Mars this evening....

There's a new version of Stellarium just released, and these are views of Mars from its two moons, Deimos and Phobos.

Five in the morning...

Sunset yesterday

More Tarot

New Theme = Tarot

Sunrise with approaching thundershowers

Another new build of Win-10

How do I like Win-10 Build 14388?

Color me undecided.

As in I'm using it, but I'm not noticing huge changes. Not that I'm asking for any, you understand. I'm quite happy the way it is. More or less.

I've been asked by Mighty Microsoft whether or not I'd recommend Cortana to my friends. First, let's clear up one misunderstanding here. My 'friends' don't ask for my opinions on their choices of software for their computers. And if they did? If they did, then I'd have to say that whatever works for me might not necessarily work for you, because we probably have different objectives and different interests in mind. So I hesitate to share my opinions unless specifically asked for them.

I like "freebies". A lot. I make it a habit to check out all the interesting freebie programs that I discover on the wild, wild web - and there's a ton of them. Some being much better than others. Some being better than ones you'd expect to pay for, and some being quite unique. A freebie office suite very comparable to Microsoft's Office? LibreOffice. A complete and fully functional planetarium program on your home computer? Stellarium. An excellent photo-editing and graphics-handling program? Irfanview. The best image-splicing panorama-maker there is? Microsoft Research's Image Composite Editor. Free streaming popular movies? Vumoo. Place an image inside another image? Gimp. Complete operating system? Linux Mint. There's a lot of great freebies out there... You should try some of them.

Now at Build 14388

USA Politics (And you thought the circus was extinct.)

I really enjoyed the President's speech, and the feeling he put into it, while 'Dubya' had a little nap, to rest up for his dance number at the end of it. And he can't dance either. Woof!

A picture is worth a thousand words.

The 8th Lunation of 2016.

Just in case you'd like a desktop background with a difference.

Howling at the Full Moon is optional, but fun.

Oldest Living Blogger babbles on..... (Why not?)

Tom over in New York, in response to my saying I'm spending too much time on Facebook, says "You need to get a life!", and he's absolutely right. I can even remember when I had one of those. I had a bod with nice firm muscles, quick reactions, good eyesight, reasonably good teeth, a normal head of hair, and all the usual stuff: a job, a recent-model car, a nice place to live, an average income, sometimes a 'significant other', sometimes not, and life was not too bad.

I rode my bicycle around the seawall walkway and bike path at our big waterfront park on the edge of downtown, I enjoyed trips on my roadracer-style motorcycle, I had a season's pass every year to the best of our local ski developments, and I knew my way around the downtown club scene when the urge struck me.

And then I got pushed into something they called "early retirement" with 900 other guys, and it turned out to be a termination with certain added incentives which time proved to be not so much incentives after all as it was a books-cooking exercise that screwed me out of half a million dollars in future wages and benefits between then and normal retirement age.
And left me with a shitty taste in my mouth for years afterward, while I was adjusting to life on a poverty-line pension.

The Good News is, I did adjust, and I've now been retired for 28 years, which is 8 years longer than I worked for that outfit that caused the problem. I managed to quit smoking a few years ago, and last year, bought myself a new Dodge with the saved-up cigarette money. It's the first time I've ever paid cash for a new car, and drove it off the lot debt-free. And I have to say that's a hell of a nice feeling. Life's not so bad after all.

A little more "Oldest Living Blogger".....

This is looking out my north window at about one-thirty in the morning, at the lights on West Vancouver, BC and the traces of light in the sky. The camera is a Nikon 'Coolpix' P510 set on 'Night Landscape'. When I edited it for size, I also sharpened it, and increased the Gamma from 1.00 to 2.00 to brighten the sky enough to define the horizon.

I've been spending perhaps too much time lately on Facebook. It's easy to do.... sometimes it seems almost addictive. Time really flies on there sometimes. I should get a timer and set it to sound an alarm after an hour or so.

And the next new version will be Build 14383. I'm on 14372 at the moment, and I haven't yet explored everything about it. Again, "too busy on Facebook".... have to change that. Except that Facebook is often a lot more interesting, and more "Now!".

Remembering to Blog....and sometimes, not.

Lately, as you may have noticed, there aren't as many religiously-regular postings here.

That's because Facebook gets addictive, and I get a lot more responses and comments there than I ever did here. And that matters, if one appreciates appreciation, or even some criticism from time to time.

I've been writing here for years now, about problems encountered with Windows XP, Vista (Ugh!), Windows 7, and lately 8.0, 8.1, and 10..... those latter three really being, for those of us who like it logical, Windows 8, Windows 8, SP1, and Windows 9. Mighty Microsoft didn't use the number "nine" because it's too much like the German word "Nein" meaning "No". At least, that's my theory, and so far, nobody's argued about it.

But I'm digressing just a bit here. I'm trying to say blogging hasn't been nearly as satisfying for me as I had hoped it might be. I haven't had many responses, and those I have had came from just two or three people, at least one of whom is now dead & gone. People simply aren't all that interested in what I've been saying, except when I'm not saying anything much, but posting YouTube videos of music I like.

So, I'm doing this less often, and spending more time on Facebook or places where I'm having more fun.

New cones on the nearby trees

A neighbor's flowerbeds up the street...

And now, for the close-up of the above....

The Snow Report - and yes, there is some remaining...

Look in the trees in the lower right side, just below the skyline....