Month: May 2016

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OS Gymnastics?

Nah, just some light calisthenics. Not even breathing hard(ly). *heh*

So, I started testing out Win10 on some old hardware about seven months ago on a box that had had WinXP, then Win7. *meh* Apart from all the “phone home” junk, as long as Classic Shell’s installed, not too bad compared to Win7/8/8.1, so when I got a new playcompy (the lil notebook I’m writing this on), I went ahead and installed Classic Shell to make its Win 8.1 more usable, then “upgraded” to Win10 and locked it down.

It works OK, for a Windows box.

So, my Wonder Woman kept asking me when she should upgrade her Win8.1 notebook (a sibling to this lil playcompy). This last weekend I said, “OK, if you want it, fine.” *heh*

So, clicked on the Win10 upgrade icon in her system tray and. . . Windows Update. Search. . . search. . . search. . . No updates found and. . . no Win10 upgrade, either. #gagamaggot.

So, downloaded the M$ Media Creation Tool and am now installing Win10 on her computer with that. Probably should just have downloaded the ISO, but just don’t really care all that much. Maybe later.

Even though the M$ Media Creation Tool works, this upgrade was no faster than any other Win10 upgrade I’ve done, clocking in at around 2.5 hours from start to mostly finished. Another hour locking it down, uninstalling crap apps my Wonder Woman will NOT use, configuring Windows Update to NOT update w/o a user request, etc., will take another hour or so, counting double-checking to make sure the configuration actually takes. (Win10’s kinda sneaky about changing configs behind the user’s back, sometimes. No, really.)

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Considering Hermitry

Recently, someone got a wee tad miffed with me cos I will NOT “text” them. Perhaps I need to just become a hermit. Easier on everyone.

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I’m Tempted

But I just might resist temptation. . . this time.

I’m tempted to take either a Linix Mint box with a fairly generous amount of RAM or a similarly-configured Win10 box and play VM games on ’em like I did several years ago when I installed a WinXP VM inside a Linux Mint box and then installed an Ubuntu VM inside the WinXP VM. Ju-u-u-st for fun.

I dunno. Maybe. Ju-u-u-st for fun. After all, I never did go more than two VMs deep. *heh*

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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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Reality-Based Fantasies =/= Reality

The biggest problem in America today? An almost wholesale flight from reality in every area of life. “Reality based FANTASIES” ain’t reality, folks (but try explaining that to roughly 90% of folks nowadays). Flight from reality is, at its base, a result of spiritual emptiness, IMO. All else stems from that. One’s intellect cannot connect with real things if one’s heart is set on what is false.

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If You Can Read This

DON’T thank a teacher, at least not necessarily. Literacy ain’t what the “edumacationists” say it is, and, for the most part, is NOT what schools foster. (Yes, there are exceptions, but the system we now have militates against literacy. The exceptions swim against the tide. Let’s remain grateful for them.)

The Literacy Crisis in American Schools

Sidebar: teachers in schools were entirely incidental to whatever literacy I attained while in school and get no credit whatsoever for whatever literacy I have managed to acquire outside school. Seriously.

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Please, Make It Stop!

File it under “TMI,” I’m sure.

Son & Heir’s (otherwise _perfect_ pooch) just filled the room with a “gaseous aroma” that is several orders of magnitude worse than a cat dead three days, left out in the sun to rot. After recovery and airing the room out, I’m still almost afraid to breathe. . .

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The “You” You Speak of Is Not Me

Ed Driscoll frequently makes some pretty sound observations, but Everything You Know About the 20th Century is Wrong struck me as twaddle, especially since each of his cherry-picked examples of what I (he did say “you,” didn’t he, and aren’t I, as the reader a part of the “you”?) know about the 20th Century that is wrong held no news for me, since I was well-aware of the facts of those examples long, long before he sought to “correct” my views.

Now, while many, if not most, might hold false memes about the cherry-picked examples Driscoll cites, perhaps even most folks, “you” is far too sweeping a generalization and shows that Driscoll, at least, holds some false views of his own.

Just sayin’.

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Thomas Sowell for Emperor?

I’d vote for Thomas Sowell for Emperor, but his character has something missing from King Putz and his ilk: One of the prerequisites for a GOOD “emperor”– that if offered the gig, he’d turn it down, legitimately do everything he could do to avoid having “imperial” powers, instead of, like modern pseudo kings, assume illegitimate power over others.

Yeh, Thomas Sowell would make a better emperor than Marcus Aurelius, at least partially because he has no desire at all for the job.