I found one link to share on 2.17.26 before Microsoft "updates" zapped the Unsatisfactory Toshiba. It kept trying to restart and flashing the message "CRITICAL PROCESS DIED." Not only did Microsoft refuse to start Windows; it refused to allow Libre Office to run offline, which ought to be illegal, if it's not. Due to weather and schedule conflicts (you can't just walk out carrying a laptop on a wet day, and it's been a very wet week) it was 2.20.26 before I made my way to the shop to replace this little thing. Apparently enough other laptops had been fried that the shop didn't have a laptop with Linux available, though they'd had one only two days before; the few laptops they did have were in poor condition. I let the wonderful wizards of Compuworld rebuild the hard drive on the Unsatisfactory Toshiba. For now.
I sincerely hope that EVERY ONE OF YOU GENTLE READERS gives Microsoft the boot this summer. Even if it turns out that we all hate Linux...Microsoft needs to feel the burn. Google was forced by law to give up efforts to force people to buy more laptops. Microsoft needs the same kind of treatment. NO device should ever be forced out of service to its owner. Microsoft should be required to devote all of its resources for the next decade to renovating electronics from 1980 onward. We can live with Linux long enough to bring Microsoft to heel.
And I've been link hunting and interacting with people...on Saturday! My day of rest from the Internet, this week, was Thursday.
Books
I don't believe Sasquatch exist in my corner of the real world. They might exist, rare and cryptic as coelacanths, in places where condors perched in redwoods to watch for beached whales; things are a bit larger than life along the Pacific coasts. Here, "booger men" were an old staple of stories used to scare children off bad behavior, and more recently the Jefferson National Forest has acquired an absolutely real Bigfoot statue in celebration of the Sasquatch legend's contribution to our tourist economy, I think that's about as far as it goes. But they figure in some good stories. Priscilla Bird's "Ralph stories," gentle wholesome fiction about a forest where Ralph the Sasquatch is the chief of a settlement of cavemen, talking ravens, and smarter-than-average animals, are some of the nicest bedtime stories a grandmother ever made up for her grandchildren...and her e-friends! Volume 3 is out...
Blogspot didn't copy and paste her link with her graphic. You should know that she and a blog buddy have been working on that graphic for years. Everyone deserves to see it. The link is here.
Y'know...I'm not a mother, but reading this article did put me in touch with a source of minor, unconfessed guilt. As a teenaged baby-sitter, I was fond of one particular set of sprogs my brother and I used to baby-sit, and I thought very highly of their mother. And then, during my sophomore year in college, their father died. And even when I came back home...I avoided them. Nothing anyone said had been particularly helpful to my grief process when my brother died. I didn't want to risk blurting out any unhelpful drivel to this family. And, due to this adolescent shyness, I never gave a thought to the possibility that the newly single mother of those children might have needed a break from having the children, the girls literally, "in her hair," or that the children might have welcomed a break from their ordinary routine in their house of mourning. I didn't think I was the one who broke the friendship, but in hindsight I realize that I sort-of was. Dear relatives, I am sorry about that; I don't know that I could have done better, or less badly, at nineteen, but I regret it.
I shared that because somewhere out there somebody is avoiding a single mother of Now who needs a break, or at least some help with chores, now.
Cybersecurity
It would be diabolically easy for Congress to placate the Maoists, allowing this evil suggestion, and appease us Boomers by simply exempting accounts that have been active for more than 13 years from "age verification." Don't settle, early adopters of computer technology. For the young, too, it's crucial that whistleblowing does not amount to telling international terrorists where you live, where you bank, and where your children go to school. Real-world names, at least those of people who have not achieved "public figure" salaries and security, should be BANNED from the Internet. The only way any of us is physically safe--from fraudulent impersonation, harassment, robbery, rape, arson, or murder--and the only way our children are safe is to maintain an Internet where the quality of people's posts gives everyone an impression of their age, gender, and nationality, but nobody can prove that any of our e-friends is not a dog.
Glyphosate Awareness
Your health forecast for the next year: You may get to enjoy a few more vegetables early this year. Then eating commercial vegetables will make you sick again. Trump just signed, and bullied Kennedy into supporting, a wimpy new "phase-out" line of drivel. What was supposed to have been complete by 2022 might, they think, be partly achieved by 2030.
This web site does not call for violence. This web site wants to see them pay. Even if they had some mad idea about US-made glyphosate being less toxic than Chinese-made glyphosate...this web site wants to see at least one of these traitors falling down unexpectedly, and the other one gushing blood visibly, from conscience-karma-enhanced glyphosate reactions entirely and alone, this summer. No cheating. Absolutely NO cheating. They need to be rushed to Bethesda and told "You're having a glyphosate reaction." No wiggle room even for stress from being screamed at by Loony Lefties as a contributing factor.
"A total glyphosate ban would lead to famine"? I hate to say it but sometimes a short sharp shock is the best way to make a change. Yes, we as a nation should quit glyphosate "farming" cold turkey. People need to learn that most "weeds" are super-nutritious food plants, there to get you through until the tastier vegetables like beans and potatoes have a chance to grow. We don't spray chickweed and dandelions--we EAT chickweed and dandelions. They make scanty but adequate salads. They can get us through years without those glyphosate-soaked veg in the supermarkets. I didn't look forward to repeating, much less sharing, my years of living on weeds--but I lived, worked, and felt good so long as I ate only weeds and rejected supermarket treats, during thos years. So will other people.
History
Fun facts about early US history...Y'know, I've been on Hillsdale College's mailing list for a while. They are in the upper Midwest, where historically most immigrants who didn't come from the British Isles came from the Scandinavian countries, so the incidence of blue eyes is high; even the incidence of naturally blond hair on adults is striking. I've wondered whether any Black people went to Hillsdale, or wanted to. The answer is yes.
Obituary
Jesse Jackson:
Virginia Legislature
Some may want to congratulate State Senator Pillion for this one:
Judy Gray Johnson is still alive and writing. I hope she's pleased with the bill.
Delegate Kilgore didn't introduce a lot of bills this year, but local lurkers will enjoy the full text of this House Resolution:
Older local lurkers should also enjoy this one, though the gentlemen forgot to mention Delegate Quillen's sympathy toward the school choice movement in Virginia.
Weather
While I enjoyed the February Thaw this weekend, the thaw is definitely over for most of the US. The Northern States, Canada, and even California are getting record snow with even more bitter cold expected to follow. According to some models the Big Snow may move over Virginia. Gentle Readers, we the technorati have a responsibility to coordinate both evacuation plans for ourselves, if necessary, and plans to accommodate people who may need to be evacuated from other places, if necssary. (Praying that neither becomes necessary is optional...)
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