2014 — 14 June: Saturday
Start the day with an Adobe Flash player security update; that's what I always say. And just ignore the irritation as it once again tries to install some security scanning crapware and once again insists my security options have recently changed and why don't I just let it install anything it wants whenever it wants? Is it my fault their software has bugs? So many, that the idea of giving it carte blanche is never going to fly hereabouts.
Given the news1 coming in from Iraq this morning, I probably shouldn't even bother to mention the further irritation I felt when a burst of sneezes caused me to drop the chain by which I was dangling my tea-egg in my initial cuppa. Nor the undeniable fact that the marmalade that had dried overnight on the long spoon I grabbed to fish it out with had disappeared by the time I landed my metal fish. Even if it is on a par with the irritation I felt last night as I tried, and discarded in fairly rapid succession, three or four recent video acquisitions before settling on "The Lucky One" at a point where I was then too tired to watch the whole thing.
So much for...
... dodging the pollen.
Speaking as a parent...
... and certainly not as a philosopher(!) I found this essay quite entertaining, and mildly amusing. Source and "snip it":
Who needs kids when you're surrounded by a landscape that Nietzsche described as blutsverwandt — "related by blood"? The mountains there are singularly inviting, intimate without being smothering. I arrived when I was 20 and instantly loved them. I vowed I wouldn't make Nietzsche's mistake: I would never leave. Because when Nietzsche left Sils Maria for the last time, he became increasingly lonely and ended up hugging a horse in a Turin marketplace, which was the last thing he did before being institutionalized. Cautionary tales don't get much more cautionary than that.
I first mentioned...
... this chap a while back — and I still haven't felt even the slightest urge to read his "The Bell Curve". However, I liked this...
Such guidance for the workplace makes up the first half of the book. "Internships are affirmative action for the advantaged," he declares. (They also don't expose you to anyone outside
your own caste.) "What to do if you have a bad boss" is especially helpful, its counsel often missing from this sort of book. But more important than getting ahead — and more useful
than his "bare-bones usage primer" — is getting to the good life. "Two accomplishments will, if you pull them off, almost surely produce happiness: Find work that you enjoy, and find
your soul mate."
The "easy part," he says, is "finding your vocation."
... and can vouch for its effectiveness.
Listening — yet again — to Pink Floyd's "A momentary lapse of reason" I wonder — yet again — how it can possibly be 27 years since its release.
Having revealed...
... a (fairly typical) minidisc music compilation yesterday, here's this afternoon's "spoken word" listening:
It's actually a blend of spoken word and music-related items, of course...
Every journey...
... needs an initial step. I was amused, having taken the initial step of my next journey, to see this helpful ACK:
It's also a useful object lesson in what can happen after glancing through a chum's "Custom PC" magazine.
Never having read...
... anything by Michael Dobbs, I could only judge the adaptation done by Andrew Davies (when turning "House of Cards" from a novel into compelling TV back in 1990) on its own merits. Christa and I both thought the late Ian Richardson was superb as the monstrous Francis Urquhart, so I have to admit I was a little dubious when I first heard about the US remake coming our way with Kevin Spacey and Robin ('Princess Buttercup') Wright:
I needn't have worried. It turned out very well indeed. I watched it in March last year and have just splashed out on the Blu-ray set.