2016 — 21 September: Wednesday
As 07:00 lurched within range1 a few minutes ago I put aside the "Copernicus Complex" and decided to lurch into upright action. The book had quickly sent me to sleep last night, but has proved a worthy opponent this morning for an hour or so. Another such being the monster eight-legged horror that scuttled across the living room carpet last night in my peripheral vision. (I hate it when they do that.) That, the relative lack of sunlight so far, and the pleasantly-hot radiators hereabouts this morning, all suggest autumn is now in full swing.
I provoked...
... a new2 Linux error message this morning. I'd powered on BlackBeast but then, before logging in, switched the 34" Dell screen over to Skylark with the intention of basing myself "there" (and using BB only via the NoMachine Remote Desktop). All seemed OK until suddenly a popup (on Skylark) warned me that "since my last session had lasted less than 10 seconds" if I hadn't logged out under my own steam (as it were) I might now wish to start up a "safe" session (again on Skylark) to investigate a possible problem. "Sod that!" thought I. So I simply ignored it and logged in (on Skylark) on the second such screen that had by now appeared. And proceeded as normal. (Or as "normal" as I get at this early hour.)
I'm thus now typing this in an UltraEdit session on BB that is being shown to me courtesy of NoMachine, and — having just confirmed that I can browse the page from Skylark as served by the localhost web server running on BB — I will now push it up into the AWS cloud bucket to see if everything's tickety boo.
I'm predicting...
... a spot of shelf-filling this morning, but I have enough grub to manage breakfast. Just been catching up on a report from one of my roving correspondents. Should I worry that he finds ordering a pint of beer a deeply erotic experience? I'm sure the Bard had something to say about the effects of alcohol.
Since the Mint 18...
... developers continue to refine their "dark" desktop themes, I take them out for an occasional spin. I quite like them, but still (marginally) prefer my customisation of the basic Mint 17 theme. Compare and contrast. First up, a screen capture of the "Mint-Y Dark" appearance:
And here's my current desktop appearance:
I note the latest build of UltraEdit has also "gone dark". Thinks: I clearly need to get out more. [Pause] And going out to de-maggot my bin doesn't count! Yuk.
Receiving an email...
... invitation from the GP's surgery for my first-ever flu jab (an invitation that can only be declined in writing) gave me a perfect excuse to install and print my first-ever page from the HP LaserJetPro MFP via the HPLIP system that I've just had to put on to Skylark. But until I'd first explicitly accepted HP's Ts&Cs for the use of their proprietary binary module (which, on Mint 18, is already installed) printing progress was non-existent. [Pause] The Printer Test Page is a Thing of Beauty. Now all I have to do is to try to remember to go past the surgery at some point — preferably when it isn't overflowing with sniffly pensioners.
Trompe l'oeil...
... or do I mean Trump oil?
In a follow-up to moderator Matt Lauer, Trump proposed seizing Iraqi oil and leaving behind "a certain group" to protect it. What Trump apparently did not realize, Iraq's oil resources are spread around the country, the vast bulk of them far distant from and not vulnerable to ISIS operations... It is hard to overstate the stupidity of this idea.
Is the gentleman trying to make Dubya look like a genius? (Link.)