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35 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

There were several Aurora like pictures on my social media feed earlier this week. Mostly in the northern part of the Shenandoah Valley. I'm wondering if it may have been a precursor to this event.

 

the SO has become a bit of an Aurora tracker. It's been active on and off most of the month but can't see much during the fuller phases of the moon (or cloudy weather of course!). Monday night there was visible aurora just west of town in Ann Arbor, but at least where we were there was no pattern, it was just sort of uniform background glow so not very exciting. I took a photo and there was decent red/green in it so no question is was aurora.

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48 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

the SO has become a bit of an Aurora tracker. It's been active on and off most of the month but can't see much during the fuller phases of the moon (or cloudy weather of course!). Monday night there was visible aurora just west of town in Ann Arbor, but at least where we were there was no pattern, it was just sort of uniform background glow so not very exciting. I took a photo and there was decent red/green in it so no question is was aurora.

We tend to be a bit far south and the back yard faces south. Too much light pollution out the front door.
I  have been able to see a couple night time launches from Wallops Island.

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On 10/3/2024 at 1:16 PM, Biff Mayhem said:

Listening to the Tigers radio broadcast the last two days, there have been ads for Superior Asphalt which are apparently voiced by the owners daughter. You’d think she’d take the time fully anúnciate the word “Superior” but just rushed it down to “Super Asphalt”. 

Sue. Peer. E. Or. Say it. SAY IT!!!!!

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This is amazing.  It's equivalent to the stepping stones the Gemini program accomplished in the bridge between the Mercury and Apollo lunar missions.  You had to prove you could stay in space a long time (eating, sleeping, drinking, etc - many doctors thought humans wouldn't be able to do that), that you could go outside the capsule, that you could rendezvous with another vehicle, that you could dock, that you could change trajectories, control your reentry....  this is a stepping stone like that.  Being able to control the descent of a booster like that and catch it provides a foundation for building blocks to an eventual mars mission and perhaps moon stations.  NOt just about being able to quickly turn around a booster for another flight but to provide the precision needed.  This was a big deal.

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On 10/3/2024 at 3:18 PM, gehringer_2 said:

It's a millennial thing I guess. I love Ezra Klein of the NYT, but he is a prime media offender of the dropped 't' that somehow tranforms to a 'd' before 'ent'

The whole mid-Atlantic coast says "impordent" over "important" or even "impor'an'".

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15 minutes ago, chasfh said:

What ever happened to indented paragraphs? 🤔

Technology casualty. Double line spacing and variable kerning to justify lines on both ends. When we wrote long hand on individual sheets of paper, who wanted to waste a line? When its print on a screen and the printer does 20/sheets per minute or it never gets printed at all, it's hard to beat the look of blocked paragraphs. Printed books still use indents, but they probably still care about page count.

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Does anyone know whether I missed a critical change to the Zillow app? I like it when I see an interesting house somewhere and I want to know what the house value is, and I would use the Zillow app for that. But when I tried to do that today I could access only properties that were for sale, for rent, or recently sold, and not any property I wanted to assess. Anyone know anything about this?

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28 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Does anyone know whether I missed a critical change to the Zillow app? I like it when I see an interesting house somewhere and I want to know what the house value is, and I would use the Zillow app for that. But when I tried to do that today I could access only properties that were for sale, for rent, or recently sold, and not any property I wanted to assess. Anyone know anything about this?

I checked and no difference for me. You can also try RedFin

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2 hours ago, chasfh said:

Does anyone know whether I missed a critical change to the Zillow app? I like it when I see an interesting house somewhere and I want to know what the house value is, and I would use the Zillow app for that. But when I tried to do that today I could access only properties that were for sale, for rent, or recently sold, and not any property I wanted to assess. Anyone know anything about this?

I just tried our sub, took a bit of maneuvering (look at recent sales) but it seems to be working. 

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1 hour ago, Deleterious said:

Cut in front of someone for an insurance scam.  Doesn't work, so back up into them on the freeway.

We should be able to stone these people in the town square.

 

Once I was driving home from work at the hospital, Summer day,  had my scrubs on.    Go to exit on Michigan Ave........There is a Stop Sign there.  Car in front of my starts to go and then I start to go and they slammed on their breaks. I hit them, but not hard enough to make an actual dent.    Older couple gets out (with a Coexist button on her jacket) and starts calling me every name in the book. F-bombs galore.    Cop comes and as soon as the cop gets there she starts crying about how much her back hurts.   That whole gasping/crying/can't finish a sentence thing. She needs an ambulance, it hurts to walk.  "He came out of nowhere".      Cop has us pull into an empty parking lot, tells me go park about 10 spaces away........deals with them and then comes up to me and tells me "you're getting scammed, we know who these two are - all of Metro Detroit does........I know you didn't do anything".    Anyway, cop takes my info and tells me it's because I was wearing scrubs they probably thought I might be a doctor (driving a Honda Civic?).     I never heard a thing about it after that day.   Cop totally cleared me of everything.        Heavy set woman with glasses,  talk skinny guy with long hair, looks like Bill Spaceman Lee's hippy brother.  They'd be mid 60s by now.  Just in case they're still at it.  

Edited by Motor City Sonics
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On 10/19/2024 at 12:32 PM, Deleterious said:

Cut in front of someone for an insurance scam.  Doesn't work, so back up into them on the freeway.

We should be able to stone these people in the town square.

 

Criminals use that in side streets so that the person has to get out of their vehicle and they can rob them. 

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On 10/19/2024 at 11:32 AM, Deleterious said:

Cut in front of someone for an insurance scam.  Doesn't work, so back up into them on the freeway.

We should be able to stone these people in the town square.

 

Used to be people would break into other people's houses to steal stuff. Anonymous B&E was fairly common 30 or 40 years ago. Since then, B&E has dropped by 80% or more. That's because criminals figure that every house has two things they didn't have back then: a surveillance camera, and a gun. And even if there is no gun, they'd be made by the camera. So B&E doesn't pay anymore.

I think it would be the same if dashcams were standard equipment on new cars, which I can see them becoming in another decade, two tops. You wouldn't see this kind of nonsense, nor would you see people approaching cars to commit mayhem. They'd be made.

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5 minutes ago, oblong said:

speaking of security cameras.... what's everyone's choice on that?  We don't have one and I feel like the only people in the world who do not.

 

If you don’t go the video doorbell route for an actual video,  $10 on Amazon will get you a dummy camera that will fool anyone.  Easy deterrent with minimal cost and install.  

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19 minutes ago, oblong said:

speaking of security cameras.... what's everyone's choice on that?  We don't have one and I feel like the only people in the world who do not.

 

We're in that club. We do have a smallish dog that barks at everything within 10 feet of the door. She'll lick any intruders to death.

 

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1 hour ago, oblong said:

speaking of security cameras.... what's everyone's choice on that?  We don't have one and I feel like the only people in the world who do not.

 

We have a ring camera at the front door. I like it because it takes snapshots of anyone walking up. We also have the screw in lightbulb style cameras. These are nice as they can be manually rotated 180 degrees via the app. We have one that pans the wood line of the forrest behind the house and one on the pole barn looking down the driveway. With ring doorbell I have maybe $160 in all the cameras.

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I have ring cams all around the house. The backyard, which is fenced in, features visits from our friend “Lord Buttersworth” the opossum who visits a few times a week and we enjoy the footage of him eating the dead chipmunks and peanuts we leave for him. 
 

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37 minutes ago, Biff Mayhem said:

I have ring cams all around the house. The backyard, which is fenced in, features visits from our friend “Lord Buttersworth” the opossum who visits a few times a week and we enjoy the footage of him eating the dead chipmunks and peanuts we leave for him. 
 

possums and raccons rule.  I always get sad when I see a dead one in the road.  They do so much good for the environment.

So with Ring, is it a subscription?  Where is the footage hosted?  online?

 

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2 hours ago, oblong said:

possums and raccons rule.  I always get sad when I see a dead one in the road.  They do so much good for the environment.

So with Ring, is it a subscription?  Where is the footage hosted?  online?

 

Possums are great friends. Raccoons? Not so much. Their feces is full of health risks for humans and animals. 
 

I pay an annual fee (don’t recall how much) to ring for the ability to see and share the videos. The videos, including ones that are starred to keep, expire after a certain date. I clean mine out if it’s a spider crossing its path or whatever. 
 

But I often keep ones like this. They can be downloaded to your device as well. 

 

 

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RE: security cameras.

I have 4 which cover all angles of my house. Two in front, two in back. Had them for...not sure...maybe 8 years? Mine run on battery, so you can put them anywhere as long as they can communicate with my local wireless network. I charge the batteries about once a month (or more) on three of them, but I have another that is mounted at the peak of my garage that points down my driveway that runs on a small solar panel. I haven't touched it since I put it up years ago.

They trigger on motion, have night vision, and alarms that sound if you want it to do so. You can access them though a phone app, or from your computer. Many settings to do what you want them to do. You can get an alarm every time it triggers, along with a picture, video, or whatever you want. You can control so many things. Video and snapshots stored to a local mirco card within the device, which is also assessable via the phone or computer app.

No cloud stuff, no fees, all on your local network. Thanks once again to @Biff Mayhem for the heads up on mesh wireless home networks, or I couldn't have pulled this off.

Last December someone tried to break into my vehicle which was parked in my driveway. I got it all on camera. Once you have the video... I had the cops here and gave them the video and some screenshots I took (from the video).

I probably have 400 bucks in everything. All you have to do is figure out what you want to watch and go from there. Research. Since I only have one that is permanently mounted, I can move the others around. If I'm gone for a day or so I might bring a camera inside the house to watch kitty. I moved one this summer to try to catch some deer that was walking down our city street. They are really fun, IMO. One of my camera's is called "kittycam" because I see animals, most of which are stray cats. I have a video of a cat and a racoon about to fight over some food. Neat stuff these cameras.

I don't have a sign in the front where people walk by that says something about the house being protected by some security thing - I put two cameras right on the front porch for everyone to see - no sign needed. You're on candid camera. 🙂

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