Author: sean

Trying to tick off some of the buzzwords I’m hearing a lot lately.

We don’t know what the hell we’re doing, but we’re going to do it faster with less concern for design and cost. It’ll totally work.

Why am I reminded of the Raiders circa 2004?

Because that’s where my scarred brain goes. What can I do?

But things still aren’t fixed with my main work. At every turn, there’s another reason not to light things off.

The ancient nature of it all makes that less of a concern, but it’s still something that is bang-your-head-on-the-desk bothersome.

I’m getting to the point where I’m gaining enough insight to offer alternatives.

Naturally, that evokes the we’ve-been-doing-this-a-long-time. response.

You know, if you’re behaving that way with your own money, whatever. When you’re doing it with other people’s money, that’s a different story. Even more so when it’s money that’s been stolen from othersderived from taxes.

But I return to my tried-and-true suspicion — that something simple is usually the correct approach.

The simple solution will work well for a while. Then, maybe, the reasons you rejected something in the past disappear, and there’s something better to replace things.

So says the dude who’s spent a lot more time than he should trying to get Mailman2 to compile and run from pkgsrc.

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What else from the week?

State of the Union spech.

I watched. Unimpressed. Same with the response.

*wanders off to look to see if I wrote about the last really-unhinged similar speech from 2009*

Nope. Nothing.

Take-aways from Joey Bideness’s address:

• January 6^th was the worst thing ever
• Let’s pass the John Lewis voting bill that’ll make it impossible for anyone not anointed by the Party of Bull Connor to win
• Joining a union will make your life better, and fix every problem you have
• Orange Man Bad
• The economy is awesome
• Companies are greedy
• Orange Man Really Bad
• Building a port in Gaza for humanitarian aid
• The immigration bill that didn’t get drafted until a few months ago would have prevented the problems caused by the excisemen of the polices from Orange Man Gad in January 2021

Katie Britt’s response

• Joey Bideness is bad
• Laken Riley
• Teach your kids to Roll Tide

Nobody’s going to fix things, and will probably make things worse.

I just don’t want to participate with anything. With the folks from Auburn flirting with RFK Jr. again, more, that’ll eliminate him has the least-worst option for me in November.

Screw you guys, I’m goin’ home.

Autocomplete suggested that I title this “Rainy Saturday Morning.” I suspect that I wrote that sometime in the past, but I’m a little too lazy to go check. Maybe after I write.

With football gone, I’ve been paying a bit more attention to news. This week’s been a doozy.

Going kind of revers-follow order, what is going on in Moldova? Just something I stumbled across looking at “Trending” on TwitterX. (The people really incensed about dead-naming never say anything when it’s done to a website; why is that?) Romania is a NATO and EU country. Moldova is the latter, and actually looks like it’d be a good fit for the former, so that means Russia should take it. Um.

*glances over to see that WordPress is warning me about my colors being difficult to read. What? I’d be writing this in EMACS if there was a good way to do that, and only use your editor because it’s convenient. By the way, it’d be really helpful if there was a way to set to open new links in tabs so I don’t have to click on them twice. Kthxbai*

But it looks like the Moldovans have been trying to integrate themselves into a modern Europe. You know, a place that respects the human rights as enumerated by Locke.

But, like, see, my Uber drive once told me that there was this agreement between Gorbachev and Bush 41 saying after German reunification, there’d be no eastward advance of NATO. I mean, the guy who explained that there wasn’t genocide in either Cambodia or Bosnia said it happened, so it happened.

Along those lines, also tailing the Steve Baker and Catherine Herridge stories.

Whether or not you appreciate their reporting, there’s absolutely a right to report whatever. And withhold your sources.

Where you think those rights come from is entirely up to you. At one time, the enlightened world at least agreed on those rights.

Today, on the other hand, the only fundamental human right is to have a vote automatically tallied for you as being for one particular political party.

I should fill out my absentee ballot, even though it’ll make absolutely no difference where I live.

I also have been following, from a distance, the stuff going on with the cases surrounding President Trump. Especially what’s going on in Fulton County, Georgia.

The merits of the case, as with most racketeering cases, seem very weak to me. I understand that Rudy Giuliani made a name for himself using similar Federal statutes against the New York Mafia families, but were things really better in New York because a bunch of well-dressed guys ended up slicing the garlic so thin you could see through it?

Or was it because of other things?

But back to Fani, I remember being a young dude working in broadcast, glancing at a young woman DJ who’d actually talk to me.

“Don’t shit where you eat.”

Of course, I knew the rules around sexual harassment. It was kind of everywhere in military education following Tailhook.

But, even without the power dynamics, it’s generally a good idea not to even consider anyone you work with.

The perils outweigh any possible benefits.

Thinking more about what I’d written this weekend along with the problems I’m facing at work.

You need an expert to do whatever.

But that brought me back to what was perhaps my first ever certification, the Red Cross babysitter certification.

I had to have that to charge to babysit kids on post. On Carl Schurz Kaserne in Bremerhaven.

Out on a date with my girlfriend (she is forever my girlfriend, even if I did put a ring on it…), I demonstrated folding a cloth diaper.

Who needs to do that anymore?

But that was a part of the certification. So I learned it, and it stuck. That unused extra napkin meant for the ribs I’d ordered, served as a representation of a cloth diaper.

I remembered hot to fold it. And secure it.

What use is that today? Even, almost twenty years ago, it wouldn’t have increased my chances of reproducing. (Though I really nixed that by determining she and I would form Butters?)

What use was that during the Bush 41 Administration?

I’ve also learned how to set engine timing using a timing light, and change carburetor jets. What use is that in 2024?

.

You figure it out.

I really don’t like comparisons to cooking or cars (as he says with Chapped running in a background windows), but I also learned how to run a timing light, and how to gap ignitions points.

Does that make me a competent source for auto Maintenace?

Things change; get over it. Still, there’s things that stand the test of time.

Even if there was a way to buy something that cleared those, I don’t care.

Didn’t write yesterday because, as I said in my sign-off Friday, I was livid about a work situation.

First, if you schedule a meeting for 1500 on a Friday afternoon, you’re an asshole. Second, my general attitude towards meetings was very much in play. You need to publish an attendee list, take then publish minutes. If you don’t do that, you’re wasting the time of all but about the five most-active participants.

Unfortunately, I was one of those five most-active on something I hadn’t really been following all that closely.

The solution isn’t that difficult, but you have to know what you’re doing, and why you’re doing it.

Lots of thoughts this week about how there’s so little appreciation of things that don’t last.

Figure out what’s the problem you, and your team, are trying to solve. Solve the problem. Leave. None of the particulars about how you fixed the problem are important.

And they shouldn’t persist.

Though I was never even an adequate programmer, I’d understand that you don’t import libraries that you’re not going to use, then leave them around forever.

Oh, look! There’s a smaller library that’ll allow you to do what you were trying to do more efficiently. Nawp. Can’t use that. We use this library. There’s no other way to do it. Further, still, we don’t have the slightest clue about what we’re actually trying to do. Nope. We use this tool.

*headdesk*

Imagine refusing to use a toilet if the toilet wasn’t the manufacturer you prefer. Or if the toilet paper was different.

But that’s where things are so often in big IT.

We have to buy this expensive stuff. There is no alternative. Here’s an old document that says you have to use the expensive stuff.

To. Do. What?

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Somewhat-related, I suppose. The Marines passed their audit. The RON PAUL chorus will say about as much about that as they’ll say about the rallies in support of Ukraine yesterday.

But their foreign policy experts, who you can see if you take an Uber in Austin, said Russia was going to win quickly after they weren’t going to invade.

Um.

I still haven’t filled out my ballot so I can vote in my heavily-gerrymandered district against someone in the uniparty.

It’s really not that big of a concern, I guess.

.

Trump won South Carolina. Bigly. So another election where there’s nobody I’d even consider voting for.

Rambling. Time for coffee.

I was listening to this today.

I did post some response there, but it’s another example of something that goes to what I’ve been on for a long time.

If you don’t like me, great. Please calmly let me know, and I’ll just go somewhere else.

When I say, “you can leave,” I do take that advice, myself. If you’re firing employees for something as innocuous as refusing to be physically attracted to a member of the same biological ses, again, please just be up front with that so I can not give you any of my money.

Along the same lines, you can refuse to do business with places that do what you think are the wrong things. For an example of a place trying to do the right thing, look here. For one who didn’t, there was this.

In both circumstances, the owners should have:

1. Apologized
2. Fired the staff who caused the issue

You don’t have a right to a job. If you refuse to work, that’s fine. You quit.

Callback to the late, great Lewis Grizzard.

Kinda fits with what I’ve been listening to, today, surrounding Rachel Dolezal, as well as somewhat came out during the Fani Willis disqualification hearing.

Call me a prude; I don’t care.

There’s things about you that you should keep to yourself Nobody needs to know how you look, what your sexual proclivities are. I really don’t want to know about your personal activities.

If that makes me a prude, whatever.

If I’m lucky enough to see your normally-covered bits, or know about your sexual habits, it’s because you find me special enough to share that with me. If I accidentally catch a glimpse of something that you haven’t willingly shared with me, privately and personally, I’m not going to obsess over it.

it’s Saturday, so that’s when I write.

Yesterday, I went an had MRIs following the medication switch over the summer. I really don’t know if there’s been any progression. The Keysimpta was brutal on the first half-dose, but i barely notice it now. This last one made me feel kinda lousy, but that might have been due to something else.

We we’ll see. I need to work getting the CDs sent off to my docs for review, though I did put them up on one of my VPSes so they could download.

We’ll see how that goes.

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And figured out what the issue I’m seeing with one of my VPSes is. Pfft.

I hate BIND Sofa King much

But that was actually an issue with the domain registrar. Why they switched the nameserver records again is beyond me.

Hopefully it’ll get straightened out soon.

Why I’m continuing to do all of this myself is a really good question. Kind of speaks to where I am with so many things in life.

What is the value of the time that I’d spend doing these things?

I just don’t know.

At one point, I think I enjoyed this stuff. I’m not sure I do anymore.

What better could I be doing with that time? Um.

I’d probably listening to podcasts, and watching TV.

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As far as what I’ve consumed lately, following the end of the NFL season.

No OP Live tonight. The Shane Gillis SNL isn’t until next week.

Kind of caught up on Normal World. With company around, I stumbled across The Big Door Prize.

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And I’ve kind of lost the bubble on where I was going with this.

Listening to other coverage of a lot of the things brought up in the latest Fifth Column.

Navalny’s death probably ought to give Elon Musk more than a moment’s pause about Tucker Carlson.

Follow-ups to yesterday’s entry.

I get why everyone interviewed is upset. Suicide is horrible.

But there’s something big missing from what these amazingly-knowledgeable educators absolutely are missing.

.

.

These ardent academics blamed everything they could think of for these suicides. Except for the policies they fucking set that sent people into unnatural isolation.

I really haven’t felt myself needing additional human interaction, but I’m weird. I know that. I admit that.

I can go weeks at a time without face-to-face contact with others. When I was in college, much of my time was spent by myself.

I’d have one or two breaks an hour in the middle of the night. I’d listen to the stations’ programming in monitors while I was doing my college research, and writing papers.

But I’m fucking weird. Most people can’t do that. On my nights off work, about my only interaction would be with the clerk at 7-Eleven or the diner.

Whatever. I’m comfortable with that. Most people aren’t. Most people can’t deal with just being completely without seeing others smile more than a few times per week.

This doesn’t have anything to do with the lack of minority representation among your faculty. It’s not because of systemic racism.

You did this; this is your fault.

I’m sorry if saying that bothers you, but it’s the truth. There’s people, including more than a handful of your students, who are dead directly because of what you did.

But you’ve got lots of letters after your name, so you can’t be responsible for anything bad. You’re a good person, and you were only looking out for others protecting that from a virus that probably wasn’t going to kill them, or cause significate harm.

You did this. You are responsible. Admitting your culpability is the first step in not repeating the mistakes you make. You did make them. I know I did. I admit them.

Maybe if I’d been rich, healthy enough to buy more, I’d feel absolved.

I think my jaunt to the Gulf Coast in a few weeks is the only thing on my calendar to which I’m really looking forward.

Maybe I did reword that sentence because I was thinking of something.

Kind of distracted this week with an insane work week for both me, and my wife.

Focus kind of disrupted by news from my old boss, who I’d emailed with an odd story about a radio tower being stolen in Alabamastan, about the death of the co-owner of the radio stations where I’d worked pretty much through college, and for a souple of years after.

Lisa was always very nice to me, and I’m very sad she’s gone. The first time I went back to visit after I’d left for the wild world where I’ve been for almost twenty years, she saw me in the lobby, and excitedly waved me in to her office.

How do you like your new job?!

I really like the work I’m doing. Not very happy with the company, but doing interesting work.

Her (then newly-ex) husband chimed in wryly, “They’re missin’ payroll.”

Um.

Yep.

I don’t know that I’ve got a ton here about my travails that’d follow with that company. I’m not dissatisfied that last news I had about he company president, he was living with his daughter in San Diego after his hippy wife had left him.

No, I’m not going to withdraw the aspersion about her. No shit, he actually was making business decisions based on what her medium in Sedona had instructed.

All that said, I was able to gain some knowledge while dealing with that less-than-ideal situation. Hopefully it’s served me somewhat later in my work life.

Towards the end of my time with that company, I was cashing my paycheck at their bank, then driving to my nearest credit union an hour away to deposit the cash.

Travelling on a crowded Interstate with hundreds of dollars in your pocket is more than a little uncomfortable.

But I got through it all. While I have some ill-will, none of it is directed to the radio world I left in 2005.

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Listened to this during the first part of my writing.

I understand where Stockman is coming from, and generally agree with his analysis. I don’t agree that RFK Jr. is the answer.

Vote against the worst.

Looking at what’ll be on my ballot in November,

• Biden
• Trump
• RFK Jr.

Cornel West might well be on the ballot. The Libertarian Party likely won’t be because of the unmitigated disaster the Mises Caucus has unleashed.

Much like I would have if I was voting in the Nevada Republican primary, I’d probably vote “none of the Above.”

I should go try and prepare some for that big football game that shall not be named.

Don’t really care who wins. I’ve felt that way this entire playoff.