2016 archive
What’s Next? 0
(As for the question in the title, I don’t want to know.)
Trumpling Women 0
Writing at the Bangor Daily News, Alex Steed, father of a daughter, has a suggestion for Donald Trump’s supporters:
Follow the link to find out why he said that.
And, in related news . . . .
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Demonstrate courtesy when cruising the nation’s byways.
The grandmother was at a stop sign when a confrontation ensued, police said.
A motorist behind the woman grew agitated that she was not moving quickly, Little Rock Police Department spokesman Lt. Steven McClanahan said.
He started honking his horn. He got out of his car and fired shots inside the woman’s car, police said.
Thus passeth another day in NRA paradise.
Light Bloggery 0
It’s 72 Fahrenheits here in mid-December (after temps in the 20s two days ago–who says climate change isn’t real?), and I’m taking it easy.
Days of Future Passwords 0
Avoid forgotten passwords: Use a password vault.* I recommend KeePassX. It’s cross-platform (Windows, Mac, and Linux and Unix, including the BSDs) and compatible with KeePassDroid on your Android phone. If you update the database on one machine, you can just copy it to the others to keep them all up-to-date.
It does not require you to sign up for some online service, trust your passwords to the cloud somebody else’s server, or add a plugin to your browser or be restricted to a particular browser or GUI envirnoment. It just lies there on your own computer safeguarding your passwords; the only password you need to remember is the KeePassX password.
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*The review at the link contains a factual error about KeePassX. The author states
. . . in order to sync your passwords across devices, you’ll have to upload your encrypted password file with an online storage service like DropBox or Google Drive.
No, you do not have to use DropBox or Google Drive. You can use an application such as AirDroid or ES File Explorer which allows you to connect to other computers in your home network via your local wireless connection to transfer your files.
Carolina Coup d’Etat, Reprise 0
This is really quite appalling. One can make a convincing argument that today’s Republican Party no longer believes in truth, justice, or the American way.
Practice Makes Perfect 0
At Psychology Today Blogs, Lydia Denworth considers a recent study of proficiency in perfidy. Here’s the gist; more at the link:
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Play with your partner politely.
According to a report by KCPQ-TV in Seattle based on court records, Jonathan ‘John’ Duncan told officers he was playing with a handgun when it “went off” striking the unidentified woman in the chest. She later died at an area hospital.
Chaos in the Cabinet 0
I reckon that it is fitting that a reality show star would assemble a reality show cabinet full of cranks, nutcases, has-beens, and never-weres, calculated to cause maximum chaos while creating continuing crises for each succeeding episode.
Image via Job’s Anger.
The Vivaldi Browser 0
I used the Opera browser from version 3, which I think was the first version released to the public, up until they kicked out their founder in their quest for mammon. When I started using it, I was hanging out in an HTML newsgroup because I was working on my first website, and the regulars there had great respect for Opera for its attempts to remain as standards-compliant as possible. (This was in the early days of Microsoft Internet Exploder, when Microsoft was attempting to turn the world wide web into something that worked only in Windows.)
Opera was my go-to browser, email client, and RSS reader for over a decade. Opera invented many features that have since been adapted by other, better-known applications, including tabbed windows and mouse gestures.
When I took a look at the new Opera for Windows a couple of years or so ago, I decided I wanted nothing more to do with it. Many of the features that made me an Opera loyalist were gone, including the integrated email and RSS feeds and the rich granular configurability.
I have since used Seamonkey and Firefox and found them satisfactory, but a bit clunky, and I quite like Seamonkey’s integration of browser, mail client, RSS reader, etc.
Recently, I have been using Vivaldi; the Vivaldi project is led Jon von Tetzchner, the deposed president of Opera. I find Vivaldi nimble and responsive. It still has some growing to do, but, frankly, right now, I’m all in for Vivaldi because my decade or more of using Opera has given me reason to trust the work of Jon von Tetzchner.
If you want to learn more about users’ experiences with Vivaldi, you can read my thread at Linux Questions.
Carolina Coup d’Etat 0
Republicans in North Carolina demonstrate that they no longer believe in elections as they attempt to neuter the governorship because their guy didn’t win.
One more time, any experiment can fail, even a noble one.
Chartering a Course for Disaster 0
Kim Shroeder, President of the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association, warns of the Devostiture of public education.
