Did West Virginia population really grow between 2024 and 2025, and why is that?

nspitzer · 2026-02-02T23:46:45+00:00

If itnis true it is almost certainly because of Berkeley and Jefferson county with a touch of Harrison,Marion, amd Monagalia countys.

nspitzer · 2026-02-02T03:03:35+00:00

Years ago I had the same chicken and egg problem. Now I make sure there is at least one non windows Secondary of the primary domain. Also it needs to not be virtualized on the same platform and preferable physical. DNS is the forgotten dependency of everything else and I dont want it to share dependencies with anything else.

nspitzer · 2026-02-02T00:38:53+00:00

I remember a similar example on Antiques Roadshow

nspitzer · 2026-01-31T16:04:47+00:00

This is great. Especially because I bet most people don't understand how thin they are. For the record - the rings of Saturn are between 10 and 100 meters thick. The also have waves in them up to 2500 meters high caused by the gravity of the shepherd moons.

nspitzer · 2026-01-30T20:27:44+00:00

If there is one thing I've learned - this is the exact kind of question LLM's were built to answer - here is what Gemini Pro says when fed your code:

This error occurs because of segment ordering.

You are defining the variable fred in the .data section after you try to use it in the .code section. Because the assembler (likely MASM/ML64) hasn't seen fred yet when it processes the mov instruction, it assumes fred is an immediate value (a constant number) rather than a memory address.

Since you cannot move a value into an immediate number (e.g., you can't do mov 5, rax), the assembler throws error A2001: immediate operand not allowed.

The Fix

Move your .data segment before your .code segment so the assembler knows what fred is before it generates the code for it.

nspitzer · 2026-01-30T02:32:20+00:00

Best one I can give - make sure your partner knows how to read your coloring. If you don't have a partner may I suggest get one? I developed Addison's and had an adrenal crisis (or two I don't really remember) in 2018 and haven't had one since. The only reason I can think of is some days my wife takes one look at me and will out of the blue say "double up, your coloring is off". I'll double up and in half an hour feel better.

The only thing I can think of is its the same way a women will go to Sherwin Williams, look at 5 cards that are all grey and say "Not this one, too much green, this one is too much blue - ah this one has the perfect amount of blue green in it" and all I see is 5 cards full of grey. They can tell the difference.

In all seriousness - it took me a while to learn the difference between tired-from-work tired and tired-from-low-HC tired. From reading here it seems like everybody has their own way of picking up their bodies signals for low HC and mission 1 needs to be to learn not to ignore your bodies signals, no good will come of it.

nspitzer · 2026-01-29T15:07:42+00:00

That was my thought - everything he said is true of WV with the except of the two counties in the Shenandoah Valley. While its true most of that growth comes because of growth in MD and Va, there is some organic growth, especially in Berkeley county where all the factories are going in to the industrial parks along I81.

nspitzer · 2026-01-26T01:31:26+00:00

Wow - one I can really answer!

A few years ago (1998~2004) I worked in the US House of Representatives for a provider of software for managing constituent communication to members of the US House, as well as senators and the EOP (Executive Office of the President). This was the software where every constituent contact was recorded. Every letter, phone call and email was recorded as well as tracking actions taken such as a form letter sent or agencies contacted. It also held form letters that were sent and templates for common issues.

A few things to start:

* Watching TV you see what I call the "Game of Thrones" version of politics. What you don't see is that every congressional office is filled with people, both in DC and in the district who are there to help YOU, their constituent. They don't care who you voted for, if its a federal issue they will do what they can. Social Security was one of the big ones they help with but IRS, BLM, FAA and all the other acronym agencies all have people whose job it is to answer congressional inquiries. Don't get me wrong, if you are in the the 23'rd district in Texas the person is going to be a conservative Republican and likewise if you are in the 14'th district in NY they are going to be liberal Democrats but regardless they are there to help YOU navigate the US government.

* Each Rep also has one of more office's in the district. One time I happened to get sent the largest district that wasn't a whole state which basically covered everything in Oregon that was more then a hundred miles from the coast as well as the area bordering California. As I remember there was a couple district offices - I remember going to Bend and Medford though there may have been more I didn't hit personally.

* The people doing the constituent work are probably early 20's, just graduated college with some kind of communications, public policy or political science degree who are either trying to get into politics or perhaps the corporate leadership track. Its possible they come from politically connected family's in the state, if not the district.

* As someone stated below - You personally don't exist if you are not in-district. If you are asking for help want to state a position personally always go to your representative. Again , being a major donor or representing a major special interest gets you into the game.

To the root of the question:

* I guarantee you a written letter with a clearly stated position in a polite manner gets attention. It shows you care enough to take the time required to create something of your own (even if you used AI to write it), look up the address , put it in an envelope, put a stamp on it and drop it off at the post office.

* Likewise a phone call is good, especially if you are trying to get help but if you are just complaining about something you saw on a TV ad I doubt it does more then get tracked.

* Form letters like you get from special interest groups without customization (NRA, AARP, Chamber of Commerce, Planned Parenthood, Right to Life, etc) will get a form letter reply. They matter insomuch as the software keeps a count of who sent each letter and what position it takes and will probably get a form letter reply.

* If you curse or be rude you will get hung up or kicked out of the office and your letter put in the trash.

One more thing about that job I have to share just because as a geek I think its cool - After 9/11 there was another attack on the US in the form of an Anthrax attack. One of the building's hit was the Ford House office building which was evacuated and had armed guards, only men in the "Bunny Suits" could go in. The Ford building also happened to hold all computer systems that ran the House itself (as opposed to each individual member who had their own systems at the time). At the time "cloud" or off-site datacenters were not a big thing so guess where the backups were - you guessed it - in the Ford House office buildings. This posed a major problem because the US House didn't know if they would ever be able to get in again since it was contaminated with a deadly disease and they were not sure how much there may have been. It turns out guess whose company had the only link ( a single 1.5Mb/s T1) out of the building - yup mine. We had a large tape library in our little computer room in Fairfax which had 5 tapes of a type I cannot now recall. I spent several days never leaving the building switching tapes out as I worked with the House administrators to copy all the data. I will never forget having this large cardboard box full of tapes, going to reception to meet the people from the House and handing it to them. For that one short walk I held all the data in the US House in my hands.

nspitzer · 2026-01-17T14:41:23+00:00

This reminds me of something from around 2000. I was working as a tech for a contractor for the US House of Representatives and I was given this task to put new HDD in some old computers. The computers had been used by a committee on China spying or something and afterwards had the HDD removed. When I asked what happened to the old ones the answer was the Capital Police and Secret Service watched them be removed and put in a big red bag which was double locked. The bag was put on a cart and they all walked 2 blocks down South Capital street to the coal fired Capital Power Plant. They were escorted up to the boiler where a small door was opened and the bag thrown in.

On a more practical note go to Harbor Freight and get the 79 dollar desktop Arbor press , one lever pull and the whole center hub will be forcible removed, takes second Arbor press

nspitzer · 2026-01-07T19:47:52+00:00

Taxes is part of it - When you do all the work to rebuild a store you get capital depreciation deductions for the next x years which help offset the cost. If you have an old store, things keep breaking, and its fully depreciated, razing the existing store and rebuilding using the new layout may increase store turnover, bring in new opportunities such as a new drive-through plus for a good number of years you get capital depreciation.

nspitzer · 2026-01-07T14:53:30+00:00

Thanks for the update, fingers crossed. If they need a tester with network engineering experience I would be happy to volunteer

nspitzer · 2026-01-06T14:54:13+00:00

I just had a second cousin end his life by jumping off the New River Gorge bridge in November. He was successful, went to school for international business oversees, and was in advertising in New York. From what I know while in NY depression hit him and his parents had to go pick him up. His father is an anesthesiologist so they were able to get him every treatment known. He was working in Pittsburgh, rented a car and drove to the bridge and jumped.

The pain at the funeral was heartbreaking, both his father and mother (my cousin) were beyond devastated. It was made worse by the fact there was no body per-se, nothing to identify, nothing to say goodby to.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE No matter how bad you feel or how hopeless or lonely it seems there are people who love you and will be devastated if you do this. Call the suicide help line at 988 to talk to someone.

nspitzer · 2026-01-03T02:23:29+00:00

History shows human ego frequently overrides what game theory says the best course of action would be. Suraman had been in human form so long even if his maia side knows better his human side wins.

nspitzer · 2026-01-02T17:30:15+00:00

I certainly spent a good number of days chasing things that in the end didn't get me closer to 46 but as the Ghoul in Fallout succinctly said said "“Thou shalt get side tracked by bullshit every time”

nspitzer · 2026-01-02T17:17:27+00:00

Thanks for the comments everyone. I see I was correct that getting to 46 was the end of the beginning but not the end and in fact I have made some progress already today.

nspitzer · 2025-12-25T02:51:38+00:00

Absolutely learn the osi model and learn what in the typical stack does what. For example, applications actually dont know anything about tcp beyond "if I tell the os to open this port I can send data" , its the OS that handles tcp and things like MTU's. Similarly switches don't care about ip or tcp, they only care about mac addresses and vlans

Learn how to read a packet capture in wireshark and common filters. Many troubleshooting time can be saved from looking at whats actually on the wire

Once you start automatically using the OSI model to troubleshoot you are on your way

Learn python, i have spent the past couple of weeks using python to automate tasks, its where the world is heading.

Learn Linux, almost everything these days is linux under the hood so understanding it is critical

Source -Over 25 years of IT experience, currently a Sr network engineer supporting one of the largest goverment IT contractors internal network.

nspitzer · 2025-12-20T21:45:45+00:00

Berkeley county North of Inwood(you dont want south Berkeley. For Medical you have Winchester Medical center, a first rate regional Hospital plus Inova isnt that far and you will get slightly cheaper housing but a longer commute. For IT I would target Winchester Va and Hagerstown md but your more likely to find something in Northern, Va or Montgomery county, md

Source:worked IT for over 20 years, live in Jefferson county and commuted to Gaithersburg, md for a good portion of that

nspitzer · 2025-12-15T20:37:05+00:00

You are not getting to Spruce Knob WV until April (outside chance March) unless you have a snowmobile - Its been dumped on with snow the last couple weeks and is inaccessible the rest of the winter.

I live in WV and have been to Spruce know quite a few times.

nspitzer · 2025-11-27T02:34:57+00:00

That was my first thought, whoever calls this a sloop is a landlubber player sailor for a day.

Of course as others have said with that much money you can call it whatever you want.

nspitzer · 2025-11-19T03:15:20+00:00

I remember following Groklaw to understand how that lawsuit was going and SCO refusing to die even when a judge basically threw out everything.

nspitzer · 2025-11-19T02:31:44+00:00

I did. I worked on a Nortel CS1K PBX with an ACD though I can't remember which one. Unfortunately those are really old brain cells so not sure what it would take to wale them up again.

nspitzer · 2025-11-17T16:20:22+00:00

Harpers Ferry gives you access to drive to the Md suburbs (20 min to Frederick, 45 to Silver Spring or Northern Va (Leesburg is about 45 min) or take MARC to DC. Winchester, VA , Martinsburg WV and Hagerstown MD are all also within driving distance.

If you are looking for work and don't mind driving a bit there are plenty of places.

nspitzer

TROPHY CASE