10:00 – Barbara is heading out late this coming week to a family reunion in Pennsylvania, so it’ll be wild-women-and-parties™ while she’s gone. Either that, or I’ll just have a Heartland marathon. Assuming, of course, that Netflix streaming works.
Last night, we started to watch something on Netflix streaming. Everything appeared normal until I tried to start running the episode, at which point, it bounced back to the episode screen, popped up a “Content unavailable” message, and suggested I try again later. So I tried running episodes from several different series, and got the same message each time. So I backed out of Netflix and tried a couple other services, both of which worked fine. So I called Netflix tech support and spoke to a nice young woman who eventually had me de-register and then re-register my Roku box. She said that was the generic fix for any Roku problem, so from now on I’ll just de/re-register any time we have a problem.
Figuring if anyone would know, a Netflix tech-support rep would, I asked her what she’d buy to stream Netflix. She said she’d just bought her father a box for Netflix streaming, and she’d decided on a Roku. She said, which confirms my experience, that the Roku ordinarily Just Works for months on end, and when it has problems it’s almost always just a matter of de/re-registering to get it up and running again. She also said that using a hard-wired connection eliminated about 90% of the problems people had with Roku, which again confirms my own experience. Roku wireless networking simply sucks. When it works, it works very well, and it stays up for months on end. But when it has problems, you can expect to spend hours getting it to work again. I should have expected that from the start. When I bought the Roku and connected it for the first time, their “5-minute” set-up procedure took me two or three hours. This for a guy who co-authored a book about TCP/IP network administration for O’Reilly. I shudder to think what ordinary civilians have to go through when they have Roku problems with wireless.
“I shudder to think what ordinary civilians have to go through…”
I haven’t written any books on technical subjects, but I have said this to Mrs. OFD many times when confronted by goofy tech issues here at home. I’ve been in IT on and off, mostly on, since 1984, yet still find myself confounded by stupid documentation, if any, and contradictory processes and stuff that simply does not work without lots of tinkering. What do ordinary buggers do if *I* have trouble with it?
I also say this when twisting caps of jars and it takes me throwing my whole weight into it and really twisting to the point that my hand and fingers are straining. What does a little old grandma do?
76 today and still humid, but I sense t-storm activity is on the way….
And “of” works but I meant to say “off.” Jars, that is.
We need Obama to appoint AlGore as iCsar of the iCloud and fix all of this wireless stuff once and forever.
Ok, all sarcasm aside, the Bluetooth in my Jeep for hands free cellephony and my Samsung Android phone work spectaculary, automagically well together. Also, no anomalous behavior whatsoever between my Jeep and garage door opener.
Slim! Long time no see! Bienvenu!
OFD tries not to ever talk at all on his cell while driving, period. And with the old truck here, I guess I am sticking to the dinosaur CD player, rip my own CDs and may still consider Sirius at some point. Don’t know if I’ll bother much, though, because the truck is kinda noisy.
OFD, are you sure it’s the truck rumbling and not your intestines? You are getting on in years, after all.
(Some people claim that the fart joke is the lowest form of humor. I claim that those people are effete snobs and no credit to the human race.)
Slim! You’ve been missed!
My intestines never rumble while I’m in the truck or there is any other nearby racket to drown out the noise. Only in meetings or a dead-silent office or social gathering; then suddenly it’s Henrik Hudson and his merry crew bowling skittles in the Catskills or a bubbling cauldron of witches’ brew.
Yes, ol’ OFD is getting on in years; just hit 59 a coupla weeks ago, how tempus fugit irreperabile. I remember b&w tee-vee (when we finally got a tee-vee), party-line telephones, listening to my AM transistor radio nights to the Boston stations, being taught the Lord’s Prayer, the 23rd Psalm and Christmas hymns in a publik skool, and watching the 6PM nooz of the week’s casualty figures for ‘Nam and American cities in flames. OFD also remembers veterans of the Spanish-American War and Great War doughboys marching in Memorial Day parades in a small Maffachufetts town and being told by parents that they’d seen War of Northern Aggression GAR vets marching in their day.
Sorta interesting side note: on New England town commons you will usually see statues of soldiers from only two wars: the Revolution and the WNA, and once in a while a doughboy. OFD’s paternal grandpa was a doughboy and my other grandfather was in The Good War for three years in North Africa.
Oh boy, 83 here now and raining steadily with very distant rumble of thunder but no big boomers here yet, which we really need to dispel this mass of jungle-like air (explained to Mrs. OFD just now: picture this; only thirty degrees warmer and heavier rain for days at a time while standing and moving around in water up to one’s knees, waist and neck during southeast Asian monsoon.) One would be better off shedding one’s human attributes and becoming a frog or turtle or Gollum.
Oh, I’ve been reading everyday, just not posting as much and sometimes under my birth certificate moniker.
Also, hate to get one-upped by OFD. Like above OFD complaining about getting old.
CowboySlim
Who is less than 1/2 year to 74 and not complaining.
(Now that is a tagline in the style of Geoff/Jeff who is also missed.)
Born in 1939? Wow. Eventful year.
My birth year saw the armistice signed in Korea and the death of Koba the Dread. Also record high temps in Babylon.
Warnt so much complaining as remembering stuff. Mostly stuff that is long gone.
Yeah, I recognized that Slim was around and just using his other name. I am about to change mine after an episode in the family, that was reminiscent of some I saw while actively working in broadcast TV. When I was much, much younger, and working in radio, I faced the decision of using my real name or a fake one. My father, proud of the family name and having made me a Junior, encouraged me to use the real one—which I did. As society has turned out, that was not such a good choice, and I would definitely do it differently today, after what I have seen. So, if my moniker morphs, it is belated application of wisdom.
We had huge storms move through overnight and early morning, which took out power to large swaths of the state, including the studio of the radio project. Funny that the transmitter is way out in the country, and has only had 1 power failure since sign-on over 3 years ago, but the studio in town, regularly has outages. That is what happened this morning, and things are set up so programming is automagically transferred to a flash drive at the transmitter (ain’t technology wonderful?). Six hours later, power was restored to the studio.
The national map shows much cooler temps just west of us, but it is truly oppressive right now. This morning, after the rain, it was 70°F with 90% humidity and now is 84° out my back door with 75% humidity. Old-timers said early in the summer that we are in for an early autumn, and I am ready now. Geez, whatever happened to the summer of love? Temps here seldom got out of the 70’s that year. Far cry from our near daily 100’s this year.
Meanwhile, recent heavy rains are too late to save the crops, and my yard is a total mess—mostly brown, with scattered weeds approaching knee high. Guess I will have to mow this week—first time since mid-June.
“Geez, whatever happened to the summer of love? ”
Here ya go, Chuck:
http://s2.hubimg.com/u/1988653_f520.jpg
Coming any day now to Tiny Town….
Here’s your Summer of Love. Remember, just because the times change, doesn’t mean you have to.
Yikes, do I look like that? No, guess not, as I have no beard and never will. Chopped off my hair last year after the requisite 4 years for the bet. Threw away my tie-dyes decades ago—although I regret that. Never did like bell bottoms, and stuck with narrow jeans, even when my wife had to alter them. Fortunately, The Romantics helped bring back narrow pants in the ’80’s.
http://www.culturegreyhound.com/2010/04/19/rocking-retro-the-romantics/
My daughter still narrows mine. I’m a pegged pants kind of guy, and that will likely never change.
We had the same heavy storms overnight that Chuck did. On the way to a family reunion we found five stoplights in a row on a major state road were out. The first had a small town cop sitting in his car watching everyone treat the light like a four way stop. The last had three Indianapolis Police officers directing traffic.
SteveF wrote:
“Here’s your Summer of Love. Remember, just because the times change, doesn’t mean you have to.”
I adore tie dyed t-shirts. Thanks
The first time I heard What I Like About You I thought “When did The Kinks release this song?”
FYI…
Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) should be landing on Mars around 1:31 AM EDT tonight.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/index.html
Computer doco today sucks. If you are lucky you get a CD of translated Chinese. Otherwise you’ve got to google it and choose whether to download a PDF from Taiwan or the USA.
I started computing in the early 1970s. We had awesome rack of books at the UCC office here in Houston. In 1978, we bought a Prime 450. Came with 8 feet of binders and perfect bound books, all 8.5″ by 11″. And the Prime came with 9 track tapes of the source code for the O/S and fortran compiler. We made a few modifications here and there…
“I also say this when twisting caps of jars and it takes me throwing my whole weight into it and really twisting to the point that my hand and fingers are straining. What does a little old grandma do? ”
I’m not actually a grandma but do have small hands and in the past found it very difficult to open many jars. A lot of the jars have contents with some pressure differential with the outside and when you manage to open them there is a pop sound equalizing pressure. For those, and even all others, I use a round pointed spreading knife gently inserted between the border of the lid and the wall of the jar and use it as a lever pulling out the border of the cap. Most times this manages to break the seal and leaves ends in an easy opening twist. When that does not work first time, I do the same thing in a couple of extra places around the lid. That breaks seal and also loosens the grip of the cap on the sides.
Hope it helps,
I am a stubborn old bugger and will usually attempt to twist that goddam cap off through brute strength alone. If defeated, which is not often, I tap it with a table knife and/or run it under hot wottuh.
But good tip, there, Marcelo. I will try that next and show it to Mrs. OFD who usually just hands these jars to me. SOP in the Western households by now, I reckon.
Heavy rains again here but no thunder or lightning yet; radar showed a wide t-storm front approaching from our west, a band from the St. Lawrence Seaway down to at least Long Island but no boomers yet. Amazingly the net is still up here. Shocking.
I got one of the contraptions linked below for my mother, who had arthritic hands. Fairly expensive, and it took up counter space, but it worked. After she died we gave it to a social service agency; lots of the elderly have problems removing the caps of jars but either don’t know about this thing or can’t afford it. As soon as I win a big lottery I’ll buy a truck load to give away.
http://www.amazon.com/Black-Decker-JW200-Opener-White/dp/B00008GS9U/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1344229258&sr=8-9&keywords=jar+openers+for+seniors
I’ve been a piano player for over 60 years, and have remarkably strong hands, but many jars and bottles defeat me. I’ve used one of these gizmos for 10 years or so, and swear by it. It’s cheap and it works. http://www.amazon.com/OXO-Good-Grips-Jar-Opener/dp/B00004OCIV
Hold the jar upside down about a foot above a hard surface. Slam the down hard making sure to not hit at an ange. Works every time.
A British friend had a device bolted to studs in the wall of the kitchen. It was cone-shaped with rubber lining the inside. No matter the size of the jar, because of the cone shape, it would nestle into the rubber; then you have 2 hands to twist. This was 30 years ago; I have never seen that device anywhere in the US. But it worked like a champ.
My mom used to have something like that. She was disabled with rheumatoid arthritis when she was still in her 30’s, and she was able to open just about any bottle or jar with it.
All we have is a cap snaffler, which is just a thin rubber pad to grip the lid. It works pretty well.
I have an 18 yr old son. I just hand him the item and say “Bet you can’t open this”. He will chew his way in, if necessary.
“I have an 18 yr old son. …”
I have 5 daughters. Just the reverse…except for the chewing. My 57 year old choppers couldn’t take that.
My jar opening tip. Don’t grab to top to hard. This just squeezes it against the threads making it harder to open. This has worked quite a few times for me.
Yeah; I’ve often found it’s quicker to open jars by levering them with a knife, a la MrAtoz. Another trick, which only works if you’re quite flexible, is to use your foot to press the lid against something, allowing you to use both hands on the lid.
The problem with trying to open the lid by brute force comes when your hands get slippery, be that from food or from exertion.
Geez, to think I used to be able to open those easy-opening cans, just like Bubba did.
http://youtu.be/KPm3l5przFI
Nowadays, if I can’t get the lid off I just give it to Barbara. After I’ve loosened it for her, of course. And she’s not the only one. Mary has also unscrewed lids that I couldn’t get off. After I’d loosened it for her, of course.
Can you even BUY an ice-pick nowadays? That’s my method of choice for removing split-pea soup from Campbell’s newfangled “easy-to-open” cans. I poke a few holes in the bottom, open the top, and blow.
I want one of Chuck and RBT’s whatchamacallits…
Ice-picks have other uses. I think one was used to get rid of Trotsky, so we definitely need more.
Trotsky was killed with an ice axe, which is very different from an ice pick.
Ah, I’ve been misinformed all these years. I’m sure I read on a number of occasions that it was an ice pick.
This isn’t it, but it gives the idea.
http://www.abcmobility.co.uk/conical-jar-opener-%28ABC0058%29.html
Imagine that rubber cone mounted into a really heavy-duty plastic housing, also shaped like a cone, that is then securely attached to the studs in the wall. With 2 hands, you insert the jar into the cone and unscrew it. I tried searching some online iron mongers in the UK, but did not find any jar openers at all. Maybe they don’t call hardware stores iron mongers there, anymore. Nothing like it on Amazon UK, either.
I would think something like this would work better than the cone because, to get it to grip, you don’t have to push up and thus seal the lid tighter.
Actually, I have used one of those (there was one installed in an apartment I once rented), and it is the exact opposite. With that V-type opener, you have to firmly push both up and away from you to get the grip. With the cone, once you have it seated, you actually have to pull to get it loose.
I stumbled across this picture of an MIT student project.
http://web.mit.edu/15.783j/www/images/00EZJarOpener72res.jpg
It is close to the one I was familiar with, except there is no rubber inside the cone, and the housing is metal, not plastic. The plastic device also mounted to the wall, with an angle molded into the construction. Actually, I would like to have one of these MIT-designed units.
Wow, that thing looks like it would survive WWIII. We had a much simpler version fixed to the underside of a cupboard. It was triangular, so you could position the obstinate lid at just the right spot. I tried not to use it because the serrated edges would sometime mess up the lid of what I was trying to open.
Before that my folks would just beat the lid with something hard and heavy to try to make it budge. Of course, as a young, fit and strong male I was often called upon to do the honours.
Yes, Miles_Teg, I can see how, as a young man, your head was hard and
heavy enough for use in beating jar lids. I do the same with my sons.
I’m not sure about my daughter. Even as a baby she showed signs of
hard-headedness (which I approve, in fact) and I know full well that
teenage girls have just as many rocks in their heads as teenage boys do.
(And just as much lead in their ass, for that matter.) However, I think
most people frown on using girls as blunt objects. Not sure why that is,
but there you have it. Fortunately, it probably won’t be my problem.
It’s eight years until she’s a teenager, and the smart money is on my
wife having nagged me to death years before then.
See, this is why I love this board; screw arguing about religion and politics and other dreck; a weeks-long conversation can be had here concerning jar and bottle caps and the difficulties and solutions with removing them. Truly amazing.
Well, we sure don’t need no Pope or Liberal-ass President to tell us how to screw things up and make bad smells!! 😀
Believe me, the Holy Father would be a vast, vast improvement over the lefty bugger in the WH. For one thing, no more wars, and DOD cut down to shreds. Right there it would be worth it.
Ah, but with the current guy, we would have to learn Latin.
Man, Internet slow, choppy, and failing tonight. It is dropping my audio streams about every 2 minutes—completely.
Chuck wrote:
“Ah, but with the current guy, we would have to learn Latin.”
And that would be a good thing. Latin should be made the world language, or at least the language of the civilised West.
I’m shocked that you would say that. I’d expect most of those who hang out here to say English should be the world language, or at least the language of the civilized West. Chuck and Brad are the only ones who I thought might have disagreed with that.
I thought the real disagreement would be whose version of English would be the correct one.
British English is the most civilized of the Englishes, but Aussie English is more suited for day to day expression.
I’ll vote for Texan English, don’t y’all know…
Seriously, no contest. Any language with genders for the nouns is unnecessarily complicated. English is simple to learn to a basic level of competence – that counts for a lot.
If you haven’t read it yet, I suspect many of you would enjoy reading H. L. Mencken’s The American Language. It’s interesting to see how language patterns have shifted since then. In many instances, what was a Briticism is now an Americanism, and vice versa. (The shift predominantly favors the American usages; the Brits now use many more formerly American forms than vice versa, but there are exceptions.)
I just checked Amazon, expecting to find cheap paper and electronic editions. The paperback is $19 and the hardback $41, but you can save a buck by buying the Kindle edition for a measly $40. Geez.
The original version of our graphical software package was written in Wales (Swansea University to be exact). All of the spellings in the source code are British with a Welsh accent. It always brings a smile to my face to see colour instead of color in the code such as:
BOOL bColorFill = gbColourFill;
gbColourFill = FALSE;
Texas English is the best! I was 40 before I understood that y’all and ain’t were not words. To get to the specific variant of Texas English, East Texas Redneck should be recognized as a dialect on its own. That is what we speak here in the burbs of Houston. I can’t tell you what they speak in Houston proper but there are about 5,000,000 languages in that melting pot.
English is the master language of the Universe, in any form, really; it is like unto the Borg. But I prefer American, in all its dialects and variants. Mencken’s book is highly recommended.
Latin should be the required second language and then after that, whatever ya want. Might depend on where ya live; around here, French would be useful. In Texas, obviously Mexican Spanish. Ditto pretty much the western half of the country now, excepting Washington and Oregon. Also Florider. And many Northeast cities.
If I lived in Oz I’d study Chinese. And the mysterious language of cats.
The only Catlish words you need to know are the ones for “bring me food”, “bring me water”, “clean up these dead mice I killed”. “empty my tray”, “scratch my ears”, “worship me! slave”.
The young daughter of friends – she’s southern English, he’s lowlands Scotish – refers to her father’s accent/language as “Scotlish”.
Or…Lallans. The lowland Scots dialect. You can read it in Bishop Gavin Douglas’s version of the Aeneid. Or Lindsay. Or several modern poets.
My father was in Scotland during WWII and although he didn’t formally see action he did have lots of Brit stories to tell. One was of how he was talking to a lowlands Scot, when a highlander joined in. He rabbited on for a while, then left. My father asked the lowlander what the highlander had said, the lowlander replied “I dinna kin a weird ‘e sed.”
Those are the ones pronounced “Meow”, right? Except for the last one, which I’m pretty sure goes “purrr”.
Most folks have only heard the Lallans Scots dialect, as represented by Robert Burns and others, but few have had the fun of listening to Highland Scots Gaelic mixed with an occasional Lallans or English word. And people figure it’s all one ethnic group there but it ain’t; a mix of Pict, Scots Gaelic, Irish Gaelic, Norse, Danish, Angle, Saxon and Jute. You can see the difference between the short little Scots buggers and the great big buggers like our host and me. Also a distinct difference, as was discovered during WWII, between Celt feet and Anglo-Saxon feet; the bones are different and the soldiers then had to get the right shoes to fit. This was confirmed by archaeological research at A-C and Celt grave sites. OFD has long toes on long narrow feet and can practically use them as fingers while Mrs. OFD, 100% Celt, has short wide feet and short toes, for spading up spuds, of course.
72 and very humid here today, with a good chance of showers and t-storms; Vermont is in zero danger of drought and the corn is looking good for the first time in several years.
An alternative to Amazon: The American language; a preliminary inquiry into the development of English in the United States (1919)
Options offered:
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(20.6 M)PDF
(16.1 M)B/W PDF
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