One year ago today: January 5, 2017, until it’s their turn.
Five years ago today: January 5, 2013, Pope disconnects ATMs.
Nine years ago today: January 5, 2009, on men who brag.
Random years ago today: January 5, 2014, I get ripped off.
This is my first use of a tablet and I don’t like it already. However, compared to the useless laptop models available, this was the only option. In this era I would have expected a lot more from RCA. I paid extra for the MicroSoft Option ($25) to find out it wasn’t much of anything. The package advertises that it contains Office, but it doesn’t. You have to log on and establish an account with MicroSoft or your files are read-only. That totally sucks. Fortunately, one of my old accounts still worked.
The entire system was designed by sub-retards, that was obvious from the way it defaulted to the detested Calibri 11 and automatically tries to save your private correspondence on the Cloud. Mark my words, whoever uses the Cloud deserves what they are going to get. There is no save as option in the file menu, and apparently no way to display the rulers. The right-side shift key is so tiny expect a ton of frustrations. My intention is to use the unit for remote blogging and to bypass the ton of new blocking rules at the library. As soon as I figure out how to change the more onerous defaults, I’ll set up the Tor browser.
Now I’m halfway through setting up Tor but it is taking forever at the configuration stage. That’s rarely a good sign. Then, it is Friday afternoon and how would I know if the network is overloaded or something. This chicklet keyboard isn’t for speed-typing but it is better than those laptops with the keyboard set back from the track pad, a design guaranteed to give you carpal tunnel down the line. If forces you to hold your wrists above the keyboard, causing what I call “crawl typing”. Worse, those track pads are not designed for getting work done. They are far too slow and inaccurate.
I will say right off that the need to activate a MicroSoft account to use software that is listed on the box is a rip-off. It is not MicroSoft’s business or concern about the who or where, and there should have been a warning on the package. That, and the fault connection to OneWrtie represent severe security breaches of the type not normally tolerated around here. And four hours later, I’m beginning to suspect there are serious problems connecting to the Tor browser. I’ll need time to sort that one out, possibly it requires a special edition of the Tor installer?
[Author’s note: it is mainly security concerns that made technology like these tablets so slow to get adopted around here. Did you hear how somebody in India stole,what was it, 2 billion identities and sold them for $8.00? But this plugged in generation never seems to learn. I suspect the problem is that they’ve got the wrong end plugged in.]
It is tempting to find some way to disable the arrow keys that surround that tiny right shift button. They are too sensitive and don’t work with most Win10 pages anyway. Which sucks. It’s a plain bad design, the button being so tiny, but if you read much texting, these millennials don’t really have that much use for capital letters, do they? Instead, they put a massive shout key (caps lock) where I’ve already touched it by mistake how many time?. But I recognize how important that feature is to social media addicts. And forget that claim of 6 hours battery life. I can see now using the word processor is going to get you maybe 2 hours.
Nonetheless, I’m determined to make this contraption work for my basic needs. I’ll search for a wireless travel mouse (the tiny kind) but since this unit has only a single USB port, I’d prefer if they make such a thing as a wireless hub. And I mean something that’s not so bulky as to require a separate carrying case. And, as for the word processor, it saves files only in the hinky docx format that cannot be opened by earlier MicroSoft products.
Saturn’s “hexagon” north pole.
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Now here is one of those superbrain designs that typifies America’s solid ability to make anything cheaper than the original. The plastic zipper. It works fine, except in cold weather when you are most likely to have a space heater in Florida. So when you come in from the cold, you take the jacket off and drape it over the back of a chair. Where the heater can melt the teeth as shown here. In turn, this ruins the entire jacket, causing you to ask how did they know it was the only one you own that has a winter lining?
A company is trying to raise $542 million on-line to drill the first hole through the Earth’s mantle. I’ve often wondered if there would be consequences, but the project isn’t slated to begin until 2030 and I’ll likely not be around. I’ve always felt the mantle puts enough pressure on the molten core that it would volcano whenever it could. Thus, puncturing the crust was never a wise idea. But since I formed that opinion when I was eight years old, chances are I didn’t consider all the facts.
I was out late with the tablet, checking the features. It seems to lack many that would make it somewhat useful as a tool. But it is primarily a plaything and that can’t be undone. I’ll keep looking but I’m coming to the conclusion the settings are fixed. For example, this blog is famous for indented paragraphs. But the tablet, so far, will not even display the rulers. I stopped at the old club and they have that five-piece band in there again. It’s too big and too loud for that place, and once again, nobody was really paying any attention to them.
The band itself is a lesson on many of the things not to do. Every song has every instrument playing full blast. No dynamics. The bass player is the antithesis of my style. He plays only the simplest bass lines with no transition riffs and the same expressionless manner in every number. The bass is there, but it’s the guitar player’s idea of the proper roll for both the instrument and the musician, that is, somewhere back there “helping out the drummer lay down the low end”. Probably 90% of his playing is sluggish and on the bottom two strings on the first five frets.
They are typical of the bands I played in during my twenties. Thirty songs, around half of them pretty sloppy, the old wall of sound presentation, the same set played over and over for years. I tell you, in a big band, learning a new tune is a major undertaking. And the keyboard player is in on every song, whether or not there were any keys in the original. The biggest shortcoming was how this band has nobody with a stage personality. Five bland guys who laugh at their own rehearsed jokes. And none of the music is arranged. It’s five instruments soloing on the same tune.
ADDENDUM
That is the very type of band that I have set out to improve upon. They spent the evening entertaining mostly themselves. They were weary and looked it. My bass lines take the opposite character, I’m flying all over the fretboard. This is due to the way the music is arranged and because each tune is hand-picked for its suitability over this. Here’s where I’ll probably need to remind a few people that this is not showing off, but add I would have nothing against showing off if it were. My bass lines add a serious dimension because they are deliberately designed to do so. It’s a different musical philosophy.
The idea is to present the most entertainment possible with the smallest number of band members. Very rarely do Lady Nick and I ever play the same riff. We are more often doing nearly opposite but complementary patterns. Many bands talk about doing this, oh do they talk about doing this. I know the reason they never do. Because to the guitar player it means he changes nothing while expecting his “backup band” to emulate an entire orchestra or two. After all, that’s their job, innit?
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