2015 — 8 March: Sunday
I'm utterly bereft. What on Earth am I going to find to do this coming Tuesday evening1 without any Windows PCs to be patched updated anywhere2 in Technology Towers? :-)
Calm down, lad. Why don't you make yourself another cuppa? And maybe some breakfast? Yes, yes, in a minute. [Pause] Let me just admire the peace and quiet (still) emanating from yesterday's new graphics card adventures.
My visitor profile...
... so far this month:
Windows is no longer quite Top of the Pops, it seems. I was browsing some of the Mint desktop themes earlier, noting several attempts to recreate the look'n'feel of various Windows releases with the laudable aim of helping family members feel more at home...
This strikes me as a step too far (personally). But I could be wrong — I never had the pleasure of using it "for real", much preferring my RISC OS systems at home. I doubt many Windows 3.1 PCs had 67GB of space available on their file systems!
I've whittled my...
... shortlist of program "favourites" down to fit on the MATE menu, and arranged for them to launch each time I login. Next trick is to get them starting up in their 'assigned' virtual deskspaces3 rather than all piling on top of each other in the one on the extreme left. Ought to be possible. This is Linux, after all.
Nice to see confirmation that things are keeping cool and quiet with both those fans "under control":
43C is about 6C hotter than the "Ultimate Fanless" Radeon running on Win8.1 Pro driving the 4K screen. I never bothered to check its feverishness on Mint, and only discovered how to probe the new NVidia mere moments ago.
If you click...
... on the cover — yes! I seem to have persuaded the scanner portion of my lovely LaserJet back into full functionality — of the only book by David Deutsch I've even tried to read...
... you'll see part of the yellowing 19-year-old clipping from the Grauniad that persuaded me to buy my copy. Ken Campbell's article (not a review) was (typically, for this witty man) titled "Where is last Wednesday located?" Good Question. But, so what? Well, you'll find the answer here. An excellent article.
Nicely put
Who would ever want the job of Home Secretary? Nobody who's ever watched "Yes, Minister", that's for sure.
In the past few days, the Tories have been gleefully frothing with horrible new plans. On immigration, charities, universities and free speech, they're proudly making clear that their vision of government is about shutting people up, cutting people off and keeping people out.
As ever, Theresa May is in the vanguard, insisting that the government's spectacularly missed immigration target should be readopted after the election. This is clever. As home secretary, it was her responsibility to hit the target. But, by rejecting the suggestions of several senior colleagues
to abandon it, she appears hardline and unwavering despite her own failure.
It's tricky to upgrade...
... to a new version of the VLC media player with Mint and Debian insisting it's already installed when I click on their 'download' buttons. I know it's already installed, dagnabbit, (though I don't know how they know). But my installed version isn't the latest build, guys! I'm on 2.1.4 (aka Rincewind) but I was after getting me some of that fancy new 2.2.0 (aka Weatherwax) goodness. What's a chap to do? Uninstall a perfectly good working application on the offchance that a new build is better? Perhaps not just yet, methinks. Patience is a virtue.