"In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history will be the majority and will dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance."
Thinking of having the local print shop print something like one of these on heavy card stock and having them laminated. . .
A “fair warning” No Trespassing sign, because Woody Guthrie* doesn’t have any cachet here in America’s Third World County, except among the growing population of illiterates (and even worse, a-literates) one increasingly finds everywhere nowadays.
*heh* The video below reminds me of a kid who pulled a small caliber automatic on me some 35 years ago. Between my German Shepherd and me with a large wrench (already in hand; was working on car), he decided his lil .25 cal (what it looked like to me) Saturday night special. . . wasn’t so special. Saw him walking up the street a few hours later all torn up and bloody. Story came around someone took his lil ladygun away from him and fed it to him.
Typical “language” warning that accompanies such events. . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DepefuRqwQ
A lesson in manners to a trash-talking wannabe tough guy.
This coffee mug does. When I saw this, I told S&H, “Dude! Your coffee mug has its own game!”
*heh*
(Just clickety-click to size the graphic for your display, mmmK? :-))
I saw an article today in passing that reminded me once again how the Internet has helped spread faux-literacy. Its title contained, “all the cool offices aren’t in San Francisco” even though the content of first paragraph of the article indicated that the writer’s view was something very different, that NOT ALL of the cool offices are in SF.
For anyone who’s confused as to the difference, thank the Internet, the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind and your incompetent English teachers for the spread of faux-literacy. (A couple of Venn diagrams would clarify the differences, but there one would have to fall back on skills math teachers may or may not have imparted. *sigh*)
Oh, well, here’s one set of diagrams that can illustrate the difference, although there are other ways to do it. This is just the simplest, perhaps (Click on graphics for optimal size):
Of course, the gripe I give a bare outline of above is just the tip of the faux-literate iceberg. I had live almost six decades before I began hearing/reading subliterate morons saying/writing, “I wish I would have” instead of “I wish I had.” Did this sort of misuse of the conditional perfect just start being widely used as illiteracy (even among college graduates) has grown over the last few decades until it reached some sort of critical mass and spill over into public fora, or has it been there all along and just hidden from me because I had an exposure to people who were primarily a more literate bunch of folks?
*shrugs* Who knows. I certainly see much, much more of these things since the Internet has democratized publishing of all sorts of writing.
faux-literacy Well, what do you think it means, anyway? Lots of folks think they’re literate because other people have told them they are, accept them as literate and even pay them to write their subliterate crap. They think they are literate and others around them do, but what they write (or say) proves that they are not. The more they fake literacy and spread their subliterate, moronic screeds, the dumber public discourse becomes.
And they’re everywhere. Most prominent Mass MEdia Podpeople: condemned as faux-literates by the words they utter. Politicians, Academia Nut Fruitcakes, “Edumacators” and more: all spreading subliteracy via their public pretense of literacy.
The lowest common denominator is the measure of the best in our society.
I was lurking a discussion about some of the recent shenanigans of congresscritters and other hellspawn-in-training when one of the participants typed, “F*** ’em with a rusty pipe!”
Now, that’s just wrong folks. Show a little respect. “F*** ’em with a rusty hammer” scans so much better. Show some respect for the English language, mmmK?
. . .because I did it to myself. I bought the thing knowing what I’d find.
David Weber has a series of goat-gaggers–the Safehold series–from TOR that I find interesting but have had the same issues with from the very first book, Off Armageddon Reef (2008). Other issues have presented in the six books that have followed, but, as I said, I knew what I was getting when I bought it.
Weber still pretty consistently misuses some words. An example: he pretty consistently uses “less” when “fewer” is correct. But every time he misuses a word it does throw me out of the story.
Weber also really overuses banter in dialog. Meetings about serious matters are consistently trivialized by light-hearted banter. Some is healthy, but Weber has a tendency in everything he writes to overdo it. His Honorverse books feature too much if it for me, but not nearly as much as the Safehold books. The Safehold series doesn’t seem to have any editor handy to tell Weber, “Stop already! That’s too much!” *heh*
And then there’s the extremely irritating treatment of proper names. *gagamaggot* Zhaspahr Clyntahn? Rhobair Duchairn? It goes on and on and on. Sure, Weber “named” his Safehold characters into a corner in the first book, and there was no easy way out, especially after book 2. . . or three, four, five and six. *sigh* And this book includes a cast of characters sixty-six pages long with such names.
But still, I’ve bought every one of ’em. These last two have been ebooks, but the others, hardcopy, all but one hardback. Why?
Well, I bought and read the first one because Weber. Yes, his Honorverse books have some of the same issues (though apparently the editors at Baen are better than the ones at TOR *heh*), but they’ve still been worth my time for more than a few reasons. So, I knew it’d be readable and would at least tell an interesting story. But. . . issues. (“Lords secular and temporal”–*feh* Weber! You use that ALL the time and ALWAYS wrongly! Well, at least he didn’t include that abortion of sense in this book as he has in every other book i the series, IIRC, as well as in several of the Honorverse books.)
The rest? Well, interesting story, despite the aforementioned issues and a few others. Fun stuff on “rediscovering” technologies. Interesting low-tech milfic as well.
So. . . I buy ’em, even though I know the negatives will irk me.
Parting is such sweet sorrow.
My most recent experience of the death of a loved one was about a year and a half ago when my dad “graduated”. Sixteen and a half years ago, my Wonder Woman “died” (well, that’s what the doctors called three separate occurrences within a day of “sudden cardiac death”). . . for a bit, but that only counts as a wee sample of separations to come. I thought long and hard then, as I did later with my dad’s passing, of just what death of someone I love means to me.
Personal loss, of course. Since all my loved ones are Christians they, naturally, gain/will gain. 1 Corinthians 15 explains pretty clearly:
19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.
21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.
24 Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.
25 For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.
26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
and. . .
51 Behold, I tell you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
55 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
56 The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.
57 But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.
Now, my Aunt Bettie is nearing her own “graduation”. Of course I am impelled to think of the loss, not only to me but to everyone she has touched, of her loving kindness, her wit and her own special wisdom. I cannot count the generosity she has poured out on just me from the days of my childhood, not the least the way she generously hosted the rehearsal dinner for our wedding at her own home (*heh* Blew my inlaws-to-be away. Righteous, dudette! :-)) or the times she served as a surrogate mom for me in the days before expensive Long Distance calls and slow snail mail bit the dust and my own mom was just not quite reachable–she was THE first person in my family to learn of my engagement to my Wonder Woman, for example. I needed that immediate, face-to-face family touch more than I really knew, and she was as thrilled for me as my own mom was later.
Now, Aunt Bettie, I hold the hope for you that I believe you hold for yourself:
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea.But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home!Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;For though from out our bourn of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.
Happy trails! Vaya con Dios. Until we meet again, Aunt Bettie.
Mom and Aunt Bettie, holding hands at the hospice.
So, the local “fell off the back of a truck” store had some 7″ Sylvania tablets (yeh, bad rep, low spec things) marked “defective” and w/o chargers for $5. “So,” methought, “five bucks for a non-functional piece of crap. Not bad!” *heh*
Bought two. Charged ’em up (well, yeh, I do have chargers/power bricks for just about everything. Why? Do you ask? *heh*).
One powers up but doesn’t boot at all, at all. Tore it down and didn’t find anything obvious at first glance. Set it aside.
Next: the other one, very slightly different model. Refused to power on. Tore it down. Hmmm, maybe it was trying to boot and I just couldn’t tell, because. . . THE RIBBON CABLE TO THE SCREEN WAS DISCONNECTED and looked like it never had been. *sigh*
Attached the ribbon cable and secured it. Reassembled the thing. Powered on and. . . stuck at the manufacturer’s logo. Powered off. Powered on with the “three finger salute” (which for this model means Power Button-Menu Button-Screen Tap) to bring up the screen to restore the system image. Quick re-touch of the Menu Button and. . . it attempted to restore the system image. Attempted only because the system image file is. . . missing (of course).
Now, since the device isn’t recognizable to any physical computers I have that can read the utility to flash the image via USB, I need to boot a virtual XP machine that will recognize it. Yes. That’s right. NO DRIVERS FOR WIN7 or WIN8. . . or even VISTA for this device. *sigh*
Well, at least it’s fun to play with. Heck, when I get it working, I don’t really have any use for it, anyway. The only real use I have for it is what I’ve been doing with it: tinkering around.
I’m sort of looking, in a casual, desultory fashion, for a lil place in the “piney woods” here in America’s Third World County. Not much, just 30 or so acres or more with a looooong drive into a cleared area with gardening/livestock area and room for a small dwelling and work/livestock buildings.
The looooong drive would be so I could ask the county to give my drive a “street” name and dwelling a 911 address. I’d like the following street name to go along with my “UNwelcome mat”.
Had two different smaller cuts of roast beef that added to about 4.75 pounds and a nice new, barely used, Crockpot™. Yeh, the brand even. Automagical nearly everything. Kinda cool, so. . .
Rolled the two cuts of beef around in some salt and black pepper, then rolled ’em around in a wee bit of flour. Browned ’em in a hot pan, then. . . Oh, heck, I’ll just do it semi-right: