Category: Geeky Stuff

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Readers, Please pardon the Sidebar

It seems that WordPress decided to NOT tell me on opening the widgets panel, (Which I had carefully arranged the way I wanted them,) would result in a royal fuckup. This fuckup encompassed not only of the widget that I wanted to add a single line of HTML to, but destroyed every widget, including those that WordPress supposedly maintained.

Hey, THANKS GUYS!

Now I get to figure out the “New” damned widget system, and honestly my first take is this:

I DON’T LIKE IT!

I was perfectly content to use HTML to do what I wanted to. I was perfectly content to have a simple widget bar down the left side of my blog that presented information the way I wanted it.

I didn’t ask for a visual editor that randomly throws <SPANS> and Font changes, paragraph to paragraph. I didn’t ask for an HTML editor that apparently doesn’t actually like some of your <!– wp:paragraph –> tags in certain arrangements (even though YOU WordPress are adding those elements).

I ESPECIALLY don’t like the fact that you’ve created and released a buggy widget editor that incorrectly converts some HTML and chokes if there is a <Space> between the last character of text in a line and a <Line End>.

This is especially annoying, since there’s no way to see either, within the editor. Attempting to post such a line will result in an error that prevents the user from making any changes. Although, apparently this is an editor problem, not an underlying system problem since the badly converted text is displayed in the first place.

So what should have take 2 seconds has now taken at least a couple of hours to learn how to manipulate, partially reconstruct, and of course debug. (See Above)

Sometimes… making changes is not in the best interest of anybody. Sometimes making changes just creates more work. But I suppose it gave some coder 6 more months of work on a work visa.

Hey, here’s an idea… if you can’t save a chunk of something, how about providing something more descriptive than an error occurred? Better yet, HOW ABOUT HIGHLIGHTING the element you’re having a problem with?

Grrrr.

Just as a point. I’m not even particularly pleased with your new visual blog editor.

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Well, here we are in August

The Summer is coming to a close, the children are supposed to be going back to school. (That rite of passage may again be disrupted due to COVID.)

I’ve got a couple of projects to get done before the Winter, those projects are on hold because of the living room and flooring mess.

There’s no reason to paint the stairs if there’re going to be workmen dragging all manner of tools and things up the stairs.

I can lay in supplies for the projects in the mean time. So at least that will be, in some small way, productive.

The flooring is the last piece of the puzzle regarding the living room, then we’ll have to have the fire suppression system inspected and re-pressurized. The jury is still out on the question of the furniture being replaced. At this point it’s likely that the couch and chair will be, but the rest of the wood furniture may have survived.

As we head back into another heat wave, I’m glad that the ceiling is at least back so that the air conditioning won’t be running quite as hard. My “Martian” special worked but was inefficient as far as insulation went. We’re now fully two months into having this disruption in our lives. Although, there are others who’ve been waiting 4 to 6 months.

Between supply shortages and construction repair crews busy schedules there are a lot of people waiting in line for remodels and repairs.

At the moment, I have a pile of trashed building materials on my front lawn and can’t really even do much in the way of yard work. There’s supposed to be a crew member coming up to pick up the trash and the ladders, I expect he’ll be by when the work is complete. It makes more sense to make only one trip instead of several so I’m not really all that worried about it.

This Summer has been a season of things breaking. My faithful 12 year old monitor gave up the ghost a week ago. While I didn’t want to spend money I’m glad I bought a new monitor. Amazon on the other hand said this monitor had more ports than it actually does. Their description was mostly correct except for this one small detail. Nonetheless, the thunderbolt port was there as indicated, and provided me with a method to connect to the computer.

Amazon’s description said there was a Thunderbolt, DV, and HDMI, port. There was only Thunderbolt and HDMI. I think the copy writer on the Amazon site may have grabbed the wrong specifications. Frankly, it’s probably too much of a pain in the ass to return the monitor and call them on their mistake. Going to the Samsung site told me I had the correct model number and that this unit did not contain the DV port. So word to the wise, cross check Amazon’s description and specifications against the actual manufacturer’s before you click that convenient “BUY” button.

In this case it’s not a big deal, but If I’d specifically needed the DV port it would have been.

The panel itself is very nice and crisp. It’s even convenient to watch movies or TV on.

The new router is working like a champ although there have been some situations where firmware updates on it have caused glitches throughout the WiFi devices connected to it. Nothing particularly difficult to resolve, but as is always the case with computer equipment these glitches show up at the most inconvenient times. I’m enjoying the speeds the router provides. I don’t much notice the difference between WiFi and hardline connections. With the previous router, there was a noticeable difference and if I had to do anything intense, like downloading an OS or watching movies I always connected to the hardline. Now I’ve actually moved devices over to WiFi and been able to decommission some of the network switches.

When I reassemble the living room, I’ll be considering connecting everything WiFi and getting rid of cables that aren’t strictly necessary.

Lately, I’ve noticed that I’m not actually watching what little of the news I used to catch. I’ve even stopped reading the news online. It’s all gotten too crazy for me.

Masks, not masks. Vaccine, not vaccine. Mandated Vaccinations No Mandates. Members of Congress saying that they want to create a two class America over vaccination status.

It’s one thing if the media says stuff like that, you pretty much ignored it because they’re the media, BUT when members of Congress start saying stuff like this, it’s head snapping!

When our government starts asking for vaccination proof, we will be uncomfortably close to NAZI or Communist forms of government. Are we at the point that our Republic is already dead? Are we just scrabbling around in the carcass of what was once a great country? Where does that leave what used to be “Average Americans”?

It’s stuff like those questions that makes reading or watching the News an increasingly unpleasant experience. I’m down to looking at the insanity about once a week unless something really catches my attention. At least I’m not completely uninformed but I can’t be any more informed than once a week.

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Congratulations to Richard Branson!

Very well done Sir!

I was astounded, that in the wake of Branson’s achievement instead of congratulations, there were pundits, politicians, and wags, saying things like, “This is why we need a billionaire wealth tax.”

SAY WHAT???

Branson, used his own money, legally earned, requisite taxes paid, and he built a space craft. Then he further put his money where his mouth was and climbed aboard for a flight.

The thing could have malfunctioned, and freeze dried Branson and his crew, it could have exploded, it could have crashed. Thankfully it didn’t, but there was a rather high element of risk in the adventure.

All you have to do to recognize that is look at our planetary history of space travel. That particular history is littered with brave pioneers who died due to various accidents. Remember the Challenger? How about Columbia? Both of those were tried and true pieces of technology which had flown many times before. So much so, that the shuttle launches had become almost ho-hum.

Were I a Branson, Bezos, or Musk. I too would be working to get my own ships into space. The moment my technology worked well enough that I could build a space station, I wouldn’t come back to Earth.

Why bother? The petty politics of this planet and stupidity of our leaders make space look pretty darn attractive.

Space is like international waters. I could keep what I salvaged, and there’s not a damn thing the politicians or practically anyone else could for to stop me.

My next move would be to make the long assed journey to the asteroid belt and start claiming mineral rights on various asteroids. I’d catalog the minerals, and then start the bidding.

“Oh China, you need 220 million tons of nickel? What’s your opening bid?”

“Russia, you need iron? How much? What’s your bid?”

“Germany, you need copper? I’ve got a nice little asteroid just full of the stuff, What’s your bid?”

The whole while I’d be telling politicians, “TAX THIS”

I wouldn’t be asking for money, I’d be asking for Oxygen, Food, Water, and only materials that I couldn’t mine, make, or make use of from the asteroids themselves. I’d be looking for Ice (Water, Methane, Co2) you name it, because I suspect in short order I could make my asking price machines that would be able to refine those materials in my space station too.

Earth would always be my point of origin, a pretty blue speck in the solar system. But a shithole of politics and petty disagreeable people. I’d market employment to folks that could and would work for a living.

I’d give folks another choice, if we decided to take Mars for ourselves, colonize it, and build a better world there’d be no-one who could stop us.

You wouldn’t want to be “fired” from my enterprise because that would mean being sent back to Earth, the shithole, the place where you’d be detained, questioned by moronic politicians looking for some “Crime”, and then taxed on your presumed profits.

Space wouldn’t be an easy, or a safe life, but it would be your life. A life where you were directly in control of your destiny.

For all of you reading this that are thinking., “That will never happen. These billionaires are just playing around because they have the money to waste,” Think again.

Musk has already set his sights on Mars. Branson is talking about space tourism. God only knows what Bezo’s goal is. But each of these guys became a billionaire by seeing opportunity and exploiting it.

If you think they’re doing all of this just to see who’s dick is bigger think again!

One ex NASA engineer was quoted as saying something like, these guys are making advances, spending in a year, what NASA spent in a month. Think about that. How fast do you think innovation is going to happen now that private companies know it’s possible to make their own ships?

With the ability to make ships comes competition about who makes the best ships, the fastest ships, the best engines, the best navigation, Branson’s Unity will probably look like the Wright Brothers plane in 70 years or so. Earth will probably become a quaint little backwater where people are still bitching about politics, religion, poverty, skin color, equity versus equality, and who to tax next.

The real power brokers of humanity will be stretching across our solar system, and beyond.

Space, work ethic, and capitalism, will be the great equalizers. You fuck up in space, and no one will ever hear you whine or scream about the unfairness of it all. If you’re beyond the orbit of Mars and fuck up, you’ll likely be dead and frozen for an hour before anyone gets your first call for help.

Space makes no judgement about you, it will kill you given a chance. All meat is dead meat to the harshness of vacuum.