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Jan. 8th, 2015
PhotoBucket
Jan. 8th, 2015 02:29 pmI really need to leave PhotoBucket behind me. It has become a thriving warren of viruses and malware. I do not really save pictures anymore, and the only reason I have logged back into my account is to work on my icons, as it is the only free photo-editor that I know of. These computers no longer seem to automatically come with the handy application, just as one can no longer count on a decent, free word processor either, so that you will have to buy the programs somewhere, I guess. I wonder if PhotoBucket is itself just aggressively pushing their premium accounts. It is very nasty business. It is one thing not to give users all the thrills and to limit their storage capacity, but it is certainly malicious to make its customers dodge viruses and destructive downloads, firebombing our computers, and giving our anti-virus programs a workout.
I have a lot of great pictures there, though, that I do not want to lose. Think of Julio Iglesias and Willie Nelson's "All the Girls I've Loved Before". That is what my collection means to me. I suppose I could use Flickr; I have wanted to make my old Yahoo account more active again. I have a lot of pictures, though, not thousands, but maybe close to a hundred. It would take a good bit of work. I suppose I could burn a disk as well, but I don't think I've done that in ten years, being happy to rely lazily on 'the cloud', but as we see with PhotoBucket, the cloud is no paradise to all our back-up needs either. Of course, one ought to know better than to think you can get a lot for free, but I am still used to the early years of the Internet and its happy-go-lucky dot.communism, when websites were hungry just to get traffic and gave all and freely. Well, such expectations need to end. In e-life, today, as in real life, as with all life, it is all "show me the money!" or maybe the bitcoins.
I have a lot of great pictures there, though, that I do not want to lose. Think of Julio Iglesias and Willie Nelson's "All the Girls I've Loved Before". That is what my collection means to me. I suppose I could use Flickr; I have wanted to make my old Yahoo account more active again. I have a lot of pictures, though, not thousands, but maybe close to a hundred. It would take a good bit of work. I suppose I could burn a disk as well, but I don't think I've done that in ten years, being happy to rely lazily on 'the cloud', but as we see with PhotoBucket, the cloud is no paradise to all our back-up needs either. Of course, one ought to know better than to think you can get a lot for free, but I am still used to the early years of the Internet and its happy-go-lucky dot.communism, when websites were hungry just to get traffic and gave all and freely. Well, such expectations need to end. In e-life, today, as in real life, as with all life, it is all "show me the money!" or maybe the bitcoins.
Kids At Heart
Jan. 8th, 2015 04:28 pmPop is wearing his cowboy hat again, the black one. He is back in his Duke Dangerous phase, decked out all in black. He is a real cool cat. And seventy-three. I suppose all this time that he has spent babying Lorie has driven his sense of virility back up again.
"Bah, if you can be a writer, why can't he be a badass cowboy?"
Yeah, I guess we are all forever kids at heart, and that must go for elderly parents too. There might be some people who can take their reality straight, but I never met one. ... Even mother, mom, Stormy Dreamer, was just another girl in this crazy world who just wanted to have fun - she perhaps more than most. Maybe I should have respected that more, that she was just a kid-at-heart, as well as of mind, trying to make do with this mean little life we have. The problem is that she rode me too hard. She did not see me as her partner in crime, but more like the cop to mock, but, worse, she had the power over me, making me more like a baby mouse to her cat's paw. I still do not believe there was any way to make our relationship work, except perhaps my living on my own with my own job, or maybe just bringing in my own paycheck and helping out.
"Ooh, something wild like getting a job?"
It doesn't sound like much, does it? Late in life, thinking back on it all, I can feel some of the bite of regret. I always said that I could only consider spending the better part of my days doing a servile job if I could at least enjoy being a man - having relationships with women, having sex, the whole shebang. But surely a happier family life should be worth it too, no? I don't know. I just couldn't do it. I can't do it, now.
"Bah, if you can be a writer, why can't he be a badass cowboy?"
Yeah, I guess we are all forever kids at heart, and that must go for elderly parents too. There might be some people who can take their reality straight, but I never met one. ... Even mother, mom, Stormy Dreamer, was just another girl in this crazy world who just wanted to have fun - she perhaps more than most. Maybe I should have respected that more, that she was just a kid-at-heart, as well as of mind, trying to make do with this mean little life we have. The problem is that she rode me too hard. She did not see me as her partner in crime, but more like the cop to mock, but, worse, she had the power over me, making me more like a baby mouse to her cat's paw. I still do not believe there was any way to make our relationship work, except perhaps my living on my own with my own job, or maybe just bringing in my own paycheck and helping out.
"Ooh, something wild like getting a job?"
It doesn't sound like much, does it? Late in life, thinking back on it all, I can feel some of the bite of regret. I always said that I could only consider spending the better part of my days doing a servile job if I could at least enjoy being a man - having relationships with women, having sex, the whole shebang. But surely a happier family life should be worth it too, no? I don't know. I just couldn't do it. I can't do it, now.
We have a fairly accessible article on Leibniz, the "best of all possible worlds" guy, and I shall dutifully grab a few quotations, starting with this charming excerpt.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
At fourteen, he enrolled at the University of Leipzig to study philosophy. “I was very young when I began to meditate,” he would later write, “and I was not quite fifteen when I strolled for whole days in a grove to take sides between Aristotle and Democritus.” Even then, Leibniz was nagged by the tension between the teleological account of nature inherited from Aristotle and engrained in academia, and the new mechanical physics, represented by Galileo and Descartes, that hearkened back to the ancient Greek atomist Democritus.
-- Marc E. Bobro in The New Atlantis
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
At fourteen, he enrolled at the University of Leipzig to study philosophy. “I was very young when I began to meditate,” he would later write, “and I was not quite fifteen when I strolled for whole days in a grove to take sides between Aristotle and Democritus.” Even then, Leibniz was nagged by the tension between the teleological account of nature inherited from Aristotle and engrained in academia, and the new mechanical physics, represented by Galileo and Descartes, that hearkened back to the ancient Greek atomist Democritus.
-- Marc E. Bobro in The New Atlantis
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Pop and Lorie
Jan. 8th, 2015 08:48 pmCoco wanted to get out of the big room. Maybe she needs to use the litter box, and I need to venture out and heat up my dinner anyway. Coco does relieve herself in the box, but then she zooms to the kitchen door. Both Lorie and Pop are there cooking dinner and it's very noisy, and Coco is obviously hoping that I will hurry up and open the door for her quick escape, but I am going to have to disappoint her on that. The temperature is expected to drop into the thirties, with rain-showers falling in the small hours. I am not going to let her out. I herd Coco back into the big room, as she furiously zig-zags between Pop and Lorie under the kitchen table.
Meanwhile, in addition to cooking dinner, Pop has Lorie writing down their own grocery list. Ain't that special? So homey, so husband-wifey. She asks him, "Do you want me to put down a beef pot pie for you?" He says, "Yes." Whatever. I am more impressed that Pop continues to let me and the cats have the big room. I do not know for sure that this is out of consideration for me, and it probably isn't, as they have always had a preference for the kitchen, but I am appreciative nonetheless. It feels a lot like its own apartment, something apart from whatever it is they are doing.
Meanwhile, in addition to cooking dinner, Pop has Lorie writing down their own grocery list. Ain't that special? So homey, so husband-wifey. She asks him, "Do you want me to put down a beef pot pie for you?" He says, "Yes." Whatever. I am more impressed that Pop continues to let me and the cats have the big room. I do not know for sure that this is out of consideration for me, and it probably isn't, as they have always had a preference for the kitchen, but I am appreciative nonetheless. It feels a lot like its own apartment, something apart from whatever it is they are doing.
The Aquarium
Jan. 8th, 2015 09:28 pmI have long wanted an aquarium, or at least I wanted one a long time ago, two or three lifetimes ago, part of those Bay Horse days. Thanks to the smart-TV and YouTube, I now have a big one, sort of. It's kind of flat, but I don't have to clean the tank and freshen the water, or scoop away the dead ones. Coco seems fooled. She sits on the floor quite fixated by all those fish wiggling across the TV screen. I use the video for white noise. I do not care to listen to Pop and Lorie's conversations or their TV shows. I just want to hear myself think, though sometimes I can wish for a third option.