Christmas 2020

 

Forest fires are reducing our air quality

 In the past few days, we are getting smoke from fires

further south, in the USA. It is getting bad.

Having 'second thoughts' .....

After thinking about it, I may have been hasty in deciding against the new blogger.

I'm old now, and changes are not as welcome as they once were. But they are inevitable, and we have to deal with that. I'll try to do that.

So please try to stay tuned....

Previous posting continued....

In the previous posting, I said Google has cloned Twitter with its changes to Blogger.

Why would I say that? Because they've been cropping my recent posts during the process

of publishing them. Obviously Blogger as I know it is dead. It's no longer worth my time.

"Some things are not the same as the others..."

Some things are not the same as the others... one thing is not like the others...

With apologies to the famous children's show, Sesame Street, I'm referring here to multitasking megamonster Google's venerable old Blogger project that launched millions of us into the realm of cyberspace, lo those many years ago, and its latest modernization by Google into something they shyly tell us is meant to make it more accessible to phones.  They've cloned Twitter but they don't have the balls to say so, so let me say it for them. How do I like it? Just don't ask. You won't like my answer.

Today's paper:- "What is 'spin doctoring'? An example...

Here's something I'd call a good example of 'spin doctoring'....

This implies that Justin can save the day by giving us yet more bafflegab to explain away this, his third violation of the Ethics Commissioner's code of ethics for politicians with proclivities for jumping into bed with lobbyists, supporters,  or 'friends' seen as being useful to the furtherance of one's career and beneficial for one's chances of re-election.

This is his third serious violation of the ethics code governing precocious politicos bent on furthering their careers by any handy means without regard to established rules.

 

Today in the Globe and Mail...

My previous post questions whether 'I love a piano' is a song title...

So here's Irving Berlin's 'I love a piano' done with a modern touch...

I love a piano...

That almost seems like a song title.... but let's have examples,  may we?

Let's begin with a little Fats Waller tune,  Ain't Misbehavin',  played by Stephanie Trick...

 

I never learned to play piano, but I love listening to one, and Stephanie does a great job.
Let's have another from her.  Here's Anitra's Dance ... 

She also has fun with her partner...

We started on a Fats Waller favorite, so let's hear old Fats himself....

Fats did that in the 1943 movie 'Stormy Weather'  in which Lena Horne sang the title tune and never looked back. Here she is, doing one of my favorite Cole Porter songs....

Updating Linux Mint 19.3 -

On this desktop, there are two drives: an optical solid-state drive, and a regular hard-drive. I have Linux Mint 20 on the optical drive, and its predecessor 19.3 on the larger hard-drive. Both are actively supported systems. LM-20 is fully supported until 2025, and LM-19.3 is fully supported until 2023. Lately, I've been familiarizing myself with LM-20, but today, I've updated LM-19.3 with its latest batch of updates.

Why two versions of the same operating system? For comparison, and to find out which I like best, and why. So far, I can't decide on one over the other. Both are very good, and I like them both. The older one is more familiar, and the newer is fun to explore, and both, as they say, 'just work'. Unlike Mighty Microsoft's Windows, these don't require a lot of frantic searching for repairs to their parts. They work the first time, and they work properly. And they update or upgrade a hell of a lot faster than Windows ever has. That's one of the main reasons I like them so much. These guys who make Linux Mint know how, and it shows where it really counts. You should try it...

A little more Annette Hanshaw...

Today's Wallpaper...

Today's pictures

I've wasted a beautiful summer day....

I've spent most of the day, searching the web, and trying various procedures between Linux and Windows, in a fruitless attempt to install into this notebook an old photo-editing program.

I have it on disk here, but there's no DVD drive in the notebook. Linux Mint claims it can read the NTFS format used by Windows. That's only partly true. It successfully read maybe 45% of the program files I wanted to move, but it missed so much that by the time I got the USB stick over to the Windows notebook, those files couldn't be read. Windows shows them as "corrupted and missing files. Unable to read."

And being the way I am, I just had to try it a few more times, in case I'd missed something in the directions. I hadn't. Linux just wasn't copying everything in the Windows program folder.

The program is still available on the web, but only from third-party and non-original sources, which now want money for a program that was a 'freebie' in 2003, when I got mine.

Why do I want to keep using it? Because it also has a feature that controls a scanner, as well as having nice photo-editing features. It's a very good program.

But I can't re-install it until I get a DVD Player which plugs into a USB port. Or until I learn to love my Windows and its own built-in App for this. I've tried it, but I'm so familiar with that old program, I just can't get comfortable with it. But it does have one feature I really like. It can level the horizon in a photo by just using a slider. That's a feature I loved in the now-defunct 'Picasa' from Google. It's a feature that not every photo-editing program offers, and it's very useful. Maybe I should try harder to "love my Windows". It would make Satya Nadella very happy, in case the $42.9 million he got last year doesn't give him the giggles. The last time I recall watching him pep-talk the troops, he said, "I want everyone to love their Windows!"

Memo to Microsoft's beloved CEO...

Dear Mr. Nadella:

I've been one of the voluntary testers of Windows operating systems since the first beta of Windows 7 came out. I've had a good time, and learned a lot, except how to keep my opinions to myself.

May I share a couple of those opinions with you?

First, Windows 7 was Microsoft's greatest achievement so far. It was rock solid from day one, and I dumped 'Vasta Vista' from a new PC to install and begin testing it. I was never sorry. Vista was far too security conscious for me. I don't want to play "20 Questions" every time I open a new window.

I've liked Windows 10 until recently, when us 'Windows Insiders' seem to have been dropped from the loop during recent changes. I liked being asked "What happened?" when something shut me down, or I had to kill everything to clear a freeze. I haven't had that lately, and I gave up the testing a couple of weeks ago because I'm obviously not needed now.

We both know Windows 10 is really Windows 9, and it is built on the same reliable chassis or foundations as Windows 7. But in my humble opinion, it has now collected too much 'fluff'. A lot of its more recent goodies seem more like 'make-work' projects than essential system improvements. And I'm not the only one who thinks that way. Others are noticing too. 

Lastly, if I had one wish, it would be that you make Win-10 able to read EXT3 and EXT4 formats of Linux, which already reads some of Windows files. A year or two ago, in one of my 'feedback' messages with 'Windows Insiders' I suggested that Microsoft should try to make a deal with the Linux guys, and share the best of both worlds. I still think that's a good idea. Linux has features Microsoft could use, and vice versa. And together, you could probably make Applesauce. You should try it.... 

With best regards,

Old Ray

A little Gershwin and Porter.....

Some favorites....

About Mary L. Trump... (Today's recommended reading)

If you'd like a more straightforward read on this tell-all book author, and how she got the goods on Delightful Donald, everyone's pain-in-the-butt pinhead president, please see this article in Wikipedia >  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_L._Trump

You'll probably be glad you did. I am. In my humble opinion, if Donald J. (for Jackass) Trump isn't sufficiently nuts enough to qualify for admission to the good old Funny Farm, then none of us ever will be. And I offer this opinion with some personal experience, having been away for some "R and R" or "Rehab" three times myself, during which, my fellow inmates made a hell of a lot more sense most days than Donald J. Trump ever has!

And let's remember, he was put there with the blessings and backing of those famous Koch brothers, of Koch Industries fame, with their Libertarian philosophy of not needing any government except their own desires, and financed from the $960-millions they and their ultra-rich pals put together prior to the 2016 election for the purpose of buying strategically placed senators and congressmen of Republican persuasion to help achieve that aim of 'No government needed'. Trump, being the right kind of 'delusions of grandeur' dingaling to act as a suitable carnival barker outside the 'main tent' got the nod to be their transitional president. We've all laughed or shaken our heads in dismay at The Donald's lack of 'savoir faire' and 'smarts', but we may be overlooking the fact that he wasn't really chosen for his smarts, but for his lack of them. Charles Koch doesn't want a smart president. He wants one that answers the phone when called, and takes orders no matter how bizarre those may seem to be. Because the ultimate object is no government at all, and to achieve that, he must first thoroughly embarrass and discredit the one that's there now. And the plan seems to be succeeding surprisingly well. Take 'Moscow Mitch' McConnell for example - Please!
How do you make $24-million in six years on a government salary of about $212,000 annually? New math or old, this doesn't calculate for me. How about you?

Down Memory Lane: Let's go backward when forward fails...

And now, the sequel to this last one....

Yesterday, the weatherman said partly sunny today...

Let's have a music break, may we?

Going to the ER yesterday was the smartest thing I've done lately, because....

"Because why, Ray?"

Because, while there, I confessed to the ER doctor that I'd stupidly smart-mouthed the neurologist when he first called me about follow-up, and I said,
"I'm afraid I've totally burnt my bridges with him, and I was immediately sorry, but that was after I walked away from the smoke and flames..." The ER doctor said, "I like someone with spirit - and I can fix that for you!" And he did!

This morning, I got a call from the neurologist. He asked me how I'm feeling today. I said, "Much better, thanks, and how may I help you?" He said, "I have a few questions about your left hand..." and then he went on to ask those. I answered everything (politely, this time) and we had a nice friendly chat. He said his wife works here in our management office. (It's a small world, Kiddies) And so I had to tell him about the place, and how this was the place everyone wanted to live when it was first completed in the 1970s, and I first arrived here in 1981, while it was still the jewel of North Vancouver...

He said, "Getting back to your hand, based on the two scans being the same, I'm not even sure that what you had the first time on June 9th was even a real stroke. There's a percentage of restriction in that carotid artery, but I'm not sure we should do something about it. I'd like you to come in for a nerve test which will tell us a lot more about how it is now and even how it was then, and after that, we can make a better decision." I mentioned that my specialist had spoken to me about possibly putting a stent into that right carotid artery to keep it open, and that you and I should talk about it. He said, "I'm not sure a stent is the way we ought to go just yet. Let's do that nerve test first, and it's quite possible you won't need surgery for a stent. I'll try to squeeze you into the schedule in a few weeks, and someone will call you with the details." I thanked him for calling, and we wished each other a nice day.

So, the outlook seems to have improved amazingly overnight, and it really is possible to "unburn a bridge" if you're lucky, and do it the right way, and have a little help from your friends.  Or, as I'd put it, "There's always more than one way to skin a cat." 

Thoughts while waiting for my cab to come home...

Outside the ER, waiting for my ride home, the sun was really warm. I'm always cold in the hospital. But that sun felt wonderful. It made me think of my favorite Gershwin tune...

I listen to it, and I think, "George, wherever you are, I hope God's holding you safe and warm, in the palm of his hand...and I hope you're still writing beautiful music."

Am I becoming a hypochondriac? I'm starting to wonder...

Talking with the therapist at the hospital on a video call which began about my left hand, I mentioned that the right hand has been feeling weird since last evening about 9:00 PM,  and she said, "You'd better get that checked out."

Long story short, I've just spent most of another day in the ER at the hospital, where they decided to do another CT scan. The good news is, there's no change in that from the one on June 9th. So whatever's wrong with my right hand isn't another TIA or minor stroke - it's something less serious. The doctor said it could be a number of different things, like carpal tunnel, or a pinched nerve. I'm obviously the worrying type, and I wish I wasn't quite so much. The staff there are saying things like, "Mr. Sutton - I remember you - how are you?" I'm tempted to reply, "Just as stupid as I was the last time..." 

Obviously, I'm not well prepared for old age and everything fading to black, and all like that. And I haven't found a course to teach me the finer points of preparing for the big finish, in case there even is one. I'd like to be dignified and gracious about all that, but there's still too much of the mean little kid in me. I still want to ride my bike in the park, and admire the pretty girls, while I try not to think about my wasted youth and missed opportunities.... and I'd like to win a really big lottery, so I could get my name on something at the hospital for being a big-spending donor. I can't think of a better cause.

In bed there today, awaiting results, I mentioned to my busy nurse that I'd had a look outside while waiting my turn for the scan, and the weather has cleared off beautifully. I suggested that if she got a chance to sneak away early, to  by all means go for it. She said, "I'm here until 7:30 PM." I said, "Wow! How long's your shift?" She replied "12 hours!" And now I know for sure why we should be grateful for their service. She was really busy, and yet kept a very pleasant and helpful attitude. I don't think I could do that for 12 hours. It can't be easy.

Yesterday at the Optometry Clinic...

This virus scare has certainly made us change the ways we do things. Before my appointed day, there came an email from the ladies there, with instructions.  Those basically said, "You can't come in without a mask, and you have to come alone, and be sure to bring your glasses... and we only admit one at a time, so try not to be late." Yes Ma'am... I understand. And when I got there, the usual work stations inside all were partitioned off by sheets of clear plastic that makes conversation less audible, but more germ-free.

I went because I wanted to find out if my recent minor stroke involving a partial blockage of the right carotid artery, thus affecting the right half of the brain, and its control of the left side of the body, might also explain recent deterioration of the vision in my left eye. After three different tests (a minor examination, an optical coherence tomography, and a visual field test) the short answer is: my left eye is just like it was on my last regular test a few months ago. There's evidence of a developing cataract in that left eye, but that hasn't changed since before the artery blockage. So I spent $155 to find out I was worrying for nothing, and it was worth every dollar of it. We looked at the inside of the left eye, and the macula looks just like it did in the previous images from months ago. So that too is unchanged.

My eye doctor says, "It usually takes a good six months to recover from what you had, and you're doing exceptionally well. Try not to worry." Yes, Ma'am, I wish I could...

Summer is.....

Nice sunsets....

And cold Root Beer....

And Strawberry and Rhubarb pie...

And many other things too..... We all have our favorites.

Clouds...

Before sunrise, some clouds...

Here's a notice from Google about the new interface...

Music Break, Part Two....

The previous one could have gone like this, but didn't...

Let's have a music break....

A recent West Van sunset...

This is six images, merged into one panorama by the magic of Microsoft Research's Image Composite Editor. You really ought to have it, and it's a magnificent 'freebie' from Mighty Microsoft, and they aren't exactly famous for their giveaways, so I'd grab this if I were you... It does all the heavy lifting for you, and all you have to do is take all the credit. You just can't find a better deal than this. I've looked, and I know....

In the newspaper.... 'Men more at risk for the virus...'

Apparently, us guys are more susceptible to that magical virus than others are. There's more to it than that, however. It depends on a lot of factors, like age, immune system health, and many other things, not just sex.

Today's Trivia....

The Americans spent a sizable fortune developing a ballpoint pen capable of writing in the vacuum of space. The Russians simply used a pencil.

This being Sunday....

At 7:30 AM, on channel 66.1, the Bible-punchers channel on my air-signal antenna, there's a Catholic Mass for half an hour, from somewhere in Texas, via Toronto.
I'm Catholic, in the sense that the church I currently do not attend is Catholic, so I probably shouldn't criticize them. But as I'm watching & listening to all the usual repetitive mumbo-jumbo, I suddenly found myself thinking of something found in St. Matthew, in the Eastern Orthodox version of the Bible, which they call 'The Peshitta'. 

In there, in St. Matthew Chapter 6, beginning at verse 5, it says: "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who like to pray, standing in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you that they have already received their reward.
But as for you, when you pray, enter into your inner chamber and lock your door, and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret shall himself reward you openly.
And when you pray, do not repeat your words like the pagans, for they think that because of much talking they will be heard. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need, before you ask him...

Now, let me go even further back into history, into the Ancient Egyptian 'Book of the Dead' about 1,300 BC, officially known as 'The Papyrus of Ani' and in which we find this:- "The house of God what it hates is much speaking. Pray thou with a loving heart the petitions of which all are in secret. He will do thy business, he will hear that which thou sayest and will accept thine offerings."

That last paragraph is an old English transliteration done in the 1890s by Sir E.A. Wallis Budge, former curator of the Egyptian Antiquities section of the British Museum. It shows a definite similarity of concept to that passage found in St. Matthew, Chapter 6, above. I leave it to you to decide if those early Christians simply looked at the religion of Egypt, and said to themselves, "If we change a few names, turn all the minor gods & goddesses into Saints, and change sun worship to spiritual worship of one God, we won't be offering something that isn't familiar already - if it works, let's not fix it - and theirs has worked for thousands of years already!"

Is this too cynical? There's a big difference between spirituality and religion.  Spirituality connects us to spirits. Religion connects us to a hierarchy concerned with power, control, and money. Dominus vobiscum!

Winamp's Back !

The people who bought it two or three years ago have finally got off their procrastinating asses, and actually released a beta version of their long awaited upgrade to this great music player.

I'm listening to my favorite Jazz24.org from Seattle on this new laptop, and while the music is still wonderful, the speakers in this thing are the shits! There's just no substitute for big when it comes to fullness of sound, and of course 'big' is something totally foreign to laptops. So the sound leaves a hell of a lot to be desired.

But that's OK - I have bigger & better plugged into the Predator on another desk, and all I'm doing on this notebook is making sure Winamp is still available, and thankfully, it is. I don't have to search the web for half an hour to find its older version. Although, maybe I should - I have a lot of faith in that last full version they released prior to selling it to its present owners. And it works just fine. I've got it on disk here someplace, but this new laptop can't accept disks. It only has USB ports where I need a flash drive loaded with whatever I'd like to install, unless it can be found on the web. I have a couple of empty flash drives, but didn't need them for this. 

For Monsieur Beep in Germany, who doesn't like the pop-ups...

Ich habe Ihre E-Mail während einer Neuinstallation verloren. Würden Sie es bitte noch einmal senden, wenn Sie meins haben?
Dieses Browser-Add-On ist das beste, das ich gefunden habe. Es besteht aus ungefähr fünf Teilen, von denen jeder eine andere Aufgabe erfüllt, um Sie zu schützen. Versuch es bitte. Und genieße deinen Tag!

Linux Mint's 'Terminal' in action...

If this were Mighty Microsoft, then this application would be called 'Powershell' or its older relative, 'Command Prompt'. But this is Linux, the wave of the future, and so here, we call it 'Terminal' so as not to confuse anyone with its competition. And this baby kicks ass faster than you could kiss a duck's ass without getting a mouthful of feathers! And that's QUICK.

I'm showing this because it has two very nice features not found in Microsoft's Win-10, and those are the commands for 'autoclean', which scans the whole system for junk, and then automatically removes it in the blink of an eye, and 'autoremove' which scans the system and removes leftovers from deleted packages of programs that have been made redundant by newer revisions. These are similar, but the first does the whole system's temporary and junk stuff, while the latter 'autoremove' only looks for leftover bits of items recently outdated and replaced by their newer versions, which often depend on different helper packages.

Here's an example of Microsoft's Image Composite Editor...

This pano was assembled automatically by 'ICE' from 16 separate images. There's a little distortion near the bottom, with those power lines, which really don't sag like that in reality. But I still think this program does a great job, and there's no manual matching of images involved - the program does that all by itself. You've gotta love that. This kicks the stuffings out of Canon's offering.

The neighbors across the street...

This couple of older folk work like beavers on their grounds. They are out there come rain or come shine, doing something with the flowers or the grass or the back porch, or the front driveway. It's their substitute for going to a gym, obviously. And it does look nice. Even with the wet wash hanging on the old whirligig 'umbrella' style clothesline drier near the back door into their garage. My aunt next door, back when I was a kid about a hundred years ago, had one just like it. These are nothing new. But if it works, why fix it?

There were more trees in the back yard until just a few years ago, and some of us, like the Chinese lady across their back fence, and me, the neighborhood 'guard dog', wish there still were. We like trees. When those were cut, Christine, our Chinese neighbor, said, "I am very sad. I liked the trees." And I had to agree. I liked them too. They gave the place a very nice look in the fall, and were a nice place for the birds any time. My flock of crows loved them.

But we can't control what isn't ours. Sometimes, we can't even control what is ours...

Summer weather is almost here, they say...

Do weather forecasters lie a lot? Maybe not, but it sure seems like it most of the time. But then we have to remember that the air currents are always changing because of a multitude of factors, like heating from sunlight on the earth's surface (1,100 watts per square metre near the equator) and the effects of mountain ice-fields (melting too quickly now) and even the rotation of the earth in space. Complicated.  And no, I can't explain why it seems our seasons are rotating around the calendar, with winter starting later and staying with us later, or spring lasting until half-past summer. It's just weird. And probably related to Global Warming. And Global Warming is just another name for Overpopulation. And that may finally be controlled by this Covid-19 virus, or one like it, forcing us to keep our distance from one another, if we want to live long and prosper like Commander Spock says.

Technology's wonderful...

I've been playing with computers and their operating systems for years now, and I'm finally getting it refined to where it feels more comfortable.

The big and powerful Predator desktop now is exclusively Linux, and the new notebook PC handles the Microsoft Win-10 Home operating system. And none of these are test versions. I'm all done with that. 

This morning, I finished up some configuring of newly installed programs on the notebook, and then put it through its first actual use, doing a Zoom video-conferencing session with a nurse at LGH who is monitoring my left hand's recovery from the TIA of 
June 9th. When I was first told that in cases like mine, a partial artery blockage, the brain can 'rewire' itself to work around the damaged portion, I thought, "Yah, ... Sure!" But I stand corrected. It does!

I'm getting more movement back in that hand as the days go by. It now does things like using scissors, or a screwdriver, or buttering bread with a tablespoon. It couldn't do any of those a month ago. 

The Desktop of Linux Mint 20

Computing without Mighty Microsoft's Windows...

Weening myself off Windows Ten is a lot more fun than you have been led to believe, and it's working for me. It can for you, too.

Today, I'm amusing myself with the very latest Linux Mint, version 20. It has a new feature, resurrected from a long-ago previous version and then improved to today's standards, which does much like Microsoft's now-defunct 'Homegroup', for file-sharing between two devices running Linux. I'd love to try it, but unfortunately, I don't have two devices running Linux at the moment. Linux usually works so well, I don't really need a second one standing by for a spare to help me get up and running on the first one again when it goes down. (Another reason for leaving Windows operating system!)

My other computer is an almost-new notebook, which I haven't even finished configuring yet. Because..... "Because why, Ray?" - because I'm having too much fun with Linux. And the notebook has Mighty Microsoft's wonderful Windows 10 on it. And Windows 10 of course really isn't 'ten' at all. It's really a 'nine', following Windows 8 and 8.1. But they were afraid to call it 'nine' because 'Nein' in German means 'No' - and a significant percentage of the American population are of German descent, euphemistically calling themselves silly things like "Pennsylvania Dutch", as if that excused them from joining World War Two for over two years, and not then until the Nazis had a long range bomber said to be capable of reaching North America, and not even then until the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and really got their attention. And yes, my new notebook came with Win-10 Home on it.

There's only two programs I want but can't run on Linux. Those are Irfan Skiljan's wonderful graphics and photo editing program, Irfanview, and Microsoft Research's Image Composite Editor - the world's absolute best panorama-making program. If you're running Windows, then have a look at those. You'll be glad you did. And these two programs are the only reason I haven't already wiped Microsoft's Windows off this new notebook in favor of Linux.

Here's a few samples of the thousands of programs available for Linux in its many and various incarnations...

It's half past July, and we're still waiting for summer...

And I have a theory. Global Warming = People. The world's population has tripled in my lifetime, from 2.4 billions in 1932 to 7.8 billions this year. More than three times, actually. And we're not even counting those methane-producing cattle, sheep, horses, and all like that.  People cause pollution. Try to imagine, just as an example, how many cubic meters of pollution are belched out the back ends of aircraft engines on an average day. Or how many of that 7.8 billions go to the toilet every day. Or how many throw something away in places they shouldn't, just because there's nobody looking and they're too lazy to do it right, I'd bet we're all guilty, including those self-righteous profiteers who deny climate change. We know why they pretend there isn't any climate change. It's simple. Their pollution-causing enterprises would have to shut down, or spend fortunes to eliminate that pollution, so they simply pretend there's none, and go right on with business as usual. They'll even tell you, "After I die, I won't give a damn about the rest of you - why should I?" And the status quo is maintained, religiously. It's all about the money.

But Mother Nature dances to a different tune, and God's getting us for that, little by little, and day by day. And rewriting history won't save our asses. The human race, Homo Stupidicus, was a great theory that hasn't worked out worth a damn in actual practice. The earth is dying, and we're the cancer that's killing it. I firmly believe that. If you don't, then show me some proof that I'm wrong. I bet you can't. But go ahead - surprise me. Please...

Goodbye Facebook, Hello Intelligent Life Out There....

I'm the impetuous type, and the other day,  I got tangled up with some younger American who just couldn't take the hint to change a subject I did not want to discuss, because it brought back unpleasant memories of lost pals. That guy just wouldn't give it a rest.  So I resolved the issue with a permanent end to Facebook. Punctuated with a few choice censored words.  I'm all done trying to offer another point of view to those who vigorously resist all thoughts not of their own conception.  They may not always be right, but they are damned well never wrong, and they'll shout that from the rooftops,  given the least excuse....

Here's some pictures....   When I said goodbye to the 'Windows Insiders' gang of voluntary testers for Mighty Microsoft, I didn't quit the computer entirely. I just cleaned the drive of its Windows, and then installed the most recent two releases of Linux Mint's excellent operating system. I put the most recent, version 20, on the optical drive (SSD) and its predecessor 19.3 on the larger hard drive (HDD) giving me a choice. The newest one has features previous ones lack, but I'm far more familiar with the older ones, so I included one of them.

These others are around the neighborhood, using the old Fujifilm Finepix SL-1000, mostly at 50x (max zoom). It lacks sharpness at higher zoom settings, but it was one of the first to have a 50x zoom, and those have improved a lot since then. I got into the superzoom stuff a little early. I should have waited.

Google's 'New Look'...

My Blogger pal Monsieur Beep in Germany tells me we should continue with our Blogs, because these may very well outlive us, and be recorded for posterity, and for the benefit

of the curious at some future time. 

This being in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, one might be forgiven for wondering 

how much future there is for homo sapiens on this minor planet of a so-so solar system in an outer arm of a spiral galaxy somewhere in the space/time continuum. A nasty little planet where we can do everything but get along with one another well enough to avoid complete annihilation.

It finally happened. I gave up testing Microsoft's Windows 10.

It was fun in the beginning, but the charm has been wearing off this last couple of years. Their procedures have been changing, and lately, we 'Windows Insiders' haven't been kept in the loop like we once were.  That took the fun out of it, so I've moved on.

My new love is Linux Mint, and I will likely babble on about it more later on.  Linux is a system derived from the original IBM Unix of the 1960s,  and coincidentally, Apple's operating system comes from the same roots. And no, you can't use Apple's bits in Linux nor vice versa, because each uses a different formatting for their segments on a drive.  But they do share the same basic structure, so if you're familiar with one, you're familiar with the other.

The biggest differences between Linux and Apple are that Linux is 'Open Source' while Apple is proprietary, and Apple is expensive by most people's standards, whereas Linux is free for the taking, and supported by donations and advertising.

To My Loyal Readers in Turkmenistan..... Greetings!

Türkmenistanda wepaly okyjylarymyza: -
Blogymyza hoş geldiňiz.
Hereakyn wagtda bu ýere has köp zat goşaryn.
Soraglaryňyz bar bolsa, şu ýerdäki teswirleri ulanyň.

I came back....

Should a small electric kettle make sloshing sounds like it has water in it when it is actually empty? No, it should not. But mine did today.

The water was inside a compartment in the lid, where there is a weight sealed inside, to make the lid tilt open when a button on the handle is pressed. That compartment was not well enough sealed, and steam from the boiling water was getting inside, then condensing when the kettle cooled off. This slowly collected to make a pool of water inside the lid compartment. I drilled a couple of holes to drain it. You know where it was made, don't you?

It snowed last night...