2016 archive
Geeking Out 0
A week ago, one of my UPS’s died. It was getting on to 10 years old, so I can’t complain, though it maliciously chose to beep its way out of existence in the wee hours, sending me crawling about in the dark to find from whence comes that )*#)*##a$&% beeping. . . .
One of the computers attached to it survived without incident. On the other, a Lenovo graphics tablet configured to dual-boot Windows 7 and Mageia 5, it took out Mageia, which was the running operating system at the time. I decided to throw Debian on the machine, as I quite like Debian and had mastered Mageia; plus I wasn’t in the mood to troubleshoot the system (it would boot, but only to the emergency repair terminal).
I installed Debian with MATE and KDE (I’m not a big fan of the KDE desktop interface–too many flashing lights and sounding cymbals–but I generally prefer KDE applications over their Gnome equivalents. Yesterday, I did some basic configuration. Today, I installed and fine-tuned E17, which will be my primary desktop interface on this machine.
The View from Afar 0
Leonard Pitts, Jr., wonders how they do it.
Coinage 2
Badtux agrees that we need a new word and suggests that we adopt the term, “whitesplaining”; methinks yon penguin has a point.
Follow the link for the full rationale.
The Candidates Debate 0
Jack Ohman wonders what would happen were the Kennedy-Nixon debate to take place today. (Hint: It’s not pretty.)
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Inculcate politeness from a tender age.
The story goes on to point out that Tennessee has a shot at shot records this year. Follow the link for the numbers.
Fantastic Votage 0
In the Raleigh News and Observer, Duke University fellow Geoffrey Harpham offers a novel take on the appeal of Donald Trump–that he offers a vision of privilege with no responsibility and no cost, a candidate, in short, not of freedom, but of feckless self-indulgence. A snippet:
In this sense, Trump is not really a political candidate, but rather an embodiment of a fantasy of infinite power and freedom without costs (“the Mexicans will pay for it”), consequences or conscience.
“CSI: Sewage” 0
My local rag profiles investigators who are using DNA and other advanced technologies to track down sources of water pollution. Here’s a bit:
They tested seven more times over the next six months, narrowing in on concentrations of HF183 – a genetic marker for bacteria specific to human waste – in a couple of connected legs of a stormwater line. The source trackers wondered whether septic tanks still in use by some homes might be at least partly to blame. But the largest hits were detected near one of the city’s sewage pump stations.
Could there be a break there?
Yes, it turned out.
