Divemedic

Today is Action Day

If you are anywhere on the Florida peninsula, today is the day where you need to decide what you are going to do to prepare for this storm. It’s tough to do, because we are still 4 or 5 days from landfall, meaning that the cone covers virtually the entire state of Florida. Will you evacuate? If so, to where? Will you prepare to ride out the storm? What you decide will depend on your own unique situation.

If you are a tourist in the Keys, for example, get out. There is no reason to stay. All of the tourism businesses are going to close, so there will be nothing to do. Why risk it?

If you live in the state, make a plan. Use the Florida evacuation zone maps to guide you. Staying put in a home on the shore in the face of a hurricane is a pain in the ass at best, and dangerous at worst.

Me? I live dozens of miles from the coast and I don’t live in a flood zone, so storm surge and flooding aren’t an issue. Wind, having to live without power for up to 2 weeks, and possible tornadoes are. So for me, I don’t even consider leaving for anything less than being in the direct path of the core of a Category 4 hurricane. If you do decide to leave, do it early. If you haven’t left by 48 hours before the hurricane is due to make landfall, you risk being trapped in traffic on the road as storm force winds approach.

This is forecast to be on the low level of Cat 3, or the upper end of Cat 2. So I am staying put. My three day checklist is done. One of the items for the day that many overlook is data. If for some reason your possessions are destroyed, the one thing that is most difficult to replace is data. Make sure that there are scans and backup copies of personal data: your driver’s license, professional licenses, birth certificates, bank information, etc. I used to put them on a thumb drive that was encrypted by True Crypt, but that software has been discontinued. I do not yet have a recommended replacement.

My suggestion would be for the people who invented the ransomware that attacked me in 2020 to write some encryption software. No one can crack that shit, so go legit and make a pile of money. Anyhow. BE ready.

For now, I am off to work.

By Divemedic, ago

5 days

As of this morning, all of the Florida peninsula is within the 5 day cone of a potential major hurricane.

Now if you have been watching these sorts of things for any amount of time, you know that the 5 day predictions of hurricane paths are about as accurate as a coin flip. The hurricane is as likely to hit here as not. However, it is still prudent to keep an eye on things. Even a 40% chance of disaster is worth keeping an eye on.

So I have a well used checklist for hurricanes around here. At 5 days, we do the following:

  • Retrieve extra fuel and water containers from storage.
  • Ensure that there is a good supply of batteries.
  • Check the yard for loose debris.
  • Since you can’t run a genny during a hurricane, you need chemsticks for light when the power is out. Safer than candles and more reliable and useful for general light than flashlights, you can get them for less than a buck apiece. Make sure you have plenty.
  • Watch the storm updates as they come out every 6 hours: at 0500, 1100, 1700, and 2300.

It’s important to remember that the predictions of the hurricane folks are for the center of the hurricane. Tropical storm force winds are located far from this point. For example, in the case of Hurricane Fiona, the latest forecast shows 35 knot (40 mph) winds extending 290 miles to the northeast and 350 miles to the southwest of the center. Since the storm is moving at 35 miles per hour, damaging 40 mile per hour winds can be expected to begin 10 or 12 hours before the center arrives. If the above prediction cone is correct, we can expect the onset of heavy winds to begin on Tuesday night, sometime around sunset.

What this means to those of us in Florida is that the five day cone is really a 4 day warning of storm conditions. That means my three day checklist would have to begin tomorrow evening, except I am working tomorrow. That means I will have my wife get some of it done.

The pre-event checklist will need to be complete by Tuesday Morning. We haven’t had to prep for a hurricane since Labor day weekend 2019, and that one was a bust. The last storm we had here was Hurricane Irma in 2017, and we were without power for about 4 days.

By Divemedic, ago

Dangerous Road Rage

Check out this video from Dade county, Florida. I was going to make this post about using force, but the left as usual made it a racial discussion.

The comments saw someone saying this would be a legal use of force against this road rager. The exchange went like this:

You are easily wrong, his life unfortunately was still not in danger yet..the last thing you wanna do is take someoneā€™s life away when you are still in your car an can drive away.

starboy

The law in Florida doesn’t require you to drive away. What he is doing here is a forcible felony and a person may use lethal force in self defense.

Divemedic

This is not a crystal clear case and certainly if the guy behind the camera were Black, the prosecution (and the judge) would have been less likely to give him the SYG benefit of the doubt. Studies have shown SYG works more often to the benefit of whites.

str8voyeur
By Divemedic, ago

Embryology is Science

A member of the party of science ™ has spoken:

Post conception:

  • Day 21 and 22: Single heart tube and pericardial cavity forms
  • Day 23: Heart tube grows rapidly, forcing it to fold on itself
  • Day 25-28: Atrioventriculobulbar loop, common atrium, atrioventricular canal, early embryonic ventricles all form
  • Day 28: Heart begins to beat, ventricular septum appears as a small ridge in common ventricle
  • Day 29: Pulmonary veins form
  • Day 31: Atrioventricular node develops
  • Day 33: Tricuspid and mitral valves form
  • Day 34: Sinoatrial node develops
  • by Day 35: Four-chambered heart forms
  • Day 42: Coronary arteries and Inferior vena cava form

They can’t agree on what constitutes a man or a woman, and they ignore well understood science, but they claim to be the party of science.

By Divemedic, ago

Nuclear Blundering

Putin warned NATO that threatening the integrity of Russian territory will result in a nuclear response. He accused NATO of nuclear saber rattling, which the linked article is denying.

Biden responded to Putin’s statement by antagonizing Russia even further. ā€œNo one threatened Russia and no one other than Russia sought conflict,ā€ Biden said. Except that is false.

Biden alluded to the US using nuclear weapons before when he advised Putin not to use nukes now, saying: “Don’t. You will change the face of war unlike anything since World War II.”

Not that the F35 is certified to carry nuclear weapons, the US raised Russian concerns by basing B61 bombs in the UK, joining the 150 B61s already in the European theater.

The MSM is excited at the prospect as Biden claims Putin is bluffing.

Emperor Poopypants is going to blunder us into a nuclear exchange over a nation that the US has no national interest in, beyond the grift enjoyed by government officials.

By Divemedic, ago

Dead Laptop

I’m typing this post on my phone. My laptop is a Dell that I bought in April of 2020. I started having problems with it about 2 weeks ago. The battery charge level was falling even though it was plugged in. I got a low battery warning and the “unrecognized charger” warning.

I ordered a new charger and that seemed to fix it.

For about a week. Then it began again. The battery level would drop even when plugged in. Eventually it said 0%(plugged in) even after charging all night.

The computer finally died and won’t restart. I ordered a new battery. It is supposed to be here today. I hope that fixes it. There were some files on there that I hadn’t saved to the home server that I don’t want to lose.

At any rate, blogging will resume when I have a computer.

By Divemedic, ago

Just Following the President’s Orders

You won’t see this getting much coverage in the MSM, but in North Dakota, a 42 year old Democrat murdered an 18 year old man. What makes this noteworthy is that the murderer says he killed the victim because the victim was “part of a Republican extremist group.”

Listen to what they are telling you. Never forget what the President said:

The MAGA agenda represents an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic.

It doesnā€™t respect our Constitution.
It doesnā€™t believe in the rule of law.
And it doesnā€™t recognize the will of the people.

Open warfare edges closer. Those on the right are being attacked and killed. The right is not yet responding.

By Divemedic, ago

Shortages

Last month, I mentioned that the hospital where I work is bringing Philippino nurses in to fill vacant positions for less money than hiring Americans. There is more news on that front.

We have been short staffed for nearly three years. They have made up the shortfall by paying huge bonuses to get nurses to work extra shifts. They tried foreign workers. Still, they don’t have enough. Determined to save money now that the COVID funding has dried up, hospital administration announced on Saturday that there will be no more bonuses offered. Once the shifts that are already promised bonuses are paid out, they will be no more. Nurses who were making $2500 a day for working a 12 hour over time shift are now being asked to work the same overtime hours, but for $600-$900 each 12 hour shift.

I know that I was working 60 hours or more a week. I was making good money to do that, but now that the money has dried up, I am not working those kinds of hours for a fraction of the pay. No one that I know is willing to do that.

So now the entire staff of the ED is not taking any extra shifts. They are working their contracted hours, and that is it. Me? My contract says that I have to work 4 shifts a month. That is all I am doing. Everyone else is doing the same. So now the hospital is even more short handed.

Here is what was texted out to us this morning by the ED department head:

Hello team
We know this week has definitely had its ups and downs already and we appreciate all the hard work done by everyone. While we all fight this same battle we still have patients who are expecting the best care we can provide.
Starting tonight through the weekend we could use anyone on any shift to assist your fellow team and patients.
Please any help is appreciated.

As if guilt tripping us will get us to work all of those extra hours for a third of what we were making before. I want to help my patients and coworkers, but at the end of the day, this is a financial arrangement. It’s business.

So now the hospital is getting desperate. A third of the ED beds were shut down today for lack of staff.

The hospital where I work can only fill itself to somewhere near 60% capacity because they don’t have enough nurses, and that was when people were working extra shifts for bonus money. That means that patients often stay in the ED until there is an open bed on the inpatient floors. Our ED is frequently more than half filled with patients on “admission holds” awaiting beds. Couple that with the fact that the ED is also short nurses, and you have a problem.

Picture a 50 bed emergency room. To staff a 50 bed ED takes 14 nurses, 4 paramedics, 4 general technicians, 3 doctors, a nurse practitioner or PA, a respiratory therapist, secretary, three registration clerks, two lab technicians, three radiology techs, and two janitors. Every shift.

Now picture that you only have enough nurses for 10 per shift. Now you can only handle 40 patients at a time instead of 50. Now also picture that you have 30 admit holds, taking up beds and waiting for an inpatient bed- some for more than 48 hours. Now you can only handle 10 patients because your staff is busy caring for holds. So the waiting room backs up.

This means you have people sitting in the waiting room for 4, 5, or even 6 hours as they wait for treatment. And all of that was happening before you cut off the bonus money.

Now instead of 60% staffed, you are more like 45% staffed. Instead of 10 nurses, you only have 7. Now picture that across the entire hospital. A 600 bed hospital with a 50 bed ED requires 100 nurses or more each shift. You only have 50 or 60. Now what do you do? There aren’t enough foreign workers to fill that many spots.

My hospital can’t be alone in this. Here is the warning: there is a potential collapse of health care coming. It takes 3 to 4 years to train a nurse to the point where they are licensed, and another 2 years or so for that nurse to be proficient enough in their job to staff an ED, even longer for places like the ICU.

By Divemedic, ago

Useless

A Dad is catching crap from the woke police for daring to teach his daughter how to cook.

First, why? I taught both my son and daughter how to cook. Being able to cook a meal is a skill that all functional adults should have.

Second: This is why so many men no longer want to get married. What does a woman who has no job skills, can’t cook, can’t maintain the household, and is a sedentary lie-about offer to a relationship? What does she bring to the table? Congratulations to the woke crowd for reducing a woman’s value to merely being life support for a vagina.

I agree with this post, even if it does piss off feminists.

most modern women are not able to boil water, much less cook a meal. They are often slobs. They often do not want children and those who do want children think motherhood consists of laying by the pool while sipping Kahlua mudslides.

Most modern women donā€™t have the skills that would allow them to earn a lot of money. They might have a degree, but it is in something useless like avant-garde poetry, or gender studies. On the other hand, the few women who do have marketable skills have jettisoned anything that made them feminine: charm, the capacity to nurture, and the ability to be receptive. In other words, most modern women, like very small children, have no skills. The only thing they bring to a relationship is their vagina. Unlike children though, they have no excuse.

By Divemedic, ago

Environmental Shell Game

There is an old physics joke that goes like this: “Thereā€™s this farmer, and he has these chickens, but they won’t lay any eggs. So, he calls a physicist to help. The physicist then does some calculations, and he says, um, I have a solution, but it only works with spherical chickens in a vacuum.”

The joke here is that theory frequently ignores reality. In order for the theory to match reality, one has to assume that things like irregularly shaped chickens living in contact with the real world don’t exist, because they make it impossible for theory to match reality. Which brings us to today’s post.

The claims about EVs are that they are more efficient than internal combustion engines. The claims are that even an F-150 gets an equivalent to 65 miles per gallon. What are they using for an equivalent? Some bullshit math that is purely theoretical and has no basis in reality? Or are they representing the actual facts?

The EPA is the one who decides, through what they call ‘advanced computer modeling’ what the Miles Per Gallon equivalent is for each car. The EPA says one gallon of gasoline contains 115,000 BTUs of energy–which equates to 33.7 kilowatt-hours, equaling 3,412 BTUs per KW-hour.

A natural gas powered generator like this one uses 301 cubic feet of gas to generate 20 kilowatt hours of electric power. Since Ā 1 cubic foot of natural gas =Ā 1,037 BTU, then one KW of electricity costs 15,606 BTUs to create in the real world. What this means is that the EPA is claiming that electric generation is almost 5 times more efficient in theory than it is in practicality. Why? Because a lot of the energy in that natural gas is lost to inefficiencies like friction in the bearings, hysteresis losses, and other things in the generating process that generate heat.

Perhaps it’s more efficient in large power plants? Nope, it turns out that large powerplants are inefficient as well.

In theory, 3,412 Btu of thermal energy is equivalent to 1 kWh of electric energy. For existing coal-fired power plants, heat rates are typically in the range of 9,000 Btu/kWh to 11,000 Btu/kWh.Ā 

There are also line losses. That is, the electric lines, transformers, and other parts of the electric grid have their own losses caused by imperfect conduction and distribution. Physics is a bitch.

The game that they are playing here is obvious. They are taking the theoretical value for gasoline and electricity and ignoring the losses that occur due to inefficiencies in generation and transmission of electricity so that they get a number that far overstates the efficiency of electricity, making EVs seem far more efficient than they are.

This is why that F-150 that is supposed to be the most efficient pickup truck only has a range of 58 miles when towing a boat. My F-150 with its 36 gallon fuel tank has a range of over 300 miles towing my 18 foot pontoon boat.

Since we know that they are vastly overstating the efficiency of electric vehicles, that calls the environmental value of electric vehicles into question. Even using the EPA’s faulty metrics, one must drive an EV for over 20,000 miles before it becomes ‘greener’ than than an internal combustion powered vehicle. This is due to the toxic and environmentally unfriendly battery.

The thing is, the battery must be changed out much sooner than the engine in an ICE powered car. The US government requires that a battery on an EV be warrantied for 8 years or 100,000 miles. That is apparently the limit for batteries, as one Florida family recently discovered. I once had a car with over 250,000 miles on it. I still saw it driving around town for years after I sold it.

Over all, I think that there is a shell game being played with EVs. They are not nearly as efficient or as environmentally friendly as we are being led to believe. So the question remains: Why are we being misled, and to whose benefit?

By Divemedic, ago