Category: Life

  • Let Elon Musk Run TSA

    This is rich. One of the Thousands Standing Around who do security theater in airports says that they need a raise. People tend to take our jobs for granted. You’re more likely to hear about long wait times or annoyance about taking off your shoes than you are about the important work we do. What…

  • Some Useful Tools

    renamer – rename multiple files at once rnr – likewise anyascii – transliterate non-ascii strings (various implementations including ruby)

  • Scatological Humor

    You’ve heard the expression, “poop rolls downhill.” (Perhaps using a different word.) I found out where it winds up. This is the restroom in Death Valley.

  • Early Impressions of the New Administration

    Watching speeches by the new president reminds me so much of Star Trek (the Original Series). Specifically this episode: Note: I am not not NOT saying that anyone in the administration, much less the president, espouses the tenets of nationalism-socialism. (“Say what you will about them, but at least it’s an ethos.”) If you’d seen…

  • Trump’s Exit

    I don’t think what Trump said was a high crime or misdemeanor. But I do wish he would leave office. In fact, I wish he would leave office, and then Mike Pence would also leave office. I’d like Nancy Pelosi to take over the presidency, per the constitution, and run out the clock on the…

  • Kennedy-Johnson 1960

    John F. Kennedy was elected after a campaign critical of the Eisenhower-Nixon administration’s “Missile Gap,” aided by a friendly press and voting irregularities in Chicago. As it turned out, the gap was illusory, but his campaign required Kennedy to govern as a cold war hawk. The Bay of Pigs invasion was followed by the Cuban…

  • Wuhan Coronavirus COVID-19

    This bothers me: if people can test negative and then go into quarantine for 8 days, and only then test positive, that argues for continued extreme social distancing until better treatment and/or a vaccine is developed. But this also bothers me. If even the left (albeit the British left) can see the problems that accrue…

  • Configuring Useful CLI Utilities

    This is a sort of directory to help me remember what I want to install on new machines (or new operating systems) ★★★ Cowboy’s dotfiles (like the init.d files but for a regular user) Hackernoon’s Favorite CLI Utilities BKuhlmann’s Mac OS configuration Nate Landau’s bash_profile (described here) fzy fuzzy finder colout – a sort of…

  • Heinlein’s Juveniles — Silly Book Challenge, #2

    The second book in this very occasional series is … well, any of Heinlein’s juveniles. The cover is from the final book in the series, Have Space Suit, Will Travel (1958). It features bug-eyed monsters, space pirates, and a plucky hero who saves the earth from alien invaders over Labor Day weekend and still makes…

  • The Moon is a Harsh Mistress — Silly Book Challenge, Part 1

    I’ve been challenged by a friend on one of the walled garden social media sites to list seven (?) books so that identity thieves can get started figuring out the answers to my security questions. Maybe he’s getting a cut of the take. But I’m too loyal a friend to respond with utter fabrications. The…