"In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history will be the majority and will dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance."
Five Year Rule? Five years after kids move out, whatever they behind is yours to do with as you will, right?
OK. Just checking. . .
Old, discarded tech; office equipment/supplies; clothing; stuffed toys; bedding; artwork: all on the block, headed for the tip, donated; entering common household use as OURS, now. Whatev’. ‘s’way it goes. . .
The problem with self-pub? Whole HERDS of 20-something illiterate liberal arts graduates “writing” books for a “readership” of their peers. The sheer depth of their cultural, historical and LITERARY illiteracy (grammar atrocities, word misuse, COMPLETE misunderstanding of background and usage of common expressions, etc., etc.) is mind-boggling. It’s too late to lobotomize them. They’ve already done such a good job on themselves, already.
(Yes, there are a few who actually either know how to use a dictionary and form moderately coherent sentences. . . or else have gone outside their cohort and enlisted the aid of the rare literate proofreader/editor to clean up their glurge.)
Yeh, yeh. Dylan Thomas said it best (though about a different kind of death): “Rage, rage against the dying of the light. . . ” *heh*
Even if it means just being smart enough to know when to quit.
Example: Moving a piano.
When the right equipment is used and the piano is properly prepared for the move, two (reasonably healthy) guys are all that’s needed, but heaven help folks trying to move a piano w/o the proper equipment and mental “muscle,” because physics surely will not. My last “piano move” 20 years ago: good equipment, me, a 12-y.o. boy and a 14-y.o. girl (both a couple of standard deviations above the mean and able to take direction very well). Moved the piano out and loaded into truck. Arrival at destination? It took me and three inexperienced guys who apparently were not as bright as my two kids to move it in and set it up. ‘S’truth.
Nowadays, I’m smart enough to know that–at my age and physical condition–hiring someone would be better, because despite knowing how to move one, I’m just getting to be too old for the gig. *sigh*
It’s a wide open field, and someone has to fill it: Performance artist whose medium is pi$$ed-off a$$hats.
Ran into a kid in a FarceBook thread on musical tastes. He was really offended by my comments delineating how obvious it is that contemporary society has, on the main, NO musical taste, and indeed, more or less, that most folks have no capability to discern music from rhythmic noise.
He went on to list a number of “great” contemporary popular works (I am kind), all of which were boring, derivative, insultingly stupid, etc., including a “fantastic” (his word) popular song that had an annoying (and extremely boring) rhythmic ostinato that did absolutely nothing to support the rest of the piece. Oh, and the vocals were juvenile, quite apart from the stupid lyrics.
But the pieces were definitely the kind of thing that would appeal to a musically illiterate junior high school student.
So, he was offended. Mentioned one was “great” in the class of greatness of a “great book”–Plato’s Republic (which isn’t really a book at all but a collection of dialogs of varying lengths and importance that together might make up a novella-length “book,” although it has been compiled and presented as a “bookette” *heh* It’s easier for academic bookstores to charge more for the collection that way. In my collection, every book with an edition of “The Republic” is part of a much longer collection of works. ADHD folks’ opinions may vary.).
It further devolved into his assertion that it was too, and just as great a “book” as King Lear. . . which isn’t a book but a play.
*head-desk*
Kicker: He’s apparently a grad of a “rigorous” liberal arts program (that uses the Great Books of the Western World as a curriculum/curriculum resource/guide), and can’t discern that King Lear is a play, not a book, and he is a writer for The Puffington Host. Naturally. Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind unit.
*sigh*
It was fun playing until I ran out of popcorn.
So, how important is having a resident, up-to-date anti-malware product for Windows users?
Middlin’. No, seriously.
Here’s a wee experiment I recently did:
Result? No malware.
A properly-configured modern(ish) browser (Opera 12.17), decent firewalling and simple safe computing practices were all that was needed for me to avoid infections/infestations with malware.
. . . that my fav line from Ghost, by John Ringo is,
“Dead bad guys and naked girls. It’s like an op in a titty bar.”
Yeh, there are tons of great lines/scenes in the book, but somehow, that one gets me every time. (And, yes, since confession is good for the soul, I do re-read the first book of the Paladin of Shadows series every now and then. It’s a quick “palate cleanser” *heh*)
The US reached an impressive 81% high school graduation rate in 2013. That was also the year that, had previous models been followed, the Department of (Mis)Education would have conducted another National Assessment of Adult Literacy. But, of course, following the dismal results of the 2003 assessment (which varied not a whit from the 1993 assessment) did not militate for yet another embarrassing survey.
Oh, that 2003 NAAL? Here’s all you need to know: 69% of recent (at that time) college grads could not read and understand “complex text” that included bus schedules, want ads, warning labels and driving directions.
BTW, the CIA Factbook defines that level of “reading” ability as illiteracy. Warring bureaucrappies? No, because although more than 50% of Americans–based on the NAAL, cannot read such materials, the CIA Factbook hilariously states that American literacy is over 97%. BTW, the NAAL dumbed down the term “literacy” to the point that it could come up with an 81% literacy rate. The data disagrees. . . and has become harder to get to recently, for some reason.
Has literacy in the US improved since then? The question virtually answers itself.
*sigh*
While it is not (yet) correct to say that all US citizens are functionally illiterate, it is far to say not only that not all US citizens are functionally illiterate, but that probably 50% or more of them can tell no difference between the first statement and the second.
I’m really tired of all this “hashtag this/hashtag that” crap.
Just shove it up your nose, blow it out your ears, and rub it in your hair.
I’ve usually found ways to use computers I’d otherwise retire, rather than just trashing them if I couldn’t find someone else who wanted ’em. Example: my nonagenarian mom gave up her computer a while back, and, after being stuck in Lovely Daughter’s possession for a couple of months, it then sat in my car for a few more. I’ve not found anyone who wants it, yet, so I’ve decided to scrub the drive (including the WinXP Pro that’s on it, of course) and install ReactOS for a play machine. I’ve used earlier iterations of ReactOS on some VMs and appreciated its look and feel that evokes WIn 2K Pro a bit more than WinXP, and found that it ran Windows software better than WINE does on ‘nix machines. *shrugs* If I find someone who needs an XP-compatible machine, ReactOS might just suit ’em. Until then, it’ll sit in the back room with some spare hard drives slapped into it for network access. Just another storage/play box, I suppose. . .
Oh, why ReactOS? I just don’t need another ‘nix box, and the computer isn’t really suitable for Win7/8, so. . .