Month: October 2020

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It Was Slow Yesterday

I've been playing with the macOS Big Sur betas on an external drive from the moment the first one became available. Much like the graphic overhaul that was done with Sierra, Big Sur is redesigning the user interface from the ground up. The difference this time is that there is no Jony Ive at the helm, and the results are—in my humble opinion—butt ugly. Early on I knew there would be inconsistencies and things that just didn't look right, but considering we're now up to Beta 9, these bits of flotsam and jetsam should've been swept away.

Sadly, there have not been, and the once-elegant Mac UI is starting to look like it was designed by disparate groups of first year graphic design students who don't like each other, much less speak to each other.

There are certain things about the new OS that I do like. Certain little tweaks that were mirrored on iOS that I am looking forward to putting into use on my Mac. Unfortunately, since the external drive I load these betas on isn't as large as the drive in the Mac, I can't recreate my profile and transfer all my data to test out in a real world environment.

So yesterday afternoon I decided to throw caution to the wind. I cloned my main hard drive and installed the latest beta directly on my laptop.

All I can say is I'm glad I made that backup.

I didn't experience any issues updating the OS, but when I logged in and things started loading, the screen started flashing and wouldn't stop for nearly a minute. This was not normal, and wasn't anything I'd experienced either while running the OS off an external drive or booting into a different account on the Mac. I knew it be something incompatible in my profile that was trying to load on startup, so I started pulling items one by one but to no avail. When I finally removed everything that was attempting to load on startup and the flashing persisted, I gave up. I completely wiped and drive and restored the cloned image I'd made earlier.

I may try this exercise again at some point, either by doing a virgin install of the OS and restoring my data through Migration Assistant, or with a virgin install, manually installing apps, and transferring my data by hand. But not today. Or even tomorrow.

 

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There is No Art in This White House

There is no art in this White House. There is no literature or poetry in this White House. No music. No Kennedy Center award celebrations. There are no pets in this White House. No loyal man's best friend. No Socks the family cat. No kid's science fairs. No times when this president takes off his blue suit-red tie uniform and becomes human, except when he puts on his white shirt-khaki pants uniform and hides from Americans to play golf. There are no images of the first family enjoying themselves together in a moment of relaxation. No Obamas on the beach in Hawaii moments, or Bushes fishing in Kennebunkport, no Reagans on horseback, no Kennedys playing touch football on the Cape. I was thinking the other day of the summer when George H couldn't catch a fish and all the grandkids made signs and counted the fish-less days. And somehow, even if you didn't even like GHB, you got caught up in the joy of a family that loved each other and had fun. Where did that country go? Where did all of the fun and joy and expressions of love and happiness go? We used to be a country that did the ice bucket challenge and raised millions for charity. We used to have a president that calmed and soothed the nation instead of dividing it. A first Lade that planted a garden instead of ripping one out. We are rudderless and joyless. We have lost the cultural aspects of society that make America great. We have lost our mojo. Our fun, our happiness. The cheering on of others. The shared experiences of humanity that makes it all worth it. The challenges that we shared and celebrated. The unique can-do spirit Americans have always been known for. We have lost so much in so short a time.

~Elayne Griffin Baker

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I Can't Believe I'm Having To Do This, But…

…if you get this unsolicited text (or something similar claiming to be from your carrier), do your due diligence and DO NOT CLICK on the link.

It sounded all very fishy to me when I received this (we don't even pay $200 a month in cell phone bills), and the link address looked hinky to me, so I went to the Verizon website and got in touch with a customer service rep.

She confirmed that it was a scam and thanked me for reporting it.

I hammer this stuff into my users every damn day. If something sounds too good to be true (like nixie tube clocks for $20) most likely it is, so don't go blindly clicking on links no matter who they seem to come from. Especially if they want personal information and you did not initiate the call/text/email.

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Quote of the Day

If you've built a personality around gleefully 'offending liberals," here's what you need to know: we aren't offended. You haven't hurt our feelings or made us cry. You sound like children to us, and we're sick of responding over and over to your infuriatingly stupid talking points, but we keep doing it because people's lives might literally be at stake if the wrong kind of idiocy is allowed to spread too far. You're not erudite debaters 'owning the libs." You're the rotten, annoying little kids kicking the backs of our seats while we're trying to keep the car on the road." ~ Jesse Adams

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Mic Drop

Donald Trump and Barack Obama somehow ended up at the same barbershop  at the same time.

As they sat there, each being worked on by a different barber, not a word was spoken. The barbers were even afraid to start a conversation for fear it would turn to politics.

As the barbers finished their shaves, the one who had Trump on his chair reached for the aftershave.

Trump was quick to stop him, saying, "No thanks, my wife will smell that and think I've been to a whorehouse."

The second barber turned to Obama and said, "How about you?"

Obama replied, "Go ahead. My wife doesn't know what the inside of a whorehouse smells like."

BOOM.

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Mindful of my own karma, I am going to choose my words carefully to comment on the news that Orangecaligula and his whore both tested positive for COVID-19.

Supposedly.

There are currently two schools of thought on this announcement, showing just how far our country has fallen into the abyss. The first generally accepts the news at face value, and many of us on the left are sending "tots and pears" in response. To be honest, I was absolutely giddy—an emotion I haven't really felt for the last four years—last night upon hearing the news. As much as one part of me would like to see him suffer and die from the disease he allowed to spread like wildfire across this country, the other, better part of me wishes both he and Melanoma a full recovery…so we can see them stripped of every last asset and forced to live out the rest of their pathetic, narcissistic lives in prison.

The second school of thought is saying that this is simply an elaborate ruse cooked up by the administration to get Trumplethinskin out of any further debates, seeing how unrestrained his firehose of effluent had been on Tuesday (was it only Tuesday?)—especially since the consensus seems to be that Biden "won" the debate if only because he was calm, cool, and well…presidential.

It was revealed this morning that the current Vice President and his wife  "Mother" both tested negative, thus dashing any fantasies of having a President Pelosi at the helm for even the briefest period of time if both Trump and Pence were to fall ill to such a degree they were unable to perform their duties. (To be honest, how could you actually tell if Trump was capable of performing his duties as President, because he sure as hell isn't doing it now—or for that matter, for last four years.)

And that is all I'm going to say about it.

Debbie, however, would like to add something…