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Sticky: Seriously (escaping the unescapable)Might make this a sticky as Dreamwidth changed their HTML cleaner at some point to disallow, at the least, apostrophes in image alt and title text. So to escape an apostrophe? ' (Yes, I had to escape what I just escaped to even post it. Welcome to Recursive Escapism.)
Feel free to leave other Forbidden Entities and their (perhaps recursively, like mine) escaped translations here. I'll add to this as well if/when I find more.
The Orange Tree and his nebulous fruit appear to be suffering from. This delusion makes the entirety of QAnon canon look so damn silly.
My job, as I see it, is to not give it - the delusion - nor them, the deluded - oxygen. Mariah said it best: "You on your job, you hatin' hard
Ain't goin' feed you, I'ma let you starve
Graspin' for air, and I'm ventilation
You out of breath, hope you ain't waitin'!"
I'm saving those links mostly in case things ever do hit the rails - which I don't think will happen. Either way I get a timeline showing how whatever occurs came to be. And now I'm going to ignore every damn last one of those links.
Here's a true story about a non-delusional populace with the same problem The Orange Tree and its rotten fruit can only pretend to have, The End.
Two weeks and counting of straight-up laryngitis after our maybe/maybe-not COVID - which means sounding like a NYer, specifically "Mariah Carey" every time I open my mouth or laugh. It's weird not recognizing your own voice, but I didn't sound like this when I *did* live in NY.
CW: Non-trivial amounts of f-bombing, sex, and "fornication" - guess that's how the dice got rolled.
Party! I'm social distancing - which means I can't dance in the streets nor out in the club. Danced around the house, though - and yes, I do need to dance more!
WHOM FOX News has been carefully instructed not to refer to as our President-elect because Reasons, mofos, they'll find 'em, same as Ronna'll find the ballots, just give 'er time... *screams*
Of course, and never did a phrase fit more perfectly than the one I'm about to use, our current tinpot dictator refuses to concede *waits for all of your genuinely surprised reactions; passes Kleenex™*
Not only does he refuse, he delighted us scared us all into wetting ourselves after sending Mayor Hand Down His Pants* to the uber-glitzy FOUR SEASONS (note: the landscaping company, NOT hotel, but hey...IT SAYS FOUR SEASONS ON IT THEY'RE FILLING THE SWAMP WITH GRASS CLIPPINGS ALRIGHTY THEN GLITZY ENOUGH) to say Reasons why he won't.
No one watched this so no one can say the Reasons, which is PROBABLY just as well.
*Note: Handy [search query] for when you can't recall this dick's name
May the inhabitants of The Other 49 hang their heads in shame: Texas early voting exceeds total of all 2016 ballots! Let that sink in for a second!
ETA...![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamshark adds: "Which is especially noteworthy when you consider how desperately the Trumpist Texas governor has been trying to limit voting access! Amusingly, it appears that the only way to motivate the apathetic American voter to get to the polls is to try to discourage them from voting."
More on Texas voter suppression here and see this, straight from a Texan. Three cheers for what you all have endured and the challenges you've overcome to get it done in spite of the odds being so artificially and almost insurmountably stacked against you.
Now - for the rest of you - get thy asses off to thee polls and dropboxes (they were created for and funded by YOU) and get out thy vote - posthaste!
*headdesks from now through 2022*
It's really so frustrating, not just to see that it's not under control nor turning that perpetual corner a la The Orange nor that any vaccine will be available any time soon that anyone besides The Orange will recommend getting but...I miss being able to do things without having to balance every possible action taken against my life, and I'm tired of having to avoid people like uh, the plague, especially when they don't at all try to avoid me (there are human-attracting magnets in my body, I swear).
Bit of a health scare at Chez MM week before last - OP got sick, feared he had COVID, followed by MM quickly succumbing to possibly the same yet different illness. Both are recovering nicely.
OP's tested negative, and given her weird variance in symptoms (many unlike OP's, featuring oddities COVID almost never presents) MM skipped having a test, which is not to be inferred as "She felt good about skipping it". I am of...mixed emotions, on that.
That said: WEAR A MASK. Wear it! And stay away from others, like far far away. We were ferociously sick with whatever it was and it's not a good feeling to wonder and worry if you'll ever be alright.
I know I'm running late but I've had my doubts whether I should light a candle at all as Eddie wasn't my favorite band member (that'd be David Lee Roth - I mean can you see me *not* liking that guy?) though I thought Eddie was the most badass, cheerful looking dude EVER. I even had a poster on my teenage bedroom wall to prove it.
That said, I've seen a lot of odes to Eddie's guitar chops. This is the other reason I hesitated to post, because there's one example I'd like to link to and some of you might not like it...but since it's Friday night almost no one will see this anyhow, so I'm gonna just let it rip.
This song does it all for me. It's hot, danceable, the drum beat's insane, the guitar's divine and DLR's voice is...perfect. The lyrics might be a pile of crap but he makes them sound like much more. I'm not sure it's my "favorite" VH song but when I'm up for something loud/banging enough to destroy my speakers, there it is.
Not even voting out all the Rs, as that would leave a Republican governor who'll be in office for two more years along with his Republican-dominated state judiciary. Speaking of his judiciary...*sigh*
So I filled out my general election ballot this weekend, pretty much as one does. I don't follow state politics closely so in my case "as one does" meant: "With a laptop pulled up as I have no idea who most of these candidates or judges are, what or whom they support, how they make laws or decide on things".
In the course of filling it out I came upon 7 questions about 7 judges.
The questions were the same, save the name of each judge: "Shall [Judge x] be retained in office?" What the actual f--, how am I supposed to answer such a question? Turns out Supreme Court and District Court of Appeal judges in Flori-duh are not elected. They're appointed. By the governor. Who appointed most if not all of them.
They only serve for a set number of years, and these seven are seeing their time's up, so we "vote" to retain them, or not.
Asking a Democrat or more liberal-leaning Indie to vote on retaining a Republican governor's appointed judges is like asking someone on death row if they want the guy in the hood to administer their injection or do they want the governor to go grab some other guy? You're gonna die either way, right?
I didn't drink my way through the filling out of this ballot but I had every damn right to, considering how it went.
Instead I googled each judge's record to see how they rule on things. This guy's against abortion...gone. That one's clearly no friend of LGBTQIA+...out. This one's too conservative... buh 'bye. This guy (the only one)...doesn't seem too bad, though he's an R appointment...*thinks thinks thinks*...OK, he can stay, though I don't really like it.
The thing is if I vote him out, our Republican governor will replace him with another self-appointed judge who'll be just as if not more conservative than say, not-so-bad guy, so I'm gambling not-so-bad guy is *less* conservative than whomever the governor might replace him with.
And this is how voting for appointed judges in Florida actually "works".
Not one Democratically appointed judge was up for retainment of office (Florida has elected judges, too, though only locally), but I'm not sure if Floridian "Democratic judges" even exist anymore or if they all ran off to wherever the hell Charlie Crist might be hiding out.
And that's just our judge problem. You don't get to decide who an appointed judge will be, no matter your political stripe or flavor, merely if existing appointed judges should be retained. That's got to be an issue for R and conservative-leaning Indie voters too, as they don't get to pick the conservative strength they favor most, only the governor does.
The rest of the problems for me are at the county level: the ballot, outside of its president/vice president question, is overwhelmingly vague on all fronts, a poorly worded mess that makes you realize throwing dice to make up your mind might be as accurate as some of the answers you'll give considering it gives you almost no useful information to work off of.
And this...*this*...has been a problem in every county I've lived in in Florida (three so far in 20 years) which is why I prefer to vote from home, so I can keep the laptop handy and look up the respondent information to answer each question with as much foreknowledge as possible.
If you go into a voting booth not knowing what the ballot says beforehand, or asks of you, so don't know how to answer its questions then you can't (or at least: shouldn't) Google anything from there: even if it was allowed (is it?), you'd hold others up.
Besides which, once our ballots were filled out there was the question of how to get them counted ASAP as mail can't be relied on to get anything anywhere, much less "on time" even with first class postage (which our county demands, and demands to be paid by the voter).
As I detailed in my last post on this topic our county has only one secure dropbox, located over at the Board of Elections, pretty far away from home.
But that's only true until the 19th! Then there'll be 10 more dropboxes located all over the county. Early voting begins on the 19th, so once early voting begins all 10 early voting locations will include secure dropboxes, so once it's the 19th you can drop your ballot off at any one of those locations (which wasn't true in the primary: we truly only had one dropbox then).
But it's not the 19th. Yesterday was the 5th and we felt like our ballots should've been back already (I ran late, as usual) so off the person I live with went with our ballots to the Board of Elections (as a Floridian loophole allows literally anyone to turn them in for you (but see ETA below)).
Nothing more secure than the place they presumably count them at for you, right - I don't even know. But I hope so!
ETA: The loophole article is about something else, entirely: The Orange apparently having his ballot hauled across different states by someone else back to Florida - and is inaccurate, as what he did requires he sign an affidavit allowing the pickup of his ballot though not its return, which requires no affidavit. See the affidavit. After some Googling found this:
PICK-UP AND RETURN OF COMPLETED ABSENTEE BALLOT REQUEST FORMS
And I don't just mean "with the virus".*
siderea's shared a few posts I feel are relevant to the topic at hand (if you can call him that). Firstly (forgot to include in my first pass - it's the most important link you'll read): More on America's Most Important COVID Patient in which she explains, and in which I agree, the timleine for his illness, hospitalization and release looks and sounds all wrong for easily established Reasons.
She also posted Obesity *not* found to be risk factor in COVID-19, maybe and SARS-CoV-2 is a painkiller, maybe.
Also (not from siderea AFAICR) there's Hidden immune weakness found in 14% of gravely ill COVID-19 patients and Scientists trace severe COVID-19 to faulty genes and autoimmune condition, which might also explain a lot.
Engrossing stuff, taken altogether.
*Canonical: ‘Don’t Be Afraid of Covid,’ Trump Says, Undermining Public Health Messages
But then I'd lose what little bit of a life I have left forever all of it. Losing it that way almost looks like fun, though.
Anyhow, sharp-eyed Twitter users compel me to post on what happens after The Orange says "therapeutics" at 1:05 in his 6:51 PM · Oct 3, 2020 tweet *not linking not linking - sits on hands*. They say it's clearly edited out. What? His cough. He basically implodes*.
He doesn't look that well for someone who's feeling so much better. Doesn't sound well, either (it's in how he breathes, though he's sounded this bad - even "much worse" - in other contexts going back a few years now. I'd guess being around smokers in clubs, bars and so on having damaged his lungs in some way).
It's not lack of make-up that makes me say so or that I think he (or anyone) looks all that bad without it. He just...I know faltering and the covering up of such when I see it (have lived faltering and like a cat, have lived covering it up, so know it). Which means nothing. Sometimes you're more exhausted from having been sick than you were when you actually were sick.
It can take little time to *be* better (from say, a biological POV) but a much longer time to *get and feel* better, if you know what I mean.
But it's too early on for him or anyone else to know for sure. That famous sudden 7th-8th day nosedive truly sick COVID patients can sometimes take (usually, right before The End) could still happen; anything could.
He might also "fully" recover - but with a weakened heart, or with lung or brain damage (or any combination thereof, along with "general organ failure"). For most recovering people who see such after-effects (not all or even "most" of them do; how many is still up for debate) the damage is suspected to be permanent. That means they won't recover from that, though they recovered from the plague itself just fine.
The Twitter lefty conspiracy theorist circle is thriving and I love finally having a saner equivalent to the right's QA-none, as leftists should have some fun, too (they should adopt an equally vague and confusing motto, though, like THE SERVICE IS COMING). Tonight's theory is he filmed last night's video from a boat or ship, you can hear it in the background and yes, you can! *squees* I think it's the hospital's HVAC and they should all calm down already it's a great theory.
*So I've talked about world-building and/or fiction-writing on other people's journals. What he says in this video is another great example (the idea he's supposedly sick, the scenarios and outcomes that alone evokes being the most obvious world-builder of them all).
So at one point he says: "I didn't want to stay in the White House...[they said] "don't see people, don't talk to people, and just be done with it, and I can't do that"".
After reading he's on a plane or ship, ostensibly "escaping", I can hear those words and think, "Right, you can't, this is a huge Freudian slip you're managing to catch just short of blowing your whole secret escape". There's *material* here. And I'm a literalist, a see-it/say it who normally doesn't indulge in much fantasy or world-building, so if I'm seeing it, I think that's saying a lot.
Had wanted to from the night it aired onward but couldn't as dinner ran too late, then couldn't watch it online later that night or any other over a night-time headache I keep getting - by the time I could knock it down I was too damn tired and/or it was too late.
Tonight I was like THIS TIME I'LL PREPARE *TAKES PAINKILLERS*
As the headache came back, of course. Not even gonna joke how maybe it's the COVID.
The only thing watching the entire White House catch the plague (Kellyanne Conway, too! Hope Claudia and George are alright) has done is worry me I'll get it now that we're in some sort of second wave I thought might not hit 'til Decemberish.
Anyhow, off to the races this unforgivable spectacle.
kaffyr's been seeking my thoughts on it so *pops painkiller* loooooooooooooooool where to start....
Hot takes: "Joe Biden has the patience and composure of a grade school teacher after the class starts its 20th food fight in as many minutes". "That man [tRex] is a racist/liar/snob/Satan". "Poor Chris Wallace."
Chris Wallace performed admirably though I could've done without his "Mr. Prez you're gonna LOOOOOVE this question" leads, a verbal signature of his throughout. If he said it to remind tRex he's a FOX News ally to convince him to calm down and cooperate like the stubborn, tantrumy two-year old he is, well, didn't work. tRex was exactly as adversarial to him as he was to Joe, and relentlessly so.
Trump cut off, talked, shouted over and interrupted Biden *and* Wallace - at times literally taking over moderating duties without anyone's foreknowledge or permission, 90% more often than Biden did any such thing to him or the actual moderator.
Joe was calm, quietly confident, stayed collected, and always had a rational reason to interrupt when he did (not that I'm excusing such - but he was clearly the lesser of two interrupting evils) - mostly to do much-needed housekeeping upon tRex's lies and out-of-context misstatements, as opposed to tRex trying to verbally annihilate everyone in an engulfment of fiery orange, senseless, COVID-spewing tiny baby dragon roars.
No one fact-checked this chaotic mess of a debate, after all, so Joe literally had to perform his own clean-up as tRex blustered about.
I wish I could give a more focused review - but it's hard to perform decent policy analysis when the only person with any real, sincerely held policy outside of "My moonbase and I are better than anyone poorer or darker" got dragon-rolled by the same orange monster spewyelling lies and twisting contexts - you know, just having another typical day that ends in a Y for him.
On stage. At an official, nationally televised, live presidential debate watched 'round the world. There's nothing rational to say to that besides, "Wtf even was that?" You watch for an hour and a half and tell me if you feel any differently.
I will say a few things about Joe On Climate Change: YES.
Also: I think "The Biden [climate change] Plan" is code for "The Green New Deal As Fulfilled By Biden" so if he does win it's gonna be hilarious, as I think he's going to take whatever plan the Democratic Socialists present, make a few Biden-like changes, and there you go. It fills me with glee to think of it and to hope I'm right.
I also think Biden is "defund the police" with a few minor verbal cosmetic lifts thrown in for the sake of tRex breathing down his back and his base, and I'm fully in support of that, as well. He has to verbally duck over the barrage of SOCIALIST name-calling he gets but once he's in office he can call it whatever he wants and do whatever he wants (within the confines of law) so I'm taking it as "Wait and see" on that and police de-funding. Because we have to.
And yes, I was as dismayed as anyone at his "stand down and stand by" Proud Boy statement - boy, was that sticking it to white supremacists, I bet they're feeling so hurt and demoralized now, and disgusted by how he answered Biden's feelings on his dead son being called a "loser" and "sucker" by mocking his living son, thereby *also* mocking tens of millions of Americans struggling with drug use and addiction.
As I said: he's a snob. He's a fucking snob. He thinks he's "better than" because he's allegedly rich, apparently white and for supposedly never having any addictions. He needs to spend a a day or two several lifetimes in the shoes of the majority of people he "others" so dismissively.
To watch the debate knowing now how tRex had to be all COVID-y by the time he hit the stage makes me feel so incredibly sorry for everyone in that building - Biden especially as he has by far the the most at stake, that I cannot even fully process it. tRex held a rally right before, too, which I imagine might also turn into a super-spreader event.
I hope none of the debate attendees or rally goers catch it as I actually don't wish the plague upon his fans, as ignorantly arrogant and heedless about masks and social distancing as they might be.
Watching tRex's family with their masks off before the debate and after was also another breath-taking (what an awful unintended pun) sight. Melania, especially. All I can think is SHE REALLY DOESN'T CARE, DOES SHE?
I mean, *she* could take a turn for the worse and if it's worse enough there goes Barron's mom, she won't even be around to watch him grow up. I think the entire country should adopt him if she dies, as it really *does* take a village, and that kid's gonna need all the help he can get.
tl;dr: tRex is a loud, shrewish, boorish, racist, judgmental asshole who *still* wants to send the country back to the 1950s when the Blacks knew well enough to say Yassir and not ask for things. He can go find a fucking DeLorean that flies and just stay there, afaic - I won't miss him, and neither will most comparatively normal people.
Biden plays admirably well in comparison, as does Chris Wallace.
I guess via Hope Hicks. Wow.
ETA: crap, I hope Biden doesn't catch it but this doesn't look "distanced" enough to me.
ETA3: even the CDC, a paragon of non-trustable info once Trump loyalists overran it to parrot his messaging, advises staying six feet apart (what the podiums were) *and* wearing masks (no mask on any of these people, see pic). I hope Biden monitors for symptoms and gets tested until any danger for him, his family and circle has passed.
Also, chances Trump's a super-spreader (or that anyone is, not singling him out) are not nil.
One of tonight's longreads for me (so many my eyes are burning) was forget R0, focus on k, a deep dive into the super-spreader question.
ETA2: reading Twitter replies to his announcement reminds me: how long before he says he only has coronavirus because he got tested for it?
ETA4: so it's not the Giiina virus or the Kung-flu once he has it, it's straight-up "coronavirus" now. Kinda like the difference between mail-in voting and abseentee ballots, it's down to who does it or has it. The lighter and richer, the better.
I'm not attesting to the sheer amount of SICK BURNS in the replies (so many I need to stop reading before it starts getting so entertaining I can't stop - REASON #3546 why I don't have a Twitter account) - I'll be respectful and not say anything of the sort but um, yeah.
I knew I was jumping back on this topic after my last post. What I wanted and didn't have last night was at least a few links to back me up; short of that you had to be there, I guess.
Between 2006ish and 2008 I got so many complaints about trolls on AOL's message boards (because running a blog about AOL made AOL users think I worked or moderated for AOL when I did neither) that being me (MM Girl Reporter, On The Beat!) I *had* to look into it, and they weren't wrong, there were a lot of trolls.
While determining this I came to find the boards were also chock-full of right-wingers and conspiracy theorists but this was all "my eyeballs on those forums" so you have to take my word for it. It wasn't like hanging out on say, Dreamwidth, not by a long shot.
But the parallels to AOL's walled garden and eternal September are there in very obvious ways. Ever notice how there's no getting through to say, a right-leaning USian anywhere online whom you disagree with because they have all the facts already? If you ask them to share a link or expound upon their knowledge or explain why you might be wrong they've got it all figured out, it's your problem if you don't.
QAnon users take it a step further ie: get even more militant about it. They go to the "the truth is out there" argument with "do your research" their eternal, worn-out rejoinder. Where did AOL users do such "research" back in the day? On an AOL message board? Yeah, it's some of those same people, Facebook is just "the boards" they now use to carry on the same old and many more discussions, besides.
AOL taught them to stay inside a closed-knowledge bubble. That bubble had the browser, chat and message boards. AOL taught them that was all they needed. Users didn't move beyond these lessons (mainly, that there was *nothing* out there beyond AOL) when they joined Facebook. They just think there's *nothing* out there beyond Facebook besides a few websites which agree with their POV more than any of those "other" icky websites do.
The Verge comes closest to what I'm getting at:
Facebook is the new AOL
Just think about it for a minute. Of course Facebook is the new AOL. Facebook is the beginning and the end of the internet for a huge number of normal people, a combination of primary service provider (user profiles, messaging, photo sharing) and '90s-style portal to the wider web. Facebook has its own IM platform, Messenger, just like AOL had AOL Instant Messenger. Then it went and bought WhatsApp, the messaging platform more popular internationally, just like AOL bought ICQ. Facebook groups are just AOL chat rooms; Facebook's permanently doomed commerce plays are AOL's permanently doomed commerce plays. (AOL's ultimate doomed ecommerce play? The acquisition of Netscape.)
And Facebook's core business of selling ads into the News Feed is the same combination of incredibly vulnerable and apocalypse-proof as AOL's dial-up business: it will continue minting money for as long as the parents and grandparents of the world start their day with Facebook, and it will stop growing the second all of their kids move on to something better.
That Facebook has a strongly right-leaning, increasingly QAnon-delusioning audience is not in question as Mashable has detailed. It's the question of where the current majority US audience came from (or, as I think is more likely, "migrated from") that has my interest. When AOL closed down their message boards one can imagine their users scattered to the four winds but the reality, I think, is closer to they "all just went to Facebook", and they took the lessons AOL taught to their users right along with them.
Guess I still do this once in a while. Quote was about onions, but I think it can apply to elected officials, as well.
maju)Oh Darth, how fast the mighty can fall. He got such a huuuuuuge kick out of watching the left scramble in the early Orange Egg years, wonder how he feels now?
Facebook is the new AOL - and I knew AOL's crowd a bit too well thanks to a previous blog of mine. AOL's boards and online chats, before all of that was shut down, were Republican/conspiracy theorist/deep troll by 2008, which is about when I started throwing my hands up at them. The same crowd apparently's since shifted over to Facebook (more on that here). I'd say it's Death Knell Time but Facebook has a developing country presence - which they fund themselves by providing free internet service - that can *probably* compensate for all the non-R/non-goons fleeing their now-strictly Republican/assorted goons platform in the US.
Can't call them "absentee ballots" as "absentee ballots" are only for rich people. We're not only not rich, I don't even play a rich character at Chez MM, though occasionally I might lean into their vocabulary (it's fun! I like big words!).
OP was so excited to get his ballot he FILLED IT OUT ALREADY, including "doing research on the candidates before ticking the ticky boxes" (which you don't tick but shade, but you know what I mean).
Madame MM has no such need for rushing - and is not letting him mail any ballots.
*recalls how she almost tied him to his chair to keep him from rushing out to drop his in a mailbox*In other words, slapdash MM's gonna do it at the last possible moment, though hopefully "sometime this week", as there's extra time we won't have next week or in the weeks after to drive those ballots straight to the Board of Elections, which contains, unfortunately, the only dropbox our county has.
Kinda weird isn't it, but *tries to find some silver lining* I guess you don't get more secure than dropping it right with the people about to count it.
That office is only hard to get to for about 50% of the population so around 100,000 of us maybe. Welcome to "a Republican-controlled state", which somehow can still manage to pull this crap in a solid blue county.
Does this sound like a threat and/or letting on to knowing something the rest of us don't? Emphasis my own:
Mr Trump was asked by a reporter on Wednesday evening if he would commit to a peaceful transfer of power "win, lose or draw" to Democrat Joe Biden.[...]
"I've been complaining very strongly about the ballots," Mr Trump, a Republican, said. "And the ballots are a disaster."
When the journalist countered that "people are rioting", Mr Trump interjected: "Get rid of the ballots, and you'll have a very - you'll have a very peaceful - there won't be a transfer, frankly, there'll be a continuation."
O RLY? O_o
I'm thinking to his mind, if we "get rid of ["mail-in", presumed - but the fact he doesn't say which ballots he means raises a much thornier question, still] ballots", there will be a fresh round of Russian infiltration of all 50 states' voting systems, this time to decisively pull the levers his way.
That could - and presumably, will - be the case, with or without (fat chance) [mail-in] ballots.
So the grossly rough math he does that makes him talk like this is: "Voting in person only = I win, the Russians have my back. Mail-in ballots = I might lose, though the Russians still have my back and I need to sell them another Trump Tower".
All his ad-libbing, word-salad-tossing, free-associating-out-loud aside, he's also an idiot who's said too much too many times, and I don't trust him as far as I can throw his clown-cake makeup, so.
ETA: Or it could go like this - call it the Non-Russian Infiltration Version:
Trump’s supporters expect two large-scale riots in the fall. One will come right after Election Day, when Trump will be ahead in the vote count. This is because we’re in a pandemic, and Republicans will vote in person while Democrats will vote by mail (in fact, several Democrat-run states mandate it). Trump will be ahead on election night if this holds. The second riot will come when the Democrats “discover” millions of mailed-in ballots which will give Biden the win, which (according to them) will be fraudulent.
Which leads him to do the same math/spew the same mind-talk, as if we either throw everyone's votes out "we" can just declare him Dictator For Life or else "get rid of" mail-in ballots so he can win on in-person votes alone.
Which is called "cheating", but never mind trying to explain what are to him the extreme subtleties of such dishonesty - not when he's spent his entire life having his every wish granted by hook or crook. The only thing I've ever seen this guy want and not get? To rule the US from his gold-plated toilet in Trump Tower NYC, which I think was his preference from the start. Watch what happens.
All the presidential mail-in, absentee, and provisional votes are counted, or at least enough of them are to paint a within-a-shadow-of-a-doubt sort of picture. You all saw 2016, right? Did the left side of the aisle's supporters and/or voters riot? Kill people? Cause any (or much, I dunno) violence? Nope, not really, right?
Do you think extra security in the form of the National Guard or federal troops will be on hand to quell the right's insurrection should Dear Leader appear to lose? Not very much likely. I feel all hell's gonna break lose - on their end - and Those In Charge will let it, because why not, they lost, or so they'll think or believe before all the votes are counted.
Delaying any MSM-official announcements or "calls" like the media routinely made in presidential elections up through 2016 might at least get people's minds onto other things, and hopefully once there *is* a widely-made media announcement on who pretty much seems to have won maybe everyone will have calmed down enough to not go toss it up in the streets.
But tell me why my concerns are misplaced or why they're not, as I'm all ears either way. All I can think is "enjoy the US while it's *not* at civil war" - clock's running out on that, though, and I'm starting to feel it.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Champion Of Gender Equality, Dies At 87.
And yes, Moscow Mitch would jump in her grave that fast - in fact, he already has. So much for that whole Merrick Garland rule he thought up his very own self, huh.
Serious question, as after the last major code push to unconfooble my carefully wrought custom CSS I was able to fix things pretty easily in Firefox/Chromium derivatives/on Android and even in old and new Edge, the latter of which arrived as a Win10 OS update around the same time, but IE11? *massive eyeroll*
The thing is, if I visit a style=light or system page in IE11 the comment forms themselves aren't broken, wonky or janky (don't you love all this precise descriptive language)? They look fine, not to my taste, but fine.
It's fixing them for IE11 that's the utter thing from hell. Like if drinking didn't make me want to not think straight anymore I'd drink to get through it. It's that bad.
Using IE's Developer tool to peer into IE's highly interesting interpretation of the DOM it's not because Dreamwidth necessarily does anything off-kilter to support IE11, it's because IE11 literally drops (so: crosses out, like they're just GONE) my existing edits before displaying the forms, so when I go to fix whatever's broken I can't because a) it's broken precisely because IE11 dropped the CSS I already used to fix it so b) now I have to pick different elements, properties and values to try to successfully re-insert my missing fixes.
Does that make sense? Not to me, either - I'm just the dude with the wrench tryin' to tighten things up, so to speak.
That's not why I'm asking if Dreamwidth still supports IE11, though - I'm asking because there are some Serious and/or Weird Issues - namely how one still can't click the More Options button in Quickreply to reach the longer comment form (the only workaround for that, afaik, is to right-click the reply link in the post to force-open it in a new tab) and this one, which requires the following steps to reproduce:
1) log into Dreamwidth and find the longer form reply form
2) log into and out of Dreamwidth on a different tab
3) go back to the same tab you're logged into on a longer form
4) Click the usericon next to the form
5) Now the Icon Browser will open full-size with almost nothing in it but the default text links, then will say that you need to be logged in to use this feature (I can't recreate this atm as it stems from a weird IE cookie-tossing issue but will post pics if/when I succeed).
I don't know why this makes me uneasy. The Icon Browser is hiding userpics because you're no longer logged in on a page that still says you're logged in - so this is *good* behavior, right, since you might not even know you accidentally logged yourself out on another tab - or that someone else did - but it does make me uneasy.
I'm thinking the fact that the Icon Browser opens at all while logged-out is proof its JavaScript is still very much alive (that it didn't stop running after your logged-in cookies were cleared), so maybe that's what bugs me about it. It shouldn't be running, perhaps? Haven't checked so I'm not sure if this behavior is confined to IE11 or if it occurs in other (or in all) browsers.On logged-out views when your cookies don't get tossed in all directions (or when you only have one cookie and it's not logged in) you can click the usericon next to comment forms all you want and nothing will happen - that's expected behavior.
What's not expected, for me - though ymmv - is that the default usericon shows up on logged-out longer forms at all, since it serves no purpose, takes up valuable space (my best guess is it's a placeholder pic in case you log in) and is what allows this JS/cookie issue to even exist.
Is a lint roller, but somehow whomever picked and packed my latest Walmart delivery did. Can they both pick up fur? Check. For about the same price? Check. Did they sub two items for two? Check. Are they the same thing? INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW
Got a refund for that - and for three boxes of crushed pasta, one which was crushed open, which I didn't know until I hit it with disinfectant, which ruined my linguine - and for the two HUGE pillows I ordered, which the ad says are 28" wide - two inches short of my king size pillows, which are 30" - but are actually only 23" wide.
Yes, I tape measured them, then had to switch pillowcases as I was trying to replace king pillows only to wind up with fat, fluffy standards. Luckily I have both kinds of pillowcases or I don't know what I would've done - start a new blog*, maybe call it Anti-Walmart Grocery.
I had to call out the kitchen window to my Walmart driver to pull up her mask before she approached. No point wearing a mask pulled down to your chin, is there. She gave me a look that could've broken glass, to which I was like O RLY so gave her a look that could've busted titanium. Try me try me try me try me. She pulled up her mask.
Walmart's been hideous about sending drivers on time or at all. One night about two weeks ago the driver bailed altogether. Took hours to find another one. The next week they were an hour late. This time "only" 15-20 minutes. I miss the days they used to get here a bit early or on time - never happens anymore.
And out of stocks** are getting to the point where if it weren't for not wanting to shop in brick and mortar during Days of Our Plagues I'd cancel - between what I order and what I get being down to a coin toss whether it'll a) match or b) have any subs, much less subs from the same category****, much less planet, and the drivers running late, it's trying me.
Though now (as of Sept. 15th) there's Walmart+, a replacement for Walmart Grocery and Walmart.com (combines the two sides of the store into one for online ordering purposes) so as a current member I should rollover/"upgrade". So I can order stuff I normally have to get off Amazon or eBay on Walmart+ - IF they a) have it in stock and b) have a breathing, masked driver to send me. YIPPEE
*Which reminds me, given my prior activism and ongoing angst at how anyone over the age of "young" - myself included*** - gets treated by so many, I might be the best thing to happen to ageism, ever. I could start thinking about that once my AARP card's in the mail (not soon, though maybe soonish!).
**Not to mention they've cancelled my orders twice since I signed up. They don't automatically ask you to re-order, either - you just have to start all over again.
***I've always liked the Olds a lot more than I don't, so don't even think it's because I have "mistreatment by society" in common with the elderly now - that part of it's just pissing me off even more. But the cut-off age for being "old" is like 30 these days, so I can't say I didn't have a good run.
**** Worst sub ever, I mean ALL-TIME WORST? Ordered two digital thermometers. They sent me a box of thermometer covers. I just can't even, sometimes.
Trump gives CDC broad authority to stop evictions during pandemic
The AARP gives a breakdown of who the moratorium covers and how to use it to protect yourself from eviction, while The Hill says to expect many legal challenges to the CDC order, which you can read about on the Federal Register.
See also: Pelosi, Schumer Statement on Urgent Need for Rental Assistance. *side eyes letter* This is not much of a letter - where's the rest of it? Did they hide it somewhere? I've written more about the needs of renters during a tanking economy and pandemic on my DW, maybe*?
*I could go off into a looong segue on why the wording bothers me. Short version: The Republicans *know* they're at fault for tens of millions of Americans risking losing their homes, they know anyone with a brain knows it, and they know what they need to do, yet they won't do it because they've got their base completely, utterly misinformed and feeling just bilious over us at this point, and that's all that matters. Not people, including their own supporters, who they honestly don't give a rat's ass about as long as they keep voting R, losing their only homes.
So the wording amounts to grandstanding as it sets up an us/them conflict which is a) tired and b) old. I could get an us/them conflict from the comment sections of literally any politically oriented web page on Earth. Isn't there a better way to get the Rs to act on useful legislation? If not, why word the letter like this - just to say you tried to do something?
So I wanted to share this for our edification - especially conuly's and dreamshark's, as it's been a topic of interest in and around our circles.
Main takeaways: 1) the cytokine storm might not even exist as an effect of COVID-19 or might be secondary/much rarer at best and 2) this explains how all the weird symptoms might connect.
As opposed to Kitchen Laptop, is up and running now, as nothing after the Toshiba Satellite which I finally parted out was up to even light kitchen use - this was too slow, this was too slow, and the Dell All In One I came across later (described under lock, probably because I mixed posts on it with personal stuff, so) was no speed demon, either.
Earlier this year I also lucked into a no-name tower with a Gigabyte i3 dual core motherboard. Got it long enough ago I don't recall what the case had in it to begin with besides the CPU - if anything - but it has an HDD and 20GB of RAM now (maxes out at 32GB).
Checked spare desktop RAM but it's all DDR4 while the motherboard can take only up to DDR3.
The tower's not quite as fast as my Elitebook 840 (1st gen w/touch) or Other Person's Surface tablet (1st gen.) buuuut it's pretty damn close. Nice external AC spec wifi adapter hooked to it, too.
It's been in the bedroom since OP liked to use it at the desk in there but it's been months since he last touched it and having sold or parted out every other possibility I either had to buy another Kitchen Laptop or else take the tower downstairs.
I wanted to get rid of the bedroom desk/chair setup so once the tower was out those went to the curb. So much more room!
There's no room in the kitchen for the tower so it's on the bottom shelf of a baking rack that holds pots and pans which now takes up most of the space behind the breakfast bar, with the HP monitor sitting on the bread box in the kitchen and everything hooked up - speakers, printer, keyboard, mouse, etc.
Pretty nifty/pretty happy with it, overall. (For those following under lock the brief life the Dell All In One lived before moving on, the RAM in the tower wasn't compatible (original version of this post said it was because brain fart) - same speed, different form factor.)
Just randomly found this page after searching on how to reverse Dreamwidth's Previous and Next links. But about a dozen other things about text strings bother me besides how some of them are worded, like how they're placed, that they exist at all at least in some spots, and so on.
A list of text strings can't help to say, reverse the order of Previous and Next links, a thing I want to do because that's how it would make the most sense to me, but being able to change text I don't want (not the Profile text, though) just makes me giddy. How did I blog here for like 10 years and not know about this?
If you want to know about this, and actually do it, first you have to create a theme layer, then add the top part like so:
The first two lines are required, though you can name the theme however you want. I strongly encourage you not to name it "MM" unless those are your initials.
The last three lines are text strings I chose and how I modified them* from their original wording. You can add text strings you want from this page and modify them however you want, then click the Compile button.
*Example: set text_day_prev = "Prev"; and set text_day_next = "Next"; set the text strings for the Previous Day and Next Day links you see when clicking through from the Archive to a day's entries like so. In this example I'm changing those strings from Previous Day/Next Day to say Prev/Next.
ETA: after more digging came to find the partial text string list I linked to was probably taken from the full text strings list found here (features that missing Profile text string, which is also user-changeable in the Wizard).
For the last few months - I don't know since which Firefox update as I thought it was some add-on bungling things so never checked, eBay's been displaying incorrectly for me in Firefox. Like this:
Pic above shows text-only, broken eBay missing all images and pictures.
Being me, as some of you might know, I've run it all down trying to get at what's wrong.
Multiple times over the last weeks I've disabled add-ons one at a time, then all at once, removed add-ons one at a time, then all at once, restarted in Safe Mode, removed Firefox altogether and deleted leftover files, folders, and reg entries then re-installed Firefox and added add-ons back one at a time testing to see when/if eBay would break (usually not until after the first browser restart, which isn't exactly helpful info for an end user), gone though about:config settings, fiddled with some options.
Figured despite Mozilla's strictness with how add-ons install and run these days (a vast oversimplification of a still-contentious issue) some add-on(s) simply must have corrupted something *shrug*
Though given how Mozilla's all THOU SHALT NOT with all the add-ons these days, that seems unlikely.
As casual as my *shrug* might sound like any bug it's basically driven me insane as I wasn't able to resolve or work around it. Tonight I'm in a particularly crappy mood as all I've done for seemingly ever now (weeks) is try to track things down all-around so I figured fine, why not one more useless jump down a rabbit hole, let's try to track this issue down.
First promising search result soon turned hopeless - the problem the first user had wasn't quite the same, none of the solutions offered changed anything for me, then ditto the next person with a problem, though his screencap looked closer to what I was seeing on my end. Then bmbguy jumped in with exactly the same issue and hallelujah, what he came up with was my answer.
Tracking protection is for sure for sure breaking eBay page display, as turning it off automatically reloads the page just as it should look. So I think the sensible thing to do if I had the know-how or energy, which I don't, would be to a) see if someone's filed a Mozilla bug on this and b) if not, file one. I've never filed before and don't even know if normal people, like users, can? But, yeah.
ETA soon after: just checked and turns out I've had Strict Tracking Protection turned on in Options, though like some users on that thread, not sure how mine got that way, either. Checking about:config for the flag another user mentioned, my privacy.annotate_channels.strict_list.enabled also remains set to false. Changing Tracking Protection to Standard doesn't seem to re-introduce the problem, but we'll see.
ETA 2, a little later: with Standard Protection enabled on browser restart the problem returned. privacy.annotate_channels.strict_list.enabled is still auto-set to false, and flipping it to true certainly sounds like it won't fix much (I could try! *sigh*).
ETA 3, a few minutes later: another restart and with tracking set to Standard eBay again seems fine. Thinking maybe the display got tossed around changing from Strict to Standard in one of my last sessions, so I guess Standard it is for now. I can't say why I'd prefer Strict so not sure I'd want to keep protection that high, anyhow.
Which means I'll have to globally disable Tracking Protection altogether to use eBay in Firefox (haven't been able to for months). Editing to add: not sure what to do about that until a few more restarts to make sure eBay doesn't implode while set to Standard.
Looking through the thread above someone says the tracking lists won't get updated until version 80, which they seem to imply might fix this issue? I'm on 80.0.1 as I write this, and don't know what the lists have to do with this, anyhow.
I took for granted how good it was. It drove daily commerce, propelled the economy, enabled remote medical care, and allowed for voting, just for starters. It's terrifying to consider what can or cannot happen or can happen only slowly, at exorbitant rates that price out most of us, without it.
Unlike everything from taxes to - bizarrely enough - the ins and outs of how to deal with the coronavirus, the Post Office is no left or right issue, despite the politico right politicizing it, as we all need and use it.
And by that I mean FUCK the 1% or 2% of the rich and insulated enough who can seemingly blow off the USPS. The rest of us? Will be politically, economically, even medically maimed without it, as will our economy - and as goes our economy goes everything from the stock market to the GDP.
The effects of the coronavirus on our economy won't last forever. The effects of kneecapping the Post Office, if said brutalization lasts long enough, will. You try to find a workaround that will do all the USPS does at the same or lower rates for just as many people and businesses - I'll wait.
Yes, wait while people are disenfranchised from the vote, while they die without the meds they need, wait as long for an eBay package as I do for an ePacket from China (*waves* - I'm actually going through this atm over a fairly important if not essential item), wait for even First Class and Priority mail to take an atrociously long time, wait while online sellers and those who run their businesses somewhat or entirely through mail go down over swamps of delays and missing packages. I'll wait while the economy waits, and so will you.
To make toast of Trump's implied argument - since he's seemingly too passive-aggressive to outright state it, Democrats do NOT enjoy any advantage in voting by mail over Republicans. The numbers come out about the same for either side.
To make toast of his stated argument, that mail-in voting allows for voter fraud, nope, sure doesn't.
So when he suppresses mail-in voting by kneecapping the Post Office he suppresses YOU - whether you vote Dem, Rep, Indie, Green Party, Green Men On Mars, Green Day, a write-in for your neighbor's cat - which hurts ALL of us and denies suffrage to EVERY LAST VOTER IN THE US.
Please be clear on this - the future of our country depends on it.
As indeed I put up a 50 state chart last month to track actions taken, not taken or rescinded, then forgot to mention I'll be using that chart instead of posting future updates, which I didn't know at the time is what I'd be doing, not until I realized my latest, non-existent update was 10+ days late.
Florida's still under moratorium through August, fwiw. You can check for your state's eviction and/or mortgage moratorium status here.
For those thinking, "Trump saved us from eviction with his executive order OUR HERO" uh, no he didn't. It was no executive order, just some memorandum, and it doesn't "save" us, it just says saving people from eviction should be considered. Considering it's great. Let's consider it, that'll do the trick.
"But he saved the unemployment bonus" you add. Uh, no he didn't**. If he can legally do so at all it'll take months and leave you with maximum $300-400 a week in "bonus" benefits, not the $600 you got before.
"Well unemployment's down so so what?" you might (rather questionably) come back at me with. Partially so - but still it's pretty bad: actual figure's over 1.1 million freshly unemployed amid a slowing recovery.
"At least SNAP enrollment's been expanded so we won't go hungry", you might snap, growing increasingly frustrated. Uh, no it isn't. Time to shout HA! JUST SOME FAKE VIRUS. Formerly eased and expanded enrollment to collect the maximum amount ends this month.
"Fine: guess there'll be tens of millions of mass evictions, just as many or more hungry, unemployment'll be inadequate and maybe the job market's a little soft over this FAKE VIRUS but OUR HERO's getting free health care for ALL of us!" Uh, no he isn't, he's just messin' with your heads. He fake-promises in the dim hope he'll get re-elected via any means besides kneecapping the Post Office...good luck with that.
"But he's gonna stimul-us again, you wait and see!" you say but uh...no he ISN'T? Really, he's not. He can't without congressional approval and the Senate's out of town 'til mid-September - so when does the story-telling end?
Even I, former queen and absolute adorer of hyperbole, am stunned by how far it goes.
Do the research, THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE. And it's coming right for your QAnon-lovin' Pizzagate-collectin' Post Office kneecappin'* selves like it or not so yeah, you MIGHT wanna change "pill colors" or go down with the ship
*I'm rather happy that under lock I used Obama's exact term in the form of "kneecapping" to describe what's happening to the post office - and not just once but multiple times in the days before Obama said so himself
**Now I'm thinking instead of ONTD ("Oh, no they didn't", the LJ community) someone should start UNHD ("Uh, no he didn't") because fuck
Taking the rings off their faucets? It's what I do when my beautiful hair has to be perfect there's some low-flow crap going on. They've been off our kitchen and bathroom sinks for over four years now because I can't deal with dinky water pressure, may the Florida aquifer forgive me.
While removing them hasn't resulted in say, fire hose or even garden hose water pressure, it's resulted in a lot more (some apartments around here actually achieve somewhere between the two hose pressures when similarly modified, which I find a bit overwhelming).
Shower head low flow is a harder problem to solve but this is where I hate to say sediment might be your friend - the less you clean that sucker the harder the water's going to hit and the more pressure-y it's gonna feel. I didn't suggest this.
Low toilet flow might be solved through manual methods as well though I'm not sure how. Also not sure if our toilet's out of regulation but it uses what looks like 100 gallons (or erm, at least 5-6) gallons per flush so it's kind of a moot point here.
I've seen very low flow toilets with tremendously powerful flushes to force things down, which a) works, even if it's loud enough to scare the crap out of...did I just pun like that and b) is brilliant.
I found another HP - this time an HP 15 laptop with charging cable in nearly perfect condition, so Kitchen Laptop's BACK, hooked to my HP external monitor for dual display, as luck (and another curbside!) would have it.
The G6 got me, though, so is being set aside for future messing with. Quad core beats the HP 15's dual core and it's just a better laptop all-around so while I probably won't turn it into Kitchen Laptop, as the 15's serving my purposes and the G6 needs too much repair to be worthwhile, I still want to get Win 10 on it to see what it's got.
From discussions last week/over the weekend on here and with Other Person it seems you need an attached, working laptop screen to see BIOS. Without one, one must wait for the computer to boot into an operating system as only it can find secondary monitors, not BIOS itself.
Soooo the best workarounds afaik seem to be darkoshi's magnet idea and OP's pull the screen cable idea.
Both of us are tied up this week, though, and I'll be busy possibly through next week/clear into September as most leases go up in August so I might not be able to say how this turns out (or even have the time or energy to make it "turn out" some way) for a while.
Which borked my comment forms on a day I knew I'd have comments coming in on a post from the night before - my apologies to anyone who had to deal with or simply turned away from the extra-wonkiness. It was soooooo EXTRA.
Quick reply wasn't bad before fixing it tonight only because I joined the Page Components Beta before code push and quick reply Beta code just made more sense to begin with. So I went after whatever I could fix and had most of it knocked out by the end of April.
Two things, though, re:longform comment forms (the ones you see after clicking More Options from quick reply or if replying while logged out), one of which I couldn't push my own CSS fixes for until now:
(OK, so I haven't more than glanced at replies to the code push post and can see how things got messed up for at least few people. I'm not one of them, afaik and don't want any spoilers, so let me read the replies before I circle back to that. Perhaps I'll find I *do* have a few of those issues, as well, or maybe I'll be like WHEW BOY and just shake my head a lot, because I'm not having them but feel for whomever does.)
Lastly, the April 30th style sheet I installed tonight doesn't include edits I've since made to other parts of my journal (or to the entire journal) so the Internet Exploder 11 crowd's prolly all like WTF! as I basically only started supporting them two months ago after years of thumbing my nose and there are a few other glitchy things, as well (damn flash-on-page-load, which I happily whacked out of existence in my last pre-code push edits).
There are a few things (like "damn flash-on-page-load") that I can and will fix tonight (ETA, 7-27-20: Would've - but I lost my edits. Thought they were on Pastebin and/or up in OneDrive. They're not - but Notepad++ still shows the names of each edited style sheet, then tells me it can't find them, and after checking my computer it seems they're indeed GONE. Will have to recall how I fixed it all* last time. Hmmmm).
For the rest I'll have to run page diff on my old and new styles and kludge the fixes back in, probably over the weekend and/or by next week or so.
*bows* And that's it! Thanks for attending my TED Talk on CSS Code Kludging - 'til next time.
*7-27-20 after posting ETA: OK, the IE breakage is from camel-backing/shorthanding. Recalled that without re-reading what I wrote. The fix for flash on page load's escaping me as it was one of my "Let's throw things and see what sticks to the wall" fever dreams that just happened to come true. Wish I'd posted that. I can't freeze flash on page load to fix it, only somehow last time I fixed it I did, so now I just need to recall how.
ETA 7-29: Checked IE 11 again since posting this and see ALL the comment forms have blown up, probably due to backend code changing as much as it has since Beta, and that it needs other help besides. I have to work this week possibly into next and beyond so I'll get to it when I can.
Lose Chatty Cathy, Simple Simon and their cohort and then maybe we'll talk?
(And you'll know when I see the first reply that says, "But it's not the same!" even before I unscreen it as I'll side eye this page so hard it'll dissolve.)
So I found this laptop earlier tonight. I've been taking long naps the last several days so haven't been getting out to walk until late. I couldn't see this one in the near-dark so just tucked it and its charger under my arm and off we went.
I'd been thinking a few hours before I found it that I need a replacement for Kitchen Laptop, which got stripped for parts and sent to the curb last winter after it got dead pixel pox, which started off as a few black dots then spread until it looked like a streak of black marker across the lower right-hand screen. Eventually it grew to such proportions I couldn't see some of the screen properly at all.
It was an ancient (2010?) Toshiba Satellite from an apartment clean-out that came to me with a dead trackpad and separating hinges and was slow as hell with every component maxed out by me for speed and size so it had to go. Once I have to fight a laptop just to say, type something up, I'm done.
I could make out this laptop was an HP even in the near dark as I'm obsessed with them. Upon getting it home I saw it had not just one but two busted hinges and what looks like damage from someone prying the top of the laptop around the keyboard off - I mean it looks like they took a flat-head screwdriver to it and went to town. It's twisted up and off on the left-hand side so it's hard to think it could be anything else but a straight-up attack.
I *do* find a lot of this both in my work and my travels: the revenge laptop, the revenge phone, the revenge flat-screen TV. I usually just salvage what I can for parts. ;/
This laptop kinda got me, though: it has stickers along the top that tell me the person who owned it had it for a while and liked it. So I plugged it in and turned it on. Everything on it lit right up but I could see the screen was dead. Hooked an external monitor up via SVG (an HP, of course!) and the display came right up, showing a Windows 8 welcome screen.
The keyboard works fine, despite being part of what got twisted/yanked/pried off. The OS is a disaster, though: from all the "alerts" that keep popping up it's likely infested with something and I dunno know what Curse Client is...*googles; hmmmm* but it sends up more dialog boxes than Windows 7 trying to force-install Windows 10 so out came my USB stick to do just that (via clean install).
The thing is, I couldn't - BIOS won't come up. The laptop isn't set to boot from USB or it would've when I put my USB stick in and restarted***, so...
On a G6 to change boot options you have to hit Escape for Startup and/or F10 for BIOS. I tried both on multiple restarts - and from a few cold boots - but hitting either makes it so the external monitor won't come on, like "ever", while the CPU fan whirs as though the laptop's about to overheat (which makes the laptop feel "warmish-hot", though not alarmingly so).
To test it's "hitting any button at all" that causes the dead screen/fan whir issues I alternated trying to get into BIOS with booting straight into Windows (hit no keys) and that went fine. It takes this laptop a good minute to find its own ass the external monitor and send a picture but other than that it boots up normally with no fan whir.
Anyone have an idea what might be going on*?
If I can't figure it out I'll probably** just part the laptop out like any typical revenge hardware. It's got 6GB of I don't know yet what type of RAM, a one terabyte hard drive (likely not SSD) and a quad core AMD Athlon CPU with Radeon graphics, and since the entire laptop (besides the screen) seems to work just fine the parts might be worth something.
*Possible scenarios: a) it's in kiosk mode (though unlikely as nothing but BIOS seems locked down or missing), b) it's got a malware-infested BIOS (hmmm, never ran across this in the wild and I've handled a lot of computers, so if it's that then I don't even know).
** Possible workarounds: a) it has an untested CD-ROM or DVD drive; I have a Win 10 DVD that might be too scratched up to use. b) PREVIOUSLY AT CHEZ MM I've had luck installing Win 10 from the desktop via USB or DVD. c) I've also had luck swapping hard drives. I have at least one spare with Win 10 fully installed. Sometimes you can just remove the unwanted hard drive, put in the next and watch Windows do some magic-wand waving.
And any of these options (assuming at least one works) can bypass the need to change boot options in BIOS - but that doesn't solve the problem of why I can't get into BIOS to change them in the first place.
***The USB port I used *does* work, as Windows asks me what to do with the files as soon I put it in.
We were all wringing our hands because the worst thing we could think of was how climate change would end the world by 2030? Yeah, me too.
Surgical masks*, which I buy in packs of 50 whenever I have an "extra" couple (dozen) dollars as this "pandemic" (needs a better name: PERMANENT PLAGUE, anyone?) will never end between the deliberately failed federal response, patchy state-by-state response, Ron DeCovidis deciding FLORIDUH's NEVER CLOSING WHEE BACK TO SCHOOL GO EAT OUT AND CATCH A MOVIE SEE YA AT CHURCH! and the possibility we can re-catch the damn thing once we've got it.
Was that a run-on sentence? *takes a breath...I mean, I'm not *mad* or anything*...*breaks things*
The problem with surgical masks for me are a) mainly, they're too big, so they hide my face from my chin clear up through my eyelashes. I mean, I have to pull them out of my eyelashes (natural, unmade-up lashes that just happen to be long). It's like I expect them to be smaller than they are (I don't know why as I've never worn masks before), so I'm permanently locked in Battle of the Eyelashes since each mask grabs for them.
Next thing that happens if I wear one more than a few minutes is b) it doesn't gap, which I think is the problem most people have - it slides down my face. I wind up repeatedly touching it with probably less than clean hands or gloves to pull it back up over my nose which I think is kind of gross.
And lastly, I live in FLORIDUH where it's approximately 900 degrees with 800% relative humidity and has been for weeks; no end in sight, so when I wear a mask outdoors for more than a few minutes c) it fills up with sweat like a little fucking jock cup only for my face, which accumulates more sweat than I knew could come off faces.
Does anyone have their own favorite personal hacks for like, dealing with any of this? Or short of that, just any idea? I have approximately 75 masks left so don't want to waste them. I know given all the cons it's still better to wear a mask than not but between "too big", "too slide-y", and "sweat trap" they're really trying my fucking patience.
*Rectangular pleated paper with bendy nose wire which I pinch into place. I don't know if they're sized or one-size-fits-all as they're downstairs and I'm upstairs and I'm not moving. Will check next time I'm nearby.
They *do* fit around my chin rather well - likely why they catch so much sweat (I take them off and they're dripping like I ran under a garden hose). It's the rest of the mask that's causing the fit problems.
While I'm busy not posting everything I ought to I'll post whatever I'd like to post most.
If you haven't seen the LOL version, you haven't LOLed.
mooncustafer posted this one (after she "made it" herself). Never gets old.
Is curious indeed.
So as told yesterday under lock I'm trying to buy a thermometer. Currently checking out Amazon and noticing most thermometers have a three and half star rating. Then saw this one with a perfect five stars. Started reading reviews to find out what makes this thermometer so special. After sorting by Most Recent I want confirmation I'm not seeing things. Am I?
"Ordered the fruit flavor by mistake, but the flavor is good. The packaging is excellent. All four boxes wrapped and sealed. Speedy delivery. This is the best and cheapest nicotine gum. Dispenses easy through foil."
"I have 12 pieces of gum in my mouth and a nicotine high that gives drinking 5 Long Island Ice Teas a run for the money!* J/K! This is the best value for the money in the world of Nicotine Gum! Been using this stuff for WAY longer than it says to with no ill effects. Other than my tongue feeling rougher than an alley cats tongue and most of my hair falling out, it's great! J/K Again! lol. It holds it's flavor much longer than other brands and with 384 pieces, your per-item cost is very low. I recommend it!"
"It removed my headache within 30min after i take these pills."
There are reviews for...a digital thermometer, as well, though it's hard to say which one by looking at Most Recent reviews.
Being a bit web-geeky I'd assume the URL used to point to a nicotine gum product but now points to this digital thermometer, but if that's so the older reviews should be for the gum, not the more recent ones. Is the seller somehow gaming the system? What could be going on? Is it still a perfect five-star rating with the nicotine gum reviews removed?
ETA, 7-7-20: darkoshi finds my hunch to be on-track with a BuzzFeed article to back it up. He adds: "If you sort the reviews by date, they're less jumbled. There are still some that seem out of order, but maybe that's because some people left reviews for the older items after the seller had already switched the listing page to a different item." Aha!
*Dang y'all, now I want to try this gum. Except I have no idea how to find it as the review's on the wrong page.
extended. Once again. Our governor refused to answer questions on whether he'd do so only to sign off on it just hours before the last extension was set to expire.
You know the property manager where I'm at is lovin' it a bear again, after being in one of the best moods of his life just days ago. It's so unusual to see him happy it's like getting to know him all over again. I might prefer the gravitas of his more somber moods, as I've seen more of those than any other, and "Happy because he's getting ready to play Darth Vader again" has never exactly agreed with me on principle.
This ad for the "Murphy Ladder" Might be the Best Commercial in Existence.
And I might agree.
The protests? Great. Renaming places and things to remove racist names, racist's names and/or racist terminology? Great. Tearing down racist's statues? Great. Educating ourselves about structural, implicit and intersectional racism and bias, realizing that not waking up a POC or other minority on top of everything else every day is one problem even the worst-off whites suffering all manner of poverty-stricken and/or hopeless situations will NEVER have? Great.
What else? What else has been in the plus column lately?
How about Congress? The House? The Senate? Where are these people we elected to office to serve our needs and desires saying, "Yes, we will dismantle this racist construct that is the police and put in place something more beneficial. Yes, we will shore up society structurally from bottom to top, lift those sinking low to higher ground, provide more than bon mots to those in need, serve the people who elected us instead of just uh, mainly "ourselves"?"
Where are these Congresscritters? *crickets* Which is why I'm over Nancy Pelosi. Don't get me wrong, when she began trolling Trump back in what, 2018? I realized she's kinda great. I'll always admire her, not just for standing up to him but for doing so in ways that to this day he's never had any comeback to.
But where is she, Madame leader of our House, saying the above, standing up for us? Where the fuck is she? Oh, thinking it's an election year so she'd better keep quiet, is that it? No: I'm done, done, done, done. I'm sorry that the best we've got on the Dem side from high to low is a mealy-mouthed lot, that no one stands up for their - and yes, that is, or should be "our" - principles.
It's a shame: I gotta vote in November. And I gotta vote for this: haters and/or magical thinkers on one side, weasels afraid of their own shadows on the other. If they represented Punxsutawney Phil it would always be winter. I'm almost tempted to become a Democratic Socialist. They're the closet to getting it right, though I prefer Europe's version, Socialist Democrats, entirely.
Way behind on DW. In the last few weeks I've started to sleep at night, like one does. I hate it hate it hate it - might ruin it by posting this and whatever else I post. Been working, working, working besides.
Reverse chronological on the first set with racism as the theme. First set is what I've emailed myself; last is bookmarks. Tons more BLM and racism-themed articles to sort through so might make updates to this or new TLPs as needed.
From bookmarks:
Since I cannot stop Bowie (my cat) from jumping my keyboard I've come to conclude he has something very important to tell us, which he expresses by standing on my keyboard until Quick Search triggers in Firefox, resulting in a lot of typing. This has been going on for about a week now.
Tonight's masterpiece (though he might still add more) is:
ebc vvvvvvvvvvvvvv766666666666666yum,kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk0;/.
Anyone care to interpret?
(Also, nice use of end-emoticon there, isn't it? He might be much smarter than I thought.)
Then don't start your description of George Floyd off with "large" and "drunken" as though the latter descriptor is established fact - or even matters - then add, also as if you know for a fact - not that it matters, either - that the $20 bill Mr. Floyd presented to buy groceries for his family was "counterfeit", then go off purely conjecturing how the "drunken" (again!) victim apparently caused his own death by "thrashing", which as we all know makes police officers drag "large" "drunken" people out of their vehicles and compress their airways until they die.
How about "Because he was black"? Hmmmmm?
While I've got my critic's hat on anyhow, especially don't tell others you're disabling comments because you're not trying to start a discussion. Because you just fucking did. I knew the above tidbits were coming just by the "comments disabled" talk leading up.
I could go on about other reprehensible aspects of the post such as: his conclusions, all stated as fact, that Mr. Floyd died of "the treatment" (is that what they call "murder" these days?) only because of a heart condition, when the family's autopsy found no evidence of heart disease and how the charges against Mr. Floyd's killers were "upgraded" to "calm down protests" (you get a sense of who he must think "protestors" are) and his outlandish beratement of them for not wearing masks, when almost all protestors I saw on video did - it was rioters (that is, mostly police attacking protestors and journalists, and white people who weren't protesting but starting trouble to pin on protestors) who didn't.
But nah, that's probably enough of me griping for now.
