their temp was down to 48 and rain is coming in, and not expected to break 60.
Looks like we went from winter to summer to winter again this year.
The ones with the tracks on them were taller and much larger. They could also be used to haul materials on as well. The flat area you stand on never tilts, it always remains level, even going up a steep hill.
The company that made them also had another model that would climb stairs, but my brother didn't get any of those.
They are supposed to be able to be connected together, one behind the other with a cable for hauling things like drywall or lumber, but he never got the cables to do that either. He just wanted to get them in and get them sold.
Temp here last night was like 59 I think, it is only 70 right now. A friend I talk to in the morning said their temp was down to 48 and rain is coming in, and not expected to break 60.
Looks like we went from winter to summer to winter again this year.
Re: Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
I have a friend down in Florida who has a bum leg. She had to have an elevator installed to get up to the bedrooms on her second floor. if there is such a thing as a Segway/Hoverboard that can crawl up and down stairs, that would be an ideal way for people with bum legs to get around. I suppose the Segway idea is safe enough because they are still out there in the wilds. It's just not my kind of wheels and I'd likely kill myself trying to learn how to maneuver it. LOL
The weather front that came through the area last night was a cool one that generated a light show I've not seen in a long time. The lightning was almost non-stop for about twenty minutes. One of those bolts landed pretty close to the house but looking over the landscape today does not reveal any craters or smoldering tree stumps. Then again, we don't have a lot of trees to smolder. LOL Denver is getting some snow out of this transition and our daily temps will drop 10-15 degrees. That means the highs for the foreseeable future will be in the upper 70's and low 80's. That's quite a change but not exactly winter. I was watching my lightning detector during the storm and have come to the conclusion it's totally useless. Well, not totally. It did sound the alarm about 15 minutes before the storm actually hit us. But, the ground strikes and cloud-to-cloud strikes it is supposed to record do not match reality. It shows many false positives but missed that bolt of lightning in my neighbor's yard altogether. The good news is that the rest of the weather station seems to be working fine.
The weather front that came through the area last night was a cool one that generated a light show I've not seen in a long time. The lightning was almost non-stop for about twenty minutes. One of those bolts landed pretty close to the house but looking over the landscape today does not reveal any craters or smoldering tree stumps. Then again, we don't have a lot of trees to smolder. LOL Denver is getting some snow out of this transition and our daily temps will drop 10-15 degrees. That means the highs for the foreseeable future will be in the upper 70's and low 80's. That's quite a change but not exactly winter. I was watching my lightning detector during the storm and have come to the conclusion it's totally useless. Well, not totally. It did sound the alarm about 15 minutes before the storm actually hit us. But, the ground strikes and cloud-to-cloud strikes it is supposed to record do not match reality. It shows many false positives but missed that bolt of lightning in my neighbor's yard altogether. The good news is that the rest of the weather station seems to be working fine.
Re: Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
My uncle Andy built a home-brew chair lift for my aunt Patty when they lived in a two-story house.
I would say it was safer than some of the new store bought varieties of later years I've seen.
He acquired a steel I-beam left over from a construction job and bolted it down to the stair steps.
Then he took a seat like was in the early step-vans and welded the necessary hardware to it so once installed on the I-beam it could not possible come off. It had rollers that were on top of and on the underside of the top lip of the I-beam.
He used an electric winch with a cable to pull it up and let it back down again, but instead of one single cable, he used three cables so if one cable broke there were still two more. Plus I think he added a friction brake as another safety measure. There were also trip levers at the top and bottom to turn off the motor if the rider did not stop it in time themselves. I think us kids using it as a toy used it more than aunt Patty ever did, hi hi.
Uncle said if he could have afforded it, he would have used a worm drive, which is how he planned on powering it, until he looked into the cost of doing so, so he opted to use a cable winch instead.
He just left it in the house when he moved to single story house about six years later.
We get some doozie lighting storms here, especially when they come over the Plateau and get stuck in the valley and can't make it over the mountain. They just keep going up and down the valley until they are light enough to climb up over the mountains. One wouldn't think our little foothills were high enough to block clouds, but they get caught down in our valley quite often. We usually know when this is going to happen if the weather on the other side of the Plateau said the clouds were stuck there before getting over the Plateau. Which means they are still heavy and drop down in our valley, hi hi. Thankfully, most of the storm clouds are high and pass right over us.
We have had a few really deep snows for here since I've lived here. Surprising to folks who live here too.
I would say it was safer than some of the new store bought varieties of later years I've seen.
He acquired a steel I-beam left over from a construction job and bolted it down to the stair steps.
Then he took a seat like was in the early step-vans and welded the necessary hardware to it so once installed on the I-beam it could not possible come off. It had rollers that were on top of and on the underside of the top lip of the I-beam.
He used an electric winch with a cable to pull it up and let it back down again, but instead of one single cable, he used three cables so if one cable broke there were still two more. Plus I think he added a friction brake as another safety measure. There were also trip levers at the top and bottom to turn off the motor if the rider did not stop it in time themselves. I think us kids using it as a toy used it more than aunt Patty ever did, hi hi.
Uncle said if he could have afforded it, he would have used a worm drive, which is how he planned on powering it, until he looked into the cost of doing so, so he opted to use a cable winch instead.
He just left it in the house when he moved to single story house about six years later.
We get some doozie lighting storms here, especially when they come over the Plateau and get stuck in the valley and can't make it over the mountain. They just keep going up and down the valley until they are light enough to climb up over the mountains. One wouldn't think our little foothills were high enough to block clouds, but they get caught down in our valley quite often. We usually know when this is going to happen if the weather on the other side of the Plateau said the clouds were stuck there before getting over the Plateau. Which means they are still heavy and drop down in our valley, hi hi. Thankfully, most of the storm clouds are high and pass right over us.
We have had a few really deep snows for here since I've lived here. Surprising to folks who live here too.
Re: Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
People would always marvel at the thought of me living in Chicago. These people were from different parts of the country and never had any personal encounters with the Windy City. I'd often get asked about the gangsters which was prompted by stories of the infamous Al Capone syndicate that ran the place in the 20's. My cousin lived in a neighborhood where some of Al's bullet marks were still in the stone walls of some building. My dad says he went to the same school as Al, but they were not really classmates. Chicago was not without gangs or Mafia influence during my time living there, but the violence simply didn't exist. The murders you hear and read about most certainly did occur, but I never owned a gun nor felt that I needed one for protection. And, I have been through some pretty seedy parts of town. The Italian influence moved out of Chicago and the blacks and Hispanics took their place as supposed terror organizations. Yes, Chicago had it's riots in the 60's because of those black people being upset, but I worked in the middle of it all and never was touched. The ethnicity of the town has changed dramatically but I found it hard to believe the stories people from out of town were telling me. Well, all the stories except those about the weather. LOL
Being located on the shores of Lake Michigan made the weather there headline quality. Lake effect snow is really strange stuff. When the winter wind comes out of the east and across the width of the lake, downtown Chicago gets buried with that white stuff. If you go inland a mile or two the ground can be seen and sometimes the sun would be shining there. Amazing stuff that lake effect snow, but not as amazing as it is in Buffalo. I moved out of the city proper and into the suburbs when I married my wife of many years. We were too far out to experience lake effect anything, but the cold hands of Old Man Winter nearly strangled us a time or two. Snow might fall as early as October but melt soon thereafter. The snow that fell in December or late November, however, typically didn't melt until early March. The problem with all that snow on the ground was not transportation. The snow was white and reflected the sun light back to from whence it came. Thus there was no heat stored in the ground unless you went down about twelve feet. Given that glare snow coating any winter wind would seem twice as bad as it feels in, let's say Missouri. When the temps got down to zero and below, that winter wind could literally freeze your face. They were not all brutal, but as we grew older the winters in Chicago affected us more and more. The terrible weather was not the only reason we left, but not having to deal with it down here is a blessing I never expected.
As you might know we thought long and hard about where we could move to get out of the arctic winters of Chicago (as a side note, there were many times when the north pole was warmer than my back yard in suburban Chicago). I checked into places such as Brownsville, Texas where the average temperature is something like 82F. Nice, but the population there is 90% below the poverty level, which might be fine for us if we could find things to buy that weren't TexMex. LOL Then there is Florida where half the family has migrated to. Florida. You know. That place with all the hurricanes and the majority of the people are over the age of 70. Colorado was considered too, and they don't measure snow in inches out near Boulder. It's measured in feet. The mountains are beautiful and the summers are mild, but 12 feet of snow by New Years Day??? Looking at the map I personally figured Kentucky would the THE place as far as weather goes. But then, it is Kentucky. We actually have been through the state and stopped in Paducah on our way to South Carolina. Nice place to be honest, but not sure I want to live there. LOL We ended up here in O'Fallon which we knew about as much as we did about Paducah. It looked nice and was in the same growing zone as Kentucky, but the main reason we are here is because it felt good while we were doing the research.
This will be our fifth winter in O'Fallon. Overall the weather here surpasses my expectations. It's better than what I envisioned for Kentucky to be. You might not be able to appreciate it, but I can assure you that standing in my Missouri driveway, with the temperature in the low twenties, and the wind blowing as much as it ever did up north, it feels good. I catch myself just standing there at times enjoying the fact that my face is not turning into a block of ice. One year we did get 10" of snow in O'Fallon and I swore it was like a typical storm from Chicago. It didn't melt for nearly two weeks. But IT DID melt before St Paddy's day.
You must be tired of reading about the weather in Missouri by now, so I'll quit.
Being located on the shores of Lake Michigan made the weather there headline quality. Lake effect snow is really strange stuff. When the winter wind comes out of the east and across the width of the lake, downtown Chicago gets buried with that white stuff. If you go inland a mile or two the ground can be seen and sometimes the sun would be shining there. Amazing stuff that lake effect snow, but not as amazing as it is in Buffalo. I moved out of the city proper and into the suburbs when I married my wife of many years. We were too far out to experience lake effect anything, but the cold hands of Old Man Winter nearly strangled us a time or two. Snow might fall as early as October but melt soon thereafter. The snow that fell in December or late November, however, typically didn't melt until early March. The problem with all that snow on the ground was not transportation. The snow was white and reflected the sun light back to from whence it came. Thus there was no heat stored in the ground unless you went down about twelve feet. Given that glare snow coating any winter wind would seem twice as bad as it feels in, let's say Missouri. When the temps got down to zero and below, that winter wind could literally freeze your face. They were not all brutal, but as we grew older the winters in Chicago affected us more and more. The terrible weather was not the only reason we left, but not having to deal with it down here is a blessing I never expected.
As you might know we thought long and hard about where we could move to get out of the arctic winters of Chicago (as a side note, there were many times when the north pole was warmer than my back yard in suburban Chicago). I checked into places such as Brownsville, Texas where the average temperature is something like 82F. Nice, but the population there is 90% below the poverty level, which might be fine for us if we could find things to buy that weren't TexMex. LOL Then there is Florida where half the family has migrated to. Florida. You know. That place with all the hurricanes and the majority of the people are over the age of 70. Colorado was considered too, and they don't measure snow in inches out near Boulder. It's measured in feet. The mountains are beautiful and the summers are mild, but 12 feet of snow by New Years Day??? Looking at the map I personally figured Kentucky would the THE place as far as weather goes. But then, it is Kentucky. We actually have been through the state and stopped in Paducah on our way to South Carolina. Nice place to be honest, but not sure I want to live there. LOL We ended up here in O'Fallon which we knew about as much as we did about Paducah. It looked nice and was in the same growing zone as Kentucky, but the main reason we are here is because it felt good while we were doing the research.
This will be our fifth winter in O'Fallon. Overall the weather here surpasses my expectations. It's better than what I envisioned for Kentucky to be. You might not be able to appreciate it, but I can assure you that standing in my Missouri driveway, with the temperature in the low twenties, and the wind blowing as much as it ever did up north, it feels good. I catch myself just standing there at times enjoying the fact that my face is not turning into a block of ice. One year we did get 10" of snow in O'Fallon and I swore it was like a typical storm from Chicago. It didn't melt for nearly two weeks. But IT DID melt before St Paddy's day.
You must be tired of reading about the weather in Missouri by now, so I'll quit.
Re: Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
Some of the houses I renovated in downtown St. Louis were in the worst zip code crime areas. I never had problems, but then I knew which blocks had sane people living in them too through my research before buying a house to renovate.
Living in Missouri my whole life, I understand the weather there. Here in Knoxville, about the only difference is it is about 10 degrees warmer on average. But whatever St. Louis gets, we usually get three days later.
I didn't like Knoxville at first because I was a businessman and nothing I needed was down here. Had to order things from my St. Louis suppliers and have it shipped to me. The company I get my bottles and caps from has a plant down here in Memphis. But the shipping from Memphis to Knoxville is higher than the shipping from St. Louis to Knoxville.
I have found a couple of local suppliers for custom boxes, but they are always iffy at best. The place changes hands every time before I place an order, so they have no records of my buying there before. So far, they have still managed to get me my custom made boxes, but I never know about the next time.
In seventy years, we only had our greenhouses hailed out twice. While a few greenhouse owners we knew up near the Chicago area got hailed out at least once every 5 to 6 years. This is why so many went to plastic film quanset style greenhouses up that way.
One thing for certain about the weather. If you don't like it, wait an hour and it will change, hi hi.
Living in Missouri my whole life, I understand the weather there. Here in Knoxville, about the only difference is it is about 10 degrees warmer on average. But whatever St. Louis gets, we usually get three days later.
I didn't like Knoxville at first because I was a businessman and nothing I needed was down here. Had to order things from my St. Louis suppliers and have it shipped to me. The company I get my bottles and caps from has a plant down here in Memphis. But the shipping from Memphis to Knoxville is higher than the shipping from St. Louis to Knoxville.
I have found a couple of local suppliers for custom boxes, but they are always iffy at best. The place changes hands every time before I place an order, so they have no records of my buying there before. So far, they have still managed to get me my custom made boxes, but I never know about the next time.
In seventy years, we only had our greenhouses hailed out twice. While a few greenhouse owners we knew up near the Chicago area got hailed out at least once every 5 to 6 years. This is why so many went to plastic film quanset style greenhouses up that way.
One thing for certain about the weather. If you don't like it, wait an hour and it will change, hi hi.
Re: Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
I don't know if it's just O'Fallon, or if the whole state of Missouri has berserk weather patterns. After seven decades in the Chicago area I became intuitively aware of the patterns to expect with the weather. You would think it all works the same everywhere on earth, but apparently not. Up until about thirty years ago weather moved from west to east in a fairly predictable manner. Now and days the jet stream has been altered and the pattern is more sinusoidal than parallel lines. But, a lot depends on the topology of the surface which interacts with the upper air flows. There is something weird about that topology interacting with the troposphere when it comes to where I live now. I frequently watch storms and have a few favorite weather sites on the Internet to entertain me. A stormy blob or a line of precipitation will appear out of nowhere many times, which is strange but not all that unusual. Then I watch it approach O'Fallon. Being hit by the weather seems inevitable but more often than not one of two things happen. Either the storm dissipates just before it gets here or it splits and goes around us. To be honest I've not kept score to see how often that happens, but it is way more frequent of an occurrence than I've seen near Chicago. I haven't seen anything odd with the landscape that might explain why this happens, but I'm not all that familiar with what to look for. The cold and snow seems to be more predictable, but anything that has to do with rain is anybody's guess.
Re: Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
You got that right Yogi. Rain is anybody's guess in and around the St. Louis area, hi hi.
You should be down here in the mountains where everything is strange as it can be.
When I worked downtown St. Louis. Everyone referred to the Ninth Street Wind Tunnel. Which I had to walk from the parking garage to work each day. The lay of the building funneled the air toward Ninth Street. A 5 mph breeze over the city was more like 15 mph on Ninth Street. If the wind was over 15 mph, it could be reaching 40 mph or more on Ninth Street, so those days, walking back to the garage to get our cars, we would go a block out of the way and walk up Tenth Street, then cross back over to the Ninth Street parking garage.
I've already talked about the clouds dropping into the valley and getting stuck here after they came across the plateau.
They just keep going back and forth, up and down the valley until they are light enough to get over the top of the mountain.
Also, it is not uncommon in this valley for it to be raining in your back yard and not your front yard, or at the neighbors house but not your house. That was hard for me to get accustomed to.
You should be down here in the mountains where everything is strange as it can be.
When I worked downtown St. Louis. Everyone referred to the Ninth Street Wind Tunnel. Which I had to walk from the parking garage to work each day. The lay of the building funneled the air toward Ninth Street. A 5 mph breeze over the city was more like 15 mph on Ninth Street. If the wind was over 15 mph, it could be reaching 40 mph or more on Ninth Street, so those days, walking back to the garage to get our cars, we would go a block out of the way and walk up Tenth Street, then cross back over to the Ninth Street parking garage.
I've already talked about the clouds dropping into the valley and getting stuck here after they came across the plateau.
They just keep going back and forth, up and down the valley until they are light enough to get over the top of the mountain.
Also, it is not uncommon in this valley for it to be raining in your back yard and not your front yard, or at the neighbors house but not your house. That was hard for me to get accustomed to.
Re: Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
While on the research leg of our transition plans we visited the Denver area in Colorado. My daughter lived in and around there for several years and one time we stayed with her in Colorado Springs. Her house was similar to what I have here in that she had an upper level deck from which you could view the surrounding desert. It turns out living on the edge of a desert isn't as bad as you would imagine. The daytime temperatures approach 90F but there is very little humidity in the air to make it feel uncomfortable. At night it drops down into the 60's so that there is hardly a need for air conditioning. One day while standing on her deck and looking across the plains toward the mountains we could see lightning and dark clouds rolling down the mountain. We were standing in sunlight at the time. I don't know how far away all that was but probably in excess of twenty miles. We stood there for quite a while watching the storm approach us. It was an amazing sight to see all Hell breaking loose before our very eyes. It got to where we were and did it's thunder and lightning thing, but went off to the east rather quickly. Later on that day we heard reports of tornado damage associated with that storm, not too far from where we were doing the observing. I think that was the only storm in my life that I actually enjoyed watching. LOL
That Ninth Street Wind Tunnel sounds amazing. My wife worked downtown Chicago for many years and encountered the same sort of phenomena. The buildings between the train station and her place of work were at a minimum of 40 stories tall. LOL It was a walk through hell on many occasions due to that lake effect snow belt I mentioned earlier. The somewhat saving grace was that most of those skyscrapers had indoor pedestrian walkways that she would use to and fro the train station.
That Ninth Street Wind Tunnel sounds amazing. My wife worked downtown Chicago for many years and encountered the same sort of phenomena. The buildings between the train station and her place of work were at a minimum of 40 stories tall. LOL It was a walk through hell on many occasions due to that lake effect snow belt I mentioned earlier. The somewhat saving grace was that most of those skyscrapers had indoor pedestrian walkways that she would use to and fro the train station.
Re: Blackstone buys Ancestry.com
Yep, lost responses here too.