An Update and Then…to Progress

I’ve been rather silent. I spent 10 months in motels while owning and paying for a townhouse (so that my wife [now ex, thank God] could live in her accustomed style, more or less). I lost 2 computers over that time–Hard Drive crash and then physical crash (dropped) on my nice Dell AIO and then there was the HP/Compaq ex-military one that lost the hard drive and right now won’t even power on. It was an inexpensive refurbished one, though; no bitterness here.

The divorce is over. She got over twice I did out of the settlement. I’m not in debt, and I had enough left over after settling MY credit cards to buy a travel trailer for $8,000 in cash. I can’t begin to claim I have the faintest idea of what her finances are or were in light of the fact that when divorce proceedings began her indebtedness was at $52,000 (roughly) and at the end of the proceedings at about twice that with undeclared debts. Don’t presume that this is notice of my making a decision as to the validity or worth of her various decisions, because I simply don’t comprehend her system of valuation and consequent assigned protocols. I can’t judge her daughter because I simply don’t know her; I willingly admit that this is largely due to a decision of mine decades ago that I would not under any circumstances involve myself in a social or quasi-social venue with her. Thank God.

I’m going to add a short squib that signals the attempted direction of the rest of this blog.

Language is a representative system. The most special and definitive thing about it is that it is a representative system designed solely for quick and fairly reliable communication. It looks like for us (homo sapiens, so to speak) that was to allow group coordination on the slaughter of many small or a few large sources of protein/meat. This allows coordination along with the presentation of valuations (by means of lingual definition of a given ‘object’) that basically imposes a series of protocols.

Back from the twilight

This is only a short entry.  I have hesitated recently because I wasn’t perfectly sure I could continue to pay for the site; however, the deppening (that’s Johnny Depp getting deeper…or else a wry tribute to the misspelling that is a part of initial writing) emotive involvement of the country in Mr. Trump (and with both sides backward-looking to Obama and Clinton as entirely contributory to…either the good shape or the bad shape we’re in; no one at all seems able to widen their vision of “cause” [which is why the hypothesis of cause and effect is an hypothesis, not even a theory] and his supporters and non-supporters to enemies outright…  Began the silence.  I felt as of mid-December that Trump would win. I wrote a relatively long piece.  I couldn’t post it.  I’m sure I threw it away.

 

Later today or else tomorrow I will post something from Voices and continue on.  Another contributing factor was that…of 3 Windows (Dell) machines…3 went down.  The XPS 2720 was a hard drive (C:) and will merit an article.  The Dell Optiplex 3020 was a momentary victim of beta-testing.  The Alienware is still down but at least I’ve finally gotten it to recognize it’s on a network.  Word to the wise; make sure that you do a system image before doing internet optimization.  And (yes, I did it deliberately) if you have two optimization programs, and you feel you have to optimize your internet connections–do it only with one of them and remember which one it is.  However, with both Dell and HP (Alienware is Dell) I suggest using the computer apps themselves to optimize internet connections and leave it at that rather than having virtual adapters (having an unplugged virtual ethernet connect adapter is truly WEIRD).

 

Anyway, I am here.  I also underwent a complete withdrawal from Carbamazepine/Tegretol XR which was bound to have mental/psychological complications and did, but I had no seizures in consequence and thank God I have one less drug to take.

 

In brief, HI!

Samwise Davies/oregonnerd/variously known

an update

My step-daughter’s car died, and she’s got mine.  Which means, in combination with the Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, pain will rise yet again.  Perhaps our troubles are merely a reflection of the country’s.  I’ve notified the VA I’ve nothing further to submit on my claim; these are the people that warned me that they might suddenly decide.  From past experience, it’s meant to intimidate.  Or so someone who graduated from psych with honors would have it, and with some onhand experience in the Navy.  I have been writing, offline, because I simply can’t afford to lose the base materials.  I should be going to absurd lengths I suppose.  At heart I don’t trust computers or related formats, after 36 years of experience.  [Related formats:  storage devices.  I’ve seen every kind fail.]

Social organization/language as seeding mechanism?

–Glenn

Click-jacking update

Firefox’s NoScript add-on will disable the vulnerabilities to an extent, at least; the update earlier was from an Israeli security researcher.  Cat out of the bag, the rest were revealed.  What do I mean? the original researchers, Hansen and Grossman, were persuaded by Adobe not to let the secrets out until a fix was available.  The second link will allow you to peruse and become paranoid, if you like.

The problem?  Ever play games on, say, Pogo? like chess?  With Firefox and NoScript, you won’t.  A great many of the things we take for granted on the Internet today are also implicitly security vulnerabilities.  Bear in mind that nothing is actually secure at this point unless you want to go back to Morse code.  Oops, that’ll be illegal soon; the telephone companies need the bandwidth.

–Glenn

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FreeCommander, freeware

That’s the free one comparable to Win 3.11 of which I remember hearing.  I was just used to Power Desk.

I haven’t included a link because I’m getting tired.  I hate computers.  I also was driving for the first time in a year in a car that had sat for a year.

–Glenn

As I Go Through Old Stuff

I’m cleaning out old e-mails.  Just got car insurance, too, for Monday.  That’s when I go to the doctor, get my little doctor’s slip…go to DMV with proof of insurance…and have a working driver’s license.  My car hasn’t even been in working order for a year, so it’s fairly legit.  My license was suspended because I’m epileptic and had recorded seizures.

 

I hope I didn’t offend anyone too much, with the Open DNS bit.  However, if I saved one person, it’s well worth it.  There’s even an on-screen process to walk you through it, and it’s a layer of protection that isn’t available otherwise.

–Glenn

NotePad ++

Actually made it to the SourceForge top ten of freeware.  The updated version is here, and worth downloading and installing.  It’s the original Windows Notepad with a difference; it works.  You can actually use it to edit code.  Look at html.  All sorts of weird stuff.

 

Try to keep all language on comments in this blog without any obscenities; I’m going to refrain as well.  There’s a little girl in Singapore who contacted me by accident and will almost undoubtedly read it from time to time.  Just keep in mind the nice little old Chinese lady in Brooklyn who used to carry a pocket notebook around with her, and when someone used a ‘swear word’ she’d ask them to repeat it and spell it because her English wasn’t very good.  This someone is probably about 13 and her English isn’t perfect.  Just be nice.  We have been, so it shouldn’t be terribly hard.

–Glenn