Free Republic

No, she's playing a custom Spector 5 string that they made for her. Alejandra is a Spector sponsored artist, the youngest ever at 13 (she's now 17). The other two are her sisters, Daniela (21, vocals and guitar) and Paulina (19, Drums). All 3 also play piano.
They released an EP, the first half of their 3rd album, and first release since signing with Lava Records. The other two were independent, funded by Patreon and Kickstarter. They're touring starting in March, was supposed to start in January but got postponed due to the latest covid crap.

Check out The Warning. All of their stuff is on Youtube, or hit their website TheWarningBand.com. They are 3 young sisters from Monterrey, Mexico that put out some kick-ass hard rock.

No, it isn’t accumulating interest. The interest rate is zero during the covid forbearance, but this is only for loans directly held by the Federal Government. Not all student loans are. Anyone who was smart and able should have kept paying down principal to take advantage, but not many are.

I work for one of the DOE contractor servicers

If you want some new music that is worth listening to, check out The Warning, a hard rock trio of sisters from Monterrey Mexico who are Daniella (Dany) 21 Guitar/Lead Vocals, Paulina (Pau) 19 Drums/Lead Vocals, and Alejandra (Ale) 16 Bass/Backing Vocals (occasional lead vocal). Their lyrics are outstanding, mostly written by Paulina, and they are masters of their instruments. Most songs are in English, with an occasional Spanish one thrown in. They just released the first half of their 3rd album as an EP, and are just starting to tour again (they played at Welcome to Rockville in FL in November) and are opening for the Foo Fighters in Mexico early next year.

Their first exposure was in 2013 with a cover of Enter Sandman (they were 14,12 and 9 at the time) that has over 23M views on youtube and did a new version with Alessia Cara for Metallica’s Blacklist album (and did a music video of that cover - arranging/recording and shooting the video in one week - with them in Mexico and Alessia in Canada due to Covid).

Their 2nd album, Queen of the Murder Scene is a concept album (they call it a rock novel) that was released in 2018. It tells a story of unrequited love to obsession, stalking murder and madness. They were independent and funded through Patreon and produced it themselves. It’s a real contrast to their personalities as they are smart, funny and happy when they interact with their fans (which they really do a lot). It really should be listened to in order, but all of the songs stand well on their own.

Didn’t intend to write a book, but I’m really impressed by these young ladies. Finally, I’m 64 and have enjoyed and seen many of the great rock bands of the 70’s and 80’s, and they well deserve to be right up on stage with any of them.

If you are into 70/80/90 style rock, check out The Warning. They are a trio of sisters from Monterrey Mexico who got their start around 2012 when they uploaded a cover of Metallica’s Enter Sandman (when they were 14 - Daniela/Lead Guitar and vocals, Paulina 12/Drums and Alejandra 9/Bass). It’s over 22 Million views so far.

They were recently chosen to do a remake of that cover on Metallica’s new Blacklist album this year. Since then, they’ve released an EP, 2 studio albums - all as independent artists funded by patreon and kickstarter, and just signed with Lava records for their new album due out this year.

They play some kick-ass rock - all but one song in English. Just search for The Warning on youtube and prepare for a deep rabbit hole.

How very brave of them, considering that all Federally held student debt is currently in Forbearance (not being collected), at 0% interest, until at least Sep 30, 2021. However, not all student loan debt is fed owned, and I don’t think Josef Stolen can forgive that private debt.

Wife and I both caught it in late aug/early sept. Both of us are 63, not in perfect health, but no serious illnesses. Ironically, she was in in-patient physical therapy for a broken hip and elbow, and I was staying with her 24/7 (so we got it from them). We've both recovered and have since tested negative.

The fatigue was the worst symptom I had. Couldn't eat anything for a couple of days, but stayed hydrated. Not a fun disease, but I've been sicker. Symptoms lasted about 10 days, then gradually went away.

I just checked and it said mine was scheduled for today. The only information it asked for was SSN, Street Address and Zip Code. I filed early this year and already got my refund in early Feb, and even had to file an amended return and already did that too. It says you’ll need info from your 2018/2019 taxes, but that’s really all they asked for.

I can confirm that you would win that wager. I was stationed in England 82-86, and am still barred from donating. I just checked a couple of weeks ago.

I, however, am quite pleased by the state of John McCain.

dfwgator What about “Thick as a Brick”?

I agree with this one.

Jethro Tull - Thick as a Brick (the whole thing)
Ted Nugent - Stranglehold
Muse - Citizen Erased

Found on /.:

I read TFA, the guy is an idiot and screwed up the test.

He configured the router to drop all connections. So Windows tries to access Windows Update, and it fails. So it tries the next server on the list, which fails. Strange, the interface has an IP address, try the next one...

Windows also has this thing called the Out Of Box Experience. It’s been there since at least 98, probably before. The first time you log in, it runs a few things so you can choose your preferences and set important stuff up. If you ignore it, it will carry on looking for updates from the Windows Store, updates for live tiles in the start menu etc.

Every OS enables a load of crap by default. This is not surprising at all.

Unlike the guy in TFA, I bothered to do this properly. If you disable everything and don’t use Windows Store apps then the only traffic is to Windows Update.

Actually, you now get Unlimited OneDrive storage with an Office 365 subscription.

I wish they would quit saying it’s an “Excel Error” - it’s a stupid user error, writing the wrong formula. Excel did what it was told to do, no error in the program at all.

I suggested on a freepathon thread that I think it’s time to move FreeRepublic to the cloud, either Windows Azure or Amazon. Just some basic costing I’ve done on Azure, 2 load-balanced extra large VMs (8cpu/14GB Ram), either windows or Linux, 2TB outbound bandwidth, 10TB storage would run $18,999 per year if pre-paid ($1,583.25/mo). On a month to month plan, it would be $23716.32. The storage and bandwidth numbers are monthly quotas.

The storage is geo-redundant, i.e., replicated in 2 geographically separated data centers.

Additional VMs could be added for $345.60 per month, and could be added/removed as needed to handle the load.

No worries about hardware failure - if a VM develops problems, it’s dropped and a new on spun up to replace it, automatically.

Here’s a link about load-balancing VMs on Azure. I’m sure Amazon has pretty much the same thing, but I’m familiar with Azure.
http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/windows/common-tasks/how-to-load-balance-virtual-machines/#loadbalance

There is a link on that page to the pricing tool, if anyone wants to play with it for various scenarios. I think it’s very cost competitive with buying and running your own hardware and renting rack space/bandwidth. With a cloud solution, you only have to worry about your software - none of the infrastructure that supports it.

Have the management looked into moving Free Republic into the cloud? For an example, here’s what 10K will get you on Windows Azure: 8 Extra Large Windows or Linux VMs (8 x 1.6Ghz CPU, 14GB Ram), 50 TB Storage (geo redundant - stored in 2 geographically separated data centers), 1 TB bandwidth. Another 1K will get you professional direct support.

These are monthly totals, and can be adjusted for FRs requirements.

I don’t know what FRs actual requirements would be, but that is an awful lot of computing power for a lot less than it appears to be costing now, not to mention that you would no longer have to worry about hardware wearing out and having to be replaced.

It’s also available for Windows Phone

I use Crashplan to backup on-line. Quick search of owners on OpenSecrets.org doesn’t show any contributions in the last 3 elections, although it appears that someone related to one of the co-founders donated $400 to Obama in ‘08 (same last name, same city)

He has links to a vanity publisher where you can order a print copy. I like real books too, but I like having my library on my phone too, and ebooks, especially Baen’s earcs (advance reader copy) are available almost a year before the print books, and I just can’t wait :-)