2016 — 23 June: Thursday
Alas, some of the overnight downpour managed to end up on part of the floor of my books warehouse1 and I have deployed some towels accordingly. Since the last such incursion I've tried to make sure that most of the "stuff" in the immediate vicinity of the threat has been essentially impervious to the effects of unwanted water.
A bit annoying, though.
I retain...
... fond memories of browsing and shopping in Barnes & Noble on each of my four visits to the Land of the Free. Adrift in a sea of pulp, heh?
Having scrawled...
... my puny "democratic" mark in what seems to me2 the only "sane" choice of the two tick-boxes on today's EU referendum ballot — and having complained "officially" to the "officials" about getting fed up with having to perform this particular ritual dance3 every 41 years — I intend to stay on an all-music channel, keep a gentle eye on the water ingress, and the builders, and drink lots of soothing cups of tea. The humidity out there after the rain is pretty awful, and the next lot is due hereabouts this afternoon.
By which time, I really hope all my new guttering will be fixed in place and "on-line". Its absence was no help at all in steering the rain away from the vulnerable edges around my one skylight.
I read two...
... of the (separate topic) chapters in Solomon's latest book last night. The ones on autism, and on (mostly musical) prodigies. Being neither, I was detached enough to find them somewhat interesting but way, way, overlong. Schizophrenia next, perhaps?
By Jove!
A guru tells me he's been off exploring Jupyter. It may (he thinks) enable him to produce me a simple document (with embedded Python code) to open in a web browser, and offer me clickable buttons to fire off the generation of my media DB lists. Currently, that involves a degree of "scrabbling" (his verb) around the CLI. (And, of course, remembering to open the terminal in the appropriate subfolder, too.)
Bits of...
... George Orwell's 1941 essay still ring true, but it was largely of its time, I suspect. Or was it? Source and snippet:
A foreign observer sees only the huge inequality of wealth, the unfair electoral system, the governing-class control over the Press, the radio and education, and concludes that democracy is simply a polite name for dictatorship. But this ignores the considerable agreement that does unfortunately exist between the leaders and the led. However much one may hate to admit it, it is almost certain that between 1931 and 1940 the National Government represented the will of the mass of the people. It tolerated slums, unemployment and a cowardly foreign policy. Yes, but so did public opinion. It was a stagnant period, and its natural leaders were mediocrities.
Ouch!
Yet another...
... horribly insightful and fascinating blog to keep an eye on. If I didn't already dislike coffee, this could put me right off.
The rain tried to stage...
... a return as the lads drove away after another full day of building work. I left warmish air from a little fan heater to dry out the dampish patches at the affected end of the books warehouse. Now that the new guttering is installed — and, usefully, one of the downpipes has been relocated more sensibly to avoid splashing too near the edge of the skylight — it will be, erm, interesting to see if anything sneaks in.
After very nearly 35 years of faithful service, my large FM antenna array, and the smaller UHF one, are both now Things of the Past, as is the large aluminium pole they were clamped to. So that's also going to put a good deal less strain on an upper piece of brickwork. If I ever find the "masthead" amplifier that's up in the loft somewhere, I shall disconnect it from whatever bit of an upstairs lighting power circuit I suspect it was tapped into. If I can find that under layers of fibre-glass insulation and piles of, erm, junk that are scattered around up there.
As the possessor of...
... undeniably high-level 3D tessellation skills, Christa was the designated loft-filler-upper, and she knew where everything was. I was merely the designated loft-hander-upper, as in "Now hand me up that box there!" So I know only where the things I have put up there are.