Zero Liberty:
A Garage Sale Just Won’t Do the trick
Gettin’ serious about cleanup stuff. Most of what I imagine I’ll end up just pitching out of the garage is stuff I’ve said, “I can think of X number of uses for that,” and just put back. Quite often, such junk has proven quite useful, but a lot has become, “Yeh, I could use it, but after all this time I probably won’t” stuff.
But sometimes, as I’ve been sorting, I come across lil gems that just hit the sweet spot of, “Huh. I can use that right now.” Take the box(es) of lil odds ‘n’ ends from a car I sold for scrap. It’d just gotten to the point where it was fixable, but not worth fixing, and since it was a model I knew my “guy” was just going to take to the crusher and sell for scrap metal pricing, I pulled a lot of lil stuff off it before giving him a call. Like those gas struts for the tailgate and hood. Good stuff, Maynard. But the first piece I put to immediate use was… some barely worn disc brake pads.
*huh?* Yep. Found a nice, level piece of concrete and cleaned one of ’em off (a few spiraling “sanding” motions did the trick). Pulled out a pocket knife I’d noticed needed a fresh edge and… it was a really nice whet stone. Put the edge back in shape very quickly.
Rabbit trail: OK, yes, before you ask, of course it was a non-asbestos brake pad. I did say it was barely worn, implying it was fairly new, didn’t I? But, to be frank, even if it had been an asbestos brake pad, I’d not have cared. The asbestos used in brake pads was of a different kind than that which has been clinically and epidemiologically shown to be linked to some cancers and lung diseases. In fact, of the six or more different kinds of minerals called asbestos, only one has been linked to those kinds of health issues. But even if it had been of the “bad” type, it still wouldn’t have mattered, since the use I was making of it would have posed a vanishingly small health risk.
Now, I need to get back to my sorting: keep (‘cos I KNOW I’ll use it… relatively soon), yard sale, give away, toss. (When I get the furniture I have stored in the garage out and down to the local food bank/thrift store, that’ll make a HUGE dent.)
Hmmm, probably CraigsList as well for some of the more obviously usable things, and even some of the “This junk just CAN’T go to the landfill!” stuff…
One Thing About eBooks…
…and particularly Kindle books, is the ease of taking notes within the books–and searching notes. This is especially useful for those books that have error reporting enabled. One of my fav notes to submit in an error report is, “Consult Inigo Montoya. (No, not that quote; the other one.)” I generally slug that comment in wherever a word is misused. And, oh, am I finding a slew of those! The quality of proof readingand copy editing has really, really declined in recent years, and in self-published books it is frequently non-existent… or of a “quality” that can only–charitably–be described as comparable to toxic sewer sludge.
Oh, well, at least I have the joy of making LOADS of snarky notes, and even–happy-happy-joy-joy–submitting a few as “error reports”.
Gottalovethat.
Not Exactly Divina Commedia, Perhaps
More like, Commedia Nera… maybe.
Hey, my folks are approaching 90. They have doctors’ appointments just about every day of the week (and this last week definitely every day), and their lives seem to revolve around medical tests, consultants with specialists, surgeries, therapy and who knows what else.
At least with the weight I’ve lost, I’ll not have to buy a new suit for any funerals.
See Sydney Carton for the relevant viewpoint on death and dying:
It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.
I would miss ’em, but really, “…it is a far, far better rest…” Still, glad they’re having fun with their busy medical schedule, since I really don’t want to start missing them. Selfish of me, I know, but there it is. As long as they’re having fun, let ’em rack up the med hours. They’ve certainly earned it.
Timeless Wisdom
I don’t know who first said it (and am not even sure where I last saw it *heh*), but this ranks up there with, “Never get involved in a land war in Asia,”* as timeless wisdom:
“A human without at least one sharp pointy thing and the ability to start a fire is just whining hairless ape in most survival situations.”
Yeh, I feel naked without at least two or three “sharp pointy things” on my person at all times, and since I can start a fire with my burning gaze of scorn… *heh*
Raspberry for the Common Man
Please, don’t get me wrong; I have all due respect for the common man. He (shaddup, feminazis: I’ll use the CORRECT generic “he” to represent she/he anytime I want to, and “common man” to refer to “common woman” as well. Lump it if you don’t like it) struggles against great odds to survive in a harsh world.
But still…
You know, it used to be said, “Man: the tool-making, tool using animal,” but now that we know that parrots, monkeys, apes, raccoons and who knows how many other animals “make” (OK, improvise ore than fashion) and use tools, even the few who can recall that once-popular meme no longer use it. (The common man, of course, has no idea it was once even a meme.)
Now, it might be said, “Man: the internet user,” in the same way one can say of parrots that they use found objects as tools. Common man uses the internet, even when he has trouble turning on the device he uses to access it. (Do your own search on “computer support jokes”; they’re almost all based on real events, real users doing exceptionally stupid things.)
May I once again point the reader to (a translation of) Ortega’s insightful, even prophetic work, Revolt of the Masses? There are downloadable versions available via the web, but I’ll not point to those pirated copies. You can buy one for under $10 at Amazon.
On a cheerier note, let me echo this blog’s header here:
“In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history are in the majority and dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance.”
Now, doesn’t that make you grateful for the common man?
Titanic Party, Anyone?
Not interested in throwing a “Titanic Party” to celebrate/commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the April 12, 1912 sinking of the Titanic, but if one were to throw such a shindig, wouldn’t it be appropriate to do it today, you know, Friday the 13th?
Just askin’.
Compgeeky ISP Stuff
So, after serial rocky times with my ISP, it’s been fairly solid of late. Checked the download speed on my nominal 12mbps connection using Speedtest recently and was getting 16-18mbps downloads pretty regularly.
Not bad, thought I… and then I ran across Softonic’s Namebench, a DNS test software. DL-ed it, scanned it, installed it and let it run. Looked at its recommendations and selected the top two to replace my primary and secondary DNS on my router (left the tertiary alone).
Here’s the result:
Much faster (almost double) DL speeds and just slightly slower upload “speeds”. Interesting. I’ll test things out this way for a while and see just how solid the new DNS addresses are over time, but this is promising.
Lesbian DNC Advisor Denigrates Stay-at-Home Moms
[See Update]
That’s the reasonable takeaway/pushback to DNC/Obama advisor Hilary Rosen’s slur on Ann Romney:
And yeh, I’m also pointing out that Rosen quite obviously has a skewed view of motherhood from the gitgo. Hey, Hilary! Next time, buy a different vowel! As it is, you don’t have a clue what real women are about. Heck, even I know more from simply having lived with and around real women (my mom, grandmothers and wife) all my life, instead of living with a deviant* “partner”.
Update: Flashback! In 2008, Rosen dismissed criticisms of Sarah Palin for working outside her home with,
“Judgments about people’s personal lives are better left unsaid and unrealized.”
But, of course, condemning a SAHM (stay-at-home-mom) experience as rendering opinions on the world at large invalid is OK with Rosen, because she apparently has no ethical standards worth mentioning. Of course. You did see “DNC/Obama advisor” in the opening line of this post, right? So, “no ethical standards worth mentioning” is a “dog bites man” thingy, eh? 😉
*deviant, n, Differing from a norm. Since self-identified homosexuals make up less than 4% of the adult population of the U.S. (that would include male, female and “other” homosexuals *heh*), and female homosexuals may comprise no more than half that number, I’d say 2% makes Rosen and her “partner” deviant, by definition.
Anyone see the faux apology Rosen finally issued yesterday? Following her deliberate slam of SAHMs as “not having worked a day in [their] li[ves]” is was an insult to anyone who viewed it, especially following on the heels of her expanded insults at “Puffington Host” while penning a walkback on her slur on SAHMs designed to gull the terminally stupid and satisfy her fellow travelers. Check this:
Mitt Romney actually said, referring to asking Ann Romney what she’s been hearing on the campaign trail,
“…she reports to me regularly that the issue women care about most is the economy.”
OK, Rosen quoted that and then LIED about what Romney said! LIED:
“…saying he supports women’s economic issue because they are the only issues that matter to [women]”
Note two things: Romney mentions his wife campaigning with him and on her own and reports what she tells him the women she interacts with on the campaign have told her are the most important issues they care about in the campaign, NOT “the only” as Rosen says in her lie. Firstly, he didn’t ask his wife what her “SAHM opinion” was. He asked her what she was encountering on the campaign. So, Rosen’s comment about Ann Romney (that she’d not worked a day in her life) was not only mean and dismissive of the real work that SAHMs do, it was completely, totally and absolutely irrelevant.
Secondly, Rosen then has to further her attack by actually telling a baldfaced lie about what The Romney Android actually said, on her way to (again!) mischaracterizing the whole incident.
Then, yesterday, she says she simply made some poor word choices and apologizes that her poorly chosen words–not the attitude and content of her dismissive comment, just her word choice–offended some people.
That’s no apology. It’s not even an admission of her behavior. Heck, if she were making a plea of guilt as a part of a plea bargain in court and submitted a similar comment, any honest court would refuse her plea.
Such persons as Hilary Rosen are worse than merely disgusting; they are nothing more than toxic waste trying to pass as human beings.
Mac Warz: De Nile Ain’t Just a River in Egypt
While the Mac platform has never been truly free of malware, with the Apple platforms (Yeh, multiple: iOS and Mac) finally attaining a market penetration that makes it worth malware creators’ time and effort, real people are now seeing real malware problems more frequently on Apple platformed devices, specifically on Macs, for the most part. The recent flap about the Flashback Trojan has led knowledgeable folks such as Kapersky’s Roul Schouwenberg to observe,
“Percentage-wise, Flashback is roughly the equivalent of Conficker,” referring to the multi-vector Conficker Worm that created such a stir in 2008-2009.
Of course, Conficker on Windows computers spread for pretty much the same reason that Flashback recently spread on Macs: OS manufacturers who were slow to patch their OSes and lazy, careless users–often truly clueless naifs–who aided in the spread of the malware. And as long as Apple continues to support the idea that Macs are essentially bulletproof, the cluelessness among Mac users will persist.
But what of iOS? From a February CNet article,
Scanning hundreds of thousands of applications across the mobile landscape for its 2011 Mobile Threats Report, Juniper uncovered more than 28,000 pieces of malware last year, a rise of 155 percent from 2010.
As expected, Android was the post popular target.
Malware aimed at Google’s mobile OS surged to 13,000 samples at the end of last year
I’ll let you decide how toi do the math on that one, ‘K? 28,000 malware apps-13,000 Android malware apps leaves how much malware to divide up between Java and iOS? Recall the anti-malware patch for iOS last Fall? Just sayin’.
Of course, I don’t run any OS from The Evil Empire (do your own search for the term; it’s all over the place *heh*), but I do run a number of other OSes–some just for the fun of it–ranging from various Windows versions to various flavors of ‘nixes, and even including one Android device with its own customized front end (the Kindle Fire). All of them run with up-to-date anti-malware installed. Yes, even the BSD Unix-based compouter that uses the same Unix code base that Apple’s OSX uses (only pure Unix, instead of the bastardized thing Apple’s made of OSX). Modern anti-malware doesn’t have to exact the performance hit that early anti-malware all too often did, and wearing belt (keeping the OS properly patched) and suspenders (up-to-date anti-malware) is both easy to do and a commonsense no-brainer. Not that one would get that impression from most Mac users I know… (Not that I know all that many, since apart from iOS users–still a minority of cell phone and even tablet users around here–Apple has little penetration in America’s Third World County where people often have better things to waste their money on than kewl komputerz from The Evil Empire. *heh*)
We’ll see how this all plays out. Will Apple do the adult thing here and step up, admitting it’s not bulletproof, or will it stonewall and continue the “delayed update response” to threats as it has in the past (*cough* MacDefender *cough*) until compelled to respond to real world threats?
Based on Apple’s long and well displayed arrogance I’m betting on the latter. At least Apple is promising to include better anti-malware in upcoming versions and perhaps even updates to OS X (search Mac Gatekeeper). We’ll just have to wait and see. At least Apple’s promise of better built-in anti-malware is a tacet* admission of the problem.
BTW, for Mac users who do have their heads out of their keisters, here’s an article on commonsense steps to take.
Keep in mind, the installed base of Windows computers is somewhere north of a billion, while the threshold of increased appeal for malware creators targeting Mac computers is minuscule by comparison, given that Apple’s “huge” penetration of the desktop/notebook market is now about 63 million Mac OS X users. ‘nix boxes aren’t even on the radar with only about 1% of the desktop/notebook market (although the server and embedded segments are a far, far different story; your router, for example, is probably running Linux or some other ‘nix variant).
*No, I didn’t misspell “tacit”. “Tacet” is a musical term that means something similar to “tacit” but contains much more content, as a “tacet” passage for an instrument or voice is one of directed silence for a much longer term–frequently a whole passage or movement–than would be convenient to note simply with rests.