Author: David

Over-educated Curmudgeon, Bit-Bucket Tuner and Budding Brewmeister.
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Xmas Season Re-post from 2012

From NOVEMBER 30, 2012:

…almost all my Grolsch swingtops that I used in putting up the “Xmas Tree” pictured below are in use (that’s “filled with beer”), so I won’t be assembling the lil “Xmas Tree” we had in 2010 this year but will decorate using the materials we used last year.

Oh, well. I guess I’ll just have to live with having a few gallons of homebrew this year.

🙂

Once again, I have brew–hard apple cider–aging a bit in these (and more) bottles, so it’s just out lil 2′ artificial with LED lights, etc. this year.

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“Net Neutrality” Advocates Are Either Morons or Liars

Is it wrong to experience a sort of “zloradstvo”1 when evil experiences a setback, no matter how small? Let me introduce the “poster children” for so-called “Net Neutrality.”

Top 10 Internet-censored countries

And if you think that’s an extreme argument, then let me remind you of Lord Acton’s pithy adage, Parkinson’s Law, Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy, and the Eight Most Dreaded Words in the English Language:

“I’m from the government. I’m here to help.”

I don’t really want to crack a smile at the puling whines of “net neutrality” advocates, but I just can’t help myself. . . (OK, I could suppress it, but I don’t. 😉 )

[“Net Neutrality” is nothing more than a “bureaucrappic” scheme to place a 5,000-pound government thumb on the scale to determine market winners/losers, thus improving the market for. . . graft, and worse. h.t. to Perri Nelson for the clarification that genuine net neutrality is different to the bureaucrappic scheme Title II enabled.]

1Russian. An order of magnitude beyond the German “schadenfreude,” as only Russians can do. . .

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Just One of Those Things

Completely unrelated. . .

Shoelaces are something of a “thing” for me. I had searched for years for just the right way to tie them that would

a. prevent them coming untied and yet
b. was quick and easy to tie and untie.

For the past seven years, I have used a method that has accomplished that for me, and have added lacing techniques that allow me to also “custom fit” shoes when foot problems of various kinds temporarily arise, as well.

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STOP THE PRESSES! WATER IS WET! (Who knew?)

Gee. . . Kurt Schlichter commenting on the fact that the Sun rose in the East again this morning, or some such. *psst* Kurt: the FBI has been a disgrace for DECADES in its over-reach and selective persecution of citizens. What’s “news” is that some folks are just now noticing.

“Liberals Have Turned the FBI Into a Disgrace”

Kurt (and other pseudo-conservatives) have only noticed it now that their own ox is being gored.

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*sigh* Really? A Xmas Song? OK, Just Barely

This is one of those songs that, although I associated it with Xmas when I was a young child, I have become less and less pleased with over the years. Oh, and I’ve heard and seen folks call it a “traditional cowboy song” (yes, “traditional” and “cowboy” *sigh*), because. . . well, Gene Autry. #gag

So, the third verse hints at a genuine Xmas theme, and the fourth verse actually quotes a snippet of scripture relating to the Nativity, but that is it.

Oh, and “Santy CLaus.”

Gene Autry has a lot to answer for. . . 😉
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Continue reading “*sigh* Really? A Xmas Song? OK, Just Barely”

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TOO MUCH STUFF!!!

*sigh*

Purging. And not just household items. Data.

Several years after my first computer, I went “big” for a 5MB hard drive on a 486. I ended up, in the long run, “purging” (well, discarding) most of the data I had on 5.25 floppies, tape (even audio cassette tapes *heh*), etc. I may never get around to sorting and purging the boxes (and boxes) of CDRs that are slowly decaying, although I do have quite a bit of original work I saved to 3.5” floppies transferred to other media/stored in several different archives. *shrugs* Useful mainly for review of how my views have changed/remained the same after dealing with new information. Apart from that? Destined for destruction when I’m gone.

The other day, I actually found an external 500GB drive I thought I had scrubbed; it’d been stuck in a (wrong) box during some house changes. Never missed it, since the data was all elsewhere, anyway.

I have way too much stuff, including just junk sitting around on various drives. Some of it is the result of a habit of saving web pages/sites for offline reading or even reference archiving, something I do for things that are more interesting/immediate than would fit in my 1,000s of bookmarks (also need purging, though I do that now and then with an app).

The flood back on the last day of April was good for purging stuff, but we need to go much, much farther, and are doing so. It just seems to go so slowly. . . *sigh*

It’s a daunting task, but must it be done.

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Perspective

Living the 1970s dream: A lesson in critical thinking

This is an excellent exercise. I spent my childhood in the 50s, teens in the 60s. Nowadays, even most on “welfare” live in more creature comfort, with many more convenience factors and just flat-out luxuries than we could even have imagined. Whenever I feel a yen for more (of whatever), I still try to ask myself just how much what I desire is really necessary. *shrugs* I still succumb all too often to the siren call of “more,” but recalling just how satisfied I once was with much, much less helps keep things a wee tad more restrained.

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DSM-XX: Increasingly Harmful Criteria Proposed by Well-Meaning High-Functioning “Norms” or Just a Scam?

Maybe a lot of both.

Let’s take the ever-increasing “diagnostic criteria” for ADD/ADHD/autism “spectrum” and other such squishy “disorders”

It’s a complex issue, and the desire among p-sychs and drug companies to have insurance billables make sales compounds the problem, especially for those for whom ADHD (and those with real autism) who actually do suffer from real world consequences of real conditions are just as much harmed by excessive diagnosis and treatment of others as are those others who should NOT be tagged with “disability” labels and drugged out of their minds–especially children.

Some real people with real problems do exist, but I am in no way convinced that it is the dire mental health issue it is presented as.

If viewed in the most positive light possible, most of the DSM “diagnostic criteria” that has spawned these expanded classes of “disorders” has simply been efforts by (often high-functioning) “Norms” to explain away behavior by “Odds” who simply do not fit their view of societal norms. . . because Odds frequently do not adhere to societal norms. when those oddities do not cause direct harm to the Odds in question, or to those around them, save perhaps in the secondary effect of bigoted Norms who refuse to allow Odds to be themselves, these (often high-functioning) Norms feel behooved to label the Odds as. . . odd, but in pejorative, and actually harmful terms.

Where’s the love for diversity of viewpoint, eh? *heh*

(BTW, had current standards and practices existed at the time, I too very likely would have been diagnosed as “having” a “disorder” that would then be treated by quacks. My current–and lifetime–signs say I fulfill diagnostic criteria in the DSM-IV for a certain so-called “autism spectrum disorder,” but since I long ago learned how to feign normalcy when I want to, it isn’t so much a disorder–causing physical or social harm to me or others as a REAL disorder does–as an occasional inconvenience, primarily when I attempt to explain some complex subject to a “Norm” who can’t–or simply won’t–grasp my frame of reference easily.)

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Mitt hjerte alltid vanker (My Heart Always Wanders)

A recent Xmas music favorite of mine (OK, “last decade or so” is recent, isn’t it? 😉 ) is the Danish/Norwegian hymn, “Mitt hjerte alltid vanker.” Both the tune and the lyrics speak to me.

Here’s a beautiful rendition by Sissel:

But I’m strongly drawn to Tine Thing Helseth’s instrumental version:

As translations of lyrics go, this is rather rough–sacrificing both a good wedding with the meter of the tune and rhyme scheme–but I think this captures the heart of the meaning about as well as it can. I like the twist Tine Thing Helseth’s album featuring this piece takes on the title though: “My Heart Is Always Present.”

Mitt hjerte alltid vanker – English translation/version

My heart will always wander
To where our Lord was born,
My thoughts will always go there
And take on their true form.
My longing does belong there,
With the treasure of my faith;
I never shall forget you,
O blessed Christmas night!

Oh come, and I will open
My heart and my mind
And sigh with longing,
Enter, Jesus
For this home is Your own,
You bought it for yourself
So I will remain faithful,
With you here in my heart

I’ll willingly spread branches
Of palms around your bed.
For you and you alone
I will gladly live and die.
Come, let my soul find joy
In this moment of delight:
To see you born right here,
Deep inside my loving heart.

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My Wonder Woman’s Got Staying Power

She tells me she loves me, and I remind her that it’s not my fault. *heh*

Well, yesterday was. . . different. Our only anniversary celebration was a full-on turkey meal, made here, since we had our Lovely Daughter’s wonderfully-prepared bird yesterday.

When she tells me she loves me (at least daily), I always remind her that it’s not my fault. 🙂