Thursday, July 27, 2017
Meanwhile, in Pakistan
Monday, July 24, 2017
Still Using Linux Mint
Sunday, July 23, 2017
Japan and Phillipines Need to Cough Up $$$
Saturday, July 22, 2017
Mexico, a Kleptocracy
Friday, July 21, 2017
South Africa Going Down the Tubes
The Clintons
Tuesday, July 18, 2017
Air BNB
Enough of these shady "entrepreneurs" that just want to take advantage of the weary traveler.
I'm not renting hotels or motels any longer. Air BNB all the way, baby!
Tuesday, July 11, 2017
Nelsan Ellis
I watched all of True Blood, and in it, Ellis was indeed a good actor. He made the most of a bad script, which was the only thing holding him back. The story itself was pretty stupid, as were everybody's lines. I watched it mainly because the acting was pretty good. True Blood is a bunch of good (and good-looking) actors making the most out of a bad script. The music, special effects and camerawork were good too. I am always attracted by depictions of the supernatural.
Monday, July 10, 2017
Firefox Goes AntiSec
The New Vice: Gas Stations
The trouble with Republicans is they talk about wanting to reduce the deficit, but only when it comes to programs for the poor and the middle class. In reality, the Republicans want to spend all the money they can on their two love birds, the military and the rich. Tax breaks for the rich, and at the same time big increases to buy expensive toys from the defense industry, which means huge bonuses and cost overruns and the usual corruption, negligence and lack of oversight that allows Republican cronies to get richer without breaking a sweat. That's the real reason Republicans want the increased defense spending, because it is a way to spirit off vast quantities of moolah from the U.S. treasury.
Friday, July 7, 2017
Adobe is FUBAR
Acrobat won't print .pdf's half the time and does not even have the common courtesy of giving the user an error message when it fails to print an ordinary, humdrum .pdf to an ordinary, humdrum printer. You know, with a PDF editor, printing is kind of a big deal. I have been on the phone with Adobe tech support for hours. They do not know what time of day it is. It is time for Adobe to stop publishing software and go bankrupt. That is what time of day it is.
My, how I wish market forces were even half as efficient as Republicans think they are! That would be a good thing.
As for Photosh**, it won't work on half the graphics cards out there, and won't tell the user why, either. Just very user-unfriendly, slow and sluggish, and rather irresponsible of Adobe to stop supporting graphics cards that are less than fifteen years old. Come on, not everybody has the cash to buy a new system every five years. That would include businesses and government as well. Desktops are built to last a long time and should last a long time. That is one of the many things desktops are good at.
I am not sure what sort of lame-brain computer programmers Adobe has working for it. I think they are using spaghetti code a mile-long coded by morons twenty or thirty years ago and patched a little bit year by year by an ever-changing base of employees until they don't know what does what or how. I think if you asked every Adobe developer in existence to fix the problem with printing in Acrobat, they could not do it, even given a year, because they don't know how to fix it, or fixing it will break fifty other things, because the dirty secret in Adobe is that their code is FUBAR. The only reason printing ever works at all is probably because of accidental bugs. I have seen spaghetti code, worked with it, reformed it (or tried to), and I know what it is like. That's what's wrong with Adobe. A mile of legacy spaghetti code, with no veterans around to figure it out.
Thursday, July 6, 2017
Canada Got It Right
But no, they won't adopt Canada's system, and why? Because the penny-pinching bean-counters want to leave the middle-class saddled with an inadequate, complicated and confusing maze of health care insurance. As for the poor, let the chips fall where they may, seems to be the motto. I suppose it is ironic that those who don't believe in Evolution seek to practice it upon their fellow Americans.
Ironically Scared of Death
If a man kills another person, it is a bit rich that he objects to society exacting justice. Scared of death? Grow a pair, I'd say. Easy to pull that trigger--not so easy to be on the other side, eh?
If people object so much to the death penalty, one option I would support is that these folks personally pay 100% of the cost of incarcerating the killer for life, as well as the cost of reparations to all victims' families, the exact amount to be determined by the victims at their own discretion. If the victims want millions, then that's what the death penalty opponent should pay. Billions or trillions would most likely exclude any possibility for parole, although perhaps collections could be taken among all the death penalty opponents in the world. I'd like to see the first victim-trillionaire.
I also believe those opposed to abortion should pay 100% of the cost of raising those fetuses that would otherwise be aborted. They can pay for college, as well, at a four-year institution of the parents' choice. That would probably run to about a million dollars. I say cough up the money, if abortion is so bad. Get a second job moonlighting at McDonald's.
What we don't have in the world at this time is any shortage of human beings. The number being generated far outnumbers the number lost through the death penalty or through abortion, and it could be argued, the quality gained is better than that lost. If a mother seriously wants to off her offspring, if that is her final choice, then she probably was not about to give birth to a rocket scientist, a saint or a great leader. Daddy must not have been all that great, is the most likely conclusion. Never a good scenario for a kid to grow up unwanted. And there are killers a-plenty in the world, and offing a few here and there through the death penalty is not going to keep this world from turning. If a killer's death brings a small measure of solace to the victims, or relief that they won't have to attend any parole hearings, so much the better.
Monday, June 26, 2017
Johnny Depp
Saturday, June 24, 2017
Insurance Stocks
Friday, June 23, 2017
Bad Brands for Kitchen Appliances
Basically, any brand that occupies the lowest 5% of the price range. These types of appliances are missing quality materials that result in a minor price break for the greedy landlord--who, in the end, probably won't save money, because he will be forced to replace the shoddy appliance prematurely. Greedy landlords are stupid.
Good brands include Frigidaire and Kenmore, although Kenmore is a no-go because it requires buying through antiquated and tone-deaf Sears, which is destined to go bankrupt over the next five years.
Alright, Canada!
On the one hand, it is surprising, because Canada is not known for its military, but on the other hand, Canada is an awesome country with its act together. I have long believed the United States should study Canada and reproduce its health care system, election system, and probably education and police as well. Canada does things right.
The strongest contrast is between Canada's superb health system and the horrible political football that is our health system, where a poor person just goes to the emergency room when things get bad enough. Our problem is caused by the Republicans. They want to let the poor die, because the poor deserve it, in their view, for being lazy, unlucky, immoral and/or stupid, and evolution needs to occur. Let Mother Nature take her toll and cull out the weak. The Republicans figure, let the poor suffer and die, and that way, there are less of them to worry about, and the ones that survive will work harder to stay alive. The Democrats say, wait a minute, other countries have health care and aren't going broke, why can't we? And healthy poor people tend to be happier and more productive than sick poor people. The question is whether poor people are a resource or a liability. Republicans say liability, so let 'em suffer, let 'em die.
In the end, Republicans don't care about the poor, and Democrats do. The irony is that a lot of poor people vote Republican just because they like that lilly-white Republican brand. It's all about race and tribal identity. Obama was a Negro taking the place of a long line of old white men. It got the racists all up in a lather, and they crawled out of the woodwork, enough for the Republicans to steamroll to victory in D.C.
The greatest irony of all are the religious right, the self-professed "Christians" that support Trump and the Republicans, based upon things like abortion or gays or whatever the current socially conservative brouhaha might be. I really have to call into question their religious scruples in supporting rich old white men letting the poor suffer and die, just so the rich can get richer. Is that would Jesus would do? Eh? I think the liberal churches have it right and are more in tune with Jesus, and if I were ever to go Christian, it would be the real, authentic Christianity, not this faux Christianity of the religious right, with their Biblical literalism. They take religion like lawyers, not like saints. They can't be right.
Tuesday, June 20, 2017
Sears
Thursday, June 15, 2017
The Angry Male Shooter
It would be interesting to know whether incidents of men going amok have been on the increase or decrease through the centuries, both nationally and worldwide, but I think records are sketchy prior to the advent of computer databases. I suspect that the present time is not much worse than times past. The only thing that may have changed is that guns are easier to get, cheaper and more powerful. That, and news coverage is pervasive--we drown in instant information about every single incident. In the past, things were covered up much more easily. Incidents of men running amok were only reported locally, sometimes only by word of mouth, rather than blared out in the headlines on the Internet. We must not be misled by our Information Age into thinking the situation is worse than it is.
Tuesday, June 13, 2017
The Little Chipmunk
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techlorebyigor is my personal journal for ideas & opinions