Sometimes observing the passing scene can be a bit depressing (but of course, at least some of us have an assurance that of men’s behaviors are not determinative the ends). But, ya know, when I see the things that crybullies and SJWs moan and wail and gnash their teeth on their binkies about, I realize that I care about these same things a big whole heck of a NOT. Such folks are only amusing as one considers their pathologies, and one’s highest self really must respond with concern for their sanity and for their eternal souls, but–confession–it’s hard to stop mocking them and sincerely pray for them.
The Last Laugh
Psalm 2
1 Why do the nations rage,
And the people plot a vain thing?
2 The kings of the earth set themselves,
And the rulers take counsel together,
Against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying,
3 “Let us break Their bonds in pieces
And cast away Their cords from us.”
4 He who sits in the heavens shall laugh;
The Lord shall hold them in derision.
5 Then He shall speak to them in His wrath,
And distress them in His deep displeasure:
6 “Yet I have set My King
On My holy hill of Zion.”
7 “I will declare the decree:
The Lord has said to Me,
‘You are My Son,
Today I have begotten You.
8 Ask of Me, and I will give You
The nations for Your inheritance,
And the ends of the earth for Your possession.
9 You shall [h]break them with a rod of iron;
You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.’ ”
10 Now therefore, be wise, O kings;
Be instructed, you judges of the earth.
11 Serve the Lord with fear,
And rejoice with trembling.
12 Kiss the Son, lest He be angry,
And you perish in the way,
When His wrath is kindled but a little.
Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him.
If You Enjoy Writing Scathing Reviews of Crap
Just look for “gimmes” from wannabe writers on Amazon.1
Yeh, I’m just a wee tad irked with the “self-pub” wannabe writers who
a. Don’t bother to learn English (though it’s their native tongue)
b. Think characterization is accomplished by listing all the name-brand products a character uses, and describing the character by just saying what dim-witted celebrity the character resembles
c. Doesn’t bother to read their own text, and so commits multiple errors of continuity at the speed of light
d. And then packs all this wonderfulness into 100 pages (or, sometimes even worse, 200) of a “novelette lite” and calls it a “novel.” *sigh* “Novelette Lite” even with padding the word count with useless crap like, “. . .in which case he would probably be stuck out here for the rest of his life, however brief a period that turned out to be.” No. DELE “a period.” Wasted electrons. (*sigh* Rather like this whole post, eh? *heh*)
Fortunately, I only actually read through about one of these a week, because I reject the absolute worst of them within the first page of text. The “survivors” often get eviscerated in reviews, though I only note ten or so (and when I’m feeling generous, sometimes fewer) of the worst examples of text that would gag a maggot.
Yes, it got worse in the book I picked to pick on here. Because of certain external factors (namely a recommendation from someone whose recommendations are often on target), I stuck it out with the book the above example came from–through even more garbage–until,
“. . .the slug had been fired from a large-caliber handgun, probably a .45. . . He knew that such projectiles traveled at a high velocity, faster than the speed of sound. . . ”
Urm, no. A good rule of thumb for speed of sound, at sea level, under ideal conditions, is ~1,125fps. Not even a .45ACP+P with a light bullet weight of only 185gr travels that fast (max out at ~1,000fps muzzle velocity), and given the circumstances in the scene, I _seriously_ doubt the writer was referring to (or is even aware of) the .45 Colt (often called “Long Colt”) cartridge or the firearms it is used in, and even then, if he were, he’d have to have been talking about a +P load.
Sorry. When a writer just keeps spreading The Stupid, the book should be relegated to the scrub pile.
1Do note that I keep on “buying” freebie Indie pub books because I have thereby found a few really excellent writers whose other work I end up buying and reading, and not just writers of fiction. I’ve not yet found any good poets that way, but hope springs eternal.
Crimes Against Literacy. . .
. . . in Xmas “movies.”
I caught a very strange sound, in passing as it were, from a made-for-TV “Xmas movie” that jarred me into stopping and paying attention for a moment. Yes, indeed some idiot had elected to have a “caroling choir” sing “Greensleeves” as a processional for a “Cmas wedding.” No, not the Xmas carol lyrics to “What Child is This?” but to the actual lyrics of Greensleeves.” As a supposed wedding processional.
Yes, as the “bride” made her way down the aisle, the “caroling choir” sang,
“Alas my love you do me wrong
To cast me off discourteously. . . “
*head-desk*
My brief attention turned immediately to mocking. Someone should give a dopeslap (using a brick bat) to every moron involved in that production.
Quora Is. . . a Real Mixed Bag
Unlike Q/A fora that focus on one topic or are strictly information-seeking-and-sharing boards, Quora features just about any question anyone can come up with, which means it’s a site that has just about everything from serious questioners with folks making serious attempts to answer such questions to trolls baiting others and then “flinging monkey poo” at anyone who attempts a serious answer, to those like the dumbass who asked the following question:
“What’s one song that always gives you the feels?”
Anyone who uses the term “the feels” deserves no response other than raucous mocking. It’s a vague, stupid nonsense term that only self-made idiots would even contemplate (if contemplate they could) using. The Urban Dictionary (though that should be in “scare quotes” *heh*) tries to describe the term thusly:
“A word used to describe something that is intensely emotional on a level somewhere between you feeling empty and you on the floor in a ball weeping uncontrollably.”
In other words, it’s a term so broad and vague as to be meaningless, and yet this questioner wants to know,
“”What’s one song that always evokes vague, undefined, essentially meaningless emotions in you ranging from ennui to agony?”
#gagamaggot
OTOH, the stupidity of gargantuan proportions the question represents nevertheless did not prevent my mind from fleeing to a momentary wish that I could somehow know the tune Kipling had running through his head as he composed “The Last Chantey.”
Once More Into the Breach
. . .or not.
I see articles occasionally about the death of passwords, creating effective passwords, blah-blah. Well, passwords and the insecurities created by stupid (or lazy. . . or more like both) people and their password habits aren’t going away any time soon, and most of the articles suggesting improvements are seriously lacking in effective counsel. Most now suggest pass phrases with common substitutions of symbols and numbers for letters, but really, how many folks will do that? Others suggest using password managers (I often suggest this, myself, but even users who have PAID me for consulting rarely make even the exceptionally minimal effort to effect this change in their behavior *sigh*).
So, what’s a solution? When it comes to ID10T errors like lazy or stupid (or both) password behavior, the only solutions seem to be either eliminating the users or letting them reap the effects of their bad behaviors.
*meh*
Now, I’ll admit that my own normative password policies would definitely not appeal to most users, although it baffles me why that case is, save for excessive laziness on their part. OK, so here’s a loose outline of a process that’s super simple and easier than most pass phrase processes. That it is similar to my own is purely coincidental. 😉
Select a song from childhood or early youth that can you reliably “sing” mentally. Or choose a memory shared only with people you have not seen for many years.
Extract an inner verse from the song or a visual from the selected memory.
Using the verse as a passphrase, extract ONLY the first letter of each word in the verse; using the visual of the memory, create a passphrase and do the same thing.
Now, with those passwords extracted from the passphrases, make your substitutions of symbols and numbers, as appropriate.
There. Relatively long, complex, fairly uncrackasble (in any reasonable amount ot time), easy to remember passwords. I have a couple passwords created by means similar to this that are 60-some-odd characters long, though most websites don’t allow passwords that are really all that long. No problem typing such passwords, because the pass phrases they are built on are extremely memorable, and I really don’t have problem typing long passwords.
Of course, for non-critical sites, I go ahead and use LastPass. *shrugs* I only allow it to autologon to sites that have no (genuine) PII for me and where I DGARA about some bad actor getting in, but I still use strong passwords, anyway. Oh, and a good VPN ALWAYS when online.
As for my devices, a good firewall (actually, firewalls on the devices that do not conflict with a hardware firewall for the network), strong passwords, encrypted PII, solid backups of data, and physical control of access will have to suffice.
Still, I cannot recall the number of calls (OK, I could go back on my records, but that’s where I will pead laziness *heh*) I have had from folks who “forgot” (or worse, “mislaid”–which means they had it written down somewhere) the passwords for their computers. *smh* Baffles me. It truly does.
Had to *SMH* in Amazement
Saw a comment that was only moderately “gabberflastering” on a forum that shall go unnamed. Guy said he had to write in thew sharps and flats that were in the key sig to remind himself when he played through a piece.
Say what?!?
Whenever I taught music or directed volunteer music groups, I generally taught beginning music readers to use the “STARS” system or a variant that is even simpler, for those in volunteer choirs whose music reading chops were. . . only slowly emerging:
S – Sharps or flats in the key signature
T – Time signature and Tempo markings
A – Accidentals not found in the key signature
R – Rhythms ; silently count the more difficult notes and rests
S – Signs , including dynamics, articulations, repeats and endings
Every class session or rehearsal included using something likethe “STARS” system before reading every new piece. *shrugs* Regular exercise of “reading” through a new piece (or reviewing one not seen in a while) really aided in sight reading. Of course, “STARS” is just an extremely simplified version of score study any competent conductor does, but it seemed to be enough to alleviate the “write in the sharps/flats for reminder” issue. . . especially since each freakin’ line in a score begins with the key sig. . .
Silly, Sad, or Disingenuous?
I have a dirty little pleasure. I lurk (and sometimes–rarely–participate) on Quora, mainly in order to keep track of just how low literacy and rhetoric can sink (is sinking, still) in these DisUnited States. Here:
In the wake of another mass shooting, do you support the NRA who is saying “anti gun doctors should stay in their lane,”or are you with the doctors who treat the victims?
Answering such a question is a waste of time, because the question is illegitimate on its face.
“. . .do you support the NRA who is saying ‘anti gun doctors should stay in their lane,’ or are you with the doctors who treat the victims?”
The questioner creates a class “anti-gun doctors” and sets the NRA against that class, but also, by asking if one—contra the NRA, in the questioner’s construction—is “with” (in support of) doctors who treat the victims, creating an equivalence between “anti-gun doctors” and “the doctors who treat the victims” implying that doctors who are NOT “anti-gun” don’t treat victims. . . or worse, implying there are not doctors who are not “anti-gun.”
All-in-all, it’s a question that was either formed poorly by someone who just cannot use English literately or it was formed by someone intending to semantically slant the question in an illegitimate manner. Either way, it’s a less than useful question from an arguably useless questioner.
But, frankly, on some issues, a question formed like this one would be better than most.
Why Even Have a Constitution?
Yeh, random thought? No, Hollyweird program featuring “feddle gummint” law enFARCEment at its. . . contemporary norm spurred this.
“The powers of the Legislature are defined and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken or forgotten, the Constitution is written. To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing, if these limits may at any time be passed by those intended to be restrained? The distinction between a government with limited and unlimited powers is abolished if those limits do not confine the persons on whom they are imposed, and if acts prohibited and acts allowed are of equal obligation.”
The US Constitution was intended and designed to circumscribe, restrain, LIMIT federal powers, to first prevent it from infringing on individuals’ rights while enabling it to have just enough power to protect individuals from those who would infringe on those rights, but only in areas where the states did not already have that responsibility.
Now, “feddle gummint” powers have been so illegitimately stretched, the Constitution seems to largely be a dead letter, trotted out to be disingenuously twisted into support for whatever “feddle gummint” overstep is the latest power grab, and “stare decisis” means whatever is convenient.
*shrugs*
What to do. You tell me.
The Proper Use of a “Splainsit Stick”
Any time I see “[Whatever]-splaining” used by someone to dismiss an argument, I know the person using the term is really saying, “I don’t have an argument, and I just don’t want to listen, so I’ll use this nonsense term instead of putting my fingers in my ears and chanting, ‘la-la-la-la. . .’ and maybe the horrible person using facts and reason will just go away and leave me with my chosen, ignorant opinions.”
At that point, I realize that the only proper response is raucous mocking.
And that, dear reader, is how one uses a “Splainsit Stick.”