RAY'S BLOGGING AGAIN !: February 2015

Saturday, February 28, 2015

The sun is working its way north for the summer again, and is now visible at sunset once again. During the winter, it is hidden by another part of this building. That is Vancouver Island on the horizon.

President taking questions...

Three out of four local reporters, granted interviews with President Obama, asked him the same question: "What about the safety of oil trains?" because the veto of the Keystone Pipeline will mean more of those oil trains, and above is his answer to them. We're having the same concerns here in Canada.

Dear Mr. President: Pipelines don't fly off the tracks and explode like trains.

Republicans having problems...

Rachel says the Republicans can't even pass their own legislation....

I like this picture...

...and I really hope something lasting and positive comes out of this, rather than just another exercise in futility that's so common in American politics.

Like I pointed out previously, there's ten Internet users in the rest of the world for every American one, and the world is watching. We don't want American political battles screwing up our Internet service. And 'service' is the key word here, because we, its users, are the ones who pay for it. When we talk about keeping the Internet free, we don't mean it's a gift. We're paying for this, and we expect to get our money's worth. We don't expect it to degenerate into yet another item for American politicians to fight over and mess up.

American politicians...

...like the Speaker of the House, Republican John Boehner, would rather fight than eat, and they eat very well on your dime, maybe better than you do, so how do you feel about that?

If you ran your household like they run the government, you'd be in bankruptcy court and divorce court, and out in the streets on a park bench before you knew what hit you. What kind of an example is that setting for the rest of us?

Weather here and there

Here....where it's colder than a mother-in-law's heart...

...and there, where they aren't singing songs like "It's a marshmallow world in the winter, when the snow comes to cover the ground...."

I shouldn't poke fun at my American neighbors 'down south' but I grew up in Northern Ontario, where we used to say we had nine months of Winter, two months of bad skiing, and one month of Summer.

Did I mention? I think the next Ice Age is getting started. So if I were you and had some money to invest, I'd put it into companies like Arctic Cat Snowmobiles, instead of ones like Lawn-Boy lawn mowers.

But this theory doesn't hold for the ski developments around here this year. It's a good thing they have artificial snow-making equipment, because there hasn't been a lot of the real thing up there in the hills this winter. And anyone who doubts the climate is changing should take another look at it.

Friday, February 27, 2015

End of an Era...

Net Neutrality...

The problem I'm having with all of this is that there are ten Internet users in the rest of the world for every American one. So why should confrontational politicians in the USA make the decisions for all of us? And for that matter, what does a butt-smooching political schemer know about bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, Internet speeds, latency, servers, Internet Service Providers, or networking? And I saved networking to the end, because politicians don't seem to have a clue about that. The word 'compromise' doesn't seem to be part of their vocabulary. But they know all about butt-smooching the big players in the industry to get political favors and contributions for their next election campaign.

As Tom Wheeler, the FCC Chairman said, "The Internet is too important to allow broadband providers to make the rules." I would change that wording to say "American broadband providers" because Americans are only one-tenth of the total Internet population, and the other ninety percent of us certainly deserve to have a voice in making the rules for it. What about people like Bob, who is my Internet Service Provider, and who frequently works long hours keeping his equipment maintained and the system operating smoothly? Shouldn't he have a chance to say something about all this? And what about Internet users like you and I, who pay for the service? Tom Wheeler is right - this is too important to allow a relatively small fraction of one nation's participants to make the rules.

Thursday, February 26, 2015

Looking Ahead, and Looking Back...

If predicting the future really worked, we would all have had flying cars back in the 1970s, like the Jetsons. Remember them? I'd be perfectly satisfied if the folks at Mighty Microsoft could just keep everything running smoothly in the stuff we've got right now. Predicting the future never quite works out. ( I could point to a couple of Microsoft's own creations as examples, but I won't.)

This lumbers on for seven pages! Trying to tell us blogging is dead. I don't do seven pages in a blog session. This isn't intended as bedtime therapy...

When I first started blogging about ten years ago, I chose 'Oldest Living Blogger' as my 'handle' because I thought it would grab eyeballs. It did, but it turns out those eyeballs were attached to a bunch of whining mouths, saying "No, you're not!". And I thought, 'Aw, shit - get off my back! It's a literary device, not a birth record!' Although, I am older than nuclear fission. It wasn't discovered until 1934. I was discovered in 1932.

Is blogging dead? I don't know - I'm too busy doing my blog every day for the amusement and edification of between two and five hundred devoted readers. I've received 'thank you' email from Australia, for helping explain problems with Windows. The computer repairman who fixes this rig when it needs it has said that I'm one of the few guys he knows who really understands Windows. And while Microsoft thinks I'm too old to be a meaningful part of their surveys, they still pay attention to my Feedback while we're testing the latest Windows beta.

That's all because I began blogging, and needed to know more about it, and more about the operating system I've been using to do it. I love writing. Not the mushy kind of stuff in romance novels or love letters, but the kind of stuff that makes politicians change their underwear, or makes people understand something they weren't too familiar with beforehand. Or stuff that maybe gives you a smile. And this old blogger isn't dead yet. Fading away, yes. Mostly invisible to the younger folks, yes. Dead? Not quite. Reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated. And I didn't need seven pages to tell you this.

Update on the spring cleaning...

These guys do nice work, and I told them so when I thanked them for it.

Update: Our Cleaners...

On their way up, they soak the bad spots with detergent, and then on the way back down, the pressure washing cleans everything up.

The Internet: Now the Good News....

More this and that....

Yesterday, I had to clean off the balcony, because today, a crew of pressure washers will be cleaning off the balconies here. I removed the furniture, and used a broom and dustpan to remove the leaves and dirt which accumulates out there. Mostly, from neighbors above me who do not use a broom and dustpan to remove the leaves and dirt. It falls like the gentle rain from heaven, and lands on mine. I sometimes wish there was a way to throw it back.

The Internet

The World Wide Web works well as it is, and should be equally available to all. It is the one thing that can unite and civilize us all. Let's not mess it up.

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Victoria's Not-so-secret...

I've probably been a 'girl-watcher' longer than you have, and I've always thought that girls in their underwear wearing fake wings look really stupid!

The Internet

Question Everything:

Who thinks America should make the rules?

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

My latest vegetable dish...

Want to try something different? Take a package of Green Giant California Mix fresh frozen vegies, steam them until they're nice and tender, and while that's happening, heat up a large can of Four Cheese Pasta Sauce. Mix and serve.

If Windows isn't responding as expected....

Open Windows Powershell in Administrator mode (or Command Prompt) and
run the following commands to repair it....

...and then use this to find the fragmented files....

...and defragment them, so that everything's connected again to its own files...

Sex Education, then and now...

Margaret Wente is one of my favorite columnists and you can find this article here.

Climate Change...

OK, here's the plan: Forget that toy snowplow, and get a real one. And then buy yourself a new Arctic Cat Snowmobile, and learn to really enjoy winter. Those can almost fly....

As I'm writing this, it's only 39 F here in Vancouver, where we would normally be enjoying very spring-like weather by now. Back in the 1970s at this time of year, I could go skiing on the nearby mountains in the mornings, and then go swimming in the outdoor pool in the afternoons. You can't do that now. So I have no doubt the climate has changed. Those who are paid to tell us that all this climate change stuff is just nonsense are not very convincing when we have the proof all over the back yard.