Over a number of years, I’ve heard the repeated assertion that Blondie’s 1982 tour for The Hunter was canceled at least in part due to poor album sales.  It came up again today, and I wrote this opinion:

The one thing I would say in response to the many times over the years where someone said something like the Hunter tour was canceled due in part to “poor sales” “and the fact they weren’t going to make any money due to tax problems. The money had run out.” is this:

As an archivist of the band for 30+ years, I have never personally seen anything in writing (either official or internal correspondence) that supports the claim that the tour cancellation was related to poor album sales in any way. I’ve heard that repeated many times, but so far, no one has shown any evidence to support the claim (logical fallacy called “Proof by Assertion“). If such evidence exists, I’d certainly like to see it. The tour dates in the US that preceded the canceled part were doing pretty well in venues the size of where they have played in the last 8 years. Blondie has toured internationally every year since 2001, and in many of those years, had no album out at all, so album sales are not required for touring. In 1982, poor sales of The Hunter, though true, was not the cause of the tour cancellation, but it was correlated. Correlation is not causality. Chris was a critical member of the band and was taken out by an illness that was more likely than not to be fatal in 1982 and did not continue without him. Any tax liability owed by individual band members would not affect the profitability of a tour because that debt was not part of their record company or management company’s liability and did not affect income at all. It would be entirely owed by the individual. There wasn’t a lump sum of money that could “run out”. Blondie’s business is a revenue stream of record sales, tour income, merchandising, and royalties, and the business never had any responsibility for anyone’s individual tax debt.

Today, I saw an article where the participant copied text from one sexbot into another to see how the conversation would go.

That’s interesting, but my question is, what’s next?

I have a prediction:

They will hire a crowdsourced network of responders to write personal replies, and who will be paid $0.0x if the “client” calls a 900 number or does whatever they’re selling.  Those responders will be able to look at many chat windows and write something, and perhaps two responders will need to say something similar for one response to be selected and sent to the client.

All of the successful human-initiated responses will be analyzed, and a database will be constructed so when a client says [this], and a responder (or more than one responder) has said [that], and the client bites, now a computer will provide the human response, freeing the human responders to engage in other, new, original conversations with human clients.  Over time, human responders make tiny amounts of money, while large, very profitable databases of enticing responses are built up, to be sold or used to generate sex-talk income.

Let me start off by saying that I didn’t ever plan to do a post on faulty products.  I did want to do a post on “products I like”.  We’ll get there.

But I’m very observant.  I don’t miss much.

And I just noticed that I went into my first floor bathroom, which days ago I had closed the heat vent off and shut the door to save energy since I rarely go in there, and it is just toasty warm in there!  I noticed lately that the heat is always off and the door closed to my son’s bedroom, but every time I go in there, it’s warm.

So that’s my first defective product to list.  The floor-mounted close-able heat vents that appear to close but do not impede the flow of heated air.

More to follow.

The other night I happened across a discussion (one that didn’t qualify as a debate) about the ethics of non-vegans’ food choices in the comments on a close friend’s facebook page.  While I have no real interest in participating in that debate since it never really concludes, I did write up my opinion, which I’ll share here, a few paragraphs down.

One reason, but not the primary one, that I chose to write about this is because I am interested in ethics, especially medical ethics (which I studied in college), the ethical components of sexuality and relationship structures, and issues of free choice and free will.  I have a lot of thoughts in common with Peter Singer, Michael Shermer, and my brilliant friend and author Franklin Veaux (blog | essays | site), just to name a few places to start reading for those who like thinking too much!

The main reason I chose to write about this is because I’ve been hearing an issue I really don’t care for come up more and more often: people who have chosen to be vegan (for whatever reason) are increasingly asserting that anyone who is not vegan is unethical, supports animal cruelty and is complicit in the torture of animals.  I find this absurd.  I don’t deny that animals have the capacity to suffer and I don’t support their mistreatment.  That doesn’t mean that I accept the argument that just because a livestock animal, like any biological organism, can feel and respond to their environment that it is unethical to kill them as humanely as possible and for me to eat them if I so choose.  You don’t have to like it, and you don’t have to make the same choices that I do, but it doesn’t make me “wrong” or a bad or unethical person.  I simply do not accept as valid the claim that a minimal level of sentience in animals, nor nociception in invertebrates is adequate to convey the same status as a human being entitled to the applicable substantive human rights and equal consideration of interests.

One thought I had which made me wonder how often it applies, is that my vegan friend (whose page this was on) really doesn’t like food.  She’s told me many times, though not recently, that she hates food and only eats because it’s necessary.  More recently, she’s said she doesn’t hate food, she likes food, but only healthy food.   (After I published this, now she says she loves food — healthy food.  So it appears I stand corrected, at least in the present.)   I, on the other hand, love food.  I do not eat to survive; I consider eating to be one of life’s real pleasures, and I love food so much that I not only learned to cook, I’ve learned to create my own original recipes and duplicate the secret ones of others, and I’ve become incredibly good at it and take it very seriously.  And somehow, miraculously, I’m not addicted to meat, cheese, or sugar.

Also, while I was thinking about topic and doing some research, I found a lot of really well-thought-out discussions and debates about the vegan/carnivore topic online.  I wish I had time to read more of them because I am very interested in logic and I’d really like to know specifically which informal logical fallacy is being committed.   On my long-term TTD list is to learn more about logical fallacy… I’ve run across them, and I recognize them quite well, but I never studied them and don’t know them apart, as much as I’d like to.

So here’s what I wrote, in reply to an ongoing, emotionally-laden argument trying to convince an omnivorous person that they only eat meat because they’re addicted to it and that their diet makes them unethical.  I refer to dear vegan friend using the appropriate feminine pronoun since her identity isn’t relevant to my opinion on the topic:

My brain is full.  I’m not receptive to “the vegan message” either.  That’s not the point.  I don’t want to be vegan either.   It doesn’t mean I’m stupid, unwilling to change my opinions, or that I hate animals.  Perhaps the contrived word (more accurately: pejorative neologism) “speciesist” fits; I don’t know and I don’t really care.  Because I choose to eat meat does not mean I support cruel conditions or torture of animals.  It doesn’t mean I hate animals any more than that South Park episode (“if you don’t support Prop10, then you HATE children” lol) makes logical sense.

What I would like to see are the citations to open/public (not ‘pay for this’ jstor) peer-reviewed scientific papers to support some of these arguments, like that humans are not ominivorous , that these animals are “sentient”, and meat is addictive.  I’d like to see organized political movements, letter writing campaigns to Congress, things that I could be a part of to improve the conditions of food animals to the levels of the farms I grew up on, and bring criminal penalties to people who violate them.  The photos I see of the poor conditions bother me, but I believe these are exceptions to the rule (like criminals, in a world where people like me who find a cell phone in the grocery parking lot pick it up and call “Mom” to say I found your daughter’s smartphone and I’d like to return it), and I have too much to do now already.  I care more about my income and finding a way to pay my bills than activism, but I’ll support reasonable ideas.

It hurts me that she believes I hate animals and support animal cruelty because I’m not vegan, but I neither can nor will try to change her opinion of me, nor will I ever not love her, because I respect her, and the foundation of our relationship is not because of what we eat.  It is because of who we are, and what we can accept.  I’ve seen increasing extremism, but it doesn’t affect that…. I’m sure she’s seen that I’ve had increasing extremism in my love for music over a period of decades, which has improved my life much as veganism has improved hers.  Love can be extraordinarily accepting.  I don’t identify her or vice versa by our choices (we’ve both made some very good ones, and some very bad ones).  Isn’t it okay to just be different?

Some of this is part of one’s definition of cruelty.  I happen to think that it’s wrong that humans, who are beyond a doubt sentient, do not have the right to decide to take their own life when faced with a horrific death or are in intractable pain.  I don’t see vegans showing any interest in supporting *my* end-of-life rights, or my desire to assign those rights to someone I love and trust, something that would directly reduce real cruelty.  The vegans are going after the core issue at the wrong level.  This one will never fly as grassroots, by trying to convince or guilt people into not eating meat.  There will never be a vegan majority.  The “insects are more nutritious than meat” argument is a tough sell too.  I’m not interested in that either.  But the animal right to not be treated cruelly (and that doesn’t mean the Right to Life argument either) is a different issue.  It will only fly as legislation.  Vegans will always be a minority (but they can still have rights, and influence).   I stopped eating all products that can only be produced in unacceptable conditions (like veal), but I won’t be a vegetarian because I don’t believe the claims.  So why don’t you find a way to make someone like me an advocate for your legislation that makes progress on the real root cause?  I would do *that*.
I still don’t like to be labeled as someone who hates animals, especially from someone I love.  That conclusion is logical fallacy.  Animals (esp. if you consider the easy case of one that doesn’t need to be killed to produce a sustainable product, like chickens) do not need to be in poor conditions or tortured (in fact, I read that if you torture hens, they do not produce) so the engineer in me respectfully requests more evidence in peer-reviewed journals and less appeal to emotion.

That all led to a barrage of more insults, condescension, and logical fallacy (which was really my only original interest in the whole thing), including a whole load of “references”, all of which originate on pro-vegan websites without a single citation to anything in an unbiased peer-reviewed journal.  There were some articles and presentations, some of which had names with “M.D.” behind it, which makes it gospel to a vegan but does nothing to address my skepticism (see Argument from authority), my challenge of the data, and refusal to accept a shift of the burden of proof (Onus probandi) onto myself for not “seeking out the information.”  All of that was enough for me to gracefully exit with no further comments and no intention of ever engaging in this topic where militant vegans are present.

I was told I’m “like the person who is so intelligent that they have no interpersonal skills.”  Followed by that it is only the “meat eaters attempting to justify their choices”.   Who else is engaging one in that discussion?  Why would a vegan put themselves in a discussion whereby their intelligence was questioned, now that most choices of sexuality are somewhere between accepted and legally recognized?  I never felt the need to justify anything or to make excuses.  I don’t care that the militant vegans call what I eat “carcass.”   (Sometimes, it even makes me want to respond, “Yum!” when in most cases I just keep quiet about my meals).   I don’t feel bad or guilty for what I eat, and I think if someone meets the definition of a bigot, and someone calls them a bigot, it’s not wrong.  But I do have an opinion how I should be treated as a person, and by extension, how everyone should be.

I also discovered that a week earlier, another of my friends had been attacked by the same group, in much the same way.   The statement was made that “This is my [Facebook] wall” … “if you don’t want to see what you see, kindly remove yourself…”.  Anyone who has been online as long as I have can relate to this, but that’s not the solution when the real problem isn’t that someone (perhaps someone like me) doesn’t like what I see, but rather the problem is I don’t like being treated poorly, judged, and insulted by someone I don’t know… and I like it even less when it’s by someone I do know, someone who should know better and put an end to the “asleep”, “willfully ignorant”, “indoctrinated” into my “incorrect beliefs”, “uneducated”, “unwilling to be educated”, “I am better than you” rhetoric directed at someone just like me.  Or at me.

While all this was happening, someone else who, like me, was on the receiving end of all this disgusting behavior, decided to write her own articles about it.  She said this experience “was the worst interaction [she’s] had online in 20 years” and wrote two brilliant articles about it, which I highly recommend:
We All Have Convenient and Fluid Morals
and
Your Communication Style Can Kill Your Message

They are very well-written and thought out.  I particularly liked the parallels to real human conditions, groups that have no voice, and the deconstruction of some judgmental visuals, memes used to promote “the vegan message” that make people like me abandon with haste.  The one that is “missing a panel” is spot on.  I could deconstruct many others, but why bother?  It won’t make my points more clear.

The other good part of those articles is how she disputed the mutual exclusivity that I could not be vegan, and still care about reform for the quality of life of animals, just like I care about the quality of life for the others who “do not have a voice”, which is a different but very real and very human issue that as
far as I’m concerned is as relevant now as the changes that led to the
elimination of (some) absurdity in law (i.e. charges of witchcraft and debtor’s
prisons).

I’ve also been thinking about it more, and here are some more thoughts I have:

Humans, primates, companion animals, livestock animals, and less complex animals are not equivalent.  They are distinct groups (arbitrarily classified by me) and those groups do not deserve equal rights.  This does not mean they deserve no rights.  [I also think that human children should have rights, although the courts have repeatedly ruled that — child support money excepted — they do not, especially in schools.  Reminder to self to write about that one day.]

So what’s next, defending my right to keep a carnivorous companion animal (which I customarily call a “pet”) and let it freely travel in and out the cat door?

When someone who is not vegan makes a reference to “plants are alive too”, this is generally not to convince anyone that plants have rights.  It is to call out the absurdity of some of the arguments and the use of a logical fallacy, one that extends a premise beyond its boundaries.  I didn’t identify the name of this yet, but I will.

I see many vegans writing online about how much harm that the production and consumption of livestock causes to the environment (and I tend to agree; this is a different issue).  Speaking of the environment, I ask two questions: Do you recycle?  Have you made an effort (like I have) to encourage your friends and family to recycle?  I know more than one vegan with very close friends who just throw everything in the trash (“I can’t be bothered.”).  That’s the same as making the environment “somebody else’s problem”.   Recycling doesn’t require a lifestyle change like veganism, so isn’t that the low-hanging fruit?  I even paid more for trash service that provided recycling.

I don’t like it when someone doesn’t recycle their own trash.  I think it is lazy and irresponsible, and I may tell them I don’t like their decision to not do something easy and not cause a problem for someone else, but I certainly don’t treat them with gross disrespect nor assert the conclusion,

“If you don’t recycle, then you HATE the environment”.

My position doesn’t imply the environment is unimportant.  It doesn’t even matter that our trash and our environment isn’t sentient.  Or is it?  All depends on your definitions and how you choose to treat others.  Calling yourself “abrasive” is a poor excuse for the behaviors I saw that led to this.

Respectfully submitted by one of “the droned masses”…. who just can’t seem to “wake up”… apparently.

Today I replaced the button cell (A013 / LR44) batteries in some of my laser pointers.  Most of the batteries were dead and leaking, so now there is a contact way down inside the laser pointer barrel that’s now corroded, but is very difficult to reach.

Here’s an idea:

Instead of loading the batteries in the pointer with the negative contact (cathode) in where the leaks originate, reverse the laser polarity so the batteries can be loaded with the positive terminal in.  Now the inevitable leaking will still damage the contact, but it will be on the part you can get to and clean easily.

If your Nexus 7 (2013 – second generation) doesn’t show up correctly in Device Manager when you connect it  (“Unknown device”, “This hardware cannot be installed”) because the driver isn’t found, the solution is to identify your device and add one line in the correct .inf file which will allow XP (Pro SP3 32-bit in my case) to load the driver.

Not sure if it’s required, but I did enable the USB Debugging option in the Developer options.  It wasn’t necessary to change from MTP (Media Transfer Protocol) to PTP.  Incidentally, my device is an August 2013 model running 4.4.2 (KitKat) which as of this post is the latest OS.

Download and execute the Microsoft USB identification utility “usbview.exe”.  I found it on this page: http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/335A90747734097886257070006415B9

My device's ID was this:
Device Descriptor:
bcdUSB:             0x0200
bDeviceClass:         0x00
bDeviceSubClass:      0x00
bDeviceProtocol:      0x00
bMaxPacketSize0:      0x40 (64)
idVendor:           0x18D1
idProduct:          0x4EE2
bcdDevice:          0x0228
iManufacturer:        0x01
iProduct:             0x02
iSerialNumber:        0x03
bNumConfigurations:   0x01

The Vendor ID is 0x18D1 (Google).
The Device ID is 0x4EE2.

Then you edit the file c:\windows\inf\wpdmtp.inf

and edit this:

[Generic.NTx86]
%GenericMTP.DeviceDesc%=MTP, USB\MS_COMP_MTP

to append the line that makes this device a target of this inf.

[Generic.NTx86]
%GenericMTP.DeviceDesc%=MTP, USB\MS_COMP_MTP
%GenericMTP.DeviceDesc%=MTP, USB\VID_18D1&PID_4EE2&MI_00

(At first, I was not sure what the &MI=0 does, so I just left it unmodified).  At this point, the ‘Found New Hardware Wizard’ using Automatic settings will install it, and then you can copy files to and from the device’s Internal Storage.  An additional step is needed to set up for Android debugging (see below).

I’ve had to edit the .INF before (for other devices) to add new lines to use the same drivers when the PCI Device ID, Subsystem Vendor ID, Subsystem Device ID, etc. change.

Thanks to the post here for sending me in the right direction: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/andreasliebigapps/FERbuAQfTnk

Update on 12/18:

I noticed my Nexus 7 was still showing up with a yellow ! under Other in Device Manager, and I couldn’t see it when I ran “adb devices” from the command line, which is necessary to develop Android apps.  The driver installation dialog was still coming up when I plugged it in, so I investigated this further.

“&MI_” was referring to ‘Matching Device ID’ which you can see in Device Manager (Properties, Details tab).

The missing driver was for the Android Composite ADB Interface.  The driver zip has been removed from the Asus site, so I had to get it elsewhere (from the ASUS Nexus 7 Tablet ADB USB Driver 6.0 download page).

Later, I found this Google link, but didn’t try it: http://developer.android.com/sdk/win-usb.html#top

The Google version (in source.catalog) is Rev. 8; the other one is Rev. 6, but they are binary exact  driver files (only the date changed), with the only exception being the .inf and .cat files (which as I understand it, specify new compatible devices).

Again, the .inf needed to first be edited to include this new device’s Device ID.  In the file android_winusb.inf, add one line to the end of the [Google.NTx86] section, which pertains to 32-bit XP, for this Nexus 7:

;Google Nexus 7
%SingleBootLoaderInterface% = USB_Install, USB\VID_18D1&PID_4E40
%SingleAdbInterface%        = USB_Install, USB\VID_18D1&PID_4E41
%CompositeAdbInterface%     = USB_Install, USB\VID_18D1&PID_4E42
%CompositeAdbInterface%     = USB_Install, USB\VID_18D1&PID_4E42&MI_01
%CompositeAdbInterface%     = USB_Install, USB\VID_18D1&PID_4E44&MI_01
%CompositeAdbInterface%     = USB_Install, USB\VID_18D1&PID_4EE2&MI_01

I am only installing XP 32-bit drivers (x86) and not 64-bit, so I did not modify the following section at all, although the general concept is the same.

[Google.NTamd64]

Prior to doing this, my Nexus 7 was in Device Manager (Other) with a yellow !

Now it correctly appears as a Nexus 7 under Portable Devices, and also under Android Phone, as Android Composite ADB Interface. (Android Debug Bridge).  Here’s a screenshot.

I didn’t try connecting to the device in recovery mode yet.  The following article describes that it may be necessary to add yet another entry in the .inf to load the driver for the device in recovery mode:
http://blog.dantup.com/2012/10/fixing-adb-device-not-found-with-nexus-7-in-recovery-mode/

Another update (01/14/15):
I’ve recently switched to Android Studio for app development, which I’m running on Windows 7.  Again, to use the Nexus 7 (2013) as a debug target, it was necessary to modify the wpdmtp.inf file as described above, and also the device driver for the Android Composite Interface.  The Google driver that comes with Android Studio worked for me; just browse to the driver from Device Manager to clear the yellow !, as described here:

http://developer.android.com/tools/extras/oem-usb.html#InstallingDriver

I’ve had this for almost 40 years, but have no idea what it’s called…

Last week, my dad was visiting and I almost gave him this monitor to take to electronics recycling, but thought I should see if it was worth anything on ebay first (which is always a good idea).  Seeing that it was, I listed it.

Here it is being tested on my old but still-working 386-40 (with Micropolis ESDI drives!)

In two days, someone did ‘buy it now’… for $388!
Makes me wish I would have kept more of them.

I used these in the 90s to debug VGA graphics chips and DVD boards, and to debug video drivers when it was the only way to have two video adapters in the same computer.

12/12/13.   I worked for hours to set up a system to test this.  The post office destroyed it.  It was protected with me for 14 years here and didn’t make it 100 miles to New Jersey.  I didn’t make $350.  I lost $32 in mailing and this lovely thing is gone.
Devastated.

This should have been a museum piece.

Why is it every time I spend four hours to give some treasured piece a good home, it’s just destroyed?   Buyer and seller, get nothing.  WTF.

Yesterday I set my hand to recreating a Japanese recipe for ginger pork that our friend Chilli cooked for us last year.  This is my version, which I’m still developing:

Thin sliced pork roast (deboned, fat removed) – roast and eat separately what was trimmed out.

Marinate in:
a bunch of freshly grated ginger (2 T?)
perhaps 4 heaping tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon mirin
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil (I like Kadoya brand).

Cook the pork in small batches in a little olive oil.  Add water between batches to deglaze pan and prevent burning.  Don’t overcook.  It’s a flavor explosion!

Some of my guests were having it as a romaine lettuce wrap.

These cheese curls are more like cheese straights.

Here are some websites featuring interesting optical illusions I ran across when I was looking in my emails for something.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/05/13/why-does-the-moon-look-so-huge-on-the-horizon/#.UoVXwSfS9_B

http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/unplugged/spot-fake-objects-among-real-ones-195357959.html

The link to more anamorphic illusions on youtube in the latter article is fascinating.

This should not be so difficult:

ls -ald */

barry1:/srv/www/htdocs2/xblkx # ls -ald */
drwxr-xr-x 7 blk root 4096 2010-12-01 00:29 wp-admin/
drwxr-xr-x 5 blk root 4096 2013-11-03 21:01 wp-content/
drwxr-xr-x 7 blk root 4096 2010-11-30 22:26 wp-includes/

Someone recently asked me if I have any favorite constellations.

I like Sagittarius and Scorpius.  I like how both move in the sky and sort of rotate.  The Milky Way runs right through them so those areas are very rich in objects.  I guess I don’t really have a favorite, but I have some favorites.  I really like Orion.  I love the Pleiades, even though it isn’t a constellation and my vision isn’t good enough to resolve any stars in it.  But you might be surprised which constellation I like the most if I have to choose… Delphinus.

Of the stars I like, it would be Antares, Vega, Zubenelgenubi and Zubeneschemali.

Ophiuchus, Microscopium, and Gemini annoy me.

New Moon.  Eclipse.  Blog launch today.

Sometimes, even though I love my ability to produce meaningful words fairly reliably, there are people I admire who can write more emotionally than I can, or who can write music, or deliver words or make cultural references in a way that I only wish I could.

So I’m going to quote someone I adore, and there aren’t many of those
“Oh, I have been waiting so long to play this for you.”

My own introduction to the launch of my site are analogous to her words:
“Oh, I have been waiting so long to share this with you.”

So here we are.  My colors might be awkward and my server might crash from time to time, but no one will *ever* delete your comments, claim to own them for using someone’s service, or take this website from you.
I have a lot of data, a lot of my writing from the past that will take a lot of time to completely fill in, but this is The Beginning.
This is a site I own, and those of you who want to interact, those of you who have encouraged me to write can now be a part of it. I am so honored that you choose to be a part of it and that the technology exists to make this happen.

I write a lot of stream of consciousness, and sometimes I don’t know where I’m going with a story.

Yet I have had so many people encourage me to write.  Chris Stein told me to try to write science fiction after I sent him a synopsis of a dream I had of him.

I also want everyone to know why, on October 19, I chose November 3 as the launch date.

It’s because November 3 has become a defining moment for me.

I like to choose dates (when I can) that have some significance.  There are four reasons.

Numbers and dates and natural phenomena experiences (the full and new moons complete with apogee and perigee in my calendar etc.)

The first reason is that November is a magical month for me.  It took a long time to realize but it came to me late one night when I finally figured out after 30 years what “Angels On The Balcony” is about.
Care to guess what day that happened?

My interpretation (revelation) when I discovered what “Angels on the Balcony” is about, suddenly, was on November 3, 2010, after 30 years of trying to figure it out, I did that at 5:09am EST.

The 3rd (!) reason is that November 3, this year, is New Moon.  Chris Stein told me it’s just as powerful as the Full Moon.  It’s so perfect.

The last reason is even more interesting.
It was November 3, 1989 that a series of events were set in motion that led to my meeting Chris and Debbie not quite 9 months later.
They had a Def, Dumb & Blonde gig that night at the Chestnut Cabaret in Philadelphia.  I arrived early enough to stand in the front row.   I was in the midst of the singularity of almost knowing them (but I didn’t know it was coming yet).
I’d been doing Fan Mail for two years and because we had email since the mid-80s, I had already developed a real friendship with Gunter from Perth.
I was so blown away by this show that afterward, I drove an hour to Bethlehem to use a computer at Lehigh (since at that time, that was the only form of email or internet).  I wrote Gunter a message and told him to “do anything” to come here.  He did.
That trip and the ones that followed developed some of the connections that led us to meet Debbie and Chris and to later become friends.

All this makes November 3 like a new beginning, a transformative moment.  The 21, 22, 23, they are also very special, but the 3rd is really symbolic of a new beginning.

Earlier today, around 2am, I saw a Facebook post on an awesome DH/Blondie fan page, to a link to an article:

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/andy_warhol_paints_debbie_harry_on_an_amiga_computer

It is really fascinating to me to read this today.

Last night, I was looking for something… which unfortunately seems to be a central theme of my existence, but I found a printout that was given to me by someone who was once a good friend a very long time ago. It was at the very beginning of my new career in 1996.  I had just changed jobs.  I’d left one that I truly loved for another that paid a lot more and that I truly believed in..
I’d accepted it for a new opportunity, and I had a passionate career and me and the people I worked with made real contributions to technology.  We created things that changed your lives although our names weren’t attached to it unless you knew how to get to it.

Just as I started on that new adventure, I found out that I was hired by people who worked at Commodore.  They were based very near where I live now.  The people I worked with designed and manufactured the Amiga.  The computer that Chris Stein had before I met him.  The computer that Andy Warhol used to create that image of Debbie Harry, one of the first digitally manipulated artworks ever.  Perhaps the very first one… I don’t know for sure.

Andy Warhol did that on Commodore Amiga.

The person I mentioned, who used to be my friend, was a technician of some sort at that event.  I don’t remember the details, but I remember he told me he saved that file.
He saved to disk Andy Warhol’s artwork of Debbie Harry — and proved it to me.

He wouldn’t let me have a digital copy of the file back in the late 90s, but he did make me a color inkjet printout on quality paper, and I just found it when I was looking for something last night.
Here is *my* scan of that image:

I remember being in awe to work with people who had invented this computer when there were no computers.
And being amazed at the foresight of this person who, instead of shutting down the computer, first saved the image to a disk (and made a copy).
That was the caliber of the people I worked with then.
Engineers were on their way up in the world.  It was almost another Renaissance.
Politics and bullshit, deception, and the concentration of wealth eventually killed us, but those people who hired me, who I got to work with, they were the real deal, visionaries.  Extinct now that that environment is destroyed.

But I remember.

I remember someone in a cubicle across from mine, who saved Andy Warhol’s image of Debbie Harry to a floppy disk and made me a printout.
It was around then that I couldn’t repair Chris’s Amiga 2000, but I did try.  Then I built him a PC and taught him how to use it.

This is mostly a note to myself about how to do that, so I don’t forget.

http://ubuntu-rescue-remix.org/
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/19141/
http://ubuntu-rescue-remix.org/taxonomy/term/1/0?page=9
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Mount/USB
http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/precise/en/man8/fdisk.8.html
http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/hardy/man1/dd.1.html
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/2-methods-to-clone-your-linux-hard-drive/
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DataRecovery
http://www.switchroot.com/how-to-recover-deleted-files-with-scalpel-ubuntu

It’s raining outside.  Sometimes if I imagine that it is raining words, I can write.
Last night was the Full Moon and an eclipse (though my vision was never good enough to see a penumbral eclipse).
I was playing all sorts of stuff on my music player (you can see what I play at Last.fm).  I would die without it, but those of you who are reading this probably already know that… and out of that combination came the inspiration of choosing a date to make my site live.

The date that everyone who has encouraged me to write has been waiting for shall be November 3.  Keep reading; you’ll get to the reason eventually.

My kids just left.  We were watching the Lady Gaga 2013 itunes festival show from an HD video… I can’t stop watching it.  Apple keeps issuing takedown notices to Google after it gets 250K youtube views so I saved it to a file.  Fortunately, files don’t wear out like records.
Anyway, I was raving about how I thought the song “I Wanna Be With You” was so fabulous and my favorite.  My son Jeremy said he thought that “Applause” was my favorite.  I like that song, in fact the whole show except for the rap song is so amazing I’m like continuously goosebumpy.  Jeremy left before I could explain why my preferences lie where they do, so I’m going to write about it.

It’s because “I Wanna Be With You” is a song she wrote for her fans, and the way it was performed leaves me no doubt about the genuineness of it and of her words and her delivery.  It was written for me.  Not just me, of course, but that makes me feel personally involved, and it matters.  “Thanks for taking me back” is just precious.

That is the kind of artist that I relate to.  It’s something I find important and that song is very symbolic of that.  I really love the other songs too, and the variety of topics (“Applause” being symbolic of why she performs, obviously “Swine” is about sexual abuse particularly of young or vulnerable people which is another of my own intensely personal ‘things’).  I am not a LG scholar but I do enjoy reading some of it…

That’s how Blondie is.  I was too young to even conceive at the time that this would be so important… perhaps it was subconsciously perceived.  Why it was Blondie, why I chose Debbie Harry and Chris Stein (or maybe they chose me?) is an ongoing investigation in my own head but I’m sure it has something to do with this.  Maybe people who feel that way about the importance of their fans write better music or make performances that are more emotional and feel more real than those who don’t.  When I’m on this topic I also think a lot about Shirley Manson of Garbage and Christina Perri and Lisa and Johnny of Killola.  They are the ones who I know enough about to know that fact about them.

The last thing I will say about that video is a cut-and-paste from my Facebook post late last night:

I can’t help but comment that Lady Gaga’s beautiful song she did in her own hair “I Wanna Be With You” from the iTunes festival London performance
“I won’t be right without you/
and I might break without you/
I’d rather be poor and happy/
than rich and alone.
I’ll write hit songs about you/
No matter how we’ll get through/
I’ll keep on singing for a living/
but I want to be in love/
and I want to be with you.”

I was a skeptic at the beginning but this song touches me like the one I saw her do on Saturday Night Live and I could never have imagined or predicted my reaction to that performance.

Debbie Harry said to me, in person after they had just performed together that she likes Lady Gaga, and that really makes me happy. Because that line I quoted: “I won’t be right be without you and I might break without you”, that is how I feel about all of you, every one of you who I have ever met whether you like what I listen to or not, whether we have ever met in person, and no matter how much pain we have been through. There is a special place for the artists who genuinely adore their fans. They live forever and we cherish them. You all know who you are! I wish I could write for a song for all of you, but I can’t, but I do relate to the “I would anything for you”. My blog will be visible on November 3. You’ll have to listen to why it’s that day and oh, the verbiage when it’s on my own site and not about directed advertising, you’ll see.

*Nite* xxxx eclipse moon

I already know some of you are going to comment something like “Gaga is no Lady”.  I will pre-empt it here with my cut+paste response:

No, she’s an artist. Well, to be accurate, Stefani Germanotta is the artist and Lady Gaga is her artwork. It’s an ongoing performance piece. It’s okay if people don’t like it or her as there is a lot of art in the world that I don’t like or don’t get.

Fast forward to launch day to read why it had to be November 3.

Over the years I’ve heard people use made-up words that I like (either because they’re funny or useful) so I decided to collect them here for everyone’s enjoyment.  I didn’t invent these myself except as noted.

Ruint : I wrote a post about this one!

Gravitoward : a shorter version of “gravitate toward”

Turtling : This is what kids do when you are in a hurry and trying to get out of the house but they won’t get moving.  (I invented this one).

See also, Words I like and hate

In reply to an article analyzing the art of Lady Gaga, which I thought was great…
http://theotherjournal.com/2011/05/23/gaga-a-gogo/

I wrote:

This is a really great analysis and discussion that you wrote.  It’s too bad that everyone is not taught from an early age how important it is to give everything a less superficial examination and help them develop the mental tools to do so.  I particularly liked your point about the ‘conventional notion of a dichotomy between pop and art.’  It was certainly relevant to the topic and still is.  As someone who was guilty of this with my own early dismissal of Lady Gaga as “probably another pop star being fed to us” but realizing a year or so later that assessment was completely wrong, I have developed a deep admiration for her art, her social commentary, and her messages, many of which are deeply personally meaningful.  For me, at the age of 49, many of the ideas in those messages, which you mentioned but didn’t fully elaborate on, are the same as the ones I’ve come up with on my own after decades of self-searching, introspection, reading, and thought, concepts which represent everything I believe in and are the source of my happiness, self-identity, and desire for personal growth.  I could only imagine how much of a head start I could have had on this process if she had existed 20 years ago (which, of course, never would have happened as her success is the convergence of many factors including technology and less restrictions on speech and performance art to name just two important ones).

If you were ever to follow up with a continuation of your analysis, I’d certainly be there to read it.  I wonder what you thought and how you feel about the 2013 “Itunes Festival” performance.  If you haven’t watched it (linearly, not in pieces), I highly recommend it.

The last thing I wanted to mention is how interesting it was to read points about “pop” and “art” in your article from over two years ago and know that her new album, out in a few months, is titled ARTPOP.  I’d say you’re one of those who “gets” it.

I was thinking about trying to invent some new recipes based on things I like… I know my kids like macaroni and cheese (the real kind that’s made with sharp cheddar and milk and baked in the oven) and that reminded me that I wanted to make a recipe for chicken croquettes (they have them for $2.10 per piece at the local farmers market… they’re very tasty but that is crazy).

This reminded me that they used to be a frozen dinner I got sometimes, which reminded me of a frozen dinner that I absolutely loved, I think it was a Swanson frozen dinner, a mostly blue box with a foil pan, “Chicken Au Gratin”.
It was chicken chunks and cheese sauce and noodles that were like linguini.  It could be baked or transferred to another container and microwaved.  I ate a LOT of these in the early to mid-80s.
Google it and absolutely nothing comes up.

I want redevelop this recipe!

One interesting thing I found in the search is this thread about discontinued foods…
I had completely forgotten about the Nabisco “Tid-bits” cheese crackers… the long ones, thick like sticks but flatter than a pretzel rod.  Yum!  I used to eat those.  Those and Cheez Its are good with peanut butter too.

Somehow I ended up reading a long thread about discontinued foods on Amazon.

Someone mentioned “Oscar Mayer Smokie Links (are they really gone?)”
Yes, they are.  I loved those, and called the company, as I often do, to find out where I could buy them and they confirmed they have been removed from the market.

Zingos cinnamon candies!  They are so tasty.  Found 5 boxes of them in a Korean grocery about 5 years after they were discontinued!

It’s amazing reading through this thread and having it confirmed by anecdote that so many snacks and specialty foods originated or are still available in and around south-central Pennsylvania where I live.  I am so lucky to have lived here and had access to all these great brands, all the tasty snacks!  This is the Silicon Valley of snack food!

Another thing I really liked was the Ice Cream Cake Roll.

In the Amazon thread’s comments, I also wrote:

Here are the things that I remember but which weren’t mentioned by anyone:

Ice Cream Cake Roll – a frozen dessert.  I don’t remember who made this.  circa late 70s.
It was a sheet of chocolate cake about a half-inch thick, with a similar sized adjacent layer of vanilla ice cream, and they were rolled up together into a spiral cylinder.  You would slice it.

Chicken Au Gratin frozen dinner, Swanson I think.  It came in a mostly light blue box, heavy foil tray, about a pound.  This was chunks of chicken with noodles (like linguini) in a cheese sauce.  They suggested it be baked, but if you put in a glass dish, it microwaved just fine with regular stirring.  I had these all the time in the early to late-80s.  So tasty!  I haven’t even been able to find an ad for this one.

Zingos cinnamon candies by Brown & Haley!  They were so tasty.  Found 5 tins of them in a Korean grocery about 5 years after they were discontinued early-2000s-ish!

In reply to other comments… I read *all* of them… these ideas come to mind:

If you are looking for a product, you should call the company and ask about it and its availability.  For example, I like Good Seasons “Mild Italian” salad dressing mix (in a packet, so much better tasting than the Italian) and could never find it, but they do make it, and now I know where to get it because I called and asked.  Similarly, Oscar Meyer confirmed they discontinued Smoky Links when I called to ask why I can’t find them anymore.  Go to the source!

Krunchers chips were served in little bags at Panera Bread in 2004.  I remember looking up the manufacturer… it was a company Jay’s in Chicago (they ignored my correspondence) but I later read they were bought by Snyders (in PA) and their products are readily available now, at least here in PA and are just as good.
Charles Chips (yum!) are back in business again, but they cost so much ($11 to $25/pound, eeek!) they probably won’t be for long.  But they were so great in the 70s and even into the early 90s when the trucks would come to my workplace.  They made great chips and pretzel sticks and cheese pretzels too.  Tom Sturgis Pretzels makes a comparable, affordable product.  Snack lovers are lucky to live in PA!

Many classic candies are available in the bulk foods section (look for the bins and scoops) in grocery stores… Wegmans, Giant, etc.  So much cheaper than mail orders.

Some products (like the General Mills monster-themed cereals) are only available seasonally.  All five will be out for this Halloween.  Google is your friend, and call the manufacturers!  They’ll give you the info, take note that you want the product, and sometimes even send coupons.

Listening to Garbage play on my music player is so… ummm… what’s the word…. disembodying?  that’s not a word, but that’s how I feel.  Maybe it’s because I read the transcript of Blondie’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction and haven’t stopped thinking about it.

In a 2011 article in Discover, scientists were discussing development of a technique to obsolete amniocentesis where PCR was applied to fetal DNA which is discovered to exist in the mother’s bloodstream.

The article mentioned there was opposition to the technology… by “advocates for Down syndrome” … “and others who fear it will lead to more abortions.”

WTF? There are advocates… in *favor of* Down syndrome? Thought I’d heard everything.

I suppose these people are lobbying against treatment of childhood leukemia in girls because it might lead to more abortions.

How about this idea… let the technology develop, and if you don’t want to buy or use it to get information, don’t. Thankfully, for the moment at least, a woman’s reproductive rights are (for the most part) still hers and don’t belong to those who want more Down syndrome in the world.

I think my brain is melting. Did I really just read that?

Is it just me or has the world become noisier?
It seems that as soon as I go out my door, I am bombarded with useless, incessant noise.  It even comes out of the sky.
Earlier, I went to get the mail and a big noisy rattling pickup truck pulled out from a nearby side road and roared by.  No matter where I go, there are loud cars and trucks and motorcycles.. everywhere.
I always remember hearing that sort of thing occasionally, but I don’t remember it being constant.
Are the vehicles falling into disrepair, or are there so many more people around that even a small percentage of the ones who want to intrude on others’ right to quiet enjoyment now amounts to so many people that you can’t get away from them, even in the middle of the night?  wtf?

[Later]

Sometimes I get curious about the weirdest things.  Earlier, I was wondering if I’m the only one who cooks with a blowtorch.  I don’t really *cook* with it, but when I make chicken wings, I always burn off those little hairs with a blowtorch.  I hate those.

After I put the wings to soak in hot sauce, I started wondering if any of the wings in that big pack were from the same chicken.  Or are they all from random chickens?

Someone told me today that I “have an uncluttered soul.”  I’ve never heard anyone say something like that and it made me happy.

Since it was Debbie’s birthday Steph wanted to play some Blondie and played Picture This (which I had *just* played in the car) and then played Angels on the Balcony followed immediately by Do The Dark and unbeknownst to her, I *always* do that!

As you’ve probably noticed, I have a thing for language.  There are some words I like and words I hate, so I wanted to collect them here.

Words I like
interlineated
delimiter
reconcile
depleted
irrevocable
precarious
hungriness as used by Garbage

subtends (as in subtends an angle) z.B. a parsec or parallax second is the distance at which one astronomical unit subtends an angle of one arc second.

neologism.  I didn’t know there was a word for that.  I read this later and had to look up the definition again! (“A newly coined word or expression”).
barrel (verb, as in “Winter storm barrels into the midwest”).  I think this is so funny.  Steph called it a playfulish word.

There are also some words I hate.
temblor (synonym for earthquake).  I think I will nominate this to the LSSU List of Banished Words. (6/18/13 An earthquake by any other name… is still an earthquake.)
viral
most of the words on lssu list.
comptroller
pupil to mean student.
wean
vet (as verb)
noshing
materiel
couture.  This might be the most pretentious word in the English language.
tapped, with the direct object of a person, to mean seeking someone’s expert advice.
swag and swagger
dearth (wtf does this mean?)
gutwrenching
potable
comfy (thanks Sherry)
drops, in the sense of an album being released.  I think “rises” would be better, although both are just wrong.
colonel  (how does this get pronounced like ‘kernel’?)

I also dislike words that are exceptions to English language that you have to memorize and that lead to ambiguity, like
flammable/inflammable, valuable/invaluable.
Why can’t these be consistent, like… consistent/inconsistent or expensive/inexpensive?  WTF?

These are good stuffed grape leaves: Aris Dolma Yalandji.

They sell them for $2/lb. at the Shillington Farmers Market.  The people who sell them to me see me coming and ask if I need any “cigars”!

A comment from a reader  on a news article about a Turkish airline banning red lipstick:

“Let any religion control your appearance, and it wouldn’t stop at just your appearance.”

I thought I had started a list of links and software I like, but I can’t find it, so I will put it here.

Links

WordPress theme selector: http://wordpress.org/themes/tag-filter/

PHPBB style selector: https://www.phpbb.com/styles/demo/3.0/?from=submenu

Free Software

One of my favorites is a software program called PDF Redirect, which lets you print out PDFs from any application.  It installs as a printer, and when you print to it, you get a PDF.  For free!

Atomic Clock Sync (set PC clock to time server): http://download.cnet.com/Atomic-Clock-Sync/3000-18512_4-14844.html

Speedfan (CPU voltage and temperature monitoring utility): http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

Putty (SSH and telnet client): http://www.putty.org/ and WinSCP (SFTP and FTP client for Windows).

Firefox extensions and add-ons: FireFTP, FireSSH (caution: doesn’t work well with emacs), Download Helper,  SQLite Manager, Google/Yandex search link fix.

RealVNC (remote access client): http://www.realvnc.com/

VLC Media Player (player for video and audio files): http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html and FFDshow codec pack: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow/

To resize, crop, rotate, adjust image files: Faststone Photo Resizer (http://www.faststone.org/FSResizerDetail.htm)

For disk partitioning and data recovery, Mini Tool Partition Wizard (http://partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html) and Ubuntu Rescue Remix (http://ubuntu-rescue-remix.org/).

Music Tools

For ripping audio CDs to a lossless flac library, I recommend Exact Audio Copy (http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/) and the scripting front end AutoFLAC (http://www.legroom.net/software/autoflac).  Once set up correctly to work together, you can go through a stack of CDs in a hurry.

Check your audio CDs for authenticity and discover which ones were created from MP3 files with True Audio’s Tau Analyzer.

For music file tag management for many file types, MP3Tag (http://www.mp3tag.de/en/) is indispensible.  I only rename my music files manually, but if you want to automate it, MP3 Tag&Rename is also useful.

For music file format conversions: Trader’s Little Helper (http://tlh.easytree.org/) is awesome.

I purchased AlbumPlayer (http://albumplayer.com/) jukebox software to play and manage my music library.  After trying out every program I can find, this is the best thing there is, and the support and license terms are excellent.  I’ve used this program almost every day for more than 5 years and it’s one of the best programs I’ve ever found.  It supports every audio and video format I tried, after installing BassAAC and BassALAC (http://www.un4seen.com/) (see also: AP forum topic).

Other computer resources

After dealing with an unbootable Windows 7 drive (a line of garbage displayed on the screen and then not booting), I discovered a Microsoft utility “bootrec“.
Executed “bootrec /fixmbr” and “bootrec /fixboot” from the command prompt, and this fixed the problem.  Startup Recovery did not detect any errors.

It’s about time.  This is progress: the right to choose your own end-of-life decisions without the doctor who helps you going to prison for no reason.

Could this be the beginning of a global trend of the resurgence of personal responsibility?  One can only hope.

http://news.yahoo.com/deaf-twins-going-blind-euthanized-165500992–abc-news-topstories.html

The personal accounts of indescribable suffering that are described in some of the comments should be enough to support this.

Withholding painkillers to avoid liability for a death of someone who is in a terminal situation is unconscionable.

Happy Birthday to Lisa from Killola whose lyrics were the inspiration for the name of my blog 🙂

DOS from here with regedit:

use method #5 from http://www.petri.co.il/add_command_prompt_here_shortcut_to_windows_explorer.htm

Didn’t get in to the banished words list, so here’s another nomination.

Word to banish:

“us to get pregnant”

Reason:

Oh, if it were only possible for couples who were wishing for “us to get pregnant” to both get pregnant.

Today is the lovely and rising rock star Taylor Momsen’s birthday.
I am here only with Logan.  Thunderstorms went through and as usual (though this one was different…. I couldn’t get into my swimsuit because it was inside out and is torn up the side…. I need a new one…. I was in the pool trying to get the solar cover on, in the rain and wind.  Later, there was an insane amount of lightning.

Which of course took down my internet service, so I decided to play Light Me Up, which I still think is one of, if not *the* best album of 2010.

At the beginning of “You” (which I played a few times today thinking of a friend whose last two years are essentially summed up in the message and meaning of that song), Logan thought it was Johnny Cash.

He was referring to his cover of Sheryl Crow’s awesome song “Redemption Day” which I have loved since it came out (along with “Anything But Down” and “If It Makes You Happy”).  Johnny Cash’s version of “Redemption Day” is on an album we often play here when my dad visits.
I love it when my dad visits.  I feel that my connection to him has always been very intense… ever since we walked into the fog after I pointed to fog and asked, “What’s that?” He said, “It’s fog.  Do you want to go in it?” and I said “YES!” and we did.  This is one of my first memories.

I think I was 4. That was very special, we walked around in it and talked about how fog was like a cloud on the ground.  It was so humid today that Logan told me the shotgun he wanted to shoot had condensation on it when he took it out of the case.  We have been discussing condensation the last two days….

I had a very special night in the fog as an adult when I took the green laser photos for Melissa Poole, an artist, friend, and Chris Stein’s ex-wife.
The green laser, and the blue LED, these were only a dream of science when I was growing up. Now they are reality.

Unrelated:
I feel a very special pride when I can explain something to my children the way that my dad explained things to me.  I’m also pleased that I can add more detail, like defining “dew point” and the relationships between volume, temperature, and pressure of gases.

I like how streams of thought lead from one thing to another to another and seem to end up in a random unrelated place, but one that reminds you of something important.

It occurred to me after I imagined that Sheryl Crow must be very proud of her work given that Johnny Cash, a musician whose work has been popular since before I was born, that there is a story about me that I don’t recall ever telling.

When I was young, I visited my grandparents (my dad’s mother and stepfather) and stayed overnight from Friday evening until Saturday afternoon (I would always watch Land of the Lost and The Pink Panther and I *loved* that Ant and the Aardvark!).

When I was 3 years old, perhaps until I was 4, I would sit in a tiny, dark brown, wooden rocking chair and play the 7″ 45 rpm single of Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” over and over and over. The memory is vague, but I think it had the big hole in the center.  I don’t know why I did this, and I barely remember it.

I believe that time doesn’t really exist.
Reminder to self: write about the article talking about contingencies and continuities and how they are undetermined until they pass through the singularity known as “now” to become fixed as the past.
(Note to self 12/25/12: I did this, Walter Alvarez the guy who discovered what killed the dinosaurs.  Must find this.)
discovermagazine.com/2009/oct/26-the-man-who-discovered-what-killed-the-dinosaurs
The interesting part is on the second page.

So back to my point about time not existing.
In 1980, Blondie covered “Ring of Fire” for a movie and put it out on an LP.
Why THAT song?  Why that one?
I didn’t know about it at the time… in fact it would be years after that, when I became a Blondie collector and they became the center of my entire adult life until I realized that existed.

It just seems that there is more to it than simple coincidence that I chose THAT band, and it happened to be THAT song that I played 15 times in a row when I was just turning 4.

Hmmm.

Higgs boson discovery confirmed by press release from CERN.

http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2012/PR17.12E.html

Hope it clears up for the transit of Venus this evening since I probably won’t live to 152 to see the next one. In the meantime, I like reading about rare things that have happened before and will happen again but in outrageous time scales. How about this… someone, somewhere might see this in the year 69163 (assuming we don’t destroy the planet and become extinct first):

The simultaneous occurrence of a transit of Mercury and a transit of Venus does occur, but extremely infrequently. Such an event last occurred on 22 September 373,173 BC and will next occur on 26 July 69,163, and again on 29 March 224,508. The simultaneous occurrence of a solar eclipse and a transit of Venus is currently possible, but very rare. The next solar eclipse occurring during a transit of Venus will be on 5 April 15,232. The last time a solar eclipse occurred during a transit of Venus was on 1 November 15,607 BC. It could be noticed that the day after the Venerean transit of 3 June 1769 there was a total solar eclipse, which was visible in Northern America, Europe and Northern Asia.

http://www.transitofvenus.org/

Got woken up again early in the morning by “YASD”: Yet Another Smoke Detector chirping away at a failing battery. WTF?! Why do these things even have batteries? They’re wired to the house so a 1 Farad cap in each would save a dozen 9V alkaline batteries a year and lots of aggravation!

And the one time I did have a fire and the house was full of smoke, not a one of them worked. *I* was the smoke detector. They quit detecting smoke after about 5 years and the only way you can know is to spray them with a can of “smoke …check” and see if they go off. The test button is worse than useless: it’s completely misleading people into thinking it’s working when it isn’t. I had no idea smoke detectors expire until after the fire. Good thing I sleep lightly. When I replaced them, I had to change all the connectors because they’re all proprietary designs. It’s also funny that one is not required in the area where a fire is most likely to break out — in the basement where the furnace and gas hot water heater are… go figure.

I’ve been wanting to complain about an html macintrash bug, as seen in this spam subject:
Stop Your Dog’s Annoying Barking
The apostrophe (‘) shows up as a with a ^, a Euro sign, and a TM superscript.

I see this all the time, and always know it was written on a mac.

What’s a Dogâss Annoying Barking?

Here’s another as a screen shot… done on a mac lol:

That sort of says it all.

Happy November 30!

Foggy and raining here.

Do you love home-made mashed potatoes when they’re first made but hate how the soft, creamy texture that drove you to make them from scratch in the first place, is replaced by a dry, lumpy, unappealing texture when you reheat them?  I’ve solved this problem…

The cause of it is not the storage or refrigeration; it is inadequate *preparation* for storage and refrigeration.

What you need to do is this:
While you’re serving the mashed potatoes, try to keep them as warm as you can.  It’s okay if they’re not hot, they just should not be left to get cold yet.  Then when you’re done eating, make some more hot milk and butter mixture like you would use to make more mashed potatoes (or, just reheat it if you had excess left over from when you made them originally).  Now, using your mixer that’s still out, re-make your leftover mashed potatoes, adding the hot milk and butter mixture to again achieve the creamy texture that they originally had when you first served them.  Mix in just a bit more milk and butter (1T to 3T depending on how much leftovers you have) to make them just a slight bit softer than you want them to be for eating.  NOW store them in the refrigerator.

When you reheat them in the microwave and mix thoroughly, they will have that creamy, almost identical texture as if you had just now made them.  I kid you not.