Aretha Franklin passed peacefully today, reportedly surrounded by family. In her time on this planet she had 112 charted singles including 17 top ten pop singles, 100 R&B entries and 20 number-one R&B singles, 18 Grammys (when that MEANT something) and was the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
She was also, by all accounts, a remarkably good person, a fine mother and she had an uncommonly positive influence upon our culture and society.
Her loss to the world is sad indeed but her time here was in no way wasted.
Finally!
After three months of trying, I was able to secure an appointment with my department head/ advisor.
Image is maliciously, ruthlessly and shamelessly stolen from SMBC thus callously depriving the creators of any ability to sell you stuff and line their greedy philosopher pockets.
A Quick Overview of Happenings In the Brickmuppet Bungalow
Nothing but banality is below the fold, so here, as partial compensation, is someone who, to my astonishment is not a cgi rendered bot, but is instead an Aussie named DuckieThot.
And yes, because the world is stupid, there are people angry about this.
1
Huh. Come-and-go electrical issues could be rodents chewing through the insulation of your wiring.
Posted by: Rick C at Sun Aug 12 16:11:44 2018 (ITnFO)
2
Good grief. And here I thought that my landing light burned out yesterday was an annoyance. BTW, after a couple of hours finding the right screwdrivers and wrangling with lenses and terminals carefully (imagine if your house had a bulb that has wires attached to it by screws, with little nuts embedded into the glass), I managed to get the old bulb out. I brought it home to show it to my wife for her amusement, and then let it slip out of my hands. Fortunately, it was in a plastic bag, and although the shards started to poke through, they didn't escape (I think). The sucker is about a size of a normal cone bulb for a floodlight, but the thick glass on the flat side resembles that of a CRT. I remember visiting trash piles when I was a boy, finding old CRTs, and busting them. The sound was like that.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Sun Aug 12 18:05:25 2018 (LZ7Bg)
Note that while Alex Jones is rarely correct about anything...it does happen on occasion. However, these ephemeral moments tend to be better with editing, and better still if one doesn't have to look at Mr. Jones.
Alex Jones is a jerk, a creep, a lunatic, deeply offensive, societally corrosive, and an affront to all decency.
He also, to the best of my knowledge, is not advocating anyone get banned for saying things that he finds disgracious to his demented world view.
This makes him vastly less loathsome to me than the people who advocate de-platforming him, and somewhat less loathsome than those who think that this is 'not the hill to dies on' .
More in depth thoughts on this here, here, and here. A less current but more succinct take on this issue has been making the rounds as well.
1
I applaud your taste though not your luck, good sir. Hopefully the latter takes a turn for the better.
Posted by: StargazerA5 at Thu Aug 2 19:59:14 2018 (0oc59)
2
Some years ago, there was a fashion craze here in the midwest where the thing for young women to wear was overalls like these, except when they were cutoff into shorts.
A younger Wonderduck had a difficult time staying professional and keeping his composure during this period. Who knew that overalls could look like that???
Posted by: Wonderduck at Thu Aug 2 23:09:58 2018 (EFLPT)
Never Rains
Yesterday morning I received word that my folks had just gotten back from the hospital. My dad had been working on an outboard motor and got his hand caught in it.
Last night my mom fell down the stairs and broke her arm. Both are in their 70s.
I'll be leaving here in a few minutes. There are no computers down there and blogging from the Blackberry is quite difficult so we'll be off-line for a bit.
Well, this is InterestingCalexit, the campaign to have California secede from the U.S.A. and build utopia unfettered by the likes of U.S. has added a new dimension to their proposal.
The idea is to give all the federally owned land in the state to the Native Americans.
If one were to commit the disgraciousness of comparing that map to the actual federal land in California one might note some discrepancies...
..and in so doing reveal oneself to a troublemaker.
A good swath of the federal lands are not actually included, but they hardly count because they are prime coastal real estate or associated with Tony zip codes. A fair ammount of the federal lands are actually overseen by BLM which is not always the actual owner. Instead a good bit of that land is privately owned but tightly regulated. Finally there is a good deal of land in the allotted area that is NOT federally owned or administered.
Fear not my Jacobin friends, those areas voted for Trump.
Because their's no greater expression of charity than forcing other people to sacrifice.
I do note that the Native American country would be almost landlocked and its only access to the sea would be Crescent City and possibly Eureka, neither capable of handling deep draft vessels.
1
It looks like that will put the Native Americans in charge of most of the fresh water used by the coastal cities. I predict the coasies will quickly concoct a rationalization for occupying selected areas of the "Autonomous Native Nation" to ensure that this valuable resource is "properly and sustainably managed"...
Posted by: Siergen at Wed Aug 1 22:23:42 2018 (KNzJG)
2
Oh, look. White people giving land they don't want (or want to be owned by the people who have it) to Amerind nations and calling it a gift.
(I apologize for using the tone of deluded, but I thought it was appropriate.)
If memory serves, the American Indian tribes can only have the status of their reservations affected or changed through the federal government due to the applicable laws and treaties - and it also covers the tribes' relations with other nations. So regardless of whatever opium dreams the CalExit folks like to believe, any changes regarding Indian land would require them to talk with the feds first.
This proposal reminds me of the last time Quebec separatists manage a serious push at independence, and people were pointing out that the Indian tribes in Quebec actually held the territory where the province's main hydroelectric dams were.
Posted by: cxt217 at Sat Aug 4 22:51:04 2018 (BcQU4)
6
The real fun is that most of the water, electricity, oil, and perishable goods would be shipped through the new sovereign Indian nation(s). Screw casinos, that's real money!
-j
Posted by: J Greely at Sun Aug 5 01:14:26 2018 (tgyIO)
It appears that the Credit Union was struck by lightning. There are other issues as none of the local branches had phone service as late as yesterday because Verizon has rolled a critical failure on their "keep the phone lines running during weather" skillroll. (It's rained for over a week here.)
They have a backup server of course but it way out west and chose this moment to be down...I assume fires are involved though that is speculation on my part.
When I went into the main branch branch. I got them to do a withdrawal history on my account. Everything seemed copacetic when I left as the end of the month flurry of auto-draft bills had, apparently, been made, but I just got an angry alert from my to insurance company to the effect that this is not the case.
I'll be spending some time on the phone this afternoon.
Actually I thought I'd updated the post yesterday, but i just realized that I'd merely published (this time successfully) the original version when I got in.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Tue Jul 31 15:31:50 2018 (3bBAK)
5
I was speculating that if they have a centralised system and computerised phones, this is exactly what would happen if the network went down - a core router failure or something. The public website could well be hosted separately, but then it couldn't link to the back-end server for customer logins.
Didn't think about angry thunder gods. Need to update my DR plans.
While most of us weren't looking, Redding burned. This was happening yesterday...Thing is, I watched the news this morning, and I channel surfed because Hannity started talking.. I've seen almost no coverage of this (aside from very brief mentions) until blundering into Lowther's post.After that a quick search turned up LOTS of stories on it from various news outlets, it's just not getting the national coverage that it seems to deserve.
1
When I first glanced at the picture before reading the above, I though it was a screenshot from Fallout given your recent post. Then I realized it wasn't. Damn.
Posted by: StargazerA5 at Sat Jul 28 22:31:31 2018 (0oc59)
2
I'd love to know what the "vehicle mechanical failure" was that started this. No one seems to know, apart from vague references to "maybe a trailer was involved". Even when the fire was small and they thought it was well-contained, no one seems to have asked for details on that. -j
Posted by: J Greely at Sun Jul 29 20:01:49 2018 (tgyIO)
3
I thought Reddit was burning, hoped for a happy story...
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Sun Jul 29 20:26:43 2018 (LZ7Bg)
Van Vexations
Last night I started to go to a friends when my headlights refused to come on. Both lights going out at once is unlikely so I figured I'd blown a fuse.
Several fuses and 2 halogen bulbs later, I am still without headlights.
I thought it might be the switch, but the switch activates the running lights and dome lights fine.
I've been pondering the wiring diagram I got from the auto-parts store, but my volt-meter's not working and in any event its dark now.
I go to work at 3AM Monday. This could be an issue.
1
Do you have combo bulbs or separate high-beam and low-beam bulbs? If the latter, the high beams might work even if the low beams don't, which will annoy oncoming traffic but let you see to drive.
Posted by: Rick C at Sun Jul 29 01:36:11 2018 (ITnFO)
2
Almost all cars have a headlight relay somewhere, to keep the lamp current from having to flow directly through the switch. On most trucks its somewhere hanging off the firewall, but could be wherever the fuse box is.
Posted by: Karl at Sun Jul 29 21:44:32 2018 (cGaBj)
Posted by: BigFire at Thu Jul 26 11:24:41 2018 (PzKK9)
3
I looked it up after I posted. It gives me a reason to buy Fallout 4, at least.
Posted by: Ben at Thu Jul 26 18:35:30 2018 (4TRZx)
4
I'd just like to point out that I just finished installing Fallout 4 on my new gaming-oriented computer and now this appears? Someone out there really DOES like me.
Posted by: Wonderduck at Thu Jul 26 22:44:52 2018 (0VFKi)
Things Not to Do at Reddit
Having an eclectic girlfriend seems to be right out.
So...Moe Lane posted this screencap and opined on it a bit.
From what incomplete data is available, I tentatively agree with Mr. Lane that this fellow is weirded out by the weirdest things...and that's when things got weird.
You see, I was curious as to what other cool hobbies this young lady had ( 'cause this fellow seemed genuinely weirded out) so I did a search and looked up the reddit thread.
Posted by: jabrwok at Thu Jul 26 17:26:42 2018 (BlRin)
2
If you click through to Moe's site you can then go to the actual tweet, where you can see the pictures large enough to read.
Basically, his girlfriend has a ginormous bed, likes to collect sparkly rocks, is into taxidermy, plants, reading and podcasts, and has a few strange hobbies, like collecting poisonous plants.
Posted by: Rick C at Thu Jul 26 18:41:41 2018 (ITnFO)
Now that things have settled down a bit, I'm getting caught up on my "to watch list" and looking for something current to watch...aside from MHA, the new season has nothing that really jumps out at me. So I went a-looking and I'm not seeing a lot of enthusiasm....
Pete over at アニ・ノートhas a long list of shows that he's dropped.
Then there's this...
I followed the manga, and perhaps I was poisoned
Which made me laugh, though it may not be entirely in context.
I almost quit Asobi Asobase – workshop of fun – in five minutes, but I stuck it out and watched the entire first episode. I should have trusted my initial reaction.
He did have kind things to say about the educational show Cells At Work which Wonderduck also liked
...our main character is a red blood cell. That wears jean shorts and a cabbie hat. What's not to love?
For my own part, I'm still watching My Hero Academia, and am starting the original Stein's Gate, so as to be able to watch the new one, and am catching up on Yona of the Dawn.
I'm not watching much else in the way of fiction since The Expanse went off the air. OTOH since I'm not in college for the next month and a half, I can actually do some reading(!).
1
Picked up the new Yamato. I'm in the same state with Stein's;Gate. MHA is in the queue at CR, when I remember to go there. Got a bunch of stuff I have pulled down but not watched pretty much every season.
Posted by: Mauser at Sun Jul 22 22:48:26 2018 (Ix1l6)
2
I tried Chio's School Road on a... whim? It's not great but it's at least chuckle-worthy.
I also tried out Angolmois. Enjoyed it in a Sengoku-era fashion, though I think I'll let it build up and watch a bunch in one go for that one.
Encouragement of Climb is a series I've enjoyed and it hasn't changed, though I live in an area where there are no mountains or even hills really.
The basic -premise- of We Rent Tsukumogami mystifies me. I mean, curios are fine, I have nothing against the idea of curios. I just have no idea why you would pay to -rent- one. Is it just a bad translation of the concept of the pawn shop?
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at Mon Jul 23 04:17:05 2018 (v29Tn)
3
I echo Avatar on Chio-chan...it's fine, and has occasional LOL moments. But drags a bit, too.
I'm also watching the third season of Overlord, but that's one that you either enjoy or you don't.
Finally, I'm watching Back Street Girls (Gokudolls). It's a dark comedy about three yakuza thugs who screwed up a job and are forced by their boss to get thorough (beyond realistic) sex change operations in Thailand and become an idol group. It's darkish, the humor is mostly very dry, and I think it's fantastic. YMMV.
Highlight of the show so far: a creepy rival gangster who tortured "our heroes" for information in the past is recognized by the girls at a handshake event. Before one of our idols does something unbecoming an idol, the other fanboys take exception to creepy mcpervy's overtly pervy behavior and beat him to a pulp, much to the idol group's satisfaction.
That and completely misunderstanding the concept of gap moe.
Posted by: Ben at Mon Jul 23 11:04:38 2018 (osxtX)
4Yama no Susume S3 01 was pretty good. I'd rate it higher than Yuru Camp, except it only was one episode for me.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Mon Jul 23 20:24:18 2018 (LZ7Bg)
Hobby Space News of the commercial space industry A Babe In The Universe Rather Eclectic Cosmology Encyclopedia Astronautica Superb spacecraft resource The Unwanted Blog Scott Lowther blogs about forgotten aerospace projects and sells amazingly informative articles on the same. Also, there are cats. Transterrestrial Musings Commentary on Infinity...and beyond! Colony WorldsSpace colonization news! The Alternate Energy Blog It's a blog about alternate energy (DUH!) Next Big Future Brian Wang: Tracking our progress to the FUTURE. Nuclear Green Charles Barton, who seems to be either a cool curmudgeon, or a rational hippy, talks about energy policy and the terrible environmental consequences of not going nuclear Energy From Thorium Focuses on the merits of thorium cycle nuclear reactors WizBang Current events commentary...with a wiz and a bang The Gates of Vienna Tenaciously studying a very old war The Anchoress insightful blogging, presumably from the catacombs Murdoc Online"Howling Mad Murdoc" has a millblog...golly! EaglespeakMaritime security matters Commander Salamander Fullbore blackshoe blogging! Belmont Club Richard Fernandez blogs on current events BaldilocksUnderstated and interesting blog on current events The Dissident Frogman French bi-lingual current events blog The "Moderate" VoiceI don't think that word means what they think it does....but this lefty blog is a worthy read nonetheless. Meryl Yourish News, Jews and Meryls' Views Classical Values Eric Scheie blogs about the culture war and its incompatibility with our republic. Jerry Pournell: Chaos ManorOne of Science fictions greats blogs on futurism, current events, technology and wisdom A Distant Soil The website of Colleen Dorans' superb fantasy comic, includes a blog focused on the comic industry, creator issues and human rights. John C. Wright The Sci-Fi/ Fantasy writer muses on a wide range of topics. Now Read This! The founder of the UK Comics Creators Guild blogs on comics past and present. The Rambling Rebuilder Charity, relief work, roleplaying games Rats NestThe Art and rantings of Vince Riley Gorilla Daze Allan Harvey, UK based cartoonist and comics historian has a comicophillic blog! Pulpjunkie Tim Driscoll reviews old movies, silents and talkies, classics and clunkers. Suburban Banshee Just like a suburban Leprechaun....but taller, more dangerous and a certified genius. Satharn's Musings Through TimeThe Crazy Catlady of The Barony of Tir Ysgithr アニ・ノート(Ani-Nouto) Thoughtful, curmudgeonly, otakuism that pulls no punches and suffers no fools. Chizumatic Stephen Den Beste analyzes anime...with a microscope, a slide rule and a tricorder. Wonderduck Anime, Formula One Racing, Sad Girls in Snow...Duck Triumphalism Beta Waffle What will likely be the most thoroughly tested waffle evah! Zoopraxiscope Too In this thrilling sequel to Zoopraxiscope, Don, Middle American Man of Mystery, keeps tabs on anime, orchids, and absurdities. Mahou Meido MeganekkoUbu blogs on Anime, computer games and other non-vital interests Twentysided More geekery than you can shake a stick at Shoplifting in the Marketplace of Ideas Sounds like Plaigarism...but isn't Ambient IronyAll Meenuvians Praise the lathe of the maker! Hail Pixy!!
