Author: David

Over-educated Curmudgeon, Bit-Bucket Tuner and Budding Brewmeister.
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Warning Shots

Always fire a warning shot. There are two main camps on the subject of warning shots: in the air and into the ground. I demur. The best warning shot is center of mass. It conserves ammo and definitely gets the message across with little chance of misunderstanding. (Center of mass warning shots also minimize collateral damage.)

One should always continue offering proper warning shots until an aggressor’s off switch is fully engaged, although, if the aggressor’s off switch is not located near his center of mass, a polite tap-to-the-head warning shot might be required. Oh, be ultra polite and make it two.

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Doggerel Day

Pease porridge hot;
Pease porridge cold,
Pease porridge in the pot,
Nine days old.

Some like it hot;
Some like it cold,
Some like it in the pot,
Nine days old.

As for me? I don’t know. The only food I’ve ever had simmering away for nine or more days has been broth/stock (chicken, beef, or just plain veggie) left on “warm” on a crock pot. Yummers hot; wouldn’t try cold.

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Pragmatism

The main problem with pragmatism as a life philosophy is that we can never know enough to infallibly predict the outcomes of our “pragmatic” behavior–especially if/when it involves how others react to our “pragmatism.”

The second most difficult problem for pragmatism as a life philosophy is that we (none of us) are as smart as we think we are. No, not one.

If only we were omniscient or something. . . Yeh, that would help.

Proverbs 3:5-6

5 “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. 6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

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No One of Any Significance. . .

If I ever tire of Phreddie P. Phineas Phocksphire Pharquhar, I think I would be happy to adopt “Nanny McPhee” as a sobriquet. . . although my Wonder Woman thinks “Manny McPhee” would be a bit less gender-bending. 😉

Thatisall.

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Islam vs. Christianity: the Short Version

A brief rant: I’ve already seen on FarceBook a number of moral equivalency arguments made for the faithful follower of Islam who committed the Orlando shootings. One particularly egregious lie paints Christianity and Islam as equivalent: “equally bad” (as well as “equally good”–essentially, no differences) in what they teach. Really? _Obedient_ Muslims (“muslim” means submitted–short form: to the word of “Allah” as revealed by Mohamed) can, within the constraints of normative Islam, as defined by the words of Mohamed, legitimately emulate Mohamed and follow his clear teachings in committing acts of mass murder, rape, pillage, torture, slavery of unbelievers, etc. Being a true “moderate Muslim” (not committed to doing such things or supporting those who do) means disobeying Mohamed’s commands and disrespecting his life example.

OTOH, those who claim to be Christians and engage in acts that emulate the life of Mohamed (mass murder of unbelievers, etc.), NOT Christ, must do so in direct contradiction of the teachings and life of the founder of Christianity. Obeying Christ’s teachings about the treatment of others–unbelievers included–requires acting in a way that is completely antithetical to Mohamed’s teachings.

Christianity and Islam are in no way, shape, fashion, or form equivalent. Anyone who claims differently is either ignorant or a liar. Since the truth of the issue is quite easy to come by, anyone who is ignorant of it is either dishonestly avoiding the truth or butt lazy. Or both.

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One Little Thing. . . ;-)

Son&Heir’s pooch is definitely one of the top five Best Dogs I have ever known–more like in the top two. Smart, loving, gentle (especially with other animals–he and our cats have a mutual admiration society going), fun to be around. Entertains himself well without being destructive. Fetches well. Plays “tag” really well, too. Personable. Still, one thing he doesn’t seem inclined to learn is the difference between “C’m’ere” and “Sic’em.” *heh*

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Little Things. . .

I made my two favorite cutting boards as gifts (for my grandmothers) 54 years ago, and, after 18 years in one case and 32 years in the other case, they came back to me. I use them daily–far more often than any of my other cutting boards. One I use for meats, only and the other for veggies. The system seems to work for me, and most of the time I don’t need anything larger than these.

mahogany pig

walnut-maple pig

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The Continuing Search for a New Web Browser

Since more and more sites are becoming even ruder about browser use–going well beyond simply browser sniffing, now–Opera 12.18 is starting to become a little more difficult to use as a default browser. It still does work fairly well, apart from aggressive attempts to lock “old” browsers out by some sites, but only in Windows 7 and 8/8.1. Windows 10 seems to simply not “like” it.

Sad, because it has many features other “modern” browsers–including Opera ASA’s “Chopera” (an Opera browser based on the Chrome rendering engine)–either lack or do not implement as well. Mouse gestures as clunky or just weird in most other browsers that implement them natively, and mouse gesture extensions have uniformly proven to be crap. Newsreader integrated into the browser, no add-in required? Nope. Granular–really granular–control of features/customization? Nope. Bookmarks that really work and can be easily organized? Nope. Even the best at importing Opera bookmarks and allowing organization requires laboriously reorganizing each separate folder and sub-folder, one at a time. That’s a bit tedious when one has a couple of hundred folders and thousands of bookmarks. (I treat bookmarking sort of like a library card file catalog: I want everything saved where and how I want it, organized into subject folders and searchable any way I want. Yes, I weed my “catalog” pretty regularly to eliminate dead links. Doesn’t everyone? 😉 )

I could go on and on, because there are many, many features baked into the “old” Opera that are just not present or are poorly implemented in all the other browsers I have tried. The one that comes sort of close to being a replacement, but even it doesn’t allow real customization, has clunky mouse gesture implementation, lousy bookmark organization, no built-in newsreader, and doesn’t let me choose my preferred default search engine, even though it shows a procedure for doing so! #gagamaggot

OK, so just checked again. Since the last time I tried and became disgusted with it, Vivaldi Browser at least does now import my bookmarks and does–almost–sort them, at least closely to their original organization. Manual sorting thereafter looks straightforward (though still tedious). But the rest? *meh* Notsomuch, it seems. *sigh* For example, it limits the number of “Speed Dial” columns to six. I prefer ten. Why bake in such stupid limitations? That’s just one of many such dumb ideas.

Still hunting.

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The Iron Law of Bureaucracy at Work

So, fifth time in six years that “city” *cough* workers *cough* are “repairing” the water line to the house. Yeh, the guy in the hole didn’t like me sticking around to see that he was just putting a patch over the hole in their line. Replace the faulty line? Heck no! That would take work. *sigh*

But at least it keeps them busy going back and re-doing their crappy work.

One of the principles of Type II “Bureaucraps” is to NEVER actually solve a problem, because that doesn’t let them request more funding, more personnel (at the end of the “job” there were five “workers” busyworking the job. Oh, it never needed more than one to do the “work” and another to lean on a shovel and issue directions (which, when it came to the so-so use of the backhoe/FEL at least gave the guy five minutes out of two hours of legitimacy, but it needed five to eat up some time on some time cards), more “turf” to claim as their own.

And their supervisor, of course, set it all up the way it was run, from excess workers using equipment oin a manner assured to take the most possible time with the equipment used, to shoddy repair. All designed to eat up resources in the most inefficient manner possible and assure ANOTHER leak down the road.