Grumble, grumble, grumble. I took the laptop home and curled up by the (electric) fire to read and review Christmas fiction. And then guess what happened? No, repairs to the transformer in town did not restore my Internet connection. Instead, Libre Office stopped working! In addition to no Kindle and no Book Funnel, I had no word processing function on this laptop. I could read the minority of my e-books it was possible to download as PDF, but I couldn't type reviews into the computer!
The problem with Libre Office may have been one specific downloaded document. Word and Open Office were programmed to lock down specific documents that contained things they couldn't process; Libre seems programmed to lock down altogether. One more way the Internet is being "updated" beyond all usefulness, programmed not to change the world in any useful way but to self-destruct in a huge expensive mess, if people don't unite and get a grip on the corporate greed.
Book reviews for the 14th, 15th, and 16th of December will be rewritten from memory on the next trip into town, if there is one, this week, unless I'm able to type them into the laptop at home, so that I can get to the e-mail and blog reading list, and perhaps find a few good links. Books for those days were read. And reviewed. On the "vintage" computer that has no Internet access and is actually useful for any purpose but the Internet.
Fun Stuff
Do we have readers in South Africa? Planning to be there? For US readers, this wildlife place should at least be an entertaining read, a chance to imagine the winter holidays taking place in summer...
Glyphosate Awareness
This is on a bit of a tangent from glyphosate. Glyphosate is in the Impossible Burger. The "pesticide" that's in "animal-free milk" or "animal-free whey," which is made from genetically modified yeast, is classified as a fungicide, which have been less often used on food and have been associated with only peanut allergies. Still...There were relatively natural and wholesome vegan protein analogs made from natural foods like nuts, peanuts, grains, soy, peas, and, yes, even yeast. Those are still relatively healthy apart from the glyphosate in the wheat. The new vegan foods, which may look and taste more like the animal proteins they mimic? If people knew what was in them, I doubt that anybody would even want to look at them.
Twitter, RIP
Saving Twitter is only one step away. To keep X going, Elon Musk needs to do this: Block all access from countries that have called for censorship. All people should see, when trying to log on to X from Europe, should be "X is based in a democratic civilized country that regards its citizens as adults. You are in a country that regards you as a child, therefore you may not log in." And no amount of money should get them around it. If Twitter had remained what it was, leaving it up to individuals to censor what they see on their own pages, that simple step would bring the heads of European states around, crawling on their knees, begging for access to Twitter; it would have put Musk in a position to force them to end censorship, and would have been a good thing for humankind.
Meanwhile, what's left for web site hosts? Say goodbye to "global." Much as we'll miss our friends in foreign lands, there's a lot to be said for keeping the naive, infantilized residents of totalitarian countries out of conversations among responsible adults.
The alternative? Say goodbye to social media. A censored web site is a worthless web site. Until the United States recognizes the Internet as a form of "press" and upholds the right of every Internet user to post anything that would be covered by our historic understanding of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of association, the Internet won't be worth anyone's trust. Or respect. Or investment. I think a lot of Americans were better off, financially, with typewriters, copiers, and pre-digital printing presses.
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