Author: David

Over-educated Curmudgeon, Bit-Bucket Tuner and Budding Brewmeister.
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What’s Wrong With This Headline?

Nearly 1 in 5 Americans had mental illness in 2009

What’s with the “had”? Is mental illness something one can catch, like a cold? Something that just happens or is built into one’s DNA like inherited diseases? What?

“Mental illnesses”, unless they have a physical cause, are personal choices made manifest. Period. One doesn’t “have” personal choices except in the sense that one makes personal choices. Period. Oh, one might have options and perceptions, and make one’s choices based on perceived options, thus resulting in “mental illnesses” of one sort or another as sort of, semi-almost “defined” by that ever-expanding excuse for “mental health professionals” to bill insurance companies, the DSM-X. Why! As the p-sych professionals expand those behaviors (often once considered normal or merely perhaps a wee tad eccentric) they want to be paid by insurance companies for “treating” I’ll be surprised if there’s on non-“mentally ill” person left in America.

*feh* I’d say a lack of personal responsibility is the cause of most “mental illness” cited by “mental health professionals” as things they want to get to get paid for “treating”. And failure to accept personal responsibility for one’s attitudes, feelings and behaviors is primarily an ethical and moral illness, not a mental one.

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Browser Wars Revisited

A recent post had me taking another look at different browsers. I have four currently installed (well, five, sort of, in different physical machines–maybe even seven, depending on how one want to count things), and I try to make use of them all from time to time. All the browsers I currently use to one degree or another–Opera, Chrome (and SWIron, a de-Google-tracking Chome-based browser), Firefox and Internet Exploder–are generally Good Enough for most folks’ use, but the latter three all have serious drawbacks for me for the ways I prefer to use a browser.

Chrome, Firefox and Internet Exploder install as “crippled” compared with an installation of Opera, right “out of the box” as it were. Chrome comes closest to Opera for built-in features, but close enough only if one were using the browsers to play horseshoes with hand grenades. (*heh* Metaphors are for mixing, IMO :-)) None of the three offer the kind of flexibility and customization Opera does without having to add widgets or extensions. Just look at the form-filling functions of the browsers, for one. Opera offers–right off a fresh install–more form-filling options than the others. And whether using “opera:config” or text editing ini files, Opera offers in-depth customization that’s either not possible or extremely difficult (without some form of extension added in) in the other browsers. And having offered mouse gestures, tabbed browsing and features such as Speed Dial for years before the other browsers, Opera simply does all those elements more elegantly, as is illustrated by the new, built-in, Stacked Tabs feature in Opera 11 (beta) that performs functions similar to (but again, more elegantly than) the Firefox Tab Candy extension that Mozilla is now in the process of building into FF4.

Oh, there’re more reasons why I still prefer Opera, and the new Opera 11 beta is adding to them, but apart from the security concerns I continue to have about IE and FF (FF had more security problems last year than the other three browsers combined; all eventually fixed, IIRC, but still… ), any of these four will work for most users.

Safari? Not even on my radar any more. Just not Good Enough, period. Some of the ‘nix-only browsers like Konqueror and Seamonkey? *yech!* Definitely Not Good Enough for regular use. (*heh* My first download/install on any new ‘nix machine–physical or virtual–after system updates is always Opera, usually the latest beta, despite warnings from the OSes that “down” versions are preferred for stability. So far, the Opera Software site has always selected the best version for the particular ‘nix variant I’m using, and installing has been as easy, if not easier, in recent ‘nix distros as in Windows.)

That’s how it is here at twc central. One user here uses SWIron about as often as Opera, but that’s the largest divergence from twc central’s norm, and mostly because advanced browser use just isn’t on that user’s horizon, so Chrome’s minimalist approach works pretty well in her use.

BTW, used SWIron to post this. PITA, but it works for simple things like this all right, I suppose. 🙂

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What Sign Were You Born Under?

Astrologically, I suppose folks who gave that sort of thing any credence would say that I was born under this sign:

My mom, though, would probably say I was born “under” this sign:

Nowadays, I look at what our self-annointed political masters have wrought and what the current lame duck congress seems intent on doing, and I wish for a time machine so I could catch their parents in the act(s) of conceiving them and point them to this sign:

Interesting… this post displays correctly in Opera and Internet Exploder (of all things!) but apparently NOT in Chrome or Firefox. Heck, I even tried “DIV” statements to no avail. Oh. Well…

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Twisted Pat-Downs?

I wonder if SFO (San Francisco International Airport) will be seeing an increase in folks opting for pat-downs by homosexuals who want to by-pass placing “SGM” or “SGF” ads in the personals…

“A little to the left, honey… Ahhh! Now that hit the spot!”

Perspiring minds wanna know…

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The Zero “Donkey Ears” Himself…

Yeh, he’s been beclowning himself from the inauguration on, but recall your (distant?) youth, the childish “donkey earing” of another child? Barry Hussein Obama-Soetoro apparently believes in preemptively “donkey-earing” himself…

Finally, The Zero shows some sort of connection to reality, but being The Zero, it’s a childish one.

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VM Fun

So, I had this lil 30+GB 2.5″ ATA hard drive laying around. Old tech. Thought to myself, “Self, what useful purpose can this lil thing serve?” Answered self, “Self, put it in an external case and install some VMs on it!” “Why, that’s a very good idea, Self. I think I’ll do just that!”

So, after a miniscule amount of time (about what it took recently for an “Anytime Upgrade” of Widows 7 Home Premium to Windows 7 Ultimate on lil toy compie), Ubuntu 10.10 was running from the lil external 2.5″ drive.

Can carry it with my anywhere, now. Next, Linux Mint and a couple more.

Later… I used Portable Virtualbox to run the VMs (yes, Linux Mint’s on board now), and the experience is little different to a regular Virtualbox installation. Maybe a tad quicker to install. As usual, installing the VB Guest Additions is a little less straightforward in Linux guests than in Windows guests. Not difficult by any means, just a bit more fiddling.

I think I’ll ditch the Ubuntu 10.10 VM and keep the Mint VM, as Mint uses 10.10 Ubuntu as its starting point but includes quite a few more media apps and codecs from the getgo, and the seamless integration of such things is kinda nice for a lazy semi-geek like me.

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Top Ten People I’d Like to Meet and Have a Sit-Down With

I’ve got a little list… No, not that kind–really! No, this is a list of people now living that I’d like to meet and visit with, some to just have an enjoyable conversation and some to figuratively box their ears.

So, in no particular order of importance, today’s Top Ten People I’d Like to Meet and Have a Sit-Down With:

Jerry Pournelle: a very, very interesting guy. Smart, too. Well-informed and a decent conversationalist, from what I’ve seen of him on old Tom Snyder clips, etc.

Freeman Dyson: Gives “smart” a new level of meaning, beggars the word “genius”. A sit down with him would just be me asking questions and listening to whatever he might want to impart.

Here’s one I could actually manage: my Uncle Milton. Smart guy, very smart. Not a “Dyson”, but easily a “Pournelle-class” smart guy. Engaging conversationalist and all around Good Guy. OK, so I’ve already “met” him. He’s worth more than one meeting.

Barry Hussein Obama-Soetoro: a sitdown with this guy would entail me asking, “WTF? Who the HELL do you think you are, dumbass?” in various ways until I’d reduced him to vacuously (and disingenuously) whining about my racism or whatever. I’d spend most of the time figuratively beating him about the head and shoulders with the words and deeds of the Founders. What a maroon.

Sarah Palin: I’d really like to set her straight on a few things while encouraging her in other areas. In particular, I’d encourage her to become much more familiar with the Founders, because her conservatism seems to be mostly a social construct that’s mushy on fundamentals. Needs seasoning.

Nancy Pelosi: She’s not a particularly interesting person, but she definitely Needs A Spanking. Badly. Verbally or physically (no, wait, she might enjoy the latter, as she appears to be kinda kinky).

Paul Krugman: Well, not really. Now that Milton Friedman’s no longer around (d. 2006) to (verbally) take him to task for his vacuous economist pronouncements, it’d be hard to get him in a round-robin conversation with Friedman and enjoy watching him be demolished. Fatuous ass. Maybe just taking him out behind the woodshed would do…

Placido Domingo: It’s not just that I love his instrument and the way he uses it (much more than any other contemporary tenor) but that I truly enjoy watching him perform. I get the feeling I’d enjoy just visiting with him and, if he’d allow me, singing a simple duet just for fun.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau: Simply, IMO, one of the two most magnificent voices of the 20th Century–number 1 in my book on some days, barely edged to number 2 on others. A visit with him would include–in my dreams–at least a brief session of vocal coaching.

Fred Thompson: I’d like to box his ears for raising my hopes in 2008 and then dashing them so precipitously.

There, that’s my Top Ten People I’d Like to Meet and Have a Sit-Down With (again, in no particular order). There are others I might include on different days for different reasons (including one that’s “above” this mundane list), but those will do for now.

No, I’m not linking to all of these folks. You can google (almost) any of them you’re unfamiliar wit yourself easily enough. 🙂