What a draining day it was. I wanted to finish something quickly. I think Microsoft can smell that on my fingertips; they ran more of those "updates" whose purpose is to make computers fight their owners every step of every way the owners may want to go. Maybe they were triggered by my mentioning to a client that I might adopt a new used laptop that has Windows 11...that's if the client is paying for Word documents, of course. Maybe they need to see a critical mass of people going to Linux. Maybe we need a federal law requiring Microsoft to pay computer owners for time STOLEN by "updates," and criminalizing the ecological and human damage done by pushing computers into obsolescence. It's not necessary that Microsoft run "updates" that cause "older" computers' displays to change size or orientation on the screen. In fact it could easily be mandated that, if Microsoft runs an "update" that interferes with the use of devices less than 100 years old, Microsoft must reverse them at its own expense and pay the owners of those devices to keep those Wangs and Laniers and Tandys and other long-gone electronics earning their keep, out of landfills.
Animals
Lovely bird photos.
Books
How to support writers, individually, and writing, generally...
Health News
This doesn't deserve a link: This has been a poor summer for fruit but a perfect summer for fungi. Somebody's advertising a patent remedy for respiratory allergies that's supposed to linger in the nose and kill mold spores for weeks, the way Listerine does when used to wipe mold off boots. Don't buy it. Eat medicinal garlic.
Phenology
While news headlines scream that the West Coast is sweltering and burning even more than they usually are in August, while the East Coast recovers from Hurricane Erin, the Blue Ridge Mountains prepare to finish our fourth wettest summer on record with what may match or surpass existing records for cool nights in the last week of August. It's normal for people to wake up and dig out a blanket in the middle of the night in the last week of August. Local meteorologists are advising us to wear suits with jackets to work this week! The cold front hit us last night, dropping temperatures by about ten degrees Fahrenheit lower than they were yesterday. Different places cooled at different rates and, for a rarity, Kingsport's weather station reported about the same temperatures as Gate City's early this morning, even though it's at a lower altitude and closer to larger bodies of water.
Absolutely gorgeous weather--if no bunghole goes out and sprays poison and ruins it for everybody. If you want to visit some part of the Blue Ridge or Smoky Mountains, this is expected to be an excellent week for visiting. Cool nights and mornings, warm afternoons, and the soil may even dry out enough to stop trees blowing over in every wind.
I agree with you on Microsoft. I switched to Apple a long time ago after a famous Microsoft Update turned my HP PC into a brick.
ReplyDeleteUnless the client is paying for Windows 11, this web site is counting the days till we go to Linux.
ReplyDeletePK