Category: FWIW

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20/20 Hindsight

Looking back on last Saturday, I almost wish we had bid more on the items we acquired in a school-sponsored (PTO) silent auction. Oh, we “won” everything we bid on, anyway, but only because I didn’t want to bid much under what the (donated) items were worth, since I knew the PTO’s normal record of spending the funds–and approve. In fact, the PTO’s spending seems to meto be more productive, dollar-for-dollar, than the regular school budget. . . Maybe it’s because administrators, politicians and remore educrats are out of the loop, eh?

Still, I do almost wish we had bid more. *meh* Maybe we can just make a straight donation.

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Meanwhile, In the Land of Serendip. . .

Made arrangements for a car repair today with a new (to us) mechanic (referral from a STRONG referral). Guy I ended up talking with had the same name (last name NOT common) as a childhood buddy of mine (now deceased). Of course, I didn’t know that until I’d made arrangements and got his card, but a nice lil addendum to the transaction.

I think Son&Heir’s car is in good hands.

Probably. *heh*

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EDC Knife?

Just one?!?

(No pics, just a few personal observations.)

Ordinarily, as I go about my day, I have, oh, maybe three or four knives on my person at all times. A Gerber lockback folder with a pretty substantial modified spearpoint blade that I can wear on my belt really unobtrusively (horizontally–a nice option on the included sheath), a couple of Kershaw “speedsafe” spring assisted lockbacks in my pockets (left/right) and maybe another Kershaw clipped to my back pocket. All blades on the Kershaw lockbacks are ~2.75”. Oh, and a “credit card” blade. Just because.

In the car, I usually have a 5”-bladed lockback “escape knife”–glass breaker, seatbelt cutter, etc., built in–in the door pocket, and my favorite skinning knife and another Kershaw folder in the center console. Multi-tool in the glove box.

Oh, and if I’m toting my “fanny pack” (worn in front), there’ll be a nicer (rosewood grips *shrugs* They don’t detract from functionality, so why not?) multitool in it.

I rarely (OK, never *heh*) tote my 12”-bladed German fireman’s dagger for EDC . . . but I suppose I could. *heh* It’s configured for additional use as a bayonet, so. . .

My bugout/eprep bag has a couple more, like the USMC model Ka-Bar Estimable Son-in-Law gave me–really good for a “walk in the deer woods” and a nice hand ax my Wonder Woman gave me (so I don’t have to use my grandfather’s camp ax or my dad’s Boy Scout ax). The hand ax isn’t a knife, of course, but it’s a bladed tool.

Anywho, I don’t mind weighing another couple of pounds, but I’ve discovered not many other folks regularly carry this many knives. Whatever.

Well, that does it for knives I regularly have close to hand. . . 😉

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Just another gripe about dumbed-down society

One of the worst failings of many contemporary performers attempting to sing classic songs (or really any songs at all, it seems at times) is that all too many can’t really hear music, let alone perform music. As Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau often said when asked about his facility singing both lieder and opera (thought by many to be vastly different musical genres), “Man muss sich anhören was die Musik sagt.” Those who can’t really hear what the music is saying turn in performances that are either bland and tasteless or inappropriate to the marriage of text and tune. IOW, MOST typical contemporary performing/recording “artists”–except when they “sing” pieces that match their musically-stunted tastes and abilities. But that’s pretty much OK with an audience that has even less ability to discern music.

Just another of the effects predicted by José Ortega y Gasset in The Revolt of the Masses (La rebelión de las masas).

Fischer-Dieskau: “One must listen to what the music says.”

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Some Non-Random Musings on the Current Scene

N.B.: I frankly DGARA about foreign affairs, except where developments might have a local effect because of “feddle gummint” stupidities or deliberately malicious intent (toward citizens) in policies. So, by “current scene” you can expect me to comment on what was once quaintly known as “the home front,” for the most part.

Today’s topic: Censorship, “feddle gummint” skulduggery, Sharyl Atkkisson, First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, and a possibly appropriate citizens’ response.

By now, anyone with at least one firing neuron who’s not been living under a rock knows that our dear “gummint” placed spying software on Sharyl Atkkisson’s computers. Anyone in denial about the runaway skulduggery in effect in nearly every agency of the “feddle gummint” is either delusional or a part of (or expects to benefit from) the underhanded, nefarious, unscrupulous behavior that seems to now be the norm for “feddle gummint bureaucraps.” Heck, even the WaPo is “viewing with alarm” the appallingly stupid, criminal “feddle gummint” spying on a journalist.

If the feds can do it to her, they can do it to you. “Evidence” of “computer crimes” on ANYONE’S computers is now subject to The Sharyl Atkkisson Caveat: if the feds can plant things on her computer, who’s to say they didn’t plant stuff anywhere else they wanted to?

From now on, any claims by the “feddle gummint” to have found “evidence”–of ANYTHING–on a citizen’s computer should be loudly and raucously mocked.

Citizen response? So far, just the usual “view with alarm” stuff like the WaPo article. Sound and fury, etc. What would be appropriate, I think would be for a “vigilance committee” of patriotic hacker citizens to engage in a “Manhatten Project”-style effort to crack open every government computer system possible and flood the net with everything they want to hide from us. Snowden? He should be so far back he wouldn’t even be visible in the rear view mirror. Of course, it could happen that _some_ secrets could be minimally detrimental to national security, but I seriously doubt there are many such. Most “national security” secrets are more than likely just bureaucratic turf building/protecting.

Sadly, I do not have the skills necessary to make a contribution to the effort, and nor do I any longer have an audience/readership to influence toward that effort, since my work to remake this blog into nothing more than exercise space for “the voices in my head” has borne fruit. *heh*

In further mind-boggling abuses of rights supposedly protected under the First Amendment, while a student who is a Sikh has rightly received a pass on carrying a knife (“ceremonial dagger”) in pubschool, for religious reasons, Christian students who carry or read their Bibles, share their faith with other students or who are seen or heard praying or even just expressing opinions informed by their faith are continually oppressed. (Sure, schools pretty regularly lose in lawsuits over this, but the push against Christians practicing their religion in a pubschool setting is regularly, improperly, assaulted).

And cognitive dissonance never sets in with the left, because. . . it requires cognition? *sigh*

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If You Can’t Hack It. . .

. . .then it may not be worth having.

I tend to hack most stuff I buy, mostly in very simple ways allowing [whatever] to suit my uses better than OEM standards. (BTW, that’s one reason I dislike Apple products. Less amenable to modification to suit individual users.)

That 46″ LED TV with the WiFi antenna waving in the air off to one side? I have a use for that.

That microwave oven “Ramen bowl” designed to cook a standard rectangular ramen noodle serving? Hole drilled in a corner in order to hang it from my pot rack (which, itself, is hacked–not hanging in the way it was designed to hang but MUCH more securely). Oh, and that package of ramen noodles? Minor hack: bits of meat and veggies added make it a more complete snack. Added spices make i more delish.

New mower? Hacked the handle to make it more comfy for me to use.

Maybe you’ve seen Jerkstoppers™ for notebook computers and other devices. Unnecessary. Hacked my own. Easy-peasy.

Vacuum sweeper? Hacked the wand to allow attaching more, different attachments (from a previous vacuum sweeper).

The trapezoidal box a new bathroom sink came in? It’s now a bathroom clothes hamper (spray paint and 10″-wide band of thick, adhesive-backed aluminum foil added for appearance and strength).

Now, I don’t usually hack extremely simple, well-functioning tools like knives, but I have made knives by hacking old tools, pieces of iron or steel I had laying around, whatever. And sheaths for such things? Why not convert old leather goods to new uses? OK, BTDT.

I even hack books and music to make both better for my uses. Books: my own hardcopies are strewn with notes and corrections that editors should have caught (flyleaf is good for indexing the notes).

Music: I can always write a new arrangement of a piece I find unsatisfying in its original form, or, write new music for old lyrics, as I did when I found CRANHAM unsuitable to the last verse of Rossetti’s “In the Bleak Midwinter” (poor metric* and content match, IMO, as good as the tune is for the other verses). Unfortunately, the tune I wrote that mates well with the last verse is unsuitable for the rest of the verses. But since the last verse is the whole point of the piece, I can live with that for my own uses.

I disliked our plain, double-paned front picture window, just sitting there as a *blah* focal point of a bay window, so. . . hacked it with some pinstriping tape and translucent glass paint, so that now it appears to be a multi-lighted, multi-colored stained glass window.

The sides of our nice new (well, even after a year it still feels new 🙂 ) aren’t the brushed stainless steel of the front, but a “pebbled” enamel gray. One side shows, so. . . while it’s attractive enough, two neodymium magnets in one corner make a great catch for keys; a nice, brushed aluminum-framed cork board is helpful for current info that should be available to anyone in the house. (the neodymium magnets are the killer hack for that fridge side, though–used ALL the time, and better than the hooks we’d used in a different location before)

(“Kitchen hacks” probably outnumber most of the other hacks put together, music hacks excepted.)

I suppose I just look at things and wonder, “How could this be better?” There is usually at least one way any product can be improved, usually several.

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Feeding the Baby Trolls

Every now and then, a baby troll will drop in here at this place. Always, always, always, these baby trolls are illiterate, woefully uninformed/misinformed/disinformed (and proud of it!) morons who refuse to use facts and reason, and who litter their verbal vomit with misused words, incomprehensible punctuation and grammar that would gag a maggot (demonstrating again a lack of ability to engage in logical thought, for syntax is the linchpin of logic in language).

In the past, these trolls have been primarily either Loony Left Moonbats or Muslims, but the sheer volume of baby trolls on the interwebs now that any illiterate moron with a credit card can obtain some sort of Internet capable device beggars the imagination, and so even here, at this modest lil place where I can just let “the voices in my head” run around and play, using casual speech, combined with verifiable fact and sensible opinion, baby trolls do occasionally come calling.

And what do I do?

I feed them (and in doing so perform a public service, but more on that later). And how do I feed them? Well, if they are simply illiterate morons who are proud of their ignorance and proud of their woefully uninformed/misinformed/disinformed, I may just tweak them for a while, though I will almost ALWAYS enjoin them to do their homework, somewhere down the line, and I’ll usually even give them hints to aid them in their homework.

But, alas! That will not do for baby trolls. Most are offended when anyone notes the profound stupidity of their comments, and so immediately start the slide to the Godwin Fallacy. No, really! it’s inevitable. [Edit: it is especially hilarious when Leftists and Muslims do this. They never see the irony.]

So, as long as it amuses me, I will continue with these baby trolls, allowing their almost “spamtardish” comments and responding with vicious, cruel, heartless deconstruction of their stupid comments, and even lading invective and vulgarity in response to such things as veiled death threats and the like. (Come to my house and try that, putzes. No, really. We do have a Second Amendment for good reason, you know. Just ask the Supreme Court about Heller. *heh*)

As to “performing a public service,” well, first, it’s like my tactic for dealing with Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormon “Missionaries”. I usually try to consume as much of their time and resources (I ALWAYS ask for any “literature” they may have), in order to limit their time and resources available to spend elsewhere. I also spend time arguing with them, and supporting my arguments with facts from their own precepts that are easily refuted from sources they (falsely) claim to respect. [Edit: I also used to go visit them at their places of abode and spend time expounding views antithetical to their heresies. Tit for tat, as it were. *heh*]

The differences in tactics between dealing w/JWs and MMs as opposed to baby trolls? JWs and MMs are usually much, much more intelligent and literate than baby trolls on the interwebs, and have yet to resort to ad hominem attacks (such as the Godwin Fallacy) and threats, and those stupid behaviors are reason enough to lade invective on baby trolls. It amuses me, and it calms and soothes my mind to do so, and, from the evidence of their commentary, it reduces them to foaming at the mouth, for all the world appearing to be on the verge of stroking out. Thus, egging baby trolls on and encouraging them to vent their spleen in ever greater degree, gives me hope that they are thereby shortening their own lives.

So there: my modest public service vis-à-vis Internet trolls. It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it. That it’s also amusing, relaxing and just downright fun is just a bonus.

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Home Is Where the Heart Is

In the sixty-*mumble* years of my short, short life, I’ve lived in quite a few places west of the Mississippi (one, just barelywest, but I have only vague recollections of my family’s sojourn in St. Louis) and traveled/visited to/in all the other lower 48 as well as other places outside our borders. Some have felt “home-ish” for a while, but when we moved to America’s Third World County™ a couple of decades ago, it felt like coming home.

First, the town and area we moved to had been buried in my unconscious since childhood by association with our “Uncle Hubert” (“adopted” uncle, lifelong friend of my maternal grandfather) who was from here, and whose grave is actually only about an eighth of a mile from our house. Automatic positive associations, since Uncle Hubert was a classy, classy guy who poured out strength, humility, honor and kindness.

Then, good Lord it’s beautiful here! Oh, it’s not the grandeur of the Rockies or the stunningly unique offerings of Yellowstone or suchlike. No, it’s a quieter, older beauty. A “rocks and rills and forested hills” kind of beauty. Get out and get “lost” on the back roads of the county: a fav activity of mine. (No, I don’t actually get lost. I know where the cardinal directions are and have a compass or three for seriously “dark and stormy nights” and whatever. I said “compass” not “GPS.” GPS is for subliterate wusses.) Still, the geographic and botanical variations are many and pretty darned amazing.

And the people. Sure, there are about as many dumbasses, jackasses and self-made morons as one might expect to find in any population, by normal distribution. But those are limited in effect and practice by an ethos of hard work, respect for common sense and a firm adherence by most of the folks to an attitude best characterized by, “your business ends where my nose begins. . . and vice versa.” “edumacation” levels are not what one might find in more urban areas, and, frankly, that is a good thing overall. (Most “highly educated” persons are self-made idiots, and I say that as a highly-educated idiot. :-)) Can-do? Yeh, third world county folks can.

And did someone say, “diversity”? We have the best and worst of that here, too, and it’s. . . working out for the most art (with some fear and trembling at times, but still working out). Somalis, Pacific Islanders (a couple of different groups, from different island groups, no less!), Moldavans, Germans, Vietnamese, Hmong, and quite a few more (including *sigh* more than a few alien invaders from South of the border). All of them seem, except for the Somalis, to be working hard at assimilating and becoming Americans (the illegals harder than some, though illegitimately). Culture clashes are almost. . . well, never.

And then there are the other demographics: townies and hill/country/”piney woods” folks. Those groups do overlap, but my fav folk are the folks I meet on back county roads, rednecks, hillbillies, even a few almost hermit squatters. Are some of ’em paranoid separatist “militia” folks? Yep. And almost all of them are good people, too, if a wee tad extreme in some views even for my taste.

Feels like home. Very classically conservative politically and socially, for the most part. That means, of course, that, applying the nose-business rule, that folks are allowed to be different and not generally forced into conformity, as in more and more subsets of society. Conformation to the norm of “if it ain’t your business, butt out” lifestyle is a type of conformity I can live with gladly.

Another Good Thing: Friction? Strong disagreements? Argument? Yeh, but when you can COUNT on most folks being armed, those things are usually dealt with better than in other places. Crime? Well, some, but home invasions, muggings, car jackings and suchlike? See above re: armed citizenry. Do more folks lock their doors in America’s Third World County than when we first moved here? Yeh, but the powers that be decided to put an Interstate highway through our county, and there went that tradition. No,seriously. Oh, there are other “benefits” of civilization that our rulers have foisted off on us that have contributed, but I’ll let the increased traffic stand in for them all.

Is America’s Third World County™ being brought slowly into the late 20th Century (it’ll be a while before the 21st Century begins its invasion here *heh*)? Yeh, but there is still a remnant of a better life here, and it’s home.

And, on top of all that, here is where my Wonder Woman lives, and that would trump anything else, anyway. 😉

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Taming the Wild Loa

I may need to look for a dreadlock wig and chicken bone rattle to deal with a client’s connectivity issues tomorrow. Sorry. Prayer and fasting ain’t cuttin’ the mustard.

😉

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Well, I Can’t Blame Anyone Else. . .

. . .because I did it to myself. I bought the thing knowing what I’d find.

David Weber has a series of goat-gaggers–the Safehold series–from TOR that I find interesting but have had the same issues with from the very first book, Off Armageddon Reef (2008). Other issues have presented in the six books that have followed, but, as I said, I knew what I was getting when I bought it.

Weber still pretty consistently misuses some words. An example: he pretty consistently uses “less” when “fewer” is correct. But every time he misuses a word it does throw me out of the story.

Weber also really overuses banter in dialog. Meetings about serious matters are consistently trivialized by light-hearted banter. Some is healthy, but Weber has a tendency in everything he writes to overdo it. His Honorverse books feature too much if it for me, but not nearly as much as the Safehold books. The Safehold series doesn’t seem to have any editor handy to tell Weber, “Stop already! That’s too much!” *heh*

And then there’s the extremely irritating treatment of proper names. *gagamaggot* Zhaspahr Clyntahn? Rhobair Duchairn? It goes on and on and on. Sure, Weber “named” his Safehold characters into a corner in the first book, and there was no easy way out, especially after book 2. . . or three, four, five and six. *sigh* And this book includes a cast of characters sixty-six pages long with such names.

But still, I’ve bought every one of ’em. These last two have been ebooks, but the others, hardcopy, all but one hardback. Why?

Well, I bought and read the first one because Weber. Yes, his Honorverse books have some of the same issues (though apparently the editors at Baen are better than the ones at TOR *heh*), but they’ve still been worth my time for more than a few reasons. So, I knew it’d be readable and would at least tell an interesting story. But. . . issues. (“Lords secular and temporal”–*feh* Weber! You use that ALL the time and ALWAYS wrongly! Well, at least he didn’t include that abortion of sense in this book as he has in every other book i the series, IIRC, as well as in several of the Honorverse books.)

The rest? Well, interesting story, despite the aforementioned issues and a few others. Fun stuff on “rediscovering” technologies. Interesting low-tech milfic as well.

So. . . I buy ’em, even though I know the negatives will irk me.