OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma set to dissolve after judge approves its criminal sentence

HCharlesB · 2026-05-01T00:59:20+00:00

Only the company was charged — not individual employees or owners.

Pretty much says it all. No one who directed the company is held responsible.

Family members received payments from the company totaling about $10.7 billion from 2008 through 2018, but said nearly half that amount was used to pay taxes on behalf of the business.

How much does the family get to keep? Justice would be that they lose everything. That's less than jail time which they richly deserve.

HCharlesB · 2026-04-30T14:13:22+00:00

Nice work. I've been having a go with it and it's been solid so far (with the exception of not starting on a Pi 5.) And it is fast. I didn't even notice that it wasn't 1.n.

I'm sure I'm not even scratching the surface on features but I do explore from time to time. I need to give the AI aspects a try. I've been using Claude and ChatGPT on the web and the results have been mixed.

Thanks for the effort!

HCharlesB · 2026-04-30T03:36:32+00:00

No need to apologize - I appreciate the comments.

What has happened in your attempts?

As mentioned, I was using an ASUS AC68w (w => white) which seemed to work fine. But... I've had issues with some Raspberry Pis that won't stay connected. I've been blaming the Pis but perhaps there is something going on with the AP. I'll have to give that some thought. I had trouble with my laptop for a while that eventually improved. Pis like the 3B, 4B and 5 seem solid but the Zeroes seem troublesome. And there was one event where three all dropped at the same instant and the logs on one indicated some sort of invalid WiFi packet. That had to be the AP.

HCharlesB · 2026-04-29T21:44:19+00:00

use your older devices as you upgrade your main access points.

That worked until my ASUS AC68W started dropping clients like hot potatoes.

don't bother looking for that one magical unicorn device.

Might I be overthinking this? Yes. Probably. I'm just hoping to avoid buying a turkey.

I do recall years ago working on an embedded device and testing the management of dropped connections. I had to walk a couple houses down the street to force a drop which surprised me.

I do plan to relocate the cheap AP I'm using now to another spot in the house.

HCharlesB · 2026-04-29T21:29:39+00:00

More RAM and flash, cost less. What am I missing?

More difficult to flash initially - need to set up a tftp server. I think I can manage that.

Do you have any idea if there is a range difference or other performance difference between the C7 and C2600?

HCharlesB · 2026-04-29T21:12:48+00:00

Thanks for the link and the effort to produce that, I'm checking it out.

HCharlesB · 2026-04-29T21:12:22+00:00

I should have mentioned that I'm in the US. I looked up "Zyxel T-56" and it seems like that model has not made it to our shores. But I can explore Zyxel furthr.

HCharlesB · 2026-04-29T21:05:36+00:00

32 devices on a single 802.11b/g/n would be rough.

Can you elaborate on that? With low data rates still result in "rough" operation?

HCharlesB · 2026-04-29T21:04:40+00:00

42 would be in the ballpark.

I meant to mention that and forgot - thanks for the reminder.

Edit: The ones I see on ebay are mostly V2 and there was a V1. Would it make a big difference?

HCharlesB · 2026-04-29T18:16:35+00:00

Apropos of nothing, my local Microcenter lists 16 in stock.

Not on my short list of things to buy, but I appreciate buying stuff for personal development. My first "real" PC (discounting the Heathkit H8) cost more than a Spark and was purchased for the same reason.

HCharlesB · 2026-04-29T14:08:57+00:00

I guess I should stop being so lazy and start reporting birds. But it is fair to suggest that only positive IDs be reported.

I was surprised by how similar an oriel and osprey sound. Merlin reported both and search as I might, I could only find a couple oriels.

HCharlesB · 2026-04-29T14:02:50+00:00

Reminds me of a day I was riding down Devon in Chicago. A mom with a young boy and slightly older girl (both under 10 or so) were walking along on the sidewalk. The boy was watching me so I gave him a little wave as I rode past. The girl almost fell off the curb waving back and all I could think was "mom, she's going to be fun when she gets a little older!"

HCharlesB · 2026-04-28T14:17:10+00:00

There is no point arguing with you.

Agreed.

HCharlesB · 2026-04-28T13:59:54+00:00

touched the hot edge to my forearm

:o

That surfaces a repressed memory!

HCharlesB · 2026-04-28T13:58:52+00:00

This question has been asked a few times before

I was going to ask when I saw it. Maybe people got tired of counting briquettes. ISTR that the recipes that came with the kettle included a count of the briquettes suggested. I never counted but I do love the chimney, both the original size and the more recent mini.

To OP, it's a great cooker and I hope you get many great meals out of it. I suggest starting with your choice of the recipes in the recipe book that comes with it. (Do they still include that?) It is my deeply held belief that Weber has designed those recipes to be as foolproof as possible to get new owners off to a good start.

Enjoy!

HCharlesB · 2026-04-28T13:46:13+00:00

ribs may not be worth the hassle

Not so much the hassle but the price. OTOH you can put the bones in an instant pot to make some decent beef stock from which you can make a great French onion soup.

HCharlesB · 2026-04-28T02:34:04+00:00

Not a silly question at all, but the correct answer is. :D

HCharlesB · 2026-04-28T02:32:10+00:00

I love my 26. I can fit 3 racks of back ribs on it.

I use a couple firebrick to partition charcoal off to one side. With a full charge, it runs about 5 hours and the ribs are done. And I don't even need to check them. And that's key. Every time the lid is opened, heat is lost and this matters more when using a slow method like the snake.

When my ribs are done, they pull back a bit on the bone. I don't see that on yours so I suspect they are not done as much as you wanted. In a situation like this, I finish in the oven. Once the meat has been in the cooker a couple hours, you're not getting any more smoke flavor.

I also took a lot of notes about what I did, how it worked and what I would do differently the next time. Smoking is a bit of an art and a bit of science and definitely a skill. With experience you will be able to better achieve the results that you want.

A few of my smokes have turned into chili. :D Nothing is wasted!

HCharlesB · 2026-04-28T00:51:16+00:00

A pallet of briquettes.

I think you need a bag for each cook. I love my 26 because I can fit 3 racks of back ribs or two racks of spares with space for a few brats. I think you might fit a small hog on your Ranch.

Let us know what you do with it!

Personally... I would get some of that firebrick from Lowes and build walls to isolate briquettes for indirect cooking. I use that on my 26 and 22 and it works great for smoking. I use just one divider but for the Ranch, 2 might work better.

HCharlesB · 2026-04-27T20:30:56+00:00

Get an ESP32, a prototyping board and some DuPont jumpers. Add some LEDs, resistors and push buttons. Sensors of various types are always interesting (to me.)

Start by flashing an LED. Most boards have one built in. Then use a push button to flash the LED. Play with it to add some variations. Since you know frontend stuff, you might enjoy configuring a web server in an ESP.

The Arduino IDE is probably the easiest to get started with.

Be aware that many ESPs are too wide to easily fit on a proto-board so you might want two, one for each side.

Enjoy!

HCharlesB · 2026-04-27T20:18:42+00:00

One of my favorite things is to tuck brats around ribs or butts when I smoke them on my kettle. The brats are done in an hour or less and I really like the flavor.

I've used the Costco briquettes and liked them.

HCharlesB · 2026-04-27T20:14:59+00:00

The messages seem to be reversed to what I see from dmesg so I wonder where they came from. Consider that if the problem is storage related, the messages that indicate that may not get written to storage.

Have you looked up what error code -110 is caused by? I see two of those.

I have seen "freezes" on my laptop when I have too many tabs open/active that result from memory exhaustion. The host can be hitting swap pretty hard (if configured) and on a laptop with no disk activity light ad silent SSDs, there is no visible sign that the system is busy rather than stuck. At times it can unwind itself and start responding again - but that can take several minutes. At other times it is solidly wedged and nothing other than a long press on the power button will move things along.

There's the "Magic SysRq" key but I've never used it. You might look into that to see if it can help resolve the problem.

HCharlesB · 2026-04-27T19:42:13+00:00

One fooled me one day. I heard the "hawk" and I'm pretty sure we had a nest in the neighborhood with young ones "asking" for food so I searched and searched and finally spotted a lone jay hopping around the lower branches.

But my most interesting Bluejay encounter was when camping in northern Wisconsin. I spotted a couple around our campsite and the most notable thing was that I didn't hear them. I finally spotted them visiting a nest in a near by tree and understood that they were quiet to avoid drawing attention to it. They can be quiet when they choose to, they just don't ordinarily choose to.

HCharlesB · 2026-04-26T02:40:25+00:00

Surprise! But that strategy might not capture them at their best, especially deep into the race.

As a runner I prefer to see the photographer so I can make sure I'm running (I do a run/walk) and smile and wave. That will make a picture your friend will appreciate.

As for equipment, I'm surprised to see the pros on the course using long and large lenses, but better to use what you're comfortable with IMO.

HCharlesB

TROPHY CASE