2015 — 28 January: Wednesday
There's a cobweb-blasting walk pencilled in this morning1 and, no doubt, a few other things will turn up to help keep boredom at bay. Though BBC Radio 3's current choice of the overture to "Oklahoma" isn't doing much in that regard. Nor does the fact that the Season #3 supply of the excellently-tailored "Suits" is about to run dry.
Still, it occurs to me, for example, that I really should finalise the small print details of my latest Will. Preferably before mortality takes a hike. Not much point paying for the work and then leaving it in limbo, is there? Even though I won't be around to bother. Do I look bothered?
Typical!
The president of the World Bank asks is the world ready for a pandemic? (Does he have one to sell, I wonder?) And "some" market "analysts" worry that Apple (which used, if I recall, to make "computers") is worryingly dependent on a single product (some form of mobile phone?) that has brought in the biggest quarterly profit in corporate history (until the next ditto rolls along, of course). It's not so long ago that IBM (which used, if I recall, to make "computers") turned in the biggest quarterly loss in corporate history. These things come and go if you insist on destroying the only habitable world we have by over-enthusiastic exploitation2 of labour by capital.
The chaps in charge...
... (as Machiavelli pointed out a while back) never really like change, let alone the idea of lesser chaps doing any thinking for themselves (lest they tip over the apple cart). Source and snippet:
The Enlightenment was a criminal publishing operation — their manuscripts so shocking that they had to be sent to Amsterdam to be printed and then smuggled back into France, hidden under straw in fish barrels or in the baggage of sympathetic diplomats. When the network failed, the consequences were gothic. Of one seizure, when three people were arrested, Diderot wrote to Sophie Volland: "They have been pilloried, flogged, and branded, and the apprentice has been condemned to nine years on the galleys, the colporteur to five years, and the woman to the hospital for her entire life." By hospital he meant madhouse, in the future Soviet punishment style. In their novels and essays, Diderot and his accomplices were intent on dismantling the ruling ideology, and in particular the religio-political complex of the church and the state.
Nice to see things so steadily improving in these post-Enlightenment times. But I shall continue to take some, at least, of my philosophical comfort and guidance from the "Simpsons". (Nice link.)
When I removed...
... my second screen in readiness for the Grand Replacement by the 40" 4K monster (I need a snappier name, I know) I met exactly the sort of situation shown by this XKCD...
... as some windows opened up (leaving the thinnest of thin lines down the right hand edge of the surviving screen as a tantalising hint that they weren't quite beyond the reach of Man) on the missing screen even after a reboot. Not that even rebooting went terribly well, initially.
Meanwhile, my ancient copy of 'Fireworks' has decided it likes to open up maximised. Maximised on a 40" 4K screen is really quite a visual shock...
This anonymous comment on Wall Street's reaction to Microsoft quarterly figures made me chortle:
The $30bn..... ....is that actual cold-hard-cash, or is that $30bn of imaginary money based on the theoretical value placed on the stock by the croupiers on Wall Street?
Precisely so. (Link.)
Discretion being...
... the better part of Valerie, an elderly pair of codgers — inspecting the dark clouds visible through the rain-swept landscape — decided (instead of going for a healthy walk) to play indoors, briefly, with the new display screen. As a direct consequence of which, BlackBeast's somewhat backward Win8.1 system now has no further excuse for not knowing the screen's precise capabilities. And no longer thinks of it sneeringly as a "Generic PnP device". Perhaps this means the DisplayPort interface on my spiffy graphics card will also be gently encouraged to keep using the 60Hz refresh rate in future? Thanks, Brian!
He admitted he was tempted :-)
Yesterday's expressed hope...
... has just metamorphosed into (one of) today's deliveries. I had to move fairly sharpish to stop the latest Mr Postie trying to shovel it through my delicate little front door letterbox:
It's my own fault. If I left my Yaris out on the drive like everybody else does around here (instead of locked in my garage) people would naturally assume I was in, and bang on the door.
I see the DVD Profiler database I use at least once a day is preparing a new version. It includes this:
The Movie Pick algorithm has been revamped for more creepily accurate suggestions
Creepily ambiguous.
The other deliveries?
Alas, just financial gorp relating to dear Mama. Tedious, but necessary since I'm the only chap with her Power of Attorney on this side of the planet. Not that she knows which side of which planet she's on. Or who I am, for that matter. I now have to swing past the Post Office tomorrow.