We’re geeks, damnit!
I wrote earlier about how I had my setup to allow me to rate music in a better way. It’s working out really well, so I thought I’d document it further, for those who want to be in the know.
I dont like to use iTunes to rate music while i’m listening. mostly because it’s not very convenient to do - too many mouse clicks.
Continue reading ‘iPod as Arbiter of Taste’
…is the third-to-last ‘out’ protrusion of land that the Long Island Sound group-of-island-chain offers to the sun these post-Messazoic days.
(the second-to-last being Martha’s Vineyard, RI, and the final protrusion is the nine-square-mile ‘jutting bump and her hump’ the legendary Block Island. On her rocky shale-based, uh, “downtown” area, that may as well boast “you found us, we think anyway!” lettered on a (steel rod) post, sits rests her/our tiny satellite branch of the 225-yr-old Washington Trust Co. the Baker anscestral workplace, where if a teller calls in sick, she’s hurled headlong into the chilly and HELLACIOUSLY churning, swirling, ruthless abyss of stunning azure-lavender water, unlike, and I’m serious, any color I’ve seen of water elsewhere in our hemisphere (or in my glances at/of/in the Mediteranian and/or North Sea bodies). My grandpa Baker was stationed there for a 4-month duration of 1916-17’s bone-chilling winter while the Jamistown Boatyard, RI (exhausted and overworked war-weary craftsmen came to weld the damaged hull of his anti-sub attack destroyer, who was glanced (only glanced, thank God!) by a U-Boat’s errantly shot torpedo 700 miles-or-so eastward in October-or-so ‘16. Grandpa lived, so I then gratefully breathe air and make numerous typos anc continually relish my native tongue’s writing-of-stuff).
So…where were we? Oh. I digressed a smidgeon. Oops. I brain continues to endure the rigors of atrophic effect..
On Nantucket, trolleys bustle about on (mostly) ash-colored dirt roads in the NE portion of her, and the S and SW regions of the (relatively “large”) island contain stamped concrete thruways where the mansions rest. Mrs. Heintz and Mr. Kerry are known to shop at the ‘mini mart’ type (except for wooden floors, a la Rudolf’s Dry Goods Store (1920-2002) in Webster Groves), and the shoppes are, well, um, ‘pricey’.
Splash go the waves (which are a tad chilly all months except mid-August; this is Rhode Island), she’s surrounded by sand and heat suprisingly intense…and oh, bring your wallets. I’m thinking you’ll need one or two..
We’re staying at the island’s oldest intact colonial residential dlwelling, or more accurately, in a house that’s adjacent to the grey clapboard crib. Old stores. A big barn. Ancient wagon tracks buried under sandy loam, breathing fresh sweetness of freedom from the Old Country(s) coal smudged brick and leaning brick workingman shops and slums.
We’re taking, or rather I’m taking, (no, WE’RE taking! Damn!) a lady who I feel rather comfortable with, yet we have spoken person to each exactly four times. I rather hope she enjoys the short ferry hop, albeit amidst HELLACIOUS north Atlantic ‘chop’ that characterizes the summer, and our destination, Martha’s Vineyard Island a mere hop (er, ‘chop’) away. I’ll show her ‘Grandma Mimi’s’ crib of seventy years or so. She’s my mom’s grandma, who helped raise her (and me, and my sisters, and her daughter, who also helped raise me and my sisters, who helped (or at least one did) me.
I hope you enjoy the week here, mi amour’, you’ll be delighted to meet Dave (the author of the piece just below), and all the horses and kings men….and YIKES! I’ll break new ground forthwith as I employ a word for her (see if you can tell)that I perhaps oughtn’t have… but whatever, she’ll need to know the word buried in the next paragraph. I am a risk taker, thus:
….Dramamine, sweetie! GET know that word! (which word, you ask? ‘Dramamine’ or ’sweetie’?
No lawd. ‘Fraid not. I ain’t sayin’!
and x
I’ve been interested in Ubiquitous Computing for some time.
There is a really interesting analysis over at skilfulminds.com
Continue reading ‘Ubiquitous Computing and Finding things.’
* WPG2 Plugin Not Validated *I’ve got an ax or two to grind, and is not, as annoyingly commonly believed, remorse or resentment over my divorce. That event happened to me in 1995, well over eleven years ago. My gripe’s about our minicipal, and particularily state governements’ encouragement of the event happening in the maximum number of families here. Plainly put in another way, our people-architected methodological, systematic destruction of families for personal gain(s)…that’s where I come from. Be brave and true, friends, and endure herewith:
Continue reading ‘“Family (Destruction) Law” in the U.S.’
In another article, posted in this site somewhere nearby, is my generalized piece on the Mac system, a laptop, in fact. Bank on it’s accuracy should you decide to check out my words therein.
This one goes bigger, to the culture of the Apple Corp, Seattle, Wa. Seattle’s jam-packed with software engineers (mostly Microsoft employees), systems guys and ladies (also Microsoft dominated) and clean, affluent execs, commuters with the whitest-of-white shirts and hollow-selfish, narrow-channeled looks to them.
Continue reading ‘More about the Mac - You, Seattle, Retail Giants, Crappy Extended Care, the Bottom Line(s), and How to be Happy’
Dinner hams, have traditionally been frairly  high in fat. As such, to eating much pink meat meant the usual consequence of eating its “lard-like” fat. Not so anymore, or at least not nearly as much. A rather profound progression of improvement has occured with the pink meat in the US in the past couple of decades.
A big breakthrough happened by America’s meat industry during the early Clinton-era when beomouth meat processors starting capturing marigins previously unavailable in the preaparation of pork/ham processing, previously not very profitable, by preplacing the pork ingredient with far-more-abundant-than-pork turkey meat. Recall, during the majority of the 1990’s ‘turkey hams’ were not only abundant in grocery meat cases, their price-per-pound beat that of ham by usually .30 or so per pound, and these almost-fatless, wrapped hunks looked nearly identical to porcine rumps.Â
Continue reading ‘The Other White (Pink) Meat? The Hams We Eat and the Fate of Pigs…’
I told you about my Mac (it’s fine, thank you), and now I shall tell you of my personal Gates’ fury-caused difficulty.
 I have no sound. Through a mysterious entry into my hard drive, (or not so mysterious; I have a male teenager), the sound is entirely and permanently enabled.
 I can’t tell you how to repair this particular problem, as there’s no solution.  To do this sensibly and not confuse the reader of this, here’s what NORMALLY needs to be done when the sound cuts off:
 Go to Control Panel > Sounds > “Audio Devices and Properties” (should be first tab that appears if you’re in XP) and look to see if you have any ability to manipulate the ‘volume’ bar control. If not (as I suffer), then you’re done and have a silent computer. The bug that hit my PC, probably a male teenager not my son, designed the bug this way.Â
There’s other remediation available, such as two other “sounds” tabs to pick, but they’ll be deadened buttons to. The “System” icon (as you go back to Control Panel, click on “System”) has a back door to sounds and actual controls of the device in your system, but the rascal darkened them.
Macs, my friends, will NEVER behave this way, unless they’re thrown from waist-high altitudes onto concrete. Mac commits to designs and configurations quite immune from virus shit. As I often explain, they’re not the least bit interested in gaining market share; ask any Mac programmer — long-haired guys in Seattle bars.  I explain even more that Mac’s not big on customer support or providing instructions on their highly unique keystrokes, essential for Mac users. I’d write that stuff for them and sit at a desk (maybe–it’s gotta’ have a window–ouch), but the “Culture and HR” department of the geeks/freaks of the Apple Corp would alternately laugh uproariusly or grab n’ aim weapons at me.Â
They know, though, that the virus-ness of Mac systems, lap or desk, are impeccable. Â
Gates, we’re all keenly aware, instructs from the VERY TOP (unpublicly) that PCs should last 3 years. If you get more than 3 out of em’, you’re beating the system.Â
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I have a Mac G4 Powerbook laptop. I bought it about 2 years ago (Feb ‘05). Despite its vintage (two years is a long time in the consumer electronics industry, and even longer in the computer industry), it still stands up well.Â
Its aluminum case (I got the 17″ moniter) heats up a tad, but the fan’s sufficient to prevent it from melting down and costing a bunch of money to fix it (or more likely, to throw it throw away).
The iTunes program’s the shit. I have 24 days of music stored in it, slicing into the system’s 74.4 gigs of memory, but still leaving over 34 gig for other stuff. iTunes is an absolute joy to use, too. An iPod takes twice as long for an        over-30 user to figure out.
As you probably know, Mr Gates arranged for Word and Excel to be available (even the student edition is obnoxiously expensive) for Mac systems, and all the software features are fully intact and functional. Word, however, appears in very small font, so writers often type in, like, 20-font, then when it’s complete, reduce it to 12 pt or 14 pt prior to printing drafts. Excel will NEVER EVER be able to hold up the gym shorts of the mighty late-1980s Mac program Jazz, which kicks Excel’s ass up and down the football field. Largely because of an Apple internal corporate squabble well over a decade ago, Jazz is, alas, in landfills all over the world.  Â
DRAWBACK OF THE G4 IN OUR WINDOWS WORLD: The Mac systems of this era use Safari as an email platform, and Macs in general don’t get along well with SBC Yahoo (or BellSouth’s or Bell-anything). The phone company-owned e-mail platforms are used by well over 50 million accounts in the country. Problem? They don’t bother updating the Yahoo-partnered email program stuff for Macs that they customarily provide for PC users. Perhaps a Mac bigshot once beat the shit out of SBC bigshot and then proceeded to sleep with his wife, and the beomouth phone company exec never quite got over it. Further, SBC support is deplorable with Mac. A user can call for tech support, and end up helping the thick-accented tech in Diego Garcia (or India or The Phillipines or Korea) rather than the other way around.
ANOTHER DRAWBACK: Since a SBC Yahoo user (me) has a G4 with zillions of pictures on it, and he wants to email a pic to somebody, he suffers horribly. Remember, Safari’s the default platform, and well, just TRY to import a photo to some other client email server. Trust me. It’s a drag. As in, suffering, not in actually dragging the photo…
RECOMMENDATION:
If you can get a G4 for under, say, around $1200, snap it up. You should find one. After the summer of ‘07, they’ll be out there for more like $900 It’s a beautiful advance of astonishing capabilities. You literally have to see one and play with it, and you’ll agree. Try, though, to get it in the white plastic case.  No, it doesn’t look as cool as the aircraft aluminum, but heat dissapation is tantamount with this and all laptops, so the nifty white polyethylene is the way to go.
THE FINAL REMARKS:
The Apple Corporation continues, and probably will forever, to be content with 7-8% market share of computers, laptops and desktops, sold for personal use in the United States. Beomouth national retailers like CompUSA, Circuit City, etc. have deplorable support services, for this precise reason. Even clerks who are young people meandering around computer departments in stores aren’t at all versed in Mac products. It’s a damn shame, too. Only the topmost Apple Corporation leadership can address this.  Also, printed instructions within Mac’s beautiful packaging (the best in the world for any product)  features, would move them up a notch or two in consumer ratings and market share. Don’t hold your breath on this one, though. Apple’s legendary for its provincial nature–’if you don’t know it, don’t buy it.’
Hey, I forgot an important point, since damn near all Mac buyers are men (I mean well over 90%): I got my masters’ degree and took my G4 under my arm to a dozen classrooms inhabited by delightful young people, and more than a few of these were brilliant, extraordinary looking ladies.  Intelligent ladies dig G4s. I’m not at all lying!
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I’m moving stuff around the house and my teenager’s straightening out the breezeway. I was just in the back bedroom ensuring that my cats hadn’t messed up the fax machine by knocking it down (again) off the desk.  I glanced, then held, a very old telephone.
It’s a desk model-RTH6V GTE phone, a Bell Labs offshoot unit with newfangled pushbuttons. Suddenly, we didn’t have to dial a rotary spring wheel anymore!
 I’ll share the phone’s origin thusly, as there is required background involved:
I left my job in 1991, heading for greener pastures (in beautiful North St Louis). Amidst my final week, I got three freebie lunches by vendors, a pizza party by my employees and (mean-ass) boss, one two hour unauthorized lunch break, and some VERY relaxing work duties.
As with any late-twenties-person in the workforce, I’d received my share of stabs, jabs, insults, rants, raves, betrayals, insurrections, accusations, usurpings, plots, schemes, false treaties, backstabbing, immaturity, brutality, homicide attempts, suicide attempts, crooked tounges, crooked backs, intrigue, broken alliances, treachery, traps, nets, wiretaps, wrongful ass-chewings,  false blamings, unaccountability, and stolen pencils that actually wrote.
 Heck. You know, the usual workplace stuff.
(Add: a lot of delightful people bravely defended me and bolstered my psyche; I don’t have a clue what happened to them all–I’m thinking perhaps one or two of the ladies are assuredly divorced by now and pursue-able…….) Â
So, when the time came to pack my stuff to take my bride south a-ways and also take a fishing trip with my toddler and his grandpa before setting off for my days of glory and salt, I glanced around my (windowless) office, sorting out what I’d take and what would remain.
The phone!! Hey!  This is the oldest one in the plant!!! It came from Atlanta’s HQ office or something.  Damn, it sure is old and all, but that phone sure works well…….I, uh, bequeathed it to myself, and on that last day at the now-extinct Harland plant, I walked outta’ there, shook a bunch of hands, and carried a particularly fat bag. Those nice (and those not-so-nice) people never, ever saw that phone again.Â
That was in the summer of 1991, when the phone was easily 15 years old, and likely more. The phone STILL kicks ass. It’s been dropped by infants, thrown up on once by my (now 18-year-old) toddler son, and believe it or not, fell out of the back of my ‘67 International pickup truck as I moved from place ‘A’ to place ‘B’ amidst my ancient pre-divorce exile and disgrace. The fall-to-the-road-at-40mph-impact’s effect on the sturdy phone? I picked up the pieces, which were only two: 1) the polyethylene face plate template for the buttons, and 2) the remainder of the phone and chassis, which stayed loyally attached via it’s handset cord….Â
…I plugged it into my temporary apartment’s phone jack, and why, presto! Dial tone!
Since then, it somehow acquired nail polish on the front of it–I can tell that this is what it is ’cause paint thinner doesn’t even cut it. No matter. Pink, semi-glittery blots on a button here and there add charm and a certain vibrancy to the phone’s native ivory-to-tan hue.
Can you buy one just like it, you ask? Hell no. A very long time ago, GTE sent its phone assembly operations to either Taiwan, China, Mexico, Malaysia, Albania, Tanzania, or Uzbekistan.  It’s a hassle to get to any of those places to shop. You’d also have to master time travel so you’d land back on the planet in the 70s, so to make all mini circuit boards and resistors vanish into the future. The American GTE employees who built and supported my ’marathon’ phone are now decaying in retirement homes, waiting for liver transplants, or lie peacefully in cemetaries.
I would like a wall rotary phone, though………
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Chicago kicks ass.
I went up there this weekend to check ‘The Messiah’ with a very, very cool lady friend. Her company alone was a treat. One of us was dreamy, and I’m thinking it was NOT me…
We stayed on the ‘Michigan Mile’, spent some Christmas money (but not too much), ate dinner, ate a mighty fine breakfast brunch at the hotel, and this is what ‘the finer things’ are made of.
In St Loius, on a Saturday evening, unless there’s a Blues game or something, the sidewalks roll up. Tumbleweeds collide with fire hydrants, and forlorn streets are animated only by steam billowing up from the once-proud 19th century infrastructure that still miraculously delivers heat and stuff.
In Chicago, on the other hand, one city block on Michigan Ave during the Christmas rush contains, oh, 3,000 or so people. I saw nothing but happy and friendly people (contrast to New York, where a certain assertiveness that I can do, thank you, gets a begrudging response).Â
The Macy’s mall and Saks were stuffed to the brim. Borders even more so.Â
The Symphony Center is a brilliant showpiece that stands up quite well amidst them all (but I haven’t been to Albert Hall or the music hall joint in St. Petersburg that’s supposed to be mighty fine).
Baroque symphony, singers with richness, instuments that sang like bells, all done seemingly effortless. Goosebumps at no extra charge. (note: Apollo chorus now auditioning, January something. Call now)
I had to drive her past the hallmark clocktower of the Morton Salt hq buiding as we crossed the N. branch of the Chicago River, and our tires hummed over the decking of the 19th century drawbridge. The Kennedy building. Gigantic and majestic towers piercing the sky. Moon shimmering across the lake.  (you get the point)Â
Hellofatown.  Sorry, Joe Jackson. (huh?)
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Phil Baker