The Dystopian Reality Of All Those "Inspirational" Stories - SOME MORE NEWS

"I'm speaking with myself. Number one, because I have a very good brain."
-DJ Trump (in a live interview with MSNBC)

cadmium

Sometimes you just get the urge to yep out "cadmium". Don't know why -

Previously Unpublished from 5/4/16

I think Mr. Nixon is an effective leader of his party. I hope he would grant me the same. The question before us is: which point of view and which party do we want to lead the United States? - John Kennedy, The First Kennedy-Nixon Presidential Debate, September 26, 1960  

Previously Unpublished from 4/23/16

The article ends with this quote: "'If we take care of morality,' bill supporter David Brumbaugh, a Republican, said during deliberations, 'God will take care of the economy.'"

It's idiots like this that are the reason why Oklahoma is facing a $1.3 billion shortfall - which is necessitating a 25% cut in provider reimbursements for Medicaid patients - which is going to cause up to a predicted 97% of nursing homes in the state to have to operate at a daily loss and probably close. That's 269 facilities facing the danger of closing; 16,800 seniors "discplaced" - meaning that they'd have to find someplace else to live, an estimated 16,900 jobs lost, and $495 million in wages lost.

http://www.businessinsider.com/r-oklahoma-lawmakers-approve-bill-to-revoke-licenses-of-abortion-doctors-2016-4

http://kfor.com/2016/03/03/oklahoma-state-agencies-facing-even-deeper-budget-cuts-to-make-up-additional-235-million/

Star Trekin' - the Death and Sex Episode

Ok. That's a little dramatic, but hey, why not?

Basically, I just wanted to share my astonishment that this exists existed (its domain is for sale)- because I had No Idea:

(from https://gizmodo.com/317341/star-trek-coffin-warps-your-corpse-to-the-final-nerd-frontier)

Or this (also from "the archive" because once you post something on the Internet, it's there for keeps) from an Etsy with no reviews later than 2011 but the link is below if you want to sign up for notification when EveningArwin will be back - but after six years, don't hold your breath. For all I know the below model/seamstress(?) is still in one of CBS/Paramount's black site detention centers for violating their copyright.)-

(From https://gizmodo.com/5153578/star-trek-corsets-hopefully-will-make-him-last-long-and-prosper probably originally posted on Etsy)

What else is out there that is/was Trek inspired? 

...Do I want to know? 

Faxes? We don't need no stinkin' faxes!

But sometimes you do. I posted about the free page of myfax.com at the Excel, Etc. website, including instructions and links to the page. Go over my many, many followers, and check it out.

The inevitable Excel joke

Hyperbole predicted to rise 1000% next year!

Sherlock - "The Abominable Bride"; why reviews and viewer reactions as described in The Telegraph online are deplorable (How's that for a 19th c. title?)

Following the New Years airing of the Sherlock Christmas special, articles appeared in The Telegraph online, entitled "Sherlock's suffragette 'mansplaining' irks Abominable Bride viewers" and "Sherlock's 'mansplaining' wasn't the worst thing about The Abominable Bride". The latter doesn't need to have it pointed out that it came after the former - the article merely feeds on the general theme of the first - in effect, it just piles on in a TV critic form of one more kid jumping on top of a playground dog pile. It can be dismissed as both vacuous and pitiable. The only item of note is the poll question at the bottom of the page which asks "Was the suffragette in Sherlock a good idea?", for which the responses were "Yes, it's brilliant to have women's rights portrayed on TV" and "No, it was badly done", sadly and unsurprisingly, neither of these sentences actually pertain to the episode, but I include it to illustrate how idiotic this presentation was and will leave it at that.

The first article we'll take a look at. Dismissing the first paragraph as a lead in, the second quotes Reddit users who support the slant of the article. How many did or didn't, it doesn't say.

The third, forth, and fifth paragraphs are just a recap of the story having to do with the suffragettes in question. While the sixth, as quoted here in full -

While the incongruous segment may have been well-intentioned – Sherlock co-creator Stephen Moffat has been accused of sidelining female characters and storylines in Sherlock and his other show, Doctor Who – there were problems with the delivery, which was almost entirely done through a male character.

First, Doctor Who? if you've been watching any DW involving Amy Pond or Clara Osward then you know that the character of Amy has been a huge part of any arc that she's been in and to say that of Clara is just ridiculous - she was in the fore and became the pivot of the last arcs before Jenna Coleman left the series. While Sherlock is centered around Sherlock Holmes - and he is indeed male (*newsflash*). 

And then it goes on. "For one, the incident was historically inaccurate..."

Pause.

"Well Of Course It Was!" I want to yell. Why? It's happening in Sherlock's mind. I mean, what the hell do you expect?? Even if you aren't a fan of the original stories, "Sherlock" has made reference to the fact that Sherlock doesn't have any information about anything other that what is pertinent to crime solving:

From the original stories, in A Study in Scarlet, Watson makes a list of his evaluation, then, of what Holmes knows and doesn't know:

SHERLOCK HOLMES—his limits.

1. Knowledge of Literature.—Nil.
2.                      Philosophy.—Nil.
3.                      Astronomy.—Nil.
4.                      Politics.—Feeble.
5.                      Botany.—Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium, and poisons generally. Knows nothing of practical gardening.
6.                      Geology.—Practical, but limited. Tells at a glance different soils from each other. After walks has shown me splashes upon his trousers, and told me by their colour and consistence in what part of London he had received them.
7.                     Chemistry.—Profound.
8.                     Anatomy.—Accurate, but unsystematic.
9.                    Sensational Literature.—Immense. He appears to know every detail of every horror perpetrated in the century.
10. Plays the violin well.
11. Is an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman.
12. Has a good practical knowledge of British law.

This translates in the series to the fact that Sherlock doesn't keep track of anything that he can't use in the solving crime (cf."The Great Game" where it is mentioned - more than once - that Sherlock doesn't know that the earth revolves around the sun - and then again his lack of astronomical knowledge is highlighted near the end, albeit in a strangled sort of way).

This lack of - to him - "unnecessary" information surely includes general history, It's a safe bet that this would include the history of the suffragette movement.

So. By saying the episode was historically inaccurate, what you're saying is that in a scene in an episode which takes place in the mind of Sherlock Holmes - someone who we can safely assume that that doesn't know anything about history that doesn't bear on the process of crime solving (certainly including the history of women's franchise) - is historically inaccurate...

...I do not have the words.

It defies all reason.

Then:

The following paragraph:

Furthermore, suffragettes never wore Ku Klux Klan-style hoods. Rather, [Emmiline] Pankhurst was known for the wide-brimmed style sported by women in the early 20th century.

Well, of course they didn't. But we're talking about a drug-fueled dream of Sherlock's, where the suffragettes are merely a backdrop for Emelia Ricoletti - the thing that provides context to Ricoletti's death. What does Sherlock know about secret societies in the nineteenth century? Enough to know that they would sometimes send a message using  pips ("Some secret societies used to send dried melon seeds. Orange pips. Things like that." (The Great Game)) as a warning. Other than that? One would reasonably posit, "Not much". Certainly not the style of hat someone from history preferred who wasn't a mass poisoner.

The other thing wrong with this is that they are *not* wearing KKK hoods. If Sherlock knows about secret societies to know that sometimes they would use orange pips for message sending, it seems like he'd know enough about the Klan from researching secret/hooded/anonymous groups to pick up on the fact the rank and file wear white robes. Since the rank and file suffragettes attending the meeting were wearing robes in other-colors-besides-white, it seems unreasonable to equate their costuming with Klan robes.

Rather, they were what more closely resemble robes of another hooded group: penitents. such as those in Christian traditions such as the Semana Santa in Seville.

(The tweets in question mentioned specifically KKK suits, hoods, or hats. I had subsequently messaged the tweeters with a link to a page featuring the penitents' hoods, the capirotes. Two of which responded with 'we know the difference between the one and the other and the reference in the episode was to the pips which was from the KKK' in the original story. I then pointed out that these specific hoods weren't Klan hoods (the Klan being alive and well - not to mention familiar - in the American South and on the Internet, cf. the article in USA Today from 2014 about two Florida cops being fired when their Klan affiliation was discovered also the ADL website) and asked why they specifically linked the costumes to the klan. Neither of these tweeters have responded as of this writing.)

At this point Sherlock would walk by, glance up, pause, and then label these Telegraph writers 'Idiots' and walk on. 

I wouldn't argue.

Bound (Enterprise S04E17)

I'm currently watching Enterprise on Netflix - I never watched all of them when they were on the air. I finally hit "Bound" (the Orion slave girl episode). Unfortunately, after watching this:

I see this:

And I expect Old Gregg to pop up behind them.

 

Noel Fielding has a lot to answer for. 

More "On Daria"

Two things:

1. Cross-genres:

"We'll be through the criminal justice system and home in time for Buffy." - Quinn Morgendorffer "Speedtrapped"

2. The unspoken:

JAKE [VO]: Maybe I need to stop blaming dad for my problems and concentrate on being the best father I can. Really reach out to my little girl who always looks so lonely and tell her, "I'm here for you. I always will be."

JAKE: You know the peanut really is a second class nut. Now cashews - those are what the big guys eat. The CEOs.

DARIA [VO]: I don't care if he's afraid of heights, but he's afraid to be afraid. That's what's so heartbreaking. He's my father; shouldn't I let down the barricades for once and tell him I think he's my hero?

DARIA: How did a solid gold fish get in here? Weird.

"Of Human Bonding" S04E07.

+++++

Captain's Log
[Pause] Supplemental

Also this from BuzzFeed: This Is What The Cast Of “Daria” Looks Like Now

The Bottle Imp

Listening to an adaptation of "The Bottle Imp" by "Favorite Story" from 28 October 1947 via RelicRadio.com. Basically, there's a wish granting imp in a bottle, if you buy it, you have to sell it on for less than you bought it for and if you sell it for more, the bottle comes back to you - and - here's the catch - if you have it when you die, you're consigned to Hell. The Wikipedia article about the Robert Louis Stevenson story (here) states that there are a number of resolutions to 'The Bottle Paradox' exists, one of which is employed in the ending of the story. But - what if - working in the framework of the story (i.e. believing that imps and Hell and bottles exist) can't you just wish yourself to go to Heaven when you die? Doesn't that break the paradox too?

Also, points to Stevenson for employing foreign currency exchanges as a device.

Sidebar: The Kingdom of Hawaii, The story takes place in the Kingdom of Hawaii, which is what the American State of Hawaii used to be before it's occupation and annexation, as related from The Hawaiian Kingdom website.

"On January 16, 1893, United States diplomatic and military personnel conspired with a small group of individuals to overthrow the constitutional government of the Hawaiian Kingdom and prepared to provide for annexation of the Hawaiian Islands to the United States of America, under a treaty of annexation submitted to the United States Senate, on February 15, 1893. Newly elected U.S. President Grover Cleveland, having received notice that the cause of the so-called revolution derived from illegal intervention by U.S. diplomatic and military personnel, withdrew the treaty of annexation and appointed James H. Blount, as Special Commissioner, to investigate the terms of the so-called revolution and to report his findings. 

"The report concluded that the United States legation assigned to the Hawaiian Kingdom, together with United States Marines and Naval personnel, were directly responsible for the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom government. The report details the culpability of the United States government in violating international laws and the sovereignty of the Hawaiian Kingdom, but the United States Government fails to follow through in its commitment to assist in reinstating the constitutional government of the Hawaiian Kingdom." 

Tragedy

I was watching "Robin Williams Remembered" on Netflix. At one point Pam Dawber corrected herself from "...that's the was he is." to "he was". That's tragedy. Right there. A good working definition of tragedy in that one little verb tense.

Using my Kindle Fire as a drawing tablet

I was wondering how to freehand some drawings and have them end up on my computer without having to sketch and scan. So far what I've come up with is using my Kindle Fire HD 7 with a couple of apps to first draw and then directly transfer the file from one to the other over the wireless connection.

Those two apps are Inkboard by Doodle.ly, Inc. for drawing, and ES File Explorer by ES Mobile for the file transfers. Inkboard is a straight forward drawing program that lets you start with either a Blank Canvas, to Select a Photo, or to take an image from the Camera, and a variety of crayons, markers, pencils, pens, and highliters to sketch with and to mark up existing images. However, its very basic - no changing sizes of nib, only a limited zoom. It's a tool for just the basics after all - there are more sophisticated tools - but, hey, this is just proof of concept.

ES File Explorer will let you not only browse the files on the Kindle, but it also lets you connect to Web, and it comes with a list of Favorites to file locations on the Kindle (handy). 

And it also lets you connect with network locations and it provides a simple FTP host that you can connect to from a web browser from your computer. Once you select Remote Manager from the menu and click the Turn On button, you can browse to the ftp site listed on ES'es screen.

Remote Manager

After the Remote Manager is turned on

From there, it's just a couple of clicks to Inkboard's folder...

The root directory of the Kindle.

The Pictures directory with the Inkboard and Screenshots folders visible.

... and a quick right-click and Save As... to get it to my computer.

Here's a quick fingertip drawing:

If I come up with anything better, I'll post it.

iTunes playlists not playing continuously

Also, this:

I had a problem with having iTunes 12 play Audible.com files continuously. I tried hitting play on the first one and it would play it and stop when it hit the end of the file.

Then I tried with a playlist. Same thing.

After much fruitless Internet searching. I started looking at the options for each file in the iTunes window (a lot of right clicking was involved). Finally I clicked the "Check Selection" on the context menu for all the files in my playlist and Bingo!

Essentially, you can select a bunch of files, right click on one of them, and then create a playlist on the fly with your selection. But once you create a playlist with non-music files, playback stops after each file - unless - you specifically tell it that you want them all to play. I wanna know: who at Apple decided that.

Win10 Mail crashing constantly

Short story: the Windows 10 Mail app kept crashing. After searching and (finding worthless suggestions and) crashing and searching and (finding crap PowerShell commands and) crashing - I finally found this page:

http://www.howtogeek.com/224798/how-to-uninstall-windows-10s-built-in-apps-and-how-to-reinstall-them/

...and it looks like it worked.

For now. 

The Wisdom of Amber Benson

"You never really finish what you start in this world. Life's like some big ass jigsaw puzzle that you don't have the box to, so that every piece you add changes the context of the picture 'til you forget that you were ever looking for a particular thing in the first place." - Chance (Amber Benson), "Chance" (2002 - winner Audience Choice Award, Birmingham Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival (IMBD.com))

Amber Benson's "Chance" (on YouTube)

Of Mice and Windows

Apparently it's official. Everyone knows how to use a computer mouse (actually it really sound anachronistic to say "computer mouse". It's so '80s. Today it sounds like saying "shoe shoelace" or something). If this article from Technorena is true and Microsoft really did include Solitaire and Minesweeper for free to make provide a way for people to learn how to use a mouse in order to facilitate the use of (and thereby increase the adoption and sale of) Windows, then we must all have learned... because in Win10, Solitaire is ad driven now. Pay to play! - play ad free, anyway.

So, meh. The only really annoying part is that the MS Solitaire Collection window doesn't show up separately in the Volume Mixer, so you can turn down the volume on the ads. So when you're listening to music or anything else on your computer, you get a cheesy Twix ad talking over the top of what you want to listen to. That puts Twix and Microsoft's ad delivery right at the same level of annoying "You Have Won!" web pop-ups - the kind that caused the pop-up blocker to be invented. But I still play - for now anyway - with the ads - because I'm too cheap to go ad free (I know, it's my own fault I'm seeing and hearing the ads - but anyway...).And I have to say that Twix is at the bottom of my list of candy to buy again ever (the adverts are really that cheesy) right below Twizzlers (cf. Season 2 of "Warehouse 13") and candy corn (because it's candy corn).

Rejected!

So, not only will they not hire me, they won't even take my email! :)

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Well, I thought it was funny. I guess you had to be there.

Jokes in waiting

The other day, I saw a Pinterest post where someone's ex-roommate had hidden...

Well the post went like this (I looked for this post until I fell down a rabbithole of Twin Peaks and finally quit and came back (that's a couple hours of life gone)):

Person Posting: discovered this when I had to open up an access panel to repair something-plumbing

[IMAGINE PICTURE OF COSTUME MUSTACHE STILL IN PLASTIC CASE IN FRONT OF RANDOM PIPES IN WALL]

Person Posting: When I called my ex-roommate, he said "I see you finally found my secret 'stache".

[SFX: RIM SHOT]

Person Posting: He waited literally five years to spring that pun on me!

End Scene.

That reminded me of a similar joke(?) that I fell for in the house we're renting now. In the room that is the office, coming out of one wall there was a length of coax cable. Didn't think anything of it when we moved in - there were a number of inconvenient cable drops coming out of the floors where cable was ran in the past. Only those were drilled through the floor and this one, as I said was in the wall. Coming through a hole. Mind you this wasn't cable sized or coming out of a box. It looked like someone had hit the wall with a hammer, cleaned the edges of the hole, and then painted the wall - with a terminated length of seemingly cable box ready coax sticking out of the hole. 

An artist's representation

But - the wall had been painted - after the hole was there and the cable was just left hanging... out of a ragged hole... in a freshly painted wall. 

This is what it should have looked like - or a blank wall

So. We checked with our landlord to see if it was jake for me to clean out the hole and terminate it properly with an extra data connection, as that room was going to be our office and that's where I was going to put our DSL modem. He was okay with it so off to Lowe's I went.

What I found out after I got back with everything that I needed including a double comm outlet cover with a coax and network keystone. Out comes the drywall saw and I grab hold of the cable to hold it out of the way while I squared off the hole. And I pulled the cable out of the wall. 

I literally pulled the cable out of the wall - because the whole of the cable run was about 3 feet long. Apparently, instead of patching the wall before they'd painted, someone decided to paint the wall and then stick a fake cable in the whole with no one being the wiser. 

...

Well, I thought it was funny at the time. Maybe you had to be there?