November 27, 2022
About Those Desks
In the previous post's fusillade of excuses, I noted offhandedly that, because of what they are taught in college, today's new hires expect to work at a desk, and not lift desks.
This may be a self correcting problem, because I suspect there will soon be quite a surplus of desks.
This seems in part to be because our "best and brightest" are neither the best, nor the brightest.
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"Tap Tap Tap"....... "Helloooo...?..." (Rubs Foot in Dirt Guiltily)
"Is this thing on?"
more...
A reader of the blog reacts appropriately to my lack of sedulity.
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November 20, 2022
Categorizing the Un-Discussable
Devon Del Veccio has done a superb job of breaking down what fascism is and has divided it into 3 broad categories. He's brought the receipts, with a reading list that is as turgid as it is extensive.
As it happens, I'm currently slogging through ONE of the mentioned tomes now (Sternhell's The Birth of Fascist Ideology) which, sadly, just seems like something one ought to read nowadays. I marvel at Dev's patience in reading through all these mind-numbingly opaque books.
I've been aware of the broad strokes of the origins of Fascism since the mid-90s but this video goes into specifics that are pretty interesting.
I've long equated the struggle between Fascism and Communism in the '30s to the religious wars of 16th century Europe.One does not consider Catholics, Orthodox Christians, or, Protestants not to be Christian, though they have different means of attaining the same goal (salvation) yet they fought bloody wars over quibbles about ideology. Leftists, likewise seem to have violent, passionate disagreement amongst themselves about the minutia of how they control people's lives and will bring about their utopia, but to those of us not part of that worldview, they look indistinguishable.
His discussion of 'post fascism' is likely to raise some eyebrows, since some of the ideologies he mentions as having fringe elements fall under that banner are not intuitively fascist by any means. However, I think a very loose analogy can be made to the difference between the American tradition of a commune, which is a voluntary association of idealistic people working together, (who can, of course leave) and the state having much the same philosophy, which always results in much less genteel outcomes.
It's an interesting watch at any rate.
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November 19, 2022
Suddenly! Streamery!
Tonight, (21:00 EST / 02:30UTC) my internet alter-ego will be streaming on Twitch. After a few announcements and stream business we'll be showing a fully restored version of THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, the German expressionistic horror classic.
After that, we'll be doing a bit of grinding in La Pucelle Tactics, a JRPG from 2002.
Stop by and say "Hi!" tonight at https://www.twitch.tv/brickmuppet.
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November 15, 2022
Seriously, What Could an Attack on Poland POSSIBLY Escalate Into?
Party like it's 1939 guys.
A (probably errant) missile has landed in Poland, killing at least 2. Poland has scrambled jets (as one does when one is hit by missiles) and there is a lot of talk and nattering on about Articles 4 and 5 of the NATO charter, but as I type this it is ALL talk and nattering.
Lots of people are saying lots of things but nobody seems to know anything.
So don't panic...yet.
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November 07, 2022
A Chat With A College Professor
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Back in the Saddle
...or the chair in front of the computer at least.
Having made my way back from the swamps of North Carolina to the abandoned curry mine in the side of an active volcano amongst the dinosaur infested jungles that constitute Vermont on the internet.... I can announce a return to a regular streaming schedule.
While pondering how I neglected to escape from the internet while on hiatus.
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October 31, 2022
Bigger Than Watergate. Bigger Than Teapot Dome.
All those crazy-ass, black-pilled conspiracy theories about how elements in the U.S. government were targeting, cancelling, and censoring individuals just got put to bed, made comfortable, given a good rest, woken up, and fed 23 Red Bulls.
This is not really news, as we've suspected this for a while, but it's bigger and worse than many of us have imagined.
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October 29, 2022
Streamery Update: Halloween Edition
Tonight at 9:30pm EDT (01:30pm UTC) We will be having a Halloween themed "Follow-Thon" as my internet alter-ego hosts a selection of silent horror films.
Terror Island: a 1920 Thriller Starring Harry Houdini
The Haunted House: A short "Thrillomedy" from 1908
The Phantom of the Opera : The Lon Chaney Classic From 1925
The Portrait: A short horror film from 1916
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde The Classic John Barrymore version from 1920
A Page of Madness: A 1926 Japanese Horror Film that is oh so very much a JAPANESE horror film.
We'll also be doing a bit of video gaming for our intro and intermission.
Grab a drink and a snack and come by and visit us tonight for the spoopy festivities at twitch.tv/brickmuppet.
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October 25, 2022
Even Susan Sarandon Gets it
Gina Carano smiles.
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Adventures in Bloatware
These are the applications that came installed on Narmaya, my new Samsung Galaxy A42 5G.
Google
Google Chrome
G-Mail
Maps
YouTube
Drive
Google Duo
Google Photos
Microsoft Office
One Drive
Outlook
AR Zone
Wear
Samsung My Files
Samsung Health
Samsung TV Plus
Smart Things
Smart Switch
Call Filter
Verizon Cloud
Digital Secure
Message+
My Verizon
Calculator
Calendar
Camera
Clock
Contacts
Disney+
Galaxy Store
Gallery
Game Launcher
Internet
Messages
Netflix
Phone
Play Store
Samsung Free
Samsung Global Goals
Samsung Notes
Samsung Wallet
Spotify
Voicemail
YT Music
Apple Music
Candy Crush Saga
Candy Crush Soda
Capture
Facebook
Genshin Impact
Google TV
Meet
Moment
News Break
Pintrest
Pluto TV
Royal Match
Slotomania
Smart Family
SnapChat
Solitaire
Solitaire (again)
TikTok
Toon Blast
Wallet
Woodoku
Word Trip
Coin Master
Blocks
Note that this was an insurance replacement through Verizon via Asurion, note too, that the process was painless.
Now, this is just scrolling through the menu. Phone and Clock I guess aren't really apps in the usual sense and it's nice to have Microsoft Office on the phone. I might have installed Genshin Impact at some point since it won't play on my iMac, but LORD...I wonder what this Samsung would be capable of if I could get most of those apps removed.
Thus far, I'm happy with the phone, though it looks and feel...fragile. It certainly does not give the impression of being nearly as robust a piece of kit as Greya, my heroically departed Kyocera Duraforce Pro. That was a full fledged rugged phone that had survived immersion in seawater, being dropped off a roof onto pavement and day to day use It, sadly, has been discontinued. I'll not be carrying it outside the car until my shield, Otterbox and holster arrive.
The battery life thus far is amazing. I have not charged it since it was activated Saturday morning and it still has a 45% charge. I've made multiple calls and watched over an hour of video on it as of 17:00 Tuesday evening.
It is a remarkably thin device, looking kind of like the Obelisk from 2001 and fits in the hand nicely, but it is slick, really slick, like its made out of teflon and dipped in bacon grease slick. I set it on the bookshelf and set it to vibrate and when the phone went off its vibration propelled it off the shelf with considerable speed onto the (fortuitously carpeted) floor. I now have it in a tray, lest it attempt suicide again.
I'll need to toy with it a bit but aside from its almost surreal thinness and the lack of covers for its USB ports it seems pretty nice thus far.
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October 24, 2022
Be Careful Not to cut Yourself on That Edge
I have never had Netflix, and I was not inclined to give that company any of my money. However, my cellphone recently saved my live, preventing me from being impaled with an 80 pound steel bar...and in the process sent me down the rabbit hole of cell phone replacement via insurance. After activating Narmaya, my brand new Samsung Galaxy A42...I noted that it had a Netflix trial on it. I decided to check out that new Cyberpunk series that's currently streaming. I looked forward to a good laugh at the expense of the 'Netflix Adaptation'.
Now I've given Netflix $19.95 US of my monies...but I got to watch the whole series.
I do not regret this purchase.
Cyberpunk Edgerunners is excellent. Studio Trigger stood by their guns and took no nonsense from Netflix and provided Unadulterated Cuberpunkery. For fans of the recent CD Project Red video game, or Mike Pondsmith's old pencil and Paper RPG from 30 years ago, this is a breath of fresh air. This show is extremely respectful of and faithful to its source materials canon. As such, it is a pretty good representative of the genre.
That is to say, it is Dystopic as hell. It's also an astonishingly bloody show that does not flinch away from the genre's more gruesome implications. Edgerunners is also quite possibly the most non-PC thing made in the last few years, at times straddling the line between an "R" rating and "NC17" with regards to both gore and nudity and is a passionate middle finger at the censorious scolds of all stripes.
It's also, in its perverse way, a Shounen show, but one that is really well done.
This is not an upbeat or happy show, but it follows desperate, broken people who maintain a sense of dignity and honor in spite of being in the most Hobbesian of environments. It also features excellent writing and top notch voice work in the English dub.
Studio Trigger has a remarkable reputation as is, but they have outdone themselves with this one.
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October 19, 2022
Oh.
One of the Brickmuppet's Crack Team of Science Babes brings us news from the world of epidemiology.
"I have thoughts on this matter. Let me spell them out for you:
Pound sign, lightning emote, question mark, star, treble clef icon, poop emote, "at"symbol, exclamation point."
"I...uh...concur with your analysis"
Well... it seems that Boston University has taken the highly vaccine-resistant and super-contagious Omicron variant of Coronachan/The Pinko Pox/ Winnie the Flu/The Commie Cough/Kung-Flu-of-Dying/The 2020 Gain-Of-Function-Award-Winner/...better known as COVID-19 and crossed it via gain of function techniques with the original Wuhan variant and developed a strain of Xi's Disease that kills 80% of it's victims (at least in mice).
For further thoughts on the matter, let's go to one of our crack team of science bobcats...
Thank you Busby.
According to the Live Science article, Boston claims that this was not "gain of function research" and that they made the original Wuhan strain slightly less lethal by giving it the higher transmissibility of the Omicron variant, and that they successfully discovered that Omicron's spike protein did not cause a lack of lethality.
This seems to be quite the semantic argument, at least from a layman's perspective. While the original, hyper-deadly variant was indeed made slightly less lethal by this research, the much less dangerous but far more transmissible variant was made vastly more so.
An argument can be made that there is a need for this kind of research, but the place for that research is not in the middle of Boston (or Wuhan) it's in a secure facility in a dry valley in Antarctica, or preferably, in a crater on the moon.
I can't imagine, after the disaster we have been through the last three years, what combination of addle-mindedness, arrogance and autism compelled some of the smartest (albeit obviously not wisest) minds in the country to perpetrate this act of asininity.
There is a hubris and lack of self awareness that seems to permeate our expert class, one that may well be our downfall if we don't reign in these over-credentialed ding-a-lings.
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This is Kinda....Retarded....I Totally Want One
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October 16, 2022
Um.....
I am on record as saying that I think there was a lot that was sus about the 2020 election, but that it probably wasn't stolen. Furthermore, even in the event that it WAS, there's no way to prove it, because the more lurid claims about software issues are, INHERENTLY unprovable in the absence of an opening up of the voting machines code. And the more lurid claims frankly are pretty retarded....no way in hell China was running the voting machines for instance.
The best that could be done is to adopt paper ballots and strict ID requirements in the future so that concerns, wether they come from Stacey Abrams, Al Gore, Or Donald Trump can be swiftly put to rest one way or another.
This has been my position since about February. While the second paragraph is still solidly my position, my faith in the wisdom of the first turns out to be at odds with one of the most important rules of political discourse in current year.
To Wit:
So.... the polling firm Rasmussen, has produced this twitter thread, which was linked to by Ed Driscoll over at Instapundit the other day, and I've just been walking in circles pulling what's left of my hair out for the last few hours because this thread and the stories it links to are, frankly, crazy-cakes.
It seems that a fraud case in L.A. is fraught with the implication that Chinese intelligence had access to the software of the voting machines in several states, and if I'm reading this right, administrative security privileges to boot.
Link's good, I just can't seem to be able to embed Tweets anymore.
The New York Times is actually covering this, it's too big a story to ignore, but the article seems to omit the rather pertinent fact that Chinese Software engineers in China have administrative privileges on the tally counts of these, ostensibly U.S., voting machines.
This rather consequential story seems to have connections to two other developments, a scandal involving overseas and military voting (run by the same firm) and the curious involvement of Minnesota Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer with the same firm.
In completely unrelated news, an "Error Code" has reportedly been found in the voting Machines of 97% of Georgia Counties.
True the Vote, the election watchdog group that has been under fire for making these claims for some time does seem to have been at least partially vindicated.
Joe Biden is President.
There is no constitutional process for a do-over of a U.S. federal election.
The implications of all of this on the last and upcoming election are, while troubling, unclear.
Everyone is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Ranting, raving, and, God forbid, rioting will only play into the Democrat's hands, as it did on January 6th 2021.
So, don't go off half cocked.
But do follow this story. I'm not sure what to think of it.
But I've got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach...much like I did about some lurid stories coming out of Wuhan in the last few days of 2019.
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October 15, 2022
Surprise Saturday Stream!
No stream was scheduled tonight because I had planed to go visit my folks this weekend.
This afternoon, on the way south, I called to see how they were doing. Turns out, they were doing great. So great in fact that they were on the outskirts of Raleigh NC, well on their way to the mountains for a nice relaxing weekend observing the foliage.
After a long drive back I saw some friends I hadnt seen in months and find myself at home in time for a 9:30PM stream.
Come by, say "Hi!" and laugh at me as I grind through PHANTOM BRAVE this evening. .
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October 06, 2022
Nexon Replies to the Scolding Puritanical Anti-Fun Committee: "Go pound sand!"
Nexon, is a Korean game developer that is responsible for the hit mobile gacha / cheesecake RPG Blue Archive, which has, heretofore largely dodged the nerfings and mastectomies that have plagued the game industry in recent years. Someone was bound to notice this lack of propriety and, sure enough, the Korean Game Rating and Administration Committee told Nexon a while back that Nexon was going to have to censor Blue Archive...or else. Nexon initially complied, but this past week the KGRAC informed Nexon that further censorship would be required
Nexon responded, not by issuing groveling apologies, denouncing 'toxic masculinity' and promising to be better at protecting the internet from the scourge of curvy digital babes, but rather by declaring that they were going to maintain their artistic integrity and simply raise the games age rating....and not only keep the curves, but restore any cheesecake they had removed previously when paying the Danegeld.
Now, this is probably not an example of conscience, artistic integrity or a Korean corporation's stalwart dedication to the first amendment of the United States Constitution. Rather, I suspect it is because that there is likely very little overlap between the individuals who will simp Gacha monies for a game that includes this piece amongst its official art...
...and bitter, insecure harpies with A-Cup Angst.
So it's probably not a moral or ethical stand as much as a business decision.
And I'm OK with that, both because it is a welcome departure from recent trends, and because it does actually show a degree of courage.
Blue Archive doesn't look like my cup of tea, and is rather too cheesy even for me, but I probably ought to support them a bit on principle.
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It Woiked!
A few days ago I called Apple support and tried to find out why my efforts to get my PS-2 to stream through my iMac were coming to naught. The 3 very expensive pieces of kit I had obtained to facilitate this IT alchemy were very clear that they were compatible with Macintosh products.
After going through every step with them, giving them the product numbers and my iMac's stats, tech support informed me that what I was trying to do should actually be happening. I pointed out that I had already reset my iMac to factory settings while trying to sort this out, (WHICH WAS A MASSIVE PAIN) and the tech support brahmin noted that given my model of iMac (Retina 4k, 21.5inch) there was a possibility that ALL of my USBa ports had partially died. So he set me up with an appointment at the Apple Store. After work, I showered, packed up Gura, the PS2 and all the kit I'd bought, got in the car and drove 50 minutes to Virginia Beach.
When I unpacked the computer, they were like "Oh wow! A classic model!" (I bought it in 2019...admittedly, that was the tail end of the 'before time' but...) After some explaining, they agreed that I should theoretically be able to do what I was trying to do (stream on Twitch with a PS2 via an iMac ) and the tech began to test my machine to find out if the USBa ports were partially dead. (They seem to work fine for everything except the kit I got to stream) after some time they determined that the iMac was fine.
What it turned out to be was a MacOS update that made the machine incompatible with the non-Apple kit. After some searching one Apple Store employee turned up a software patch that countered the update.
I had run to the streamers room so I don't know if the patch required the use of TERMINAL or not and did not think to ask at the time. However, while I can't yet run the full streaming software that Elgato provides, I was able to perform a work around with Elgato's recording/editing software that came to some approximation of acceptable.
To my utter astonishment the service fee was $0.00.
Even better, I found out that my initial idea of how to do this was correct. Meaning that I can return $160.00 dollars worth of kit to Elgato, meaning that, aside from gas, a trip to the Apple store actually made money.
"Well, that's a sign of the end times!"
Tuesday night I set up everything at home and ran a 2 hr. test stream. Everything worked!
uh...
Except the PS2's memory card.
"I've got to play that whole dungeon AGAIN!?"
A new memory card is on order and is supposed to arrive today. Regardless, my internet alter ego will be streaming as scheduled this evening at 17:30 EDT/21:30UTC @ twitch.tv/Brickmuppet .
Come by and say "Hi!" as we play La Pucelle Tactics!
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October 04, 2022
iMac going into the Shop
I don't know when I'll have a computer again. However I was very happy to get an appointment this afternoon at the Apple store for my Apple Potato.
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September 30, 2022
Coming Up For Air
Power is on for now. I'm gonna risk posting for a moment.
Power has been off and on all day. The storm hit sooner and harder than anticipated. I think the hurricane is pushing a big line squall or Nor'easter ahead of it. Power went out at work and a surge fried some of the computers. Glad I had my flashlight. I worked more overtime than straight time.
Not gonna risk computering tonight, it's supposed to get worse.
STREAM IS CANCELLED.
There will be a compensatory stream tomorrow.
Blog content to follow. Honest.
Pete: It varies from red to brown.
SurburbanBanshee: I do already, but thanks.
Mauser: That characters name is actually a big spoiler.
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