More fun than Windows or iOS (and just who the blazes is Daft Punk?)

A colleague (whom I respect but no longer works at the company I do) was once talking about imaging software and derisively said “I suppose they use Gimp,” after the manner of “I suppose they put ketchup on filet mignon.” I didn't say anything; she was being pretty snarky and it would have become a debate.

Folks with sufficient funds for fancy computers and software often become a bit snooty about it, just as they do with cars or clothes or houses or anything else.

FWIW, I do use Gimp (a free Photoshop alternative). Gimp works a heckuva lot faster on a Linux box with 1.5Gb RAM than it does on Windows with 3Gb.

This is my fast, free and productive setup so far...

Lubuntu 13 on a 1GHz AMD Sempron Processor 3200+ with 1.5Gb RAM

Chromium (Linux version of Chrome)

Gimp 2.8

LibreOffice

InoReader RSS reader (Chrome plugin) and Liferea (client); experimenting with both.

It’s more fun than Windows or iOS.

90% of this blog is now created and maintained with some flavor of Linux, currently Lubuntu 13; trying antiX and Lucid Puppy.

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And there is also an inverse snootiness, isn't there? “I don’t need no stinkin’ Widows,” or something like that, which is the spirit in which his post was written.

I actually like Windows. I don’t like iOS.

[2014-01-25]

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Karlie Kloss & Daft Punk

And just who the blazes is Daft Punk?

I watched about half the Grammys, knew less than half the acts. Was worth the wait to watch John and Ringo play together.

A friend and former colleague of mine had a large picture of the Abbey Road album cover in his cube. He pasted a cutout of my head over George Harrison’s. That was in the day when I wore a very long ponytail and pulled back ⅓ like Harrison used to wear it. That’s how I’m wearing it in the picture at the top of this blog.

Oh, FWIW, we are going to half-height cubicle walls at the office soon. Will be rather difficult to decorate, or hang a coat, or discretely review my direct reports’ performance and pay, for that matter.

I really don’t understand what sort of increased productivity comes from decreased privacy.

[2014-01-27]

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Pyramids are best left in Egypt (a childhood memory of MLM).

Entryway to the Amway Grand Plaza on Pearl St in Grand Rapids

MLM is “multilevel marketing.”

Many years ago, when I was too small to remember many names, Mom and Dad were invited to a church family’s home. I don’t know who this family was, and I don't think they remained at Bethel Baptist Church very long.

I remember Mom and Dad talking about this. “Why would so-and-so invite us to their home? We hardly know them.”

I think it was Mom who called and actually asked, and I may have even heard that phone call, though I could be inventing the memory.

Founders of Amway, Jay Van Andel & Rich DeVos

Turns out the couple was with Amway. If you don’t know who that is, it’s a successful multilevel marketing company based in Grand Rapids (where I live) and started by Rich DeVos and Jay Van Andel. You can see their names all over town. One of the DeVos helicopters flies over my house a few times a day from their private compound to the helipad atop the Amway Grand Plaza (at least, that’s what I’m told).

Yes, there is a lot of money in multilevel marketing, for the top .01%, give or take.

No matter how you slice it or how many unbiased analyses you find online, it not only doesn't work, it can’t  work.

The quality of the product and integrity of the company are irrelevant.

It’s just numbers.

Most likely you already know this.

This Wikipedia chart shows that pyramid schemes are not sustainable

If you don’t, spend a little time  here:

⌐■-■ Skeptoid installment, “Network Marketing” >

d(-_-)b Listen to the podcast of Skeptoid “Network Marketing” >

and

⌐■-■ Skeptoid installment, “Bend Over and Own Your Own Business” >

d(-_-)b Listen to Skeptoid “Bend Over and Own Your Own Business” >

and

⌐■-■ Pyramid scheme article on Wikipedia >

[2014-01-13]

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Psssst... hey, Jesus.... Why (some) non-Christians are right to think (some) Christians are bonkers.

Old Weird Harold

Why (some) non-Christians are right to think (some) Christians are bonkers:

• Ken Ham (here’s his page at Answers in Genesis >)

• Kent Hovind (a.k.a. Dr Dino; here is his page on Creation Today > ; here’s his page on Wikipedia >)

• “Investment expert and former minister” Sean Hyman and his Biblical Money Code (if you can stomach it >). He’s been advertising during Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and other conservative radio shows. (What’s that say about the audience these guys attract?)

• God Said Man Said Dot Com (same audience)

• Bob Larsen >

• John Hagee and his 4 Blood Moons

Hagee amuses and frightens me at the same time. That particular sermon is so full of nonsense you could spend days dissecting the flaws, but those that would benefit won’t listen.

[2014-01-22]

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Those are just my candidates for the best and brightest of the bonkers brigade. There are many more.

And to be fair, I don’t think they’re all idiots or charlatans. I think Ham and Hagee are sincere. Unfortunately, they are also very wrong. And for what it’s worth, Hovind is in jail and Hyman is just a fraud.

Sean Hyman's Biblical Money Code (with Fair Use Disclaimer)

There’s a special place in hell for guys like Hyman.

[2014-01-23]

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What's a Blood Moon?

BTW, a “blood moon” is simply a lunar eclipse. Lunar eclipses are usually red due to how light bends around massive objects in space.

Just goes to show that we (some of us) are no different than our superstitious ancestors. We find meaning in coincidence and rare but unremarkable events, like eclipses, or natural catastrophes, like plagues and earthquakes.

I’m not at all suggesting we shouldn’t see the hand of God in some natural events, but that we have sufficient information in our faith and traditions that we don’t need to invent meaning where there is none.

Disheartening:

Hagee’s book Four Blood Moons: Something Is About to Change, gets high average ratings at Amazon.

Heartening:

The first review here is a good debunking by a believer, which is unnecessary because the theory is full of holes for lots of reasons unrelated to Christian belief, but perhaps that review will speak to some.

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Psssst... hey, Jesus....

I imagine myself someday getting the seating chart at dinner in heaven and leaning over to Jesus before we’re seated and saying, “I’m next to Hagee? Are you kidding? C’mon, Lord, can you sit me next to someone else? How about Alice over there.”

[2014-01-23]

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Alice Cooper on being a Christian

[2014-01-29]

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Our spaceship moon (extraordinarily coincidental qualities and the supernatural).

How likely is it that the same side of the moon would remain facing the Earth, its rotation and orbit in nearly perfect synchronization so that we see only one side?

NASA image of Crater 308 on the far side (dark side) of the Moon

No one knows how we got our moon, though there are some good guesses. Remembering now back to the days when I read Discover magazine pretty regularly, it could have been ejected out of the earth by an impacting asteroid, or captured by Earth’s gravity as it passed through our orbit around the sun, or could have been left over from the formation of the solar system (etc).

But there it is, like watch works, the same side facing us every night, despite us both moving.

The odds must be (ahem) astronomical, like correctly guessing which leaf will be the last to fall from a tree in autumn, or how the stock market will close, or that my car will collide with another on the Interstate.

But there is a last leaf to fall from every tree in autumn, and there is a final number at the closing bell every business day on Wall Street, and every day thousands of people do have auto accidents because they left the house at precisely the right moment, hit all the right lights and had just the perfect road conditions to encounter another driver who also found a path to the same accident.

What are the odds?

Things happen every day that, before they happened, you would say they couldn’t.

I’m not surprised that over the centuries, folks have speculated on some supernatural cause for one side of the moon always facing us, or imagined alien space stations on the dark side.

And so I do not doubt that there are other things in this world that happen to have extraordinarily coincidental qualities that appear to be (and are therefore indistinguishable from, and may as well be) supernatural.

[2014-01-10]

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BTW, this is why: Why Do We Only See One Side of the Moon? >

"...since the rotational period is exactly the same as the orbital period, the same portion of the Moon's sphere is always facing the Earth."

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hafta

Dee Dee’s breakfast on Jan 22

hafta get an oil change

hafta get groceries, organic bananas not the regular kind, and eggs, free range, DHA milk and yogurt; no beer

hafta do taxes before an identity thief collects my refund electronically

hafta call a plumber fix the pipes that burst last week

hafta snow blow the driveway make sure we have enough salt

hafta get the girls after ballet

hafta pay tuition for next class and tutu or maybe we go to karate instead I don't know

hafta get a wireless adapter for Linux laptop

hafta post a blog and write a new one and check comments and facebook and stay at least a day ahead

hafta read Andrew Brown and Rambling Follower and Miles of Inspiration

hafta to go to church get the girls dressed get the right envelope write the right amount

hafta listen to Sunday's podcast

hafta read next chapter of Young and Child and Aquilina and listen to next chapter of Carey and set the alarm

Dee Dee’s breakfast on Jan 22 (labeled)

hafta do my HRA and get blood drawn or I lose my insurance

hafta take my Prevacid twice a day before coffee and food or I might get esophageal cancer

hafta cover the air conditioner unit outdoors

hafta put salt on the steps

hafta get up by 6

hafta shower and check email and talk to Jesus

hafta make breakfast for Dee Dee wake her up so she can say goodbye (blueberry bagel and Nutella and banana and Disney princess vitamins) turn on PBS Kids

hafta keep it down so mama and baby get some rest

hafta be to work by 8:30, 9 at the latest, should be 8

hafta get the work done or make a dent or at least make all the meetings and

start over

again

tomorrow

wondering how much of what I did the day before really mattered

[2014-01-21]

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Of course, there are many haftas I enjoy (making breakfast for my family is one of them). Sometimes all the nonsense haftas interfere, but we will never look back one day and wish we’d spent more time on the nonsense haftas.

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