Views from Eagle Peak » Miscellany

Preliminary Verdict: Windows 7 Sucks

Jack — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 19:15:58 +0000

At least once a day, every day, Windows Explorer locks up. Not responding, “Windows is checking for a solution.” Of course it finds none. Click to close the task? Doesn’t work. Go to Task Manager to end the task–nope, won’t do it; it just hangs. The only solution, forced shutdown and reboot. Meanwhile, I keep puttering away. I will get to some other, more interesting stuff. Oh, and I forgot to mention–coding bloat. With 8 gigs of memory and no apps running, the PC is using as much as 20% of the memory. Fortunately the price of chips and hardware keeps going down; it has too, with each successive edition of Windows the amount of memory required to run the operating system grows and grows. Sloppy and incompetent! How does Microsoft maintain market share? Why hasn’t Linux or at least Apple taken over? Probably because most people don’t have either the inclination or the time to become geeks.

Upcoming Posts

Jack — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 22:30:29 +0000

A brief intermission while I set up a new computer. Upon my return, I will belatedly comment on the recent Norway bombing, the decline in rural population in America and will finally get to SGI President Daisaku Ikeda’s 2011 Peace Proposal. Later, an update on the progress (proceeding ponderously slowly) toward a dream home in New Mexico.

Still here

Jack — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 21:19:27 +0000

Yes, still here and still hacking away at the spam comments.

A road (too long to call it a driveway) is progressing nicely at the dream house site. Water line will go in next week, in the road. After that, the road can be surfaced. The local electric company, PNM, has staked their pole locations but power must await review and approval by corporate types in Albuquerque of the survey and easement agreements. We hope to have some site development and a foundation coming by September.

Coming blog topics: Airline/TSA zealous security–are we really any safer? What’s up with Johnson & Johnson–lost their PR mettle (and their consumer product market share after massive recalls (will Mylanta ever come back? Why no information after many months?)

Back in Blog Again

Jack — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 21:33:56 +0000

Last year we spent many months getting the old house ready to sell. Finally, after the first of the year, it went on the market and sold in 34 days. It looked like something on HGTV if I do say so myself. We moved in March and are settled in now for the duration of getting the dream house built. That will probably be 8 months from now. In the meantime, I should have time once again to devote to writing–including this blog.

First on the agenda, having upgraded to the most recent version of WordPress and updating the plugins, is getting rid of the enormous volume of spam that has accumulated here in my absence. That may take a few days, given the quantity. But I will plug away at it. Look for periodic updates on the house

Goodbye Snow

Jack — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 19:29:59 +0000

The yard is looking more grassy green than snowy white now. It’s been a long time coming in this record breaking winter not of discontent as much as surprise. I thought my house had been relocated to Buffalo, Erie or some other such place. The most snow in a season since recordkeeping began for Washington, DC. Also Baltimore and Philadelphia. It looked pretty for awhile but dingy later; like the snow in Minnesota does because once it falls it may remain for weeks up there. Something more pithy soon.

Flakes are falling

Jack — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 20:26:40 +0000

I really was going to get back to this blog sooner. Oh well. I could scarcely resist on this day. As the first snow of the season falls on the Northern Virginia area, other flakes fall as well. I refer to those exceptional narcissists named Salahi. Day after day, a new detail of their flaky self-aggrandizing efforts hits the news. While they may be a cut above (in refinement at least) the underwearless Paris Hilton or Lindsey Lohan, they more than make up for the shortfall in physical embarrassment by the scope of their scamming and scheming to get unwarranted attention.

As Arnold once said, I’ll be back

Jack — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 19:10:55 +0000

Not today, mind you, but soon. Not a sabbatical, but I have been out of the blogging loop. Reference back to my “Scrooged” post. The physical went fine, the spiritual went fine, but there was another dimension I didn’t expect. But I am now ready to roll again. More coming soon and regularly again.

The movie is TOO LOUD

Jack — Sat, 23 May 2009 18:42:00 +0000

OK, we are getting older. Still, objectively I think, the volume was louder. We went to see Angels and Demons yesterday in a local multiplex. The movie itself was fairly loud, while the previews were louder still. I found myself putting bits of tissue in my ears to muffle the sound. I used to go to rock concerts years ago; they were louder, of course. But movies were never this loud. I think there is an age gap here. After years of ear buds blasting MP3 tunes, car sound systems rattling windows and car frames or whatever else the youth of today use to stoke the music receptors, it seems that theaters must ramp up the amps. I am 62 now, still without hearing aids. Not to be too much of an old fogy, I will boldly predict hearing aids a great long term investment. I suspect they will be big sellers in 15 years or perhaps even less. Get in now on the ground floor and profit from the coming auditory impairments of young to middle-aged Americans.

Change

Jack — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:55:03 +0000

The Vermont House joined the state’s senate in overriding the governor’s bill making gay marriage legal in Vermont. The Iowa supreme court recently made gay marriage legal there. Numerous states allow the use of medical marijuana and some have decriminalized the possession or use of small quantities of the recreational drug. An African-American man now occupies the White House. Change, like that stinky stuff we flush, happens–whether we like it or not. For many people, most any kind of change is unwelcome. Change is unsettling; a stressful event. But even when the change is one we strongly oppose, it still presents an opportunity to exercise the brain and to challenge the assumptions underlying the “truths” we hold dear. The stock market goes up; the stock market goes down. The political power shifts left; the political power shifts right. Does it make a difference? Sure it does, but how much difference it makes depends on what we make of it.

Goals or Resolutions?

Jack — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 19:32:03 +0000

Is it semantics or is there a difference between a goal and a (New Year’s)resolution? I’m not sure it matters, but I am sure that just as each flip of the monthly calendar page at the end of December begins a new year, each flip of the 365-day calendar begins a new day. In other words, whether you make a resolution or a goal, you start fresh on it each day–not just at the beginning of the year. So while it is refreshing to make goals or resolutions for the coming year, it is most important to keep working on them each day. Days without progress or even with setbacks will occur; continued efforts will result in victory.