Category Archives: General

So That’s How They Do It

I’m having the house exterior painted in preparation for renting it out. We once had a healthy crop of English ivy on it, and after removing it, it left many old tendrils in the stucco that I’ve always found impossible to remove, so persistent are the roots. I’ve tried power washing, to little avail, and thought that it would be a long and tedious job with a wire brush, perhaps combined with some sort of acid. I even asked on a home repair newsgroup, but no one had any obvious easy solution.

But I’m sitting here watching the painters prep the house, and they’re doing what’s obvious in retrospect. They fired up a little propane torch, and simply burn them off, followed by brushing off the ashes. Why didn’t I think of that?

So That’s How They Do It

I’m having the house exterior painted in preparation for renting it out. We once had a healthy crop of English ivy on it, and after removing it, it left many old tendrils in the stucco that I’ve always found impossible to remove, so persistent are the roots. I’ve tried power washing, to little avail, and thought that it would be a long and tedious job with a wire brush, perhaps combined with some sort of acid. I even asked on a home repair newsgroup, but no one had any obvious easy solution.

But I’m sitting here watching the painters prep the house, and they’re doing what’s obvious in retrospect. They fired up a little propane torch, and simply burn them off, followed by brushing off the ashes. Why didn’t I think of that?

So That’s How They Do It

I’m having the house exterior painted in preparation for renting it out. We once had a healthy crop of English ivy on it, and after removing it, it left many old tendrils in the stucco that I’ve always found impossible to remove, so persistent are the roots. I’ve tried power washing, to little avail, and thought that it would be a long and tedious job with a wire brush, perhaps combined with some sort of acid. I even asked on a home repair newsgroup, but no one had any obvious easy solution.

But I’m sitting here watching the painters prep the house, and they’re doing what’s obvious in retrospect. They fired up a little propane torch, and simply burn them off, followed by brushing off the ashes. Why didn’t I think of that?

Justice?

Remember that Claremont psych professor who vandalized her own car, and then claimed that it was done by racists? She’s been charged with filing a false police report, and insurance fraud.

Somehow, I suspect that she won’t be on the tenure track:

Claremont President Pamela Gann has said the college would conduct its own investigation before deciding whether to retain Dunn, whose contract expires later this year.

I’m sure that she didn’t lie–she was just providing an alternative narrative. This loon might make an interesting case study for one of her classes. I wonder how many deluded students she’ll be able to continue to rally to her defense?

HTML Problems

Not here, as far as I know, but I’ve noticed over the last few weeks that some blogs are coming up totally FUBAR in Mozilla (Firebird .7), though they appear OK in Explorer. I’m not sure, but I think they’re all blogspot sites. Here’s an example (one that’s a regular read for me).

I don’t have the time or the inclination to dig through the source to figure out what the problem is, but if anyone else is interested, they might want to tell the site owners, so that they’ll be more accessible to the rest of the non-Microsoft universe. The problem seems to start right after the words “Advertise on the world’s biggest nanoblog!” which makes me suspect that there’s a blogads problem.

[Update on Wednesday morning]

I just checked Nanobot again, and it’s OK this morning.

<shrug>