I utterly abhor the illiterate construction, “12:00 p.m.” used to refer to Noon. “P.M.” means “Post Meridian” and Noon IS the Meridian; it cannot be after itself. Now, there may be some weak argument for referring to Midnight as “12:00 a.m.” because in one sense it is “ante meridian” but since it is both the beginning of one day while also serving as the end of the previous day, Midnight is simply better. But there is no excuse under the Sun for “12:00 p.m.” to be used to refer to Noon. None. Anyone who uses it deserves 50 lashes with a sharp second hand.
Goodbye, Old Friend
Buttons, Son&Heir’s medium-sized “some kind of herding dog/beagle mix” who, for most of his life weighed in at between 45 and 50 very lean pounds, at the ripe old age of seventeen(ish), finally “slipped the surly bonds of earth” yesterday, about noon.
Goodbye, buddy.
(Almost always a “happy dog” he appears to be squinting here because he is. Sun in his eyes and all that. 🙂 Photo taken about four years ago, just a couple of months after he nearly died from an infection–caught just in time to be turned around with very aggressive anti-biotic treatment.)
Although Buttons much preferred outdoor life–and was an exclusively outdoor dog for almost all the years he was with us, after we got him from his previous owners at age 2.5 yrs or so (they had kept him “crated” for about 23 hours/day. Should have been shot). This winter, he spent most of his time indoors, though–especially when temps were below freezing. The sudden slide downhill in the past couple of weeks–most of it in the last couple of days was not easy to watch. The vet agreed with me that he was at the end of the road, and that was that.
Yes, I cried a tad. So sue me for it.
Leashes and treats have already been doled out to The Good Neighbors for their dogs. I’m still waiting to see if they want a ton of dog food–canned and dry. Buttons was a sharing kinda guy. 🙂
“We the Government… “
Government of the politicians, by the politicians and for the politicians…
” …in order to form a more destructive polity, chain Liberty with our hubris, destroy the General Welfare and establish serfdom for all the ‘little people’ and their future generations (but not our own progeny, of course) give you, the inconsequential serfs… Obumacare.”
But we were born free, weren’t we? Weren’t we?
Revisiting “Life Extender”
In WTV Files: A Better Way?, I mentioned trying out LifeExtender to remove commercials from WTV files converted from WTV format to DVR-MS format. I noted at the time that it seemed to work pretty much all right.
Well, yes and no. It reminds me of the “little girl with a curl, right in the middle of her forehead… ”
There was a little girl who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead;
When she was good, she was very, very good,
And when she was bad she was horrid.
When LifeExtender works, it works well. But at other times, it simply… stops working. Or, it doesn’t “find” DVR-MS files to decommercialize… when there definitely are some in the folder to find. At other times–and this is the most irritating issue–it just hogs CPU cycles to the point that using my computer for anything else is an exercise in futility.
I do have a solution (a kludge) for that last issue, though. I start taskmgr.exe using admin privileges and lower LifeExtender’s priority to “Below Normal”. (I have to run taskmgr with admin privileges, because LifeExtender MUST run with admin privileges, and so it refuses to have its priority modified unless I run taskmgr with the same privilege level.) Strangely, it seems to actually work better that way.
BTW, I’ve been able to reduce the size of recorded TV files by almost 1/3 by decommercializing them. Somethiung between 25% and 33% reduction in file size, edging toward the upper number. Not bad.
Your “Feddle Gummint” at Work: IRS Raids Car Wash for 4¢
There ya go. Yet another reason for The FairTax from the IRS.
The kicker? Interest and penalties on the 4¢ amounted to $202.31.
BTW, if you’ve gotten all your information on the FairTax–what little there is available in mass media–from the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind, politicians *spit* and Academia Nut Fruitcakes, you owe it to yourself, your children, your grandchildren and our society as a whole to follow the link to FairTax.org and there to practice some genuine autodidacticism (no, despite what the NEA may say, autodidacts are NOT perverts) on the subject.
Opposition to Obumascare Still Growing
WaPo reports that “more than three dozen states” have some sort of measures either passed or in the works in opposition to the “feddle gummint” takeover of health care:
States opposing health-care legislation
As President Obama prepares to sign the health-care bill into law, Republican legislators in more than three dozen states are seeking to challenge U.S. government authority. They contend that the bill will infringe on state sovereignty and individual freedoms. Many constitutional scholars are skeptical of the challenges: They say federal law and precedents are clear.
Idaho has said not only “No” but (in effect) “H3ll no!” (I think I’ll let that typo stand :-)) In other cases, states’ attorneys general are mounting legal challenges based on 10th Amendment and Commerce Clause issues.
Let’s see… the House “passed” the bill with about a 50.6% majority. What’s 36 out of 50 (or even 60, if one were to use The Ø!’s campaign math)? Hmmm, that’s 72%–why! that’s almost enough right there to ratify an Amendment to the Constitution! (Using The Ø!’s math, 36/60 it’d still be 60%–considerably more than the House’s lame 50.6%.)
It’s about time for the Third American Revolution to reclaim some of the rights and liberties of the First American Revolution that were lost in the Second American Revolution (also known as The Great Unitarian-Baptist Shootout, Mr. Lincoln’s War, The War of Northern Aggression, and to those who have little interest in historical accuracy or honesty, the American Civil War).
About That “Democracy” Thing
50.6% gave House leaders a “mandate” to pull the trigger on the gun held to the head of the Republic. It remains to be seen if the Republic can dodge the bullet fired at so close a range…
As an article at American Thinker reminds us,
“Democracies, says Aristotle, tend to be pulled in one direction: toward a vilification of everything involving merit, hierarchy, inequality, proportion, and worth.”
Aristotle was, of course, simply echoing (hey! if Loony Left Moonbats, Mass MEdia Podpeople, Academia Nut Fruitcakes and at least 50.6% of the House can defy logic, who am I to avoid that train?) my observation that,
“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.”-third world county’s corollary to Santayana’s Axiom
But do go and read Aristotle’s Warning.
Found via a comment at Chaos Manor
Quick Win7 Tip
For most Windows users, the “Homegroup” networking-on-training-wheels approach works well on home networks. But what to do with Windows XP users on the same network when you want to share resources on Win7 computers?
This lil tutorial covers that base, and touches on Vista users as well. Bob’s your uncle. It does require doing a few simple, ordinary Windows networking and user management things that any normal user ought to be able to do, but if you refer someone you know to the site and they have difficulty, you may either have to walk them through in “babier” steps or tell them to have their 10-year-old do it for ’em. *heh*
Facebook Users Beware
Although certainly no regular reader of this site would self-infect as a result of this piece of “social engineering” y’all may want to pass this on to others.
Facebook password reset themed malware campaign in the wild
Now, regular readers here aren’t among the set of folks who click on attachments in emails that
- a. they were not already expecting AND
- b. hadn’t been AT LEAST manually scanned by a freshly-updated, strong anti-malware software… or two. AND
- c. actually checked the sender’s address out using “view full headers” (or whatever your email client offers) and found it to be from a legitimate, known and trusted sender–for real.
If an attachment satisfies all those requirements, it may be safe to open. May. Frankly, more and more, I “send” files by giving folks an ftp address for download or posting them with Skydrive or some other such site or just posting them here for download. That way, at least folks have a pretty good idea who the file is actually coming from and can base further action on what level of trust they may place in me. Email? With forged headers and other social engineering/obfuscation techniques, naive users often have no idea where a given email came from, and so they often infect themselves.
I don’t excuse them because of their naivete. Naive users have a responsibility to learn safe computing practices. If they infect themselves and go on to spread the infection, well, any stupidity that is advanced enough is virtually indistinguishable from malice.
BTW, I’ve received two emails such as those referred to in the article. The delete key works a charm with them, if my filters haven’t already caught and scrubbed them.
Suckers!
Believers in the Obamassiah, that is.
Update: via FB, et al:
And the side that’s unreadable in the pic above reads,
