This is the Tampa skyline:
That thing that looks like mist over the highway? I think it’s the remnants of bird shit that was hosed off the window of the vehicle. But maybe it’s mist!
It’s too hot to hang around outside, so we’re inside watching the Mad Men marathon. What are you doing?
Elizabelle
Yippee. New thread. Thank you Betty.
ETA: watching Mad Men too. The eagle has landed, Bert Cooper has left the building, and Sally has been spouting too cool for school cynicism, until Don corrects her.
dedc79
Rangers-Lightning is shaping up to be a fast-paced and exciting conference finals
aimai
Trying for the umpteenth time to pay bills and clear my desk of detritus. One daughter just left for her summer job and the other just came back from a school weekend retreat. We were footloose and child free for two hours in between.
Bystander
I meant to add earlier in BC’s previous Floridacentric thread that IMHO Follow That Dream ties for first place with King Creole for Elvis’s best movie. Barring his live performance video.
While that’s not a great accomplishment considering how many stinkers Elvis made, FTD is an oddly engaging look at what was then the otherwise ignored economically deprived underclass of white people in Florida, a group completely at odds with the image I would guess was far more desirable. Believe it or not, FTD is actually more convincing than Change of Habit, in which ghetto doctor Elvis sparks a little something in the eye of nun Mary Tyler Moore.
Bystander
@aimai: For a moment I was afraid you were going to say, “…detritus free for two hours.”
shell
Listening to Suzy Boggus belt out Merle Haggard’s ‘Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down.’
sharl
If you’re afraid of flying, this probably won’t help.
Bet that dude would also be great with a drone near restricted airspace…or near a playground.
ixnay
Looks a little different from when I lived in Sarasota/Bradenton (aka SRQ) back in the early ’70s. I was one of those damned hippies who went to New College, although I finished elsewhere.
pamelabrown53
Hah! As a fellow Floridian, I see why the hit shows were Miami Vice and CSI: Miami. Way more skyline (and vice and sexytime vice)!
Valdivia
Just finished watching Barca clinch the Liga championship. I’m at heart a Real Madrid girl but Barca/Messi really played masterfully the second half of the season. Next is the Champions League in two weeks which should be a great game.
Now though I have no excuse and have to start putting together my summer courses syllabi. Sigh.
Omnes Omnibus
Mad Men marathon as well.
opiejeanne
@sharl: Super.
Corner Stone
We’re about to get the piss knocked out of us where I live thanks to a forming downburst supercell. You can see it gathering itself, taking tequila shots and looking for someone to talk smack to.
If it all goes south, just know that I love you all.
p.a.
Bar lunch, UMd v UNC on 1 tv, BHawks v Ducks on another. Good times. Gillette for Cannons lax later.
the Conster
Perfect summer day in the Boston area, of which every second is deserved. I’ve already had two cold brewskis on the deck, with hockey on in the background. Mad Men is on deck for tonight – I’ve seen all the episodes, but they’re all worth watching at least twice. Also, the Iraq war is becoming a litmus test for all of the Republican candidates. George Bush’s excellent adventure is their tar baby, and it couldn’t happen to a better bunch of fucktards. Marco Rubio is the latest victim, of Chris Wallace, no less. “I don’t understand your question”. Clown show continues. Popcorn!!
aimai
@Bystander: I can’t even imagine what detritus free would look like. Child free was kind of fun. Even though they are a bit old to be called children.
Elmo
Too hot and humid to play outside, so I’m inside cooking a huge pot of spaghetti sauce for a long simmer.
Yes, that is exactly as stupid as you think it is. But my wife will have quick and easy leftovers available all week while I’m off to Chicago on business.
Valdivia
Behold just how weak Rubio is even within the comfort of the Fox news ecosystem.
I never got the impression he was impressive but constantly see people I think have a keen political sense slobber over his talents. I suspected I was being a tad tribal on this but the clip confirms I was right all along.
gogol's wife
I just finished grading my last paper for the semester from hell (thanks to snowstorms every Monday for the first half of it). I have never watched a minute of Mad Men so am probably not going to start now. It’s the finale of Mr. Selfridge for me this evening, even though this season has been terrible. But I love Mr. Crabbe and Miss Mardle. Also, I just saw that there will be colorized I Love Lucy on CBS at 8:00, so that sounds like just the antidote for too much Dostoevsky.
gogol's wife
@Elmo:
Good husband! I’m already trying to figure out what to eat when mine’s away for a week soon. I never feel like cooking or eating, so boring. (I’m no JeffreyW.)
shell
@the Conster: No worries. They’ll find some way to blame Obama.
Damn, cornerstone. Stay safe!
Baud
@Valdivia:
To be fair, he was probably thirsty.
divF
I’m sitting in a cafe working on a paper that will go into a special volume in honor of a distinguished colleague’s 90th birthday (it’s already two weeks late). At some point, I’ll put aside work and start a pot of ragu bolognese for later in the week and for the freezer.
shell
@Valdivia: Maybe cause they think he’s a Bob Forehead type?
(Old reference to wonderful cartoonist, Mark Alan Stamaty)
Valdivia
@gogol’s wife:
Now I want to make a list of what would be good antidotes to too much Dostoievsky! :)
@Baud:
lol, I think that even fully hydrated his brain is not up to the task.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
I need to knuckle down and finish a baby sweater for a work friend who’s going out on maternity leave at the end of the week. Also laundry.
Tenar Darell
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): I love those. They’re so adorably small and cute. (Wish I could do it; grandmother tried to teach me but I could never keep count).
Elmo
@gogol’s wife: thanks! I’m a wife, actually – both wives, which is legal here in Maryland. But I’m the breadwinner and she stays home with tbe animals; I carry the heavy stuff, cut the grass and take out the trash, and she does laundry. So it kinda fits.
My last trip (just last week) we made a big batch of shrimp ceviche, and I made sure there was bologna in the fridge as well. She likes it, don’t ask me why. But that was only a three-day trip, and this is a week.
Emma
I am watching/listening to Italian television shows on YouTube in order to revive my knowledge of the language — there’s a lot of unused stuff buried in the long-tern memory and it’s all coming back, slowly but surely.
While I do that I am trying to, as Aimai so elegantly puts it, clean up the detritus. Monsters lurk below…
WereBear
Just got back from a weekend Wellness Conference. Limited internet access. Cutting edge stuff for my new career as a:
Cat Consultant
Still keeping the old careers. I need as many as I can get.
Met someone who tried to explain to me how Rand Paul is a spiritual leader for the country. My gob was so smacked that I just edged away, nodding and smiling a thin grim line.
There’s always one, isn’t there?
I worked on the 29th floor of the 32 story building in the picture up there. The downtown folk were… memorable.
Valdivia
@shell:
I didn’t know about Bob Forehead but after reading about it I think you are right. They think he is but the reality is otherwise!
Tenar Darell
This is for Karen in GA for Phoebe and Iggy. Get well soon Phoebe, so you can go back to scaring Iggy. You Shall Not Pass, Dog.
ThresherK
@Valdivia: Barca is the only winning team I root for. For the others a good year is spending very little time in the drop zone. And Burton Albion Brewers are getting promoted next year!
(It was preordained, as a Yankee, that I was a New England Revs fan from before their birth. If you’ve forgotten, they have probably retired whatever runners-up trophy the MLS Cup loser gets.)
Finagling the parts for a valve cover gasket change. Doing laundry.
shell
Dear God, I hate to cut Rubio any slack at all. But in that clip, he’s right. He is being asked two different questions. The one is, was it right for Bush to go to war with the intel they had then (not getting into how that intel was ginned up or by who) and the second, would you go to war with Iraq with what we know now.
But of course, there’s always the answer that anything was worth getting rid of Sadaam Hussein. I wonder how the Iraqi people feel about that.
SRW1
What are you doing?
Watching Canuckistan against The Red Machine playing in white. Fast paced affair.
Canuckistan up by two.
ThresherK
@WereBear: “Met someone who tried to explain to me how Rand Paul is a spiritual leader for the country.”
You didn’t meet them in your Cat Consultant gig, did you? I would like to think that that someone has not been entrusted to the care of a cat or dog. (Dogs are sooooo impressionable.)
PurpleGirl
@aimai:
Trying for the umpteenth time to pay bills and clear my desk of detritus.
I try to do that on a regular basis and find myself reading the blog or watching kitten cams and the bill paying gets put off for another day. And paper reproduces itself worse than rabbits or kittens.
divF
@aimai:
Regarding detritus reduction: I’ve had a sideline of babysitting the small children of various friends and relatives over the years. One particular couple I did this for would have me take the kids (both preschool) to the park for a couple of hours on Saturdays so that they could try to get ahead on cleaning the house. It probably lasted less time than it took for them to do it, but at least they didn’t fall further behind.
MattF
@Valdivia: Yeah, so much for the Rubio Doctrine.
As various lefty and quasi-lefty commentators have noted, the difficulty is that the justification for the Iraq war was a pack of lies, and everyone knew it. Paul Krugman knew it, Josh Marshall knew it, Maureen Dowd knew it.
And, of course, both Jeb! and Rubio knew it.
Valdivia
@ThresherK:
The only problem I have with Barca is Suarez, but today as he was not on the pitch I felt happy to cheer Messi on. He really is like a superhero the way he plays.
Valdivia
@shell:
Yeah, I have a problem with the question since it really should not be ‘knowing what you know now’ since that is a bs type of question. But I also have an issue with Rubio it’s clear he can’t really answer this particular stupid question or the real question about it being a mistake back then. He needs to neocon to the extreme to do his moneymaster’s bidding. There is an artful way of doing that, he didn’t impress me as being able to dance around like others can.
@MattF: yes exactly, the question in itself is flawed. The point is saying it was a mistake back then because it was all based on lies. No GOP person will ever say that. And for that matter no Village personage will either.
WereBear
No, thank goodness. Though I did get a request for spirit connections with passed on cats. I had to explain that this is not the kind I do.
WereBear
The Wellness Conference I was at popped up locally and since I’ve started a health blog, it was a sign, or something.
The right hormones, the wrong kinds
The great part was that even though there was limited internet, (many places here have it only in the lobby so folks can “unplug”) I brought my Chromebook and was able to use it offline. The whole Google office suite, plus email, can be loaded in and then will sync when you get a signal.
And the battery lasted long enough that I was able to get some writing done and answer some email, though of course it didn’t go out until I got back in range.
You think paperwork multiplies? Let’s talk about email.
MomSense
@efgoldman:
Yes, you will even miss their crap.
ThresherK (GPad)
@WereBear: The conference you went to wasn’t in Dedham, by any chance, was it?
PurpleGirl
@gogol’s wife:
sounds like just the antidote for too much Dostoevsky.
Senior year high school I wasn’t in the English Honors class because of the heavy concentration of science classes I was taking. Last semester Mr. Nagle assigns us to read a classic hovel over Spring break. I tell him I’m planning to read Brothers Karamazov. Monday we hand in the reports, Mr. Nagle isn’t there. The next day (Tuesday) he looks at me with puzzlement — “You said you’d be reading Brothers Karamazov, but the paper you turned in was on Tom Jones.” Well, I say. I got into Karamazov and found it boring so I read the parts of Tom Jones that I needed for the report topic.” Teacher: “Your read Tom Jones instead?” Me: “No just the parts pertaining to Sophie Western.” Since junior high I turned in a few other reports on Tom Jones.” Teach: “Oh.” A few weeks later there was a book sale in the school library and I bought a stack (9 or 10) science fiction novels. That really blew Mr. Nagle’s mind. He just shook his head as he looked at the titles.
ThresherK (GPad)
@WereBear: Was that in Dedham, MA?
Tree With Water
@shell: The better question to ask all candidates (except Sanders) that supported the Bush-Cheney War is: Why were you so credulous as to trust Bush-Cheney (et.al) when millions in this country and around the world (entire nations) did not? Of course, none of the candidates will admit to having placed ambition before country. But they should be interrogated intently about what it was they misperceived, and why. After all, one of them is the person who will command our nuclear arsenal.
And someone should muster the courage to ask Hillary if she believes Bush-Cheney to be honorable men that were misled by faulty intelligence. I assume she’d answer in the affirmative, which might open a lot of eyes among the democratic rank and file who do not hold with such sentiments.
aimai
@divF: I really have zero excuse! My children are 16 and 18 and I don’t even have any pets. I just let myself get distracted by blogs and politics or reading novels. I have a terrible procrastination gene. I have better luck taking myself to a coffee shop and doing it there but as I’ve gotten older there’s more stuff tha tmight need a phone call or filing and I like to be at home for that.
gogol's wife
@Elmo:
Good wife!
gogol's wife
@PurpleGirl:
Oh, come on, you thought Tom Jones was more interesting than The Brothers Karamazov? You’ve got to be kidding me!
Although I guess that’s fair if you skipped everything but Sophie Western.
divF
@aimai:
You too? That is why the paper I’m working on right now is two weeks late.
I like to think of it as analogous to the “just-in-time” approach employed in manufacturing to prevent too much money from being tied up in materials inventory.
PurpleGirl
@Tenar Darell: LOL. When my friends in Peekskill first brought home a retired racing greyhound I’m told that she (Sardy) went chasing after the cat (Rowdy). When Rowdy got the top of 4 steps leading to the bedroom level, he sits down, turns around and swipes a paw, claws out, across Sardi’s nose. Sardi runs away to the living room.
Every so often, Rowdy would sit on that top step, just looking at the greyhounds. The greyhounds (by this time, there’s 3 of them) just mill around at the bottom of the stairs too scared to climb over the cat to get to the bedroom to sleep. It was funny to watch.
ixnay
@aimai: Just try adding that procrastination gene to a relationship with an artiste (in this case, musician) gene. I only wish I had enough money to persuade someone else to do the paperwork.
PurpleGirl
@WereBear: Are you doing stuff more along the lines of Jackson Galaxy (My Cat from Hell)?
ixnay
@PurpleGirl: Dear, sweet, retired racing greyhounds. Either slow, or just a little too smart (Hey, if I cut across that corner, I can catch the silly pretend rabbit!). Have to teach them to walk up stairs. Remember, I’m a veterinarian: slow greyhounds are anatomy specimens. TMI? Anyway, in almost 30 years of practice, I’ve only met one unpleasant (if you’re in Maine, the term of choice is “ugly”) retired greyhound. For some reason that I do not understand, they all have horrid teeth.
PurpleGirl
@gogol’s wife: The first time I read Tom Jones, I read the whole thing, including all those essays at the start of each part. From that point on, on each succeeding read, I skipped those damned essays.
Germy Shoemangler
This earned a bunch of angry responses on another blog. I’ll just leave it here and then back away slowly.
Germy Shoemangler
@PurpleGirl: I remember the eating scene in the film version. Richard Pryor later did a parody of it on his short-lived tv show.
PurpleGirl
@ixnay: When playing with Sardi, I’d knock on her head and tease her that she had no brain. She was clueless about so much. Yes, they were all sweet and gentle animals. They didn’t curl up on the bed, just spread their legs wide and take up the whole bed.
Valdivia
@Germy Shoemangler:
Is Prager University some money-grubbing conservative institution? I had never heard of them. Its like a dumbed-down Denis Dutton theory of beauty. Ugh.
WereBear
@ThresherK (GPad): Nope. Adirondacks.
Suzanne
Eating a smoothie that came out brown (spinach and strawberry). Tastes good, though.
So I think I pulled a Cole and hurt myself in my sleep. I generally sleep all stretched out, and one day last week, I woke up and my right shoulder felt like I had hyperextended it. Fuck. I have been trying to lift a lot of weight as of late, but I took it easy on the arms today.
Germy Shoemangler
@Valdivia: It’s not even a school. It’s just the videos.
Valdivia
@Germy Shoemangler:
Lol. Like a TedTalk but for charlatans? As a tonic someone should link to that Julia Roberts movie Mona Lisa Smile in which she manages to explain some of modern art ideas with more nuance than this guy. Sheesh!
WereBear
@aimai: Now that it’s summer I’ll be walking to coffee shops and parks and really soaking up the different ambiances while I write.
Mr WereBear got me the new Chromebook for Christmas for just that purpose. It costs less than the insurance on my laptop!
MattF
@Germy Shoemangler: Meh. I’m not pining for the good old days, certainly not aesthetically.
PIGL
As a confirmed northerner can I just say that “too hot to go outside” and “May 17th” are a very frightening combo of circumstance.
Germy Shoemangler
@Valdivia: I checked out some of the other videos from this “college” and some of them are truly abhorrent.
“Profits are Progressive”
“Don’t Judge Blacks Differently”
“Why You Should Love Fossil Fuel”
“What Is The University Diversity Scam”
“The World’s Most Persecuted Minority: Christians”
Valdivia
@WereBear:
I moved to a Chromebook last fall and could not be happier. Light, fast, nice design, does everything I need and super easy on the wallet.
WereBear
@PurpleGirl: Yep. Though online, not onsite.
Still, with stuff like Google Hangout, I can see the place, the cat, the people.
Germy Shoemangler
@Valdivia: I’ve been looking into buying a chromebook. I like everything about it, but the idea of storing files online makes me uneasy. I guess I am old-fashioned. I don’t trust the cloud, I just yell at them.
WereBear
@Valdivia: It was the best Mother’s Day present I ever got my Mom.
Amir Khalid
@Germy Shoemangler:
Meet Dennis Prager.
divF
@Germy Shoemangler:
The guy in the video undercuts his own credentials by using some of the worst examples of powerpoint pedagogy I’ve ever seen. Fast and ugly animations of text that are redundant with what he is saying (I had the sound off so the CC was on, and it makes it profoundly obvious that he is reading his slides).
A couple of years ago, I the classroom I taught in was being used during the period before by an art history class. The instructor used the computer as a projector to display various works of art, and his lectures explained what the students should be looking for. A pleasure to watch / listen to – I would show up a few minutes early just to listen to him.
WereBear
@Germy Shoemangler: If you are on the Internet, people can hack into your computer and steal your files. It’s just a fact of life in the 21st Century.
My husband and a few other people I know were also leery about online banking. I pointed out that THE BANKS do it.
Germy Shoemangler
@Amir Khalid: I know. He’s absolutely dreadful. Another one of the youtube videos is called “Feminism Vs. The Truth”
These people are vile. They’re on the wrong side of history, but they think powerpoint will save them.
Valdivia
@Germy Shoemangler:
Totally understand. You do have a bit of minimal memory for important files I guess, but can supplement with an sd card or usb and store your files there. I was hesitant before I got it and now cannot think of working any other way. I basically only write, use the web and stream on it so getting a bigger machine made no sense for me. I think if you do much more involved work on it, it might be too limited, but for basics it’s an excellent machine.
@WereBear: I am thinking of getting one for my Mom’s birthday in September.
Amir Khalid
@Germy Shoemangler:
The sense I get is that Dennis Prager is essentially Cliff Clavin on YouTube, with a right-wing bent.
gogol's wife
@Germy Shoemangler:
“The World’s Most Persecuted Minority: Christians”
LOL, only on Balloon Juice.
Brachiator
I caught the tail end of Meet the Press Dopes and I think they were jumping on Hillary for making the same mistakes she made in 2008. It’s far too early for this kind of idiotic second guessing, so I quickly lost interest. Then there was an interview with Rand Paul about foreign policy that showed one way the GOP plans to lose in 2016.
Apparently, Hillary is already president of the United States. She decided that we would invade Libya. Obama was just the passive Negro in Chief who said, OK.
He then offered the standard libertarian fantasy of non intervention everywhere, but somehow still leading through strength. He also seemed to suggest that secular tyrants are the good kind of tyrants, and far preferable to religious fanatics.
He said something about education, but this made even less sense than his take on foreign policy, so I just turned off the TV. Is the host Chuck Todd? He asks dumb questions, and has weak follow up skills.
WereBear
Exactly. I was happy with the Chromebook until I needed to finish my book, and there simply isn’t anything that works better than Scrivener, a program that the Chromebook cannot do. So I got a Mac laptop.
But for leaving the house? Chromebook is still a marvelous choice.
Linnaeus
I’m taking notes from a book that I need to return in six days and watching the Blackhawks-Ducks game. I’m not exactly taking the notes very quickly right now.
Aleta
@Elmo: Love it when my mate stocks the refrigerator before leaving on a trip.
Baud
@gogol’s wife:
To be fair, Christians persecuted each other for much of history.
MattF
@WereBear: Online banking is just a different creature than old-style banking. Transactions show up within 24 hours, no more check writing, no more boxes full of monthly statements, everything gets sorted and categorized, finances can be tracked in as much detail as you like. I’ve gone all-online since the beginning of the year, I think I’ve written one check since Jan 1.
Linnaeus
@divF:
My dissertation is about 5 years late. And that’s being generous to me.
Amir Khalid
@efgoldman:
No, no, I mean with a bent towards the right wing …
Wait. You do get the Cliff Clavin reference, don’t you?
MattF
@WereBear: I replied to you re: banking and am now in moderation– I’m for it online, and FYWP.
Major Major Major Major
@sharl: I was on a plane where the thing was boot cycling in front of me. If I’d had a usb keyboard, yeah I could see that being possible.
They run CentOS, by the way.
Keith G
@Corner Stone: That downburst supercell of which you typed so eloquently and movingly about earlier caused some intense street flooding in my zip code. It also kept me at work an hour longer helping to shop vac water out of our store room.
This was a majorly intense rainfall and there were still folks braving the torrents to pull up to our café and have a bite of chocolate cake.
Job security.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Amir Khalid:
Jeez, forget adjusting your snarkmeter. You need a new one.
Valdivia
@Germy Shoemangler:
oh boy those are…priceless!
@Amir Khalid:
Knowing he is involved it all makes sense now. What odious piffle!
@WereBear:
Exactly, for what it does, I cannot recommend it enough.
Debbie
@gogol’s wife:
Are you over Wolf Hall yet? I’m not: I’ll be picking up the DVD at the library later this week. I want to check out all the little details I feel I missed because I couldn’t hit rewind.
Germy Shoemangler
@MattF:
I’m surprised they allow FYWP. You’d think they’d know.
Amir Khalid
@Steeplejack (tablet):
I don’t, I just switched mine off for a bit.
gogol's wife
@Debbie:
I’m not over it at all! I bought the soundtrack and have been listening to it in my car. I may take lute lessons next.
Chet
Nine dead in a shootout between rival biker gangs in Waco, TX:
http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/17/us/texas-shooting/
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Amir Khalid:
Never a good idea at Balloon Juice.
Randy P
@sharl: How come nobody is saying in that article that the airlines are making any attempt to actually address the security issue?
MattF
@Chet: And the Jade Helm invasion force just stood by and watched, apparently. Typical Federal bureaucrats.
Germy Shoemangler
@gogol’s wife:
A lute is one of the most sweetest-sounding things there is. Not sure how difficult it is to play, but it’d be cool to learn. And they’re beautiful to look at.
I’ve been listening to the soundtrack on youtube. Mood-altering.
feebog
Just finished collecting fresh fruit for our 10th annual “Citrus Sunday” event in the NW San Fernando Valley. Don’t have the final tally yet, but it looks like the participating Neighborhood Councils, religious organizations and service clubs collected somewhere north of 5,000 pounds of fresh citrus fruit that will go directly to food banks around the San Fernando Valley tomorrow morning.
Valdivia
@Steeplejack (tablet):
I had been waiting to find you on a thread to recommend this to you. Knowing your love of MHZ networks mysteries, I thought you would enjoy it (in case it had not made it to your screen yet)
Debbie
@gogol’s wife:
Ha! I found the music on YouTube and have been listening while working. My favorite is the opening sequence with the violins. It became a bit of an ear worm, but I’ll tough it out!
gogol's wife
@Germy Shoemangler:
I actually know somebody who teaches it. But they’re quite expensive, so getting my own probably isn’t an option.
Brachiator
@Germy Shoemangler: The cloud may be one of the best things since sliced bread. You should never keep important files in one place. A novelist in Northern California lost years of work when a fire destroyed her home, her computer and all local copies of files she had at home. The cloud makes it simple to keep a copy off site, which everyone should do.
Ideally, super critical files should be kept in 3 places. A copy at home, a physical copy off site at another location, and a third in the cloud.
The cloud regularly saves students whose computers get dropped or stolen. You get a replacement and your files are instantly available.
Aleta
@Chet: Now there’s an opening for a writing exercise:
gogol's wife
@Debbie:
Total earworm, but a soothing one, not an annoying one.
Randy P
Went to see Boychoir this weekend. Nice roles for Dustin Hoffman and Kathy Bates, and a great movie to see if you love the sound of a boys choir. We were at my wife’s music school reunion weekend, so it fit right into the weekend’s festivities.
Hoffman is the great choir conductor who is supposed to be nearing retirement, perhaps past retirement age as there’s a younger colleague gnashing his teeth waiting for him to retire. I heard those lines and thought “I’m having a hard time buying this because he doesn’t look old enough to be retirement age, let alone past it”.
Then afterward I looked up his IMDB entry and found out he’s 78!
I’m not sure how to feel about that. Grumpy that all the young Hollywood whippersnappers of my generation are now oldsters, or amazed that Dustin Hoffman looks so young and vigorous that I was having difficulty accepting him as being 65.
gogol's wife
@Debbie:
Fun fact: she also wrote the music for Father Brown and Inspector Lynley.
Mike J
@Germy Shoemangler:
There is no such thing as the cloud. There are only computers owned by other people.
satby
@Corner Stone: Stay safe. I’m fond of you myself.
Germy Shoemangler
@Brachiator: I love the idea of the cloud. All the reasons you mentioned. I agree about the benefits of remote storage, in case of a calamity at home.
But I was raised with vinyl records, hardcover books, physical things. A few years ago a friend told me an e-book he’d paid for disappeared. I don’t remember the details.
I wish there wasn’t a population of people dedicated to hacking, stealing, snooping, invading. All the security measures in place because of a few people’s horrible instincts. I read that Werebear gets hackers and hate mail on her cat blog. A cat blog! Why??
Why can’t we have nice things?
Roger Moore
@Germy Shoemangler:
People like that deserve to be ignored rather than engaged. At the very least, they need to be pointed at Sturgeon’s Law, so they can understand how a comparison of the average stuff from today to the very best stuff from previous eras is a false one.
Brachiator
@Amir Khalid: Prager was a conservative talk show host in the Los Angeles market. He used to be fairly reasonable. He also hosted a show on religion, open topics that regularly had as guests a Protestant minister, a Catholic priest, and a rabbi. Prager himself is Jewish. Whenever he could do do, he would get the representative of another religious faith as the third guest; a Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist or Greek Orthodox cleric.
For whatever reason, his conservative views became more strident and he became a stronger supporter of the Republican Party. His recommendation helped black libertarian Larry Elder get a talk radio job.
WereBear
@MattF: Yep. I’m a digital creature.
Amir Khalid
Has anyone heard Hell or High Water, David Duchovny’s debut album? I’ve listened to a few tracks. He’s a surprisingly good lyricist, but I don’t think he’s quite good enough as a singer to do justice to his songs.
Valdivia
@Germy Shoemangler:
Though I love the convenience of ebooks (specially if one tends to travel with many to read while one is away) there is still a tactile experience that goes with reading that is not quite the same for me if it’s online. I love being able to hold the book in my hand, feel that pages, hear the crack of the spine.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
The cloud works great for small files, but it has serious problems for really big ones. It just isn’t practical to back up all my photographs to the cloud, so I rely on an off-site backup. It would also be good if there were a better way of doing transparent encryption when sending stuff to the cloud, so you don’t have to depend on the security of your cloud provider to protect your most important files from snooping.
Kathleen
@efgoldman: Yup. My grown daughter lives in Tampa with her family and I’m in Cincinnati and I miss them all terribly.
Roger Moore
@Valdivia:
On the downside, I don’t like the feel in my arm I get when holding a big, thick novel for a few hours when reading it. And I definitely like being able to bring along a whole bookshelf wherever I go.
SFAW
@the Conster:
Two thought regarding that juxtaposition:
1) It’s just WRONG – not that you note it, but that it exists.
2) In 30 or so years, the same sentence will be said in January and February. A lot, unfortunately.
Kathleen
@aimai: I do, also. I’m disciplined about working out, doing laundry, cleaning and paying bills. But I have some creative projects I want to do and I procrastinate constantly. I’m ready to sue myself for mental cruelty.
Brachiator
@Germy Shoemangler: I think most of us here grew up pre digital. But the first records I listened to were an uncle’s 78s, not vinyl LPs, and I have listened to music on reel to reel, cassette, CD, DVD, etc. I love to read, and physical books are just one medium, not the only one. There are some books I prefer as physical books, mainly stuff with illustrations and footnotes, but all recently bought novels are ebooks. Even check out ebooks from the library.
Yeah, hacking and similar problems are vile, but unless you get rid of the Internet, this will always be a risk to computer users.
SFAW
@efgoldman:
Depends on who wrote the code. Microsoft programmers? Probably a lot more than certain others.
There’s probably a BSoD joke to be made as well.
Valdivia
@Roger Moore:
Yes absolutely. I’m pretty much all e-reading now but certain books I save for the old school experience. They just taste different that way. If that makes sense.
sharl
@Randy P:
I think there is a LOT of information yet to come out on this story. I looked at the twitter timeline of the IT security researcher (Chris Roberts) who is at the center of the story, and he said the FBI boiled down the hours of interviews he had with them into one deceptive paragraph for the affidavit they filed. And there is also this observation from someone outside the InfoSec community:
The IT pros here will know far more about it than a mere IT-user like me, but the same obsessive traits that make dedicated IT security researchers so valuable on the job can really get them in trouble, especially when they get exasperated and finally do something to embarrass the big corporations who didn’t listen to their steady warnings.
Roberts may well have been a dumb ass on this, as the FBI affidavit and some of the follow-up reporting suggests, but I hope he doesn’t get massively overcharged and railroaded by some DA far out of proportion to what he did (whatever that actually was). Dude’s gonna be on tenterhooks for awhile.
Iowa Old Lady
@Valdivia: I buy mostly ebooks because it’s so convenient and I can get stuff that’s not in B&N. But if I really like a book, I then also buy a paperback. Otherwise I don’t feel like I really have the book.
I also find that with an ebook I’m less likely to remember the author’s name because it doesn’t show on my generation 2 kindle while I’m reading.
Amir Khalid
@sharl:
If it’s an FBI matter, won’t the prosecutor more likely be a US Attorney?
Kathleen
@efgoldman: Indeed they are not. The older I get the more I want to be around family.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
And it’s not as if our physical possessions are that well protected from malicious people, either, which is why we have locks on everything.
WereBear
@sharl: I kind of admire the ones who go ahead and hack it to show it can be done. That way there isn’t a tragedy to go along with the scandal.
Gin & Tonic
@sharl: That guy is the real deal, and he’s been trying to warn the airlines. It’s probably too late, but UA needs to pay the dude and listen to what he says.
Roger Moore
@Valdivia:
I don’t think e-books are going to replace my collection of museum catalogs- mostly modern art, TYVM Dennis Prager- any time soon. That said, for me it’s more about the right medium for the material than anything physically enchanting about ink on paper.
Mike J
@sharl:
The story claims he actually took control of a passenger carrying plane while in flight.
It wasn’t an experiment done with a coöperating pilot on an otherwise empty plane. I don’t think it would be possible to overcharge him.
The original story I heard was that he was able to monitor flight systems, but not interact. I’d be a bit more forgiving if that were the case.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore: It’s really about the project as well as the size of the files. The company I work for has tax preparers who back up years of files for thousands of clients to the file. Some of them lost computers to floods, but were able to get back up and running again in a very short period of time. In absolute terms, the data files are small, but would still be a pain to deal with without an elegant and secure cloud solution.
Photography and video may be special cases, but even for non professionals I wonder if there might be good cloud options. I’ve heard Leo Laporte discuss this with professionals like Trey Radcliff, but photography and video backup is not an area I know much about.
sharl
@Amir Khalid: Yes, most likely. I was using the abbreviation for District Attorney (DA) generically, but as you correctly note, at the U.S. Federal level they’ve been called something else for awhile now.
Linnaeus
The thing about e-books, as I understand it, is that you don’t own the book so much as a license for it. You can’t sell the book or loan it (well, there’s a limited way to do the latter in some cases, but it’s not ideal). I can’t sideload an ebook onto my computer from my reader. E-readers can be really convenient for a number of reasons, but for now, I still want paper copies of the books that I value the most. Plus I also worry about hardware obsolescence.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
I’m worried about photos, and it’s not easy. I have about 600GB of files, which isn’t that many compared to a lot of people. It’s still a very large amount if you’re limited to uploading them through a 5 Mbit/sec max network connection. I’ve more or less stuck with doing a regular backup and keeping a copy in my desk at work. I guess I could try to narrow things down to my portfolio shots and back up only those to the cloud- which I do to some extent by sharing the final versions on Picassa- but there’s still the security issue.
sharl
@Mike J: Yep, if he did in fact take control of the plane for even a short period of time, he won’t be deserving of much mercy from the court IMO. But we’ll see what comes out of the legal proceedings.
Even with a good lawyer and the existence of information in his favor, I doubt he’ll get any sweet, sweet David Petraeus-type plea deals, unless (like D.P.) he has friends in high places and/or knowledge of skeletons in the closets of such highly placed poobahs.
It will be grimly interesting to see if airline lawyers move to suppress or quash any information that might prove embarrassing to their client(s).
Brachiator
@efgoldman: My mother is in her 80s and loves her Kindle.
@Linnaeus: Copyright and DRM issues regarding ebooks have to change to keep up with the possibilities offered through innovation. And there are some DRM free book sources. Hardware obsolescence is an issue, but so is storing and caring for personal libraries of physical books. I once lost some books in physical storage to a silverfish infestation.
Valdivia
@Roger Moore:
I think for me it is partly a ‘stickiness’ issue (retention of what is read). For work (social science/history) I really need the hard copy book to work from. But there is also something a little more elusive about reading an old school book. What the sensory experience of reading is for me. Some novels just don’t process the same for me in electronic form. I wanted to re-read one of my favorite books of all time (Of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz) before the Natalie Portman movie version makes it to market here and having lent my copy away I decided to download an e version. It just wasn’t the same experience for me somehow, reading it this way. I guess YMMV.
@Iowa Old Lady: yes that is part of it too for me. I like having my books about me.
Germy Shoemangler
The smell of certain old books is enough to make me swoon.
Valdivia
@Germy Shoemangler:
Yep, this exactly.
Ruckus
@Germy Shoemangler:
Some modern art is great. I’ll bet that some art from long ago is crap. It just that only the good and relatively good has been kept from long ago. Modern art is what, less than a hundred yrs old or so? In 300 yrs only the good stuff will remain. There is a lot of created works that are not good, there are a lot of artists that will never be known even if their work is exemplary. I’d bet it’s always been the same, just the scale changes.
But modern art has to make you think, not just about the skill shown, the technique as in most art pieces but about the subject as well. Last weekend I spent a day at the Norton Simon museum. A lot of the works there are just old, not outstanding, just old. It reminded me of people who say classical music is the only real music because that’s the way it was always done and having a collection of the same piece performed by 12 different orchestras so that you can compare and critique the 2 notes that each plays differently. Any piece of art, be it paintings or music, sculpture, building, machinery can be good, great or horrible, regardless of the group it falls into.
Elizabelle
@efgoldman: Buying and enjoying used books, CDs, DVDs and vinyl seems kind of green too. Good for the pocket and environment.
shell
Still can’t believe they’re remaking ‘Poltergeist’ WTH??
WereBear
@Ruckus: I call it the “TMC effect.”
Watching almost a hundred years of movies on Turner Classic Movies makes movies look pretty good. Because they don’t show the failures and howlers unless you are hanging around like 4AM, and then you don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
I swear the programmers hunt through the vaults to surprise each other.
gogol's wife
@WereBear:
But you know, some days I just want to watch incredibly mediocre films from the 1930s all day long.
Roger Moore
@Ruckus:
This. If you look at painting before the 19th Century, a distressingly large percentage is second-rate portraits of rich people. And that’s among the stuff that people have seen fit to preserve. A big reason the Impressionists were rebelling against the Academy is because so much Academic painting was technically competent but soulless. Say what you will about Rauschenberg or Pollock, their work is anything but soulless.
Linnaeus
@Brachiator:
I suppose that copyright and DRM will change, but I’m still a little wary of devoting much of my book budget (such as it is) to ebooks right now. I mostly use my e-reader as a tablet, to read library books, and to read other documents in PDF format. It’s certainly very convenient.
And certainly, physical books are vulnerable to deterioration and damage. You can limit the former to a significant degree if you store your books properly (which isn’t too hard), and as for the latter, sometimes that stuff just happens. It’s pretty much a certainty, though, that my e-reader will be obsolete much sooner than my paper books will be.
WereBear
@gogol’s wife: It makes for an awfully fun day, doesn’t it?
opiejeanne
@Ruckus: Spend several days walking through the Louvre and you begin to see that a lot of the art there is merely old. Well-executed maybe, but not in all cases, and there are certain scenes that you see over and over again., especially a particular landscape. I think it was the sheer overload, six visits to the place in four days that forced us to notice, and spotting that some of the masterpieces were truly hilarious because of their subject matter. This room, full of Rubens paintings that depict Henry IV and his wife, Marie de Medici, made us laugh as we followed the paintings in chronological order. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_de'_Medici_cycle
It became apparent by the mid-point that Rubens had never met Henry IV and had used a portrait of the king for his own project, one with Henry posing as Hercules with an embarrassed expression on his face. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_IV_of_France#/media/File:Henry_IV_en_Herculeus_terrassant_l_Hydre_de_Lerne_cad_La_ligue_Catholique_Atelier_Toussaint_Dubreuil_circa_1600.jpg
There is at the beginning of these pictures, one of the angels singing at Marie’s birth, and the more you think about the paintings you realize that it’s all about her and not so much about anyone else. . I mean, these are Rubens and they are gorgeous, but a lot of the subject matter is at times pretty silly. Marie is banished by her son, the king. Marie is reconciled with her son, the king,
opiejeanne
@opiejeanne: I must add that I knew nothing about these paintings, neither of us has a lot of knowledge of art history, or the history of Marie and Henry in particular, and neither of us speak French so we muddled our way through translating the titles of these paintings and did pretty well, There were no translation cards available for that room, or we would have understood much more of what we were looking at, the allegories would have been explained, why they were used by Rubens, etc.
WereBear
@Linnaeus: I mow through books because I’m a fast reader and interested in a lot of things. I usually have three or four going at once. My apartment is small and I like to reread the good ones.
I understand preferring the traditional book, but In a world where the price point looks like this:
Kindle
$10.99
Hardcover
$25.76
I’m gonna go for the eBook. Perhaps one day I’ll get that two story library room with the giant chairs and tall ladder that slides along rails, but until then, I appreciate my virtual version.
fuckwit
@WereBear: They probably do. They’re probably like DJ’s. Digging through vynil bins and scouring latest tracks off of blogs and websites… trying to out-do each other with cool gems they found.
opiejeanne
@WereBear: We have been reducing our collection of books over the past couple of years because, frankly, some of them make me wheeze. It’s the breakdown of the paper in the older books from 80/90/110 years ago and I have had asthma attacks just from opening some of them. Now, there are a handful of truly old books that I will not part with, but we have donated a lot of old Agatha Christie paperbacks, a nearly complete set of Dumas’ works in cheap bindings and Funk and Wagnalls Encyclopedia that was picked up at the Salvation Army store 45 years ago for a quarter.
OTOH, I will not part with my Terry Pratchett books, just because, and cookbooks on an eReader kind of suck. I find I need the book in my hand, or at least the recipe.
We have a Kindle and an older Nook, and just recently decided to buy another Nook because we find it easier to use than the Kindle, although this Kindle is the cheapie version and was a gift, and I’m sure the slightly more expensive versions are great. Right now my husband and I are reading the Harry Bosch series by Michael Connelly, and when we bought the second Nook, all of the books we already had on the first one appeared in the library of the new one. Now we don’t have to wait for each other to finish their book, which is a big plus since he’s a bit slower than I am.
WereBear
Another advantage!
And you’re right about cookbooks. I get my recipes online, tweak them, and then print them out to put in a binder.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore: I like to say that these portraits were the precursor of selfies. Rich people used a painter instead of a camera. And I’ve even read of The Blue Boy as one of the most famous bad paintings in history.
Ajabu
@WereBear:
So we have some other common ground besides my music. Michael Connelly.
I stumbled onto him via the movie “Blood Work” based (loosely) on his novel.
Then went back and did the entire series – in order. That’s really important for character development.
Bosch is not a static character. He evolves like crazy.
The non-Bosch books are great, too. The Poet, The Scarecrow, Chasing the Dime, etc.
Not just the Lincoln Lawyer series.
We’ll talk more about them. It’s another obsession of mine.
Linnaeus
@WereBear:
I also read several books at once, so it’s been great to have my e-reader for library checkouts in particular, because I can have up to 25 at a time, though I have never even come close to that many.
I tend to use my e-reader for books that I won’t be keeping (like library books) or books whose loss would be upsetting, but not as upsetting as certain books that I particularly value.
Steeplejack
@Valdivia:
Thanks for the thought! I haven’t seen it, and I will put it on my (way too long) viewing list.
MHz has been running small blocks of episodes from a lot of new/unknown series lately, I think to promote their subscription service, which is starting up this month. I don’t know much about it, but I’ve seen a few promos. Not sure it’s worth $7 or $8 a month, but I don’t know what all it includes. My current guilty pleasure is Bukow and König—two German cops in Rostock, which (as depicted) has a bit of a seedy vibe as part of the former East Germany.
J R in WV
@sharl:
I’m believing that no one involved with the airlines with spending authority is willing to spend a dollar on fixing something as invisible as a software bug that makes airliners’ software visible and manipulatable by the right expert flying on one.
The FBI wants, needs very badly for people to think they’re good at catching cyber criminals. Unfortunately, they aren’t, at all. Good ones come and go with money, and the best ones leave not a sign that there was ever anything but a bug in the banking software somewhere.
So when they can get someone to say something that can be twisted into a confession, that person is as busted as if they were caught red handed with a check for a billion dollars and a W-88 weapon. Going away for the rest of their life, if the FBI can make it stick.
I once saw a film made by a retired cop and a defense lawyer, and they were making the point as hard as they could that no one should say anything to a cop, not the time of day. Because they can take something that was plain and simple truth and use it to make you sound like a calculated lying psychopath. That’s their job.
No lawyer would let anyone do that. So you don’t need a lawyer, you already know now not to do that. Just tell them you will make an appointment to talk to them later on, after you can find the right lawyer to help you. You don’t want to say that second half, though.
This guy is probably a good honest guy worried about the security of the planes his career makes him fly on all the time. After all, haven’t we had some mystery airliner events the past few years? So he opened his mouth, oops. Now they can claim they’re great cyber-cops.
We know they are, they told us so, right? And we know they would never lie, right? Right…
So glad to be retired lo these many years now.
Valdivia
@Steeplejack:
I think you will really like it. Both leads are quite good and the story has a slightly creepy edge that makes it fascinating.
I saw that MHz was going to do a subscription on demand service and was pondering a subscription, even if it’s just for a couple of months, to see what they offer.
Another tip: Two summers ago I discovered a series of books by Jussi Adler Olsen which were completely absorbing. They have made 2 movie adaptations so far which are really quite good and which you can see here:
Movie 1
Movie 2
Valdivia
@Steeplejack:
too many links but hopefully my comment will appear here soon :)
Steeplejack
@Valdivia:
Ah, your offending comment finally showed up!
I just binge-read the Department Q novels within the last year. (Also binge-read all of Jo Nesbø’s Harry Hole novels around the same time.) In fact, I think I got distracted and didn’t finish the last one. I’ll have to fire up the Nook and see where I was.
I didn’t know there were movie versions. I’ll check those out.
Did you see any of the Crimes of Passion episodes on MHz? Kind of an interesting ’50s milieu, although maybe a little heavy-handed: they really laid on the period detail with a trowel. But the characters were interesting, especially the main woman, Puck, who grappled with the whole “I don’t know what I want, but I don’t think it’s wife and mother” thing really well.
Valdivia
@Steeplejack:
That is exactly how I read the Department Q novels. Devoured them! I think you will like the movies too, interesting to see these characters come to life, specially Assad.
I had been pondering plunging into the Harry Hole novels and even downloaded the first one over winter break. Now knowing from you that they are bingeable I will definitely make a start on them.
Oh and I loved the Crimes of Passion series. I watched only a couple of the episodes, so I am glad you reminded me so I can get back to the others. I also loved Arne Dahl, based on the novels and with a really great cast. I am pinning for the characters until they release season 2.
/MHZ addict confessions ;)
Steeplejack
@Valdivia:
I liked Arne Dahl, especially after I got over waiting for someone named Arne Dahl to show up! (Ditto with Unni Lindell.) The “main” detective (the guy in this picture) rubbed me the wrong way a bit, but the cast is generally great, especially the woman cop in the picture. And for some reason I really liked the former soccer player turned driver and the blond admin woman he has a crush on.
Unni Lindell got to be frustrating for me, because Cato Isaksen got more and more obnoxious—a self-absorbed dick. But the stories were good.
As for books, I will once again highly recommend the Inspector Van Veeteren novels by Håkan Nesser: Mind’s Eye, Borkmann’s Point, The Return, etc. Binge-worthy! There have been some movie versions on MHz that were fairly good, but they didn’t really capture the nuances of the books.
Steeplejack
@Valdivia:
Hmm, FYWP ate my reply, so let me try breaking it into smaller pieces.
I liked Arne Dahl, especially after I got over waiting for someone named Arne Dahl to show up! (Ditto with Unni Lindell.) The “main” detective (the guy in this picture) rubbed me the wrong way a bit, but the cast is generally great, especially the woman cop in the picture. And for some reason I really liked the former soccer player turned driver and the blond admin woman he has a crush on.
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
As for books, I will once again highly recommend the Inspector Van Veeteren novels by Håkan Nesser: Mind’s Eye, Borkmann’s Point, The Return, etc. Binge-worthy! There have been some movie versions on MHz that were fairly good, but they didn’t really capture the nuances of the books.
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
Unni Lindell got to be frustrating for me, because Cato Isaksen got more and more obnoxious—a self-absorbed dick. But the stories were good.
ETA: Oh, FFS, FYWP doesn’t like Isaksen’s first name. This is like the duplicator problem on the thread a day or two ago.
Valdivia
@Steeplejack:
Yes! Van Veeteren, I have read him, also in binge form :)
If you haven’t do read the eminently bingeable Lars Kepler novels.
I too didn’t get why Arne Dahl never showed up until I finally got that he was the writer. I loved the Finnish guy with the numbered children.
ETA: the guy in the picture, his wife was a total pill. Glad they got seperated at the end.
Steeplejack
@Valdivia:
The more I think about it, it was a very good ensemble cast. The gentle giant, the Latino (Portuguese?) guy. And tbe older guy who ventures into the field and ends up being tortured by Russian gangsters. Oof.
I will definitely check out Lars Kepler.
Valdivia
@Steeplejack:
you’re probably not seeing this but the Latino guy was Chilean which is pretty historically accurate since a lot of political refugees from there ended up in Scandinavia during the 70s.