Today is a beautiful day.

It’s cold and overcast, with a wind that is not actually hostile, although doesn’t seem to like any of us very much. But in my aimless pre-dawn wandering, I crested an overpass on the way to Manassas and was struck by a flare of gaudy salmon pink lancing the cloud cover somewhere over the Atlantic, flooding inland and suffusing a million miles of sky with a fiery underlight. By the time I found a place to take a picture, the world had turned, the glow was gone, and an unknown night had become a tentative day.

I had spent the day before with friends and coworkers at Arlington to pay respects. We took some natural fiber sponges … Continue reading →

I am not alone in my consternation over the ridiculous power situation of the MacBook Air.  Shelley Palmer tells Apple just where they can stick their MagSafe 2 plug in a well-reasoned blog post entitled “Dear Apple – Let Me Tell You Where To Stick Your MagSafe 2 Plug”.

As it turns out, there is a very ugly, non-Apple-like solution available from Apple.  For $9.99 you can purchase a MagSafe to MagSafe 2 converter and stick it into your new, beautiful, extraordinary MacBook Air. Really?  For $2,500 bucks?

I hear you. I have one of the early, small, sucky MBAs, and aside from my frustration at not being able to use my 2009 MBP power at home and leave the new one in the bag … Continue reading →

Number One: Drill your own well.

This guy is not selling anything.  He’s an older gentleman with a handy streak and a video camera which “ran out of tape” at one point.  If you don’t like these videos, you’re a Godless Commie.

http://www.drillyourownwell.com/index.htm

This is Chip. [picture of happy little beaver youth]

Chip is a beaver, and like most beavers, he knows the value of hard work. Chip’s Mommmy and Daddy are Republicans, and they worked very hard to build the place where Chip’s family lives. Chip of course, being a child, has no political affiliation. But he knows what makes sense. Before Chip was even born, his Mommy and Daddy went to the woods on the banks of the river, and felled trees by working very hard, for days on end, until the trees could be brought to the right place. [pic: Mommy beaver gnawing on tree, Daddy maneuvering one into place across a narrow spot in the river. Woodpecker looks on approvingly]

Over a long, long time, Chip’s Mommy … Continue reading →

Beyond the Event Horizon of a Quack Hole

I had always wondered what happened to Omni Magazine.    I found (rather Google found for me) an excellent and in passing poignant explanation on a site dedicated to paranormal and conspiracy themes called paraspiracy.com. They may be kooks, but they write well, and this is a remarkably straight-forward article. Nothing seems to have haunted my computer since reading their article, so I can recommend it: Whatever Happened to OMNI Magazine?.

EOF

Remember the Tea Party people?  Wigs and Swastikas in 2010, I think that was their motto.  Every one of them was either an incompetent nutjob or a hardened master agitator, a bunch of little Eichmanns and a couple of Riefenstahls.

And who was that slutty stewardess they used to gape after, the one from Idaho?  Or Alaska?  Somewhere with wa-a-ay too many white people at any rate.  Gives you the shivers, doesn’t it?  Imagine the flat-out conflicted vanity required for somebody to be a mother and try to pull down a non-unionized federal job too.  Remember how she tried to get comics fired for impersonating her?  Anyway.  Way too much time spent on that old callused uterus.

It is well that the Lightworker vanquished them all.

Continue reading →

Here’s an inspirational quote:

We always, it seems, are provided with a glut of material on the next big thing, and not enough on how to make the last big thing actually work. –Alec Sharp

It’s inspirational because it succinctly captures what’s wrong with this quote:

Accelerate the pace of change, and get employees conditioned to accept change. –Michael Dell

The problem is that change for its own sake is not good–it’s bad. Almost anything for its own sake is bad, especially if you have pretensions of customer service or a value stream. Change for its own sake is mere disruption, and without some demand up front and some payoff on the return, all change does is disorient people, and then turn them off. Nobody on either side … Continue reading →