Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue
The Can't Stop the Macedonian Signal shopping edition!
Getting the house has caused me to shop a lot more than I'm used to. I'm finally having to break down and buy some things new (most of which will be in later editions of Something Old/Something New). I don't like buying things new, but I'm afraid of buying old upholstered furniture. It's often infested with things, moldy, or overly worn.
Something/Someone Old
One thing I am still trying to buy old are the nightstands for my bedroom.
These are the nighstands I wanted for my room. But my bed is 28" high and the distance from the floor to the first tabletop of these nightstands is 19 1/2". Almost ten inches below the level of my bed. I imagined putting a cup of coffee down...uh-uh. So, no beautiful old worn nightstands with odd screen doors for me.
I keep telling people I don't get antique furniture because I want something fancy--I get antiques (mostly off ebay and craigslist) because things today are made like crap and usually out of crap, and priced sky-high. Getting a craftsman to custom-make a piece of furniture is prohibitively expensive, no matter how much I'd love to encourage the persistence of those skills in our culture. I keep trying to tell myself new stuff is fine, and switch over to looking at new stuff--but even through the screen I can tell that it's comparatively crap.
I don't need fancy. I just need something other than crap.
Something New
I need a place to write that isn't a desktop computer sitting in the middle of a rec room full of other people and gaming and other temptations, where the lights are usually out so the people gaming or watching tv can avoid glare on their screens. This set up is not, for me, conducive to writing or doing other work. It's conducive to me thinking about writing and then gaming instead.
For this reason, I am in the process of setting up a little office in my bedroom where I can write and do bills. I have a lovely solid wood desk from the seventies and some bookshelves from IKEA that look kind of awful next to it, but are functional and not falling apart. The missing pieces are a desk chair and a laptop. My old laptop is eight years old and keeps informing me its battery won't hold a full charge anymore. That message continues to be delivered even when I replace the battery. I think it's nearing the end of its broadcast day, and I don't want to wait till it really dies to get a replacement. A few weeks ago, I was looking at laptops and found a Dell for under $400 that would have suited me fine. I decided to wait till cyber Monday to get it. Now I go online and find the "budget" laptops being pushed by Dell's site and most other sites run between 750 and 850 dollars. What the hell happened to the one under 400 dollars?
Carpe computatrum.
But there is this, the Acer E15 3:
What do you all think? There must be some geeks here who could advise me. I want a laptop to write on with a 15 inch screen, because the eyes aren't what they used to be. I want it to be less heavy than a sack of bricks. What I mean by that is that I don't need ultra-light, but neither do I want my arm wrenched out of its socket. It would be nice to have an optical drive, because I'm just old-fashioned enough to use CDs/DVDs. And it should have a good battery life. It needs little power because checking email, websurfing and word processing are all it's ever going to do.
Any ideas? In particular, does this have to be Something New, or is refurbished an option? I don't want to engage in false thrift or end up having to buy a new one after I bought a used one and it didn't work out. What do y'all think?
I have been re-reading The Silver Chair, one of my favorite Narnia chronicles. (As is usual for me, my favorite is often the least favorite for everyone else. It's true in music too. Caress of Steel almost finished Rush as a band, and I love it. Zeppelin III was a big disappointment for everyone, apparently. I think it's one of their top three albums.)
In Lewis' Narnia, as in Tolkien's Middle-earth, you could easily interpret the texts to say that Middle Eastern peoples--Arabs, Turks, Persians--were the bad guys, or at least their analogues in the fictional worlds are. I think it would be a narrow and superficial reading, and Tolkien, in particular, hated analogies drawn from his writing (at least in the sense of "He meant THESE PEOPLE and THESE EVENTS when he was writing this passage!"). But it would be easy enough to interpret the Calormenes as The Bad Guys.
Imagine my surprise when I found out Lewis borrowed Aslan's name from Turkish!
Aslan
GENDER: Masculine
USAGE: Turkish, Kazakh, Azerbaijani, Chechen, Ossetian, Circassian
OTHER SCRIPTS: Аслан (Kazakh, Chechen, Ossetian), Аслъан (Western Circassian), Аслъэн (Eastern Circassian)
From Turkic arslan meaning "lion". This was a byname or title borne by several medieval Turkic rulers, including the Seljuk sultan Alp Arslan (a byname meaning "brave lion") who drove the Byzantines from Anatolia in the 11th century.
https://www.behindthename.com/name/aslan
It's almost identical to the Turkish word. Funny choice for Lewis!
I tried to take in just enough information about the recent elections (before and after) to be responsible, and no more. And as you all know, I rarely put current politics into this thread. But Jesus. What I saw on the Jimmy Dore show was nothing less than shocking.
So, for your Something Blue today, I give you Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader, upon re-election. If you haven't heard it already, listen to the whole speech.
Her speech overwhelmingly reminds me of the Nazi episode of old Star Trek, "Patterns of Force," in which a drugged Fuhrer who's being kept around as a figurehead recites a list of unconnected platitudes with no logical pattern or meaning. The disintegration here is startling. It's hard to believe that sixteen years ago she nearly stopped the Iraq War.
How are you all today?
Comments
watch staples for laptop sale on "last year's models"
The thing about new computers is that they come with windows 10. I personally don't care for that operating system. I purchased a laptop running it and ditched it for Linux. The processor should be at least I-3 if not I-5 (intel) or equivalent. Stay away from Celeron or Pentium chips. They start weekly sales on Sunday and you can go into your local store and check it out before purchase. Built in optical drive can be hard to find with newer models. here is one on sale this week
@jbob I got so into following
I got so into following your links I forgot to thank you. Thank you!
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Good morning, CSTMS ~
I heard that Pelosi speech on the radio driving home on Wednesday. It was all I could do to keep from driving the car off the road. She is atrocious. Jimmy is correct - can't SF find someone better to run? She's gotta go. I hope she is not elected speaker.
Anyway - beautiful sunrise this morning in the land of enchantment.
Have a beautiful day, everyone!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
@Raggedy Ann I almost feel a kind of
I almost feel a kind of horrified pity. As I said, the decline is obvious, and I don't believe it's due to dementia as it was with McCain and Reagan. I think living in an atmosphere of that much corruption and deceit and unreason for twenty years will do that to you.
Either that or they've decided they don't even have to pretend to make sense.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Corruption corrupts completely
Every time I look at these politicians, especially Hillary, I think the same thing.
A corrosion of the soul that begins to seep through the cracks as each year passes. How Dorian Gray, eh?
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
@Anja Geitz Yeah. Terrible.
Yeah. Terrible. Especially since, once she became Minority Leader, I think she was probably given the choice to retire quietly and keep her mouth shut, or obey.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I've never wanted fame or fortune
simply because I was not willing to do the things one must to get there.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
@Anja Geitz I wasn't given
I wasn't given the chance, mainly because the vetting mechanism winnowed me out as a bad risk.
[Conversation between CSTMS and a staffer who only has a job because CSTMS took her boss' campaign, which was expected to lose in a landslide, and turned it into a campaign that won by a few votes}
Staffer: "You don't have the right personality for politics."
CSTMS: "Why not?"
Staffer: "Well, let me put it this way...if you disagreed with your boss, would you tell him?"
CSTMS: "Not in public."
Staffer: "But in private?"
CSTMS: "Not unless I were asked."
Staffer: "But if you were asked, in private, would you tell your boss you disagreed with him?"
CSTMS: "Of course."
Staffer: Makes disapproving sound something like beginning to say ACK but not getting to the "k."
CSTMS Hmmm, I guess that was the wrong answer. Who knew.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Crisply illustrated
And sardonically ironic that the very thing that you wished to infuse within politics was the very thing that disqualified you: Integrity.
As painful a lesson that journey for you may have been, it was clearly inherent with profoundly transformative value which few of us can claim being the beneficiary of.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
@Anja Geitz I was
I was honestly shocked, zoe. Not because there was deceit in politics...obviously I knew that. I thought that what politics ran on was not honesty, but loyalty, and occasionally, if you were lucky, a commonsense desire to actually implement good policy.
I didn't think you were supposed to deceive your own boss. How is that loyal?
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I can imagine it was shocking
For a lot of reasons. Does explain why Hillary's campaign was so tone deaf, though. They're surrounded by sycophants who serve up daily doses of mental masturbation, they eventually believe their own bullshit.
Sounds to me like you mighta dodged a huge bullet with that one.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
Speaking of C.S. Lewis: in the novel “That Hideous Strength”
(part 3 of the Silent Planet trilogy) the John Wither character, the Deputy Director of the National Institute for Co-ordinated Experiments, has been playing institutional politics for so long that he has become a hollow shell — a mere vessel for possession by evil spirits — who bewilders the ambitious young male protagonist Mark Studdock (and the reader) with practiced and reassuring-sounding but noncommittal and vacuous management-speak.
That’s the stage of adaptation to her environment that Nancy Pelosi appears to have reached.
@lotlizard Wow. Now that's a
Wow. Now that's a hideous parallel. If my memory serves, you are horribly right.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Old: before Trump when the USA didn’t lie to the world community
Oh, wait.
@lotlizard Heh.
Heh.
Ironically, that's another one of them I almost pity. I strongly suspect he was lied to and sent out to spread the lie because he had a reputation of being honorable. He looked downright sick after the lie came out...and remember how he disappeared from view and all we saw was Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary, for months afterward?
I'm not saying Colin Powell is a good guy, but even corrupt guys have their limits, and that was a hell of a lie.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Good Sunday all
Consider going Mac. I have all but given up on Windoze machines. Found an outfit in Fla. called Mac of All Trades dot com. They purchase used MacBooks from schools, clean out the drives and refurbish, then sell with a warranty. I wanted something of older tech and added some memory. Cost about $350 and works like a champ. Keep a couple old Dell's around for programs that only run on them.
Know what you say about furniture. I have built most of ours (trained as a cabinet maker). It is amazing the pieces found roadside, at the transfer station, yard sales, etc. The good old stuff usually only needs some slight tweaking and refinishing. Solid wood, well made holds up over time. Maybe there is just more of it here in New England, but would think snowbirds cleaning out storage sheds would be a source?
Cheerios
question everything
@QMS Around here there are
Around here there are fewer antique stores with furniture than there used to be, but you can still find some stuff. I should try frequenting yard sales; haven't done that yet. Craigslist is my friend.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Thrift shops (with smiley edit)
are my department stores. I furnished my house with decent wood furniture and rugs for a few hundred bucks. Clothes, electronics, lamps, furniture, books, kitchen stuff. The challenge of the hunt
.
Edit: xrist, I hate cute smileys (grin)
/
Smiley edit: I notice that when I have scripts blocked, the smiley is now just a blank space. This could become a communication problem: people not receiving the
subtleties that were intended; could really alter the intended meaning without notice. KISS. I really prefer text smileys. Those winkin blinkin things annoy me.
No way to block the graphic smileys? https://caucus99percent.com/filter/tips#filter-smiley
I have spoken! (lopsided self-deprecating smile)
/
Recycled Macs are a good option. I bought this powerbook online with warranty for about 150. It's ten years old and obsolete as hell, but still running like a charm. Nothing that cheap around anymore, but they're still a good choice for long life cycle (though I hear the quality's going down). How much power and current compatibility do you need for browsing and writing?
Linux is a better option than windoze. Not tied to microsoft, free, and much more powerful. I put a small linux on an ancient Dell and it ran three times as fast as the old windoze that was on it.
@pindar's revenge Well, assuming I can
Well, assuming I can get the laptop to interface with our wireless, I won't need much at all. Otherwise, I'll have to transfer documents to a flash drive, walk them down to this end of the house (the other end's a kind of telecom dead zone, it's weird), stick the flash drive in my desktop, transfer the files to the desktop and then upload them to caucus99percent. That would be a bit trickier because I'd have to interact with the Windows on this box. I'm fairly confident that even a refurbished machine should be able to interact with our wireless, though.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Ethernet
Most machines still have an ethernet port. Maybe you could string a cable from the router? I have to admit, I'm still nervous about wifi. I see all my neighbors networks when I look at the list. I once saw a network called "FBI surveillance van". Somebody's idea of a sick joke, I'm sure.
I like your Q sig (wink)
@pindar's revenge Heh. I hated Q when
Heh. I hated Q when Next Gen first came out, but he totally grew on me.
Now, that sequence is absolutely priceless. Historical context. Nobody would ever put that in a TV show now.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@pindar's revenge I love your sig.
I love your sig. Reminds me of GalaxyQuest, where the character Guy says "I'm so sick of being right!"
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
does not compute?
Make sure you back up your valuable files (pictures, documents, and other things you can't replace). I use an external hard drive to do so.
I also have a little external disk drive that plugs into my little lap top,
https://wiki.ezvid.com/best-usb-dvd-drives
I recently bought a used dell for $200. I loaded and use the ubuntu Linux OS
https://download.cnet.com/Ubuntu-32-bit/3000-18513_4-170729.html
I like a laptop with an hdmi outlet so I can plug it into a TV to view pictures, watch a film, and so on.
Good luck with you remodel and procurement. I like thrift stores to find old furniture.
Happy Armistice Day!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
@Lookout You know, I might
You know, I might actually change to Ubuntu this time. I find it difficult to adjust to a new OS after decades of working in the same one....although it's not really the same one, since Windows has gone through many changes.
The one time I tried an Apple on for size, I absolutely hated it, not because of any inherent problems, but because the finger motions--the physical way I interacted with the interface--were different for a Mac than for a PC. Those physical motions are ingrained as hell, and I hated being discombobulated in that way.
However, I am really irritated at Windows. I hate the trend, nearly universal, toward renting access to information rather than selling it. There's a whole essay in that, but for the purposes of computing, the issue is that Microsoft has decided to rent access to their latest OS rather than selling it. Assholes.
It might be enough to get this old dog to learn some new tricks.
I see that you have not had problems with refurbished. That makes me more likely to see what the guy down the street has to sell, rather than buying new.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Warning about CNET downloads!!!
Whatever you do, STAY AWAY FROM CNET DOWNLOADS!!!
Quite a few years back, they started allowing 3rd parties to add crapware to their insaller, in turn, jacking up those who are forced to use the installer in order to get "free" downloads from their once reputable site. I doubt the developers are aware of the crapware being installed along with the program they allowed to be listed on shitnet, er um, cnet.
And before anyone says, "All you have to do is opt out of the crapware during the download process", check out the screenshots in this cautionary article! The shit should be illegal, but hey, free-market. Blech! The bastards get paid by the crapware developers, and pass on to consumers the headache and probably cost (no longer free) of getting the shit off their computers.
https://www.groovypost.com/howto/avoid-computer-bloatware-from-cnet-down...
Thanks for that info...
I'll not recommend them in the future.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
@Deja Damn. Thanks for the
Damn. Thanks for the warning. I had no idea.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Not a techie, CStMS, but i second the above advice,
Get a refurbished Macbook Pro; i think at the Apple Store, you can even customize it. Love my Mac pro and the service backup can be extraordinary. You may recall that i had a problem two months ago and came here to get advice and the techies here helped a lot; and Apple service worked diligently with me by phone to isolate the problem, three days of phone calls, several hours of communication with them by phone. We found the problem as they wiped clean my Mac and reloaded it from long distance and it restored perfectly. I've a number a representative gave me from Apple a few years ago and Apple picks up the phone calls immediately, no waits for service.
On my second Apple laptop and it's way more powerful that my 'paygrade' of how to use it.
My ten cents; and i love the old furniture, you've pictured.
Taking my boots and skis to the mountain shortly, we are open and visiting Mom, too.
Hope i can make up the hill from the parking area to the ski school; quite a challenge for me; but once i have skis on, it's all downhill; thankfully. I love teaching and playing Santa from the first of Dec. to xmas.
Big thanks for you continuing good OT's, i try and catch them all. Good luck with your purchases and have a great week.
@smiley7 Going with Apple, in
Going with Apple, in retrospect, would have been the right choice. At least I should have become a bilingual user, able to switch easily back and forth between Macs and PCs. Apple doesn't make gaming computers, and I'm a gamer, so I would never be able to altogether abandon the PC world. That said, I wish I had gotten accustomed to Apple when I was in my twenties, and more malleable, because they obviously provide a good product and better customer service than Gatesworld.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Bilingual
I used windoze when they paid me, and mac at home. There's not that much difference up front; most of the win interface was lifted from Mac. Significant differences under the hood, setting up preferences and system settings, etc. I really don't like the keyboards and mice that apple, in their corporate wisdom, have inflicted on us, so I use generic usb devices. Mac has good engineering but lousy suits in their offices, IMHO.
It's easy to set up dual-boot into mac and win (or linux?), I hear, tho I haven't tried it since win 3.1 .
One of the things I like most about macos is that it's a true UNIX system at the core. Very flexible, stable and secure. I did a lot of command-line scripting in it at one time, and some compiling of source code.
If you're gaming, you might be stuck with windoze. Gaming takes more power and system specialization than just about any other use, so that limits your choices.
@smiley7 Wow. It must be amazing
Wow. It must be amazing to be in a place that has winter. We aren't even getting a Florida version of autumn down here. I hate climate change.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@smiley7 And you're welcome.
And you're welcome.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
OK, now I've managed to get myself pissed off
I was going through reviews of the Lenovo Ideapad jbob recommended. In the middle of one of the reviews, the reviewer said something like "It even has the option for an optical drive, for those who still can't let go of physical media."
"Can't let go of physical media;" as if that preference were a disease, or maybe I had a character defect which made me unable to move along with the rest of the world.
Maybe I want physical media because the world of non-physical media is rapidly becoming a rentier world, you condescending little shit.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I am not a techie
actually far from it...very far. Of my laptops, Lenovo, Dell and HP, Dell was the worst. My HP was a hand me down from my husband who likes HP. I liked the Lenovo too. And I absolutely hate Windows 10. Please do not take this as advice for what to buy. Just take it as one opinion from a non techie user.
I am still in NC and it was 24* when my walking partner and I went out today. Getting dressed to walk in the cold reminds of when I used to go skiing, lots of thin thermal layers. I have been upping my mileage lately. I used to do about four to five miles, but I am now doing six or more each morning. I walk 8/10 mile over to her house. We do between three and four together and then I do a more after to get at least six.
Nancy Pelosi drive s me nuts. Listening to her is like being water boarded. Arrrggggghhhh!
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
@gulfgal98 If I buy a PC, it'll
If I buy a PC, it'll almost certainly have Windows 10...or, excuse me, the chance to rent Windows 10.
Enjoy the winter. Like I said, we're not having one, nor a fall...yet.
Are you coming down this winter?
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Yep
Heading down to St. Pete for a wedding on December 27. The logistics were hellacious for us with boarding dogs (4 day minimum) and all. The bride and groom (my nephew) are in their mid 30's and have been together forever, so it will be a happy occasion. I just wish she had picked a different date.
We will stay in Tallahassee until sometime in March although we have been leaving sooner and sooner every year. Without my walking partner, I doubt I will be able to maintain that mileage. It is much easier when you have someone to talk with while walking.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Hola, CStMS. I am a big fan of not Apple. I have many reasons,
since way back for disliking the product and cmpany. Nonetheless, it is your call and I someimes wonder if my dislike of their stuff amounts to prejudice. What I would like to say is that whatever you get, instll Ubuntu. The hardware isn't as big of a deal as the operating system.
Many fear linux, but it needn't be abstruse and difficult. It has a GUI and you can be right at home therein with a few minor adjustments. Your office suite will be a bit different, but generally comaptible, and, if you live in excel or word might be the hardest changeover to make.
That said, it also has a terminal, allowing you, once you learn how, to take complete control of the machine and the apps and to do some really awesme stuff quick and easy.
heading out for the coast, see everybody in abut a week.
Have a great one.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
@enhydra lutris Have a great time, e.l.
Have a great time, e.l. Thanks for stopping by before you go. And yeah, Windows 10 is the most irritating thing of all.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
“Many fear linux, but it needn't be abstruse and difficult”
Ha... the funny thing is, for me anyway, I’m already lost at “install Linux” or instll Ubuntu.
I have no idea how to change the operating system on my old Apple computers, nor on my current primary machine, which is just an iPad which is about two years old I think. It works fine so I see no reason to change it.
My older computers are a MacBook Pro that’s around 10 years old, give or take... it might be 14, I’m not really sure. Last time I fired it up it still works but is achingly slow, and nothing on it has been updated for many years. The other one is a desktop 21-inch iMac that is probably about five or six years old, and it was at the time I bought it a top of the line iMac- more computer than I ever needed. I rarely use it now either and it’s not up to date.
I would like to able to give these computers to someone who could use them, but I’d need to go through them, make sure anything personal that I need saved elsewhere, then wipe them and get them up to speed with new OS and whatever, so hopefully even though old and slow they could be of use to someone.
I can’t really afford to pay a techi type to do this for me, and I also don’t have hours to spend tweaking around with computers. Which I really don’t enjoy doing. It’s like my car; I just want it to work and I don’t want to be under the hood. Basically ever.
So these old machines continue to sit in my office... waiting for me to do something. Oh well. Sooner or later I will. But I’d probably try to upgrade the Mac OS rather than try to learn Linux. Only because I do know more or less how to do that. Although I think macs and the Apple ecosystem are getting harder and harder to use with each “upgrade” — which was why I stopped keeping them up to date. Eventually I just use the iPad, it does what I need for the most part.
I never use Windows, except at work where I have no choice, and several people have full time jobs trying to keep them all working.
@CS in AZ That might be something
That might be something we at caucus99 could do. I bet there's somebody here who could use a solid computer, even if it is old, and there's probably some geeks here who could help you get them in shape.
I'd love to have some kind of, I dunno, bulletin board part of the site where we could connect things people need with things people have, whether objects or skills.
Nice to see you by the way, CS.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Yes, I would like that
When hecate posted recently about the death of his Mac mini, I thought it would be cool if I could just send him my old MacBook, or the iMac if he wanted it.
That’s what first got me thinking again about getting them in shape to find a new home. Someone here would be my first choice. If anyone wants to offer moral support as well as tech support to help make this happen, feel free to messsge me.
Good to see you too CStMS. I’ve missed your essays, it’s fun to read another Something Old Something New essay!
best morning, cstms...
My vote is for used, repurposed. Blogging has ruined any impulses to consume that I had left. Ruined. I no longer can look at anything without seeing the whole production process. foop. Really clogs the brain. Walking past a store is the worst. Not only are there many upstream production processes staring me in the face, but there are all the paths my brain can follow for the downstream places where all the stuff will end up. Really clogs my brain. Oh, and then there's all... never mind. I love trees. And birds. And cats. Nature is the best too. (edit) Thanks so much for the ot. Good luck with resolving your computer issues. Have a very good one...
Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation
Hot Air Website, Twitter, Facebook
@magiamma I also don't like the
I also don't like the production process/supply chain, but electronics and upholstered furniture are the places where I usually feel the pressure to buy new, or at least unused (I recently bought a Sony Walkman from the nineties still in its original unopened packaging). The problem with upholstered furniture is you might find guests living in it. The problem with electronics is the possibility of buying a used computer, having it break, and then having to buy another. I'm a pretty impatient person who doesn't like shopping so I like to get it over with as fast as possible and avoid the necessity of buying the same thing again and again.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
right
I would draw the line at the same place. No critters. Refurbished computer possibly. I like my old MacBook pro with additional disk and memory. It's old, but works for me. I have heard the new macs are not so great but do not know the specifics. Good on you for building your own. Yeah, I do not trust the cloud thing at all.
Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation
Hot Air Website, Twitter, Facebook
@magiamma On the other hand, I
On the other hand, I totally understand where you're coming from. I have to wall off part of my brain from what I see or I couldn't keep going, especially when it comes to garbage, because that so often leads to thinking about what's happening to the sea, and I can't think about what's happening to the sea.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Reminds me of this, in Hermann Hesse’s “The Journey to the East”
Bringing Democrats and Republicans Together?
I didn't know that's what the Democrats ran on. I must've missed that part of the Democrats platform Nancy speaks of.
Jimmy got that one right.
Nancy Pelosi and Dianne Feinstein are the poster children for the demented fecklessness that Democrats embody as they steward this country's dire needs.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
“Facebook allows governments to decide what to censor”
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/11/09/facebook-allows-governments-to-d...
We are sick at my house this weekend . . .
Daughter brought it home from college. My husband, thankfully, had a flu shot so he just has a bit of a runny nose. Seems like we are all recovering pretty quickly.
Computers. I am sitting in bed using an Acer netbook running Ubuntu Mate. Earlier today I typed apt-get update and then apt-get upgrade on the command line to easily and cleanly install all available upgrades to my system. My desktop in the container runs Ubuntu Studio which specializes in multimedia.
I love Linux.
This is my third Acer netbook. Been using them for about ten years. The first one was new and since then bought used craigslist for like $60. Got a device to connect the old hard drives and transfer data. Cats have knocked them on the floor, etc., hence their demise. I prefer netbooks to tablets because I like a keyboard. Plus, I use lots of graphics apps and ftp. Everything is free. It is all clean and dependable. Spilled my beverage on the keyboard of this netbook. Ten bucks to replace. Pop out the old, pop in the new.
Anyway, I have had good luck with Acer netbooks.
Left the windows world at windows 2000. Terrible OS! I don't like apple as well because I want to be able to do all of the geeky stuff on the command line and manipulate files.
My husband was a total windows guy, but now for years has only used an apple tablet. So, whatever is most comfortable for you is the important issue.
Yeah . . . I watched part of the pelosi speech. Truly terrible and empty. Ugh.
Thanks for the OT!
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
geeky stuff
Since macos is unix, there's a terminal app in there that does all the unix geeky stuff. I forget which script language they use for default now; I favored bash. I learned scripting and regex stuff on ibm unix, and carried pretty much all of that straight over. Under the hood, macos is much like linux, with the difference that the graphic interface is locked into Apple's design, though I've run X Windows on it.
What I hate is the apple store, and how they try to lock people into their cloud and streaming/download services. But all I do to avoid it is not sign up.
I use pods and pads, but ios annoys me. You can't directly access the file system, you have to go through itunes, of all things. Maybe there's something I'm missing.
@mhagle Windows NT was so much
Windows NT was so much better. My boyfriend built us an entire home network based on NT. I didn't mind Windows 98 so much either. Since then it seems to be getting worse and worse, as if you watched somebody loading the entire contents of a house on an elephant and then charged you money for a ride on the pile.
Now they charge you for the ride on the overpiled elephant every five minutes.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Marilyn...
I would suggest that you drop the ftp protocol, especially if you're using it to interface with your website directories, it's not secure and easily compromised. Use sftp instead or better yet a SSH secure shell on a terminal. Most ftp graphical user interfaces also include a sftp option.
Stuck with Windows on my PCs and laptop, but
I have opted for Android for tablets. I have thousands of dollars tied up in graphics programs and most won't crossover to any flavor of Linux or if they do have to be run in a Windows setup within Linux, so no getting away from it.
I have seen a lot of laptops (some with decent specs) at NewEgg for around $350. Also, check out last year's models rather than this year's as there are major savings there often with minimal loss of power.
Refurbished: I buy refurbished whenever possible when I can find them on the manufacture's website. They most often come with a warranty that equals the original. I build my own computers which takes a lot more research but gets me what I want.
Equipment without DVD/CD/Blu-Ray readers/writers: Those items can be purchased separately so I wouldn't let that stop me from purchasing a laptop without one. In fact, it may be safer to do so as 1) you can chose the brand/specs you want and 2) it will be covered by a different warranty and 3) if you change laptops in the future, you will still have the reader/writer to use with that.
I also cannot let go of my physical equipment. In part, because I do not particularly trust the whole cloud thing.
DIY: For the nightstands or other relatively simple furniture, you may be able to find someone who can build what you want (if you are not handy at building that kind of stuff like myself) in your local area. Do schools still have woodworking classes? If so, you may be able to find a local student who may take on the project for a reasonable price and choosing your own materials, etc. can ensure that it will not be a throw away tomorrow.
Pelosi: Write to your Congress critter and tell them to vote No on her.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
Hello, CStMS and all Caucusers. I hope you have been having
a good weekend.
I have not shopped for furniture lately, so I am not a great source of shopping info. However. I know that Ebay, Ruby Lane, Etsy, Chairish and 1stDibs offer used items in varying ages, conditions and prices. I am sure more exist.
@HenryAWallace Hello, HAW! As always,
Hello, HAW! As always, it's great to "see" you.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Caress of Steel?
Man, we gotta hang. My fave too, along with Hemispheres.
The Fountain of Lamneth was the soundtrack to my first big breakup as a teenager (probably partially because as an obsessed music fan I was “saving” that side for when I’d worn out the other and could give it full attention). In that state and lying on my bed that piece of music and the story completely captivated me. Lifeson’s playing in particular is so emotional and pure. And to think that that could have been it for them, as you say. But you could hear the genuis there that would really come to the fore on 2112.
Zep III is held in the highest esteem for me and almost all of my musician friends. It’s my favorite, along with Physical Graffiti.
Always great to read you, dear friend.
"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
- Kurt Vonnegut
@Mark from Queens Damn. Musical siblings
Damn. Musical siblings from another mother.
I wish we lived nearer, but at least your parents don't live far, so at least we can visit sometimes.
This makes me very happy:
Zep III is held in the highest esteem for me and almost all of my musician friends. It’s my favorite, along with Physical Graffiti.
III, Physical Graffiti and Houses of the Holy are my favorites. I'm fond of their last album, but I don't think it's as good.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@Mark from Queens I am so privileged to
I am so privileged to have watched them play live. Wanted to repeat the experience, but dammit! they retired before I could.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
“The Silver Chair” is a memorable favorite for lots of reasons!
Puddleglum the Marsh-wiggle — and his speech in defense of “childish” idealistic belief in a higher plane of existence, versus the Lady of the Gr$$n HER-tle’s pragmatic plan for Narnian regime change . . .
And then there’s this part about the headmaster of the co-educational school Experiment House:
C. S. Lewis was having his little joke at the expense of “progressive” educators and politicians. One can only imagine what he would have said about administrators who, not wishing to risk being thought racist, choose not to pursue perpetrators of horrible, protracted sexual abuse of children.
@lotlizard Well, I'm honestly not
Well, I'm honestly not thrilled with Lewis' sexism in that passage, but I let it go because I'm in agreement with him otherwise. The thing is, I know other passages where he talks about women academics, and there's some real spite there. In Ursula Le Guin's review of his short story collection The Dark Tower, she takes him to task for this with typical consummate fairness.
However, Puddleglum's speech is one of the best things I've ever read, and I hold it close to my heart. And his take on Experiment House--other than giving a damn which gender the Head was--is spot-on, and for more things than education.
The authors of that generation tend to be very smart about the problems I'm dealing with right now, because they had just encountered, and temporarily beaten, fascism. They understand propaganda and secret police and tyranny and stupidity really really well.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I used to be quite ambivalent about C. S. Lewis, because
I resented his jabs at some of my pet ideological pretensions (youth, pop, and counter-culture; leftism, modernism, ecumenism, etc.).
Now that I’m on my way to becoming an old crone I’m much more inclined to think, well, “Jack” was quite right after all.
@lotlizard Not about everything
Not about everything, I think; but what he is right about, he's very right about.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@lotlizard Like this:
Like this:
These people had the idea that boys and girls should be allowed to do what they liked. And unfortunately what ten or fifteen of the biggest boys and girls liked best was bullying the others.
So fucking right.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Always wondered how that was managed at Summerhill, for example
http://www.summerhillschool.co.uk/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summerhill_%28book%29
@lotlizard I, too, am
I, too, am curious. I won't automatically dismiss the project, but I would be very interested to live there for a term or too. Sadly, my teaching chops are probably not up to the project (and I'm not British).
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Hi
On your nightstands have you thought about contacting a high school, community college or reg. college about maybe building them for you, if you supply the materials. Don't know how it would work out but "shop" has become "woodworking" and have come a long ways from back in dinosaur days.
For tech stuff I cruise Dealnews (check "category") https://www.dealnews.com/
and Techbargains https://www.techbargains.com/ and for free/trial software Give away of the day https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/ There's usually reviews that give you an idea of what the geeks think about the software and company.
Also on Fleabay there are vendors that bought out OEM licensees for Win7 that go for pretty cheap, and the ones I bought worked. I did what you are doing and got a Dell (refurb) works ok, was not popular because it was big, 17" diag. more a desktop replacement. What I hate is the hard drive is inaccessible, you have to pull the keyboard to swap drives and the boot from USB first is balky, if you care about that. Good luck in your search.
@Snode A-ha! What a fascinating
A-ha! What a fascinating idea, to buy an OS used!
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
You can do that too
dismantlers pull the stickers off scrap equipment, you have to call Microsoft and testify that the OS is not being used on another machine. Sometimes if you can find a dead machine with a sticker and you can do the same. Some were proprietary. HP's were a pain. Dells were easy, esp if you had a dell install disk. The ones I found were disk and sticker (or maybe just the sticker, and a download site for the OS) from OEM builders that had leftovers when the new windows OS came out.
It's been a while but if I remember it was out of England, you had to buy a junk piece of hardware to get the OS license, decline to pay to have the junk shipped, and they sent the sticker/activation. I've been out of building for a while, maybe someone here has some newer info.
Also, I've been buying surplus computer tech occasionally from a local college that's older, but cheap. That slowed down last recession.