2015 — 19 May: Tuesday

Bri the Plumber's estimate for a new kitchen sink1 clarified the size of the other hole about to be punched in my finances. Good job it's only money.

Meanwhile...

... another Brian is casting his Pythonic spell over my video ASCII data list as an alternative to my re-engaging with DVD Profiler — that being the main application casualty of my switch from Win8.1 Pro over to Linux Mint 17.1 a couple of months ago. I have seen evidence of being able to run it with help from WINE but I'm sufficiently stubborn as to seek a complete break from Redmond's code.

The sun shines on, and Mother Hubbard's cupboard is nagging me quite persistently. Better do something about that ahead of today's lunch date. No rest, as they say, for the house husband/widower.

Really?

Often wondered, particularly about our feline friends. Source and snippet:

Animal lovers, as is well known, have all sorts of idiosyncratic ideas and, as with religious believers, it's not a good idea to get into a protracted argument with one of them unless you have considerable free time. I once knew someone who insisted that his pet boa constrictor snake liked listening to the heavy metal band Metallica as much as he did, despite snakes' absence of ears and limited hearing capacities. On a more hopeful note about reptiles and music appreciation, according to the Holy Internet, snakes pick up sound vibrations through their jaws, which may be sufficient for appreciating Metallica.

Stan Persky in LARB


Why not? Works for Wagner.

Political reality?

Often wondered, particularly about our Tory friends. Source and snippet:

So a company that funded David Cameron all the way into Downing Street, and whose chairman was recently made a lord, seeks to influence the government on one of the most fundamental issues in British politics, something that affects all of us — and this is business as usual. Yet a workers' elected representative adding his voice to the din of an internal party argument somehow represents the biggest political landgrab since a bloke with a goatee popped in to the Winter Palace.
Expect more of this misdirection over the next few weeks.

Aditya Chakrabortty in Grauniad


What a Good Thing perception isn't reality.

Trigger warnings?

Blimey. Whatever next? The world is clearly going mad. (Link.)

Writing...

... as one who keeps his steam radio set more or less permanently to BBC Radio 3 more or less all the time except for some of the evening and weekend programmes on BBC 6Music I find it amusing2 to be constantly reminded of all the things I may have missed, or may wish to hear again, broadcast across a range of stations, that I am warmly encouraged to catch up on "by visiting the web site". It's mildly alarming to ponder exactly where I'm supposed to find the time that would be needed to do this.

Since I'm apparently the only Waitrose customer to buy their cold roast chicken legs (jolly useful for my healthy lunchtime salads) that line has been discontinued. And, speaking of "discontinued", I've just dismantled the last remnants of the .htaccess scheme I long ago — September 2007 — stopped using to ringfence access to some parts of my web site. I decided that rather than keep the bad guys "out" I would simply not host outside the firewall anything that didn't need to be there.

Case 4 now applies:

Case 1: it's there; you can see it: real
Case 2: it's not there; you can see it: virtual
Case 3: it's there; you can't see it: transparent
Case 4: it's not there; you can't see it: gone!

Tip of the hat to Mike Cowlishaw.

That was...

... a little scary. I just accepted some video driver updates from the Linux Mint software update manager, and one of them paused to ask if I wanted to keep the configuration script that had been modified by me or 'someone' since its initial installation. Or go with the new one from the package maintainers. I hastily copied the original in situ (situ being in this case in /etc/ati) to a new name and then suggested it go ahead and replace the script. And a couple more. All seemed OK. So I shut all applications down, crossed my fingers, and tried a system restart. All still seems OK.

That's got to be worth another cuppa.

  

Footnotes

1  Accepted, and part-pre-paid already.
2  It's possible that "amusing" may not be the right word.