It being long overdue, I took most of today off. To me, that means with a good pile of books. I’ve been learning that tune “My Girl” by the Temptations. Whoever they are. Never liked that song when I first heard it but it seems to be one of Arnel’s favorites. I learned something new fixing his laptop. Belarc read his RAM at 192K and there is no such size. Or is there?It is 256K but some laptops that do not have any memory allocated for the video driver reserve a chunk of the DRAM on bootup. Fortunately, they make 512K chips for that computer now, meaning he can put in a Gigabyte if he wants to upgrade. That reminds me, the lady I helped with the computer y’day was in the shop at the same time. She went on-line and bought some of that “Focus Factor”.
I think “Focus Factor” is that pill that is supposed to increase your intelligence or something like that. She gave them her credit card number, which they promptly supplied to ten or fifteen other companies and hit her bank account for $400 before she caught on.
After reading for eight hours, I’ve got lots of trivia for you today. I learned that there are 97 pyramids in Egypt. I’ve also been misusing the word “moot” but that means the source I got it from was also wrong. I thought it meant “arguable” but it means nearly the opposite. It means a point that was once arguable that has now been made no longer arguable by subsequent events.
I had been reading the Constitution for the exact wording of the article which protects Americans from ex post facto laws. It is Article 1 (section 10) showing how important it is. Therefore, the new set of Canadian laws which state there is no longer a statute of limitation for some crimes even “if there ever was one” would be unconstitutional here.
During this research I found out something interesting about Miranda rights. Police have a whole bag of dirty tricks to grind a confession out of suspects. Every day we hear of somebody confessing not because it is true, but to end their ordeal. Well, Miranda extends to that situation. If you opt to remain silent, the police must also cease questioning immediately. I did not know that. Also, they are prohibited from “drawing any negative inferences from a desire to remain silent”. Earl Warren said so. Therefore, “lawyer up” soon and often. These days, 80% of all inmates are represented by court-appointed lawyers.
Did you know Oliver Cromwell died in England in 1658? What got me was that he died of malaria, a tropical disease. I don’t know the details, but there was also an outbreak in France. Oddly, I got this information from a book on Indonesia, reading up on Guzman, the chief Bre-X geologist. That’s the one who jumped out a helicopter when the scandal broke. He was described as “a karaoke-loving Filipino with a pronounced limp and four wives”. Probably just a coincidence, that limp.
Wallace has been working steadily in the yard. He re-planted that banana tree. Business was non-existent today so I bought a new tube for the spare bicycle and stretched that repair into a quiet hour. My hot water heater has mysteriously disappeared. That’s the heater I want to connect where the original was in this place. Right now, the dishwasher is missing the super-hot sterilization stage because it takes nearly a full minute to draw the hot water from the far end of the building. And that is an expensive minute adding, I calculate, around $30 to the monthly electric bill.
I’ve been trying to find a hedge plant that will grow to around six feet and stop there. The morning glories smother the ground and crowd out others. They are too flimsy for either shade or protection. The existing undergrowth produces spindly and stunted trees that compete for the canopy sunlight. We’ve got it trimmed back to where we can now see individual trees instead of tangled bush.
There are several candidates, none of them native to Florida. Price will be the major determinant. My favorite so far is ixora coccinea, popularly known as “Flame of the Woods”. It is an ornamental plant for India.
Our movie “SPYZ”, starting the lengendary Jack Hammer, may be delayed. My editing software went for a dump. When I open the application, I get that weird message about sending a report to MS. Closing that also closes the application. Even reinstalling does not help. Without that editing software, I’m stuck with junk like Pinnacle Studio 10 and Windows Movie Maker. These strange programs cannot input ordinary DVD movies or directly output an editable file.
While still a rumor, the neighbors report that Marisa, the lady that sold us this place, passed away last month.
