Category: FWIW

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Anyone Else Like This?

I have a quirk, I guess one might say. An example might be, I need to have my cooking utensils hung in EXACTLY the right place–the place where I expect them to be. If a spoon I need to stir a soup is hung just two places off from its place, I have a devil of a time finding it, sometimes (OK, oftentimes). I’ve been known to look all through the kitchen for the RIGHT spoon, because not only is it not in its place, but imagining it being in another utensil’s place is just. . . wrong.

I have experienced something similar if someone referred to “The Messiah” (as a musical work). I am–or was for years–prone to ask “Who is that by?” since Handel’s work is “Messiah.” Now, I know every single note of the Spicker score for “Messiah,” but for years “The Messiah” used as reference to that work kinda threw me. *shrugs* Of course, this usually only causes problems with things I know well.

No, I do not fit the loosey-goosey DSM-IV OCD diagnostic criteria.

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I Hate Spring Pollens

I know they’re a part of the freakin’ “circle of life” and all that, but I’ve been coughing up a lung or two for a couple of weeks now. It’s not all that bad except when a cough surprises me while I’m in the process of swallowing something seasoned with ghost pepper. Then, it’s getting the stuff out of my nasal cavity. . .

I hate Spring pollens.

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Taxes Are Theft?

Every now and then, I see the “Taxes are theft” meme crop up again. It’s simplistic and wrong. Taxes are only theft when government begins to apply revenue thus gained in violation of its essential purpose: the protection of individual rights and liberties. As long as government hews closely to its legitimate purpose, and taxes are not obtained through coercion, taxes are not theft.

Of course, this means that taxes are theft. . . *sigh*

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Have Fun Guessing My Password, Folks!

I want to share my Gmail password with y’all. Well, the circumstances from which I derived it and its nature. It is derived from a brief incident that occurred 47 years ago in the presence of people I have not seen since that time, and is based on a specialty item in a food order placed at a business that no longer exists. It’s a simple lil 60-character phrase that I can easily recall, distorted by upper-lower case letters, symbols and numbers according to a formula I devised for that password.

Have fun breaking into my Gmail account, folks!

Oh, BTW, I did insert one teensy lil contrafactual bit into the password, just to keep cracking the thing fun.

Yes, yes I know that “cracking” (really “guessing”) my password is only one way to break into my account. Try some of the others, mmmK?

BTW, even the strongest of passwords isn’t really much good as a means of securing things on otherwise insecure platforms/environments.

BTW#2: All the obscurity and pseudo-complexity described above? Misleading. THE single most important feature of strong passwords is LENGTH.

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Oh, Well

After about six years, my lil “family room” notebook that I use while sitting with my Wonder Woman in the evening (she on hers, me on mine–unless we’re reading or on occasion watching TV or a video or have someone over) finally bit the dust. Onboard video system died. Really not worth the effort and cost to replace the Mobo, so. . .

Amazon’s delivering a new lappy toy tomorrow. It is NOT a top-end notebook, not even close. That’s just not needed for this lappy’s use. But it does at least have a full sized notebook keyboard with a numeric keypad, a reasonable processor and video subsystem, a reasonable display for a notebook (15.6”–just right for my viewing and much better than the lil 10” netbook I’ve used as a backup for the last couple of weeks), and the memory’s easily–and inexpensively–upgraded (the 4GB that comes with it is not enough for even casual my computing).

I’ve made a break from my past lappy purchases. This one’s not an Asus but a Toshiba. *shrugs* Six of one. . . for this class of computer? Not a lot of difference.

Yeh, yeh, comes with Win8.1, but I can fix that any number of ways (Classic Start, other things, or–likely–Linux Mint in a VM. Gets around a few issues and has essentially the same usability as running it natively, etc.), maybe even accept the “free” sorta upgrade to Win10 ( and fix the everlivin’ HECK out of it–the phoning home’s its worst part, IMO, followed by the “push” “updates:–Classic start, of course, etc.).

First task: Classic start. Next: PC Decrapifier. Then locking the thing down, getting it working well with ALL the resources on our lil LAN, installing my personal choices of software, etc. Typical computer setup fun.

But now, off to see if I can get more than 4 hours of sleep tonight. Could be. It’d be nice.

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Well, THIS Is Gonna Be Fun

Well, for values of fun that include making finicky repairs on small electronics with arthritic fingers. *heh*

Hardware fault on the lil lappy I’ve been using for the past six years for casual Internet browsing, email, etc. while away from my primary computer (which is any time I’m sitting with my Wonder Woman and she’s on her lappy). So, backup lil lappy. And this time, when I say “lil” I mean :tiny”–a discarded netbook I rehabbed and installed Linux Mint on. Works surprisingly well, apart from

1. Cramped keyboard *feh* that makes typos almost certain, and
2. Crappy, tiny mushpad, and
3. Difficulty disabling the crappy, tiny mushpad, making typing even more of a chore–strictly “Biblical method” typing (“seek and ye shall find” *sigh*)

I will figure out that last one. . .

Meanwhile, decision time: definitively diagnose and repair the other lappy or replace it? I don’t really want to purchase a Win10 laptop, so pickings might be slim. For a casual use lapptop, Win7 works pretty well, shich is the reason I had kept that one at Win7 Pro. I like the way Linux Mint works just fine on this lil thing (apart from the obscurantist nature of disabling the touchpad–although it’s probably a simple task and I’m just missing something that’s staring me right in the face. Only one cuppa joe and all that.*heh*)

Anywho, at least most of my data from my regular ole lappy is secure elsewhere, apart from recent bookmarks and the like. The only really irksome things about replacing it with a Linux or Win8.1/10 compy would be

  1. The PITA of putting Win7 version of Freecell on one (it has a more attractive look than any other version I’ve seen out there for other OSes, and I use it for “Freecell Zen” mind-clearing)
  2. Transferring the record of nearly 10,000 to 0 win-loss would be nice, too. *heh*

Yeh, like that is such a big deal, eh? 😉

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I Should Have Content Editing Privileges

When Roger Simon wrote, “We don’t need elegant words, Republican John Kerry’s slavering all over us with diplospeak” in a recent column, I thought to meself, “Self, that would read much better with ‘dildospeak’ than ‘diplospeak.'”

Thatisall.

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Occasionally. . .

*sigh* Every now and then, I find myself reading five or so books at once. This is one of those times. (Plus a new Bible reading plan I’d not tried before.) I know how it happens. Books that are just barely well-written and interesting enough to continue reading, but not well-written and interesting enough to read straight through are the usual culprits. Every now and then, a book I need to put down and think about, or just absorb, for a while before continuing makes my reading list as well.

Now? One hardcopy book. A book on my “non-fiction Kindle” and another on my “fiction Kindle” plus three more in different instances of Amazon’s Kindle Cloud Reader. Between the six, they hold my attention. *sigh*

And then there’s that new Bible reading program. Ten chapters/day, each from a different book with specific instructions to just read them straight through without stopping to think on the text. Tried that. Can’t. So, I generally read half the day’s readings and then go do other things, while the chapters I’ve read percolate. Then, at the end of the day, I finish the readings.

In between, my daily work/chores/activities and. . . the other books.

I prefer keeping it to just one book at a time, but sometimes. . . nope. Not happening.

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Little (Fun) Things

#8,634

Feeding (unsalted, roasted in the shell) peanuts to Son & Heir’s dog, one at a time. No, not many, just a few. He’s just nuts for the things, though, and it amuses me. He’s also such a very polite beggar. Just sits and stares with ears and head cocked, almost daring me to deny him a “PEANUT, PLEASE GIMME A PEANUT!” Waits patiently, sometimes licking his chops, while I shell another peanut and either share with him or not.

Makes me smile.

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Trump Jumps the Shark

Ted Cruz responded to Trump’s “birtherism” with this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4ZGKI8vpcg

Just the right touch, wouldn’t you say? *heh*