Month: March 2013

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The “Joys” of Aging #1 Out of #5,728 and Counting. . .

I deal with the pain in joints. Sure it hurts. Yeh, unless I really concentrate on moving beyond the pain, my grip is weaker, for example. Big deal. It’s the worsening tinnitus that ranks right up there at the top.

I’ve fairly well (roughly) isolated the frequencies that result in the most pain/inducement of harmonic disturbances via interaction with my tinnitus. I try to avoid those, but the greater the range of frequencies (and harmonics, overtones, etc.) expressed by a piece of music, the greater likelihood of problems on my end. And that’s a BIG PITA since I really, really find great pleasure in music. (I was actually making significant–to/for me–progress with my lil Bach Strad Cornet before I put it away because playing it just hurt too much. *shrugs* At least I can still “play” it in my head.)

Of course, some of the loudest frequencies in my tinnitus are those ranges also inhabited by the enunciation of consonants in speech, hence a growing dependence on watching an interlocutor, since all the vowels are clear as a bell, and only consonants seem seriously affected by being overwhelmed with noisy tinnitus.

Other frequencies above and below my tinnitus are only interfered with my the apparent “loudness,” which varies according to other conditions. As recently as a couple of years ago, for example, I was able to hear the “mosquito ring tone” us Olde Phartes are supposed to be unable to hear. *shrugs* It was outside those frequencies masked by my tinnitus and the examples I listened to weren’t on any “conflict overtones”.

I hope that the trials on a vagus nerve treatment for tinnitus are successful in humans and are approved for general treatment sometime soon. That would be cool. I could deal with arthritis pain while playing a horn. Heck, I might even try singing again.

Let me dream, OK?

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Well, I Had Been Enjoying the Book

Not sayin’ the title, but really?

. . . there’s enough (plural noun)s on the. . .

Linguistically innumerate. *gagamaggot* And,

“Ah.” He smiled, and even drunk as he was it was the kind of knowing, sarcastic smile that set my teeth on edge. “Jealousy.”

OK, I’ve not necessarily given enough context for the second, but people who use “jealousy” when they mean “envy” really set my teeth on edge. There’s a clear and useful distinction between the two that poorly-read folks seem all to have missed, and now subliterates are forcing their destruction of a useful distinction out of English. I just hate that.

So, as much as I’ve enjoyed the rest of the book to this point, if this sort of thing continues, I may end up putting this one down just because of the annoyance factor.

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Now, see, if he could count on a literate audience. . .

. . .the author of this awkward line,

“. . .the lovely scars he had from the one leg being severely fractured to the point of bone poking through the skin after. . .”

. . .could have saved a whole lotta words with “compound fracture“. But because he can no longer count on his readership being much more literate than the typical eighth-grader nowadays, he had to go all around the barn to use something like ten words (no, I’ve not actually counted) to say what a literate* person could vividly grasp in two.

No, I am not using “literate” in its least form here. I use it in the sense of,

“1 a : educated, cultured. . . 2 a : versed in literature. . . 2c : having knowledge or competence. . . “

And NONE of those apply to someone who cannot read “compound fracture” and either understand the term at once OR have both the intellectual curiosity and competence to either winkle the meaning on their own from context (not necessarily easy to do in this case) or LOOK IT UP! (N.B. When I was a kid, we had a monstrously huge two-volume dictionary–which I still have–that spent most of its time near or under the head of my bed, because I not only looked up EVERY word or term I did not immediately understand from context or simply learned new words and terms from reading the thing for pleasure. And I still do not consider myself as literate as either of my grandfathers were.)

More and more folks today have vocabularies limited by what they HEAR via the Hivemind, and more and more folks today do not even understand the words they hear from that propaganda machine. And so otherwise moderately literate authors HAVE to dumb down their text. (The one who cobbled up the abortion I cited above does still have ALL his characters use “there’s” with plural objects. *sigh* It’s. . . “interesting”–in a gagamaggot kind of way–to hear characters with multiple doctorates in the sciences who are linguistically innumerate. *profound sigh*)

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Spring. . . again

Semi-random wanderings/wonderings about this Spring of ours.

Northern Hemisphere, Vernal Equinox: astronomers say it’s Spring since yesterday. What do astronomers know? (How we can let astronomers and accountants–quarterly reports, etc.–run our lives, I dunno. Probably an artifact of public schools.) The daffodils* have called it Spring for nearly a month and a half here in America’s Third World County. The ugly, wild purple clover has agreed for easily as long. So far, robins have not cast their vote, but many plants are budding and (apparently) hardier birds than robins have been making their presence known.

So now, snow. Go figure. Of course, at the rate it’s coming down now, we can expect to have around 2 or 3 hundredths of an inch accumulation. *meh* Not enough to sneeze at. We need more slow-melt moisture right now–or at least I would prefer more.

My gardens already planted won’t mind a few days of cold, since they still have a couple of weeks left before I’d expect any sign of growth anyway. A blanket of snow would be just the trick to hold in what warmth the ground has and then provide some slow watering. One can but hope the rate of snowfall picks up a bit.

Well, it is time for Spring cleanup outside and in. A nice cold day like today encourages the “in” part.

Snow and freezing rain, with a low just reaching freezing temps is forecast for tonight. Folks are talking about this being atypical for Spring weather, but folks have poor memories. Just since we’ve lived in America’s Third World County–a wee tad shy of 20 years–I can recall March weather that was similar.

Maybe I’ll hit the outside long enough to at least mulch the two wee garden areas I’ve planted. Yeh, they’re already covered with garden cloth (with cutouts where I’ve planted seed), but mulching on top of that might be a Good Thing, anyway. We’ll see how it goes. Should have light enough later this afternoon, still.

I wonder if Spring’s pretty much the same as always in West Texas. . .

West Texas Spring–Boing!

Texas-Spring

*Oh, the asterisk on “daffodils”? When I was growing up, I called them “jonquils” because everyone I knew called ’em that. Regionalism, I guess. Or not. Maybe just a variant name like Narcissus–pretty much the same plant/flower. Orson Scott Card has a gentle not-quite-a-rant on Spring where his take (mentioning jonquils instead of daffodils) is similar to mine.

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Oh, Freakin’ Heavens *sigh*

And to think I actually used to subscribe to the e-rag this column title appeared in:

The malware wars: How you can fight it

“It” above refers to what? “Wars”. Hello! “It” is singular; “wars” is plural.

OK, so the article does actually contain a few useful tips. . . for folks who’ve not been paying any attention for the past 10 years or so, like,

Tip: You can preview shortened URLs to see their true destination. For example, with bitly addresses, simply paste them into your browser, add a + after the URL (for example, //bitly.com/13LRaF4+ [Solera Networks page]), and press Enter. Adding the plus sign takes you to the bitly site first, where you’ll see a stats page for the destination site.

For tinyurl addresses, add “preview” before the address. For example, enter //preview.tinyurl.com/{xxxxx}, and the uncloaked address will appear at the tinyurl site.

For snipurl addresses, add “peek” before the shortened address. For example, //peek.snipurl.com/26kl5qy takes you to the Snipurl site and displays the full URL:

https://windowssecrets.com/top-story/surviving-your-first-hour-with-office-2013/

Of course one should always preview shortened URLs for safety’s sake. What? Doesn’t everyone know that already?

But, *meh* even though the article’s semi-useful, someone should have corrected the headline’s egregious grammar error.

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En Passant

Ever notice that when a wildflower volunteers in a garden it’s a weed, even though it’s the same flower that’s viewed with pleasure in a meadow? Why? Is it not still as beautiful when it blossoms in the garden as when it grows in the wild?

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Monday, Monday-Fun, Fun

It’s not performed as I recall it from my childhood (and yes, I still have a Childcraft book similar to the one I learned it from around here. . . somewhere *heh*), but Burl Ives does a bang-up job with Froggie Went A-Courtin’:

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Kindle Fire, One Year Later

One and a quarter years later, actually.

Is it still the “Gee whiz!” tech toy it was when I got it? Yep. Do I use it in all the ways I had envisioned when I got it? Nope. For instance, I rarely use it to browse the web and almost never use it to check my email. So, how do I use it? In order of frequency:

    1. To read ebooks.
    2. To watch videos (movies/TV shows)
    3. As an mp3 player.
    4. One or two apps, besides the file management app. The most-used app? The bubble level. It’s a seriously useful tool on projects around the house. If somehow one could use the USB connection and a OBD-II app for automobile diagnostics on the Fire, that’d be killer.

Between #1 and #s 2 and 3 above, big gap. I read 7-10 books/week (7 has long been my base I have almost never fallen below since I first began reading), and since the advent of ebooks (on either computers or specialized devices), my reading has tilted toward that medium, simply because of space and convenience–there are no decent bookstores closer than a couple of counties away. Now, my reading is generally mostly ebooks, some hardcopy from county library and from our own library (fairly large private collection– some I’ve not read yet, some worth re-reading for various reasons)–some hardcopy from used bookstores, and a few (perhaps 10-12) hardcopy books a year bought at retail. So, the Kindle Fire has been a BIG help in saving space and feeding my “need to read”.

Given the brilliant sound (when using a decent pair of earbuds) and really, really nice display–even on this first gen device–I find watching HD videos on the Fire to be a delight, and listening to mp3s (again, when using a decent pair of earbuds) yields sound that’s as good as it gets with mp3s (mp3s are necessarily lossy, but with my tinnitus *sigh* it’s less noticeable than one might think).

I’ve not been all that surprised that I’ve not found more apps I’ll really use. As far as calendaring and scheduling apps–something many have found useful on portable devices–nah. I’m still more of a pen and paper kinda guy there. I thought one of the Bible reading apps might be appealing, but I really do prefer hardcopy there. An AV, a file management app and the bubble level app really do pretty much define my app use. *shrugs* It gets many hours of use every week anyway.

Yeh, I “rooted” it once to play with it but didn’t even try to make it permanent, so Amazon overwrote with an update, which was fine with me, as. . . see above usage breakdown.

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A Blurb Only a Mother Could Love. . .

. . .probably written by the author of the book. Here’s how the blurb starts out (read it with a faux “Texas” redneck accent in your mind’s ear, wouldja?):

No matter how hard she tries to escape her Texas roots–and her mother–Jolene Jackson finds herself dragged back to Kickapoo to deal with both. . .

Oh, please. Please, someone, stop me before I “buy” the thing (for $0.00) and read it. “Jolene Jackson” is NOT going to “escape her. . . roots” until she changes her name, publishes “Jolene Jackson’s” obituary and moves above a garage in Buffalo (where Really Leary, Timothy Leary’s brother *cough*–according to George Carlin–taught that our souls go when we die).

*sigh* Too late. Now, I just have to know what “turkey ranch road rage” is. It’s now become essential to my continued sanity, urm, something-or-other–I’d say “Je ne sais quoi” but that just doesn’t go down well with a dose of protest rallies, naked lizard girls in cages, iced tea and a chicken basket.

I do these sorts of things so you don’t have to. Thank me. Thank me very much.