Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Also, are you sure you want people to rate your comments?

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

There are times when telling just part of the truth is effectively a lie.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Keep the Immigrants and deport the fascists!

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

So fucking stupid, and still doing a tremendous amount of damage.

Our messy unity will be our strength.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

You are here: Home / z-Retired Categories / Previous Site Maintenance / Open Thread & Small Announcement (How-Do-I-Do-This-on-Balloon-Juice?)

Open Thread & Small Announcement (How-Do-I-Do-This-on-Balloon-Juice?)

by | 74 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

You’ve got questions?

How does the pie filter work?  How do I reply to more than one person in a single comment?  How do I add a link?

Whatever “how to” question you have, you can ask it on the Zoom we will have if there is interest.  You can use video or not – even with your camera turned off, you can watch as I do whatever it is on my shared screen and explain what I’m doing.

To accommodate different schedules, if there’s interest I can do one of these in the evening and one on the weekend.

We still get questions on how to do things on Balloon Juice – let me know if you would be interested in seeing some things demonstrated.

Otherwise, totally open thread.

Reader Interactions

74Comments

  1. 1.

    WaterGirl

    Open thread, but In case you missed it yesterday:

    I am sorry to report that we have received an official letter of reprimand from the Dogs & Puppies Union.

    The Pets of Balloon Juice deadline has come and gone – where are all the dog photos???

    Photos seem to be running about 4:1 cats vs. dogs.  Maybe even 5:1.  What’s up with that?

    So now we’re in trouble with the dog union!

    The Dog & Puppies Union (DPUP) has made it clear that we can avoid litigation if we open up submissions starting now through 7pm on Friday – whatever your time zone is, the deadline is 7pm on Friday, wherever you are.

    So send me an email with your nym and your pet names, and then upload your dog pics to the link I will send you.

    Fine print:  Although we have plenty of cats, the DPUP ruling allows us to also accept cat & kitten pictures during this extension.

  2. 2.

    sab

    @WaterGirl: You worked so hard to get my Ponyo picture to you. Also Tassie over the rainbow bridge. None of those dogs are fair if they fault you for lack of effort.

  3. 3.

    Anonymous At Work

    First game of 2021 World Chess Championship ended in a draw.  Games run from 7:30 AM Eastern until over (2 hours until move 40, then 1 more hour and 30 second increments afterwards…so, 7 hours tops).  Good way to pass some time if Omicron…really? A Transformer villain?!…shuts things down.

  9. 9.

    Anonymous At Work

    @WaterGirl: Three-move-repetition.  Black and white do the same pattern of moves three times without a piece being taken and it’s a draw.  Top level chess has a TON of draws and it’s a problem at times (playing not to lose).

    @Brachiator: Magnus Carlsen is defending against top Russian Ian Nepomniachtchi (Nepo for everyone’s sanity).  Carlsen’s style is like a grinder: patient and willing to extend the game until you make a mistake or he has a slight advantage he can convert into a win.  Nepo’s style is tactical and innovative; he can beat anyone on his best day without breaking a sweat.

    There’s Youtube coverage, NBC has a station (NBCSports8: The Ocho?), as do more than a few international stations (Russia takes this seriously).  Games are in Dubai (Russians run the organization, what can I say?).

  10. 10.

    WaterGirl

    @Anonymous At Work:  Thanks for the explanation.  Playing not to lose in a top-level competition seems pretty lame.

    I noticed your reply to Brachiator wasn’t a link.

    Are you perhaps a candidate for wanting to learn how to reply to more than one person at once?

  11. 11.

    Anonymous At Work

    @WaterGirl: Top levels tend to play to win until they think they can’t win a game, then a draw is easy.  At that level, the window to win is very small.  And at some points, the best moves by both players lead to draws.  Computers that are unbeatable by humans have changed chess a lot, including preparation.

    And “meh”.  I can learn such things when I want to (taught myself how to be a wikipedia editor for fun) but just not that interested…I have a day job…

  15. 15.

    Another Scott

    A good thread, and a good reminder…

    Most of what Democrats should have been doing and saying these last several decades about the right was said, then forgotten, by FDR in the 1930s. Strategically–"Never let your opponent pick the battleground on which to fight"–and rhetorically: like…

    — Rick Perlstein (@rickperlstein) November 26, 2021

    (via LOLGOP)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  18. 18.

    Ohio Mom

    The vacuum cleaner just died. I know it’s permanently dead because I took it in a few months ago to be told parts for that model are no longer made. They patched it together with the beater bar permanently on.

    Half an hour ago, all of a sudden the beater bar stopped and an aroma of burnt metal filled the room.

    Normally I’d just go out and buy a new one. Only takes a few minutes of googling to read reviews and compare prices. I know I want a canister with a wand attachment.

    But on Black Friday? I think I’m done cleaning for the next few days.

  23. 23.

    Brachiator

    A few questions for folks with Apple devices.

    If you have an M1 Macbook Air, iPad or iPad Mini, how do you like those devices for browsing, streaming, etc?

    How is battery life?

    My niece is a college student who loves her Macbook Air and is thrilled with the battery life, among other features.

    Other family members are now expressing interest in Apple devices. I have never really used Apple products and am curious as to what people think about the current generation of devices.

    Unrelated ETA: I am amazed at how many people, especially younger people, are able to use various brands of smartphones and laptops to create and edit good looking and well done videos. It seems like a big jump from editing photos, which in itself is pretty creative.

    When I was a kid I had a hard time with construction paper and scissors.

  25. 25.

    SiubhanDuinne

    WG, I’d participate in a “how-do-I-do-this-thing” zoom call. Pretty sure I’m missing out on a lot of nifty tricks and shortcuts and don’t even know it.

  26. 26.

    Ohio Mom

    On Thursday, there will be an onslaught of out-of-town family to celebrate MIL’s 90th birthday. I don’t want to clean up too much because they will just leave a mess. But I want the obvious dirt gone before they arrive.

  27. 27.

    Another Scott

    @Brachiator: My J has been an Apple person since grad school.  We’ve been using mid-2012 MBPs at home for quite a while – they don’t die.  ;-)  Santa is bringing her a (previous generation) M1 MBP for Xmas.  He found a 16 GB/500GB one on Apple’s Refurbished store a few weeks ago and grabbed it.

    I assume she’ll like that it’s much lighter than the mid-2012 version.

    Good luck!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  28. 28.

    sab

    @sab:  My vaccuum died a while back. It was young It isn’t dead. Just some plastic latch up top. I had great hopes and bought too many vacuum bags. I am angry, but will happily lend it to some one who will use up the vacuum bags and put ot o  the curb.

    ETA:

    Trust is like the soul, and if you lose it it doesn’t come back.

    My late Jewish father in law told me that. I am Episcopalian. That seemed harsh but actually quite realistic. You can come back, but everyone else needs to be wildling trusting.

  29. 29.

    Ruckus

    @Gin & Tonic:

    I can do that for you but it’s not cheap.

    First, I have to find someone who can do that and that you can afford to pay to teach you….. Mainly because I have no idea. (OK that’s obvious but still….)

    Second, I know it’s not cheap because I can’t afford to pay anyone to teach me….. still being obvious – if it wasn’t obvious…..

  30. 30.

    debbie

    @Ohio Mom:

    I knocked my electric broom over once too often and it had the chutzpah to give up the ghost. I picked up its replacement a couple hours later at Target. They have curbside pickup, so zero contact even in the middle of the day.

  32. 32.

    Ruckus

    @Brachiator:

    First, what @debbie: said.

    Second, I looked at the M1 24 inch iMac just to see how good it is and I’m impressed, and I use a 27 inch high end iMac. As far as using them things are fairly easy and most of the time require rather similar operating concepts across the board. Now if you were a writer there are better programs than the word processing program included but even that is far from the worst I’ve used. Scrivener for example is better for a writer.

    I’d say that for a normal human user Apple stuff is easier. And if you compare similar models of differing brands at the same level, the costs are actually very close

    Another point, I have a friend still using her 2012 iMac as her daily computer. It won’t upgrade any longer but it still works fine. This is a big plus with Apple and is one of the main reasons I went with the brand. The extended life of the products. Having the same manufacturer design/mfg the hardware and software does work better for the average person.

  34. 34.

    raven

    Damn, we’re a couple of weeks from completing the renovation of our rental so I asked my buddies who are in property management about all this background and credit checks. They both said HELL YES, you must!! I listed the house on Zillow rental and the inquiries are rolling in. The last three tenants were word of mouth so this is all new and a pain in the ass!

  37. 37.

    Ruckus

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Well yes but that really is the proper advice for any product of the same type. There is that old saying, water and electronics don’t mix well. I mean sure you can run your desktop through the car wash and it will be cleaner, but if you leave it plugged in, you quite possibly may have issues.

  39. 39.

    H.E.Wolf

    @sab: ​My vaccuum died a while back. It was young It isn’t dead. Just some plastic latch up top.
     The late great Florence King (Olympic-level curmudgeon) once wrote that as a Deep Southerner, she was able to take her dead vacuum cleaner to the store where she bought it, say “It don’t do right” to the Returns clerk, and have the clerk understand completely and do an exchange with no argument. :)

  43. 43.

    Ruckus

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Any electric/electronic device that is not very well waterproofed does not do well when wet. Apple has fewer outside repair folks, I think mainly because they have stores you can take Apple products to for repair, so any particular outside of Apple repair person will likely show a reasonable number of people who have taken a swim with their phone in their pockets, or in the multitudes of places people seem to find places to put them, like I know of women who slip them into a bra. Or other locations I would never think of or have the proper locations/clothing. Yes I do know of them, 2 come to mind right off the top of my head, with a third who is rather suspect.

  46. 46.

    prostratedragon

    @sab:  My sympathies on the vac. My 20-year-old hp1020 printer just quit on me right after I’d bought 2, that’s two, toner cartridges. I have been able to scrounge one up at a reasonable price through the magic ‘net.

  47. 47.

    Platonicspoof

    How many links per comment are allowed? At one time it was three, I think.

    Does a ‘Reply to” link count in the total?

    Thanks.

  52. 52.

    WaterGirl

    @HinTN: Yes!  I got yours (thank you) and several others.  Even more dogs still will help with the balance, but there has been a good response.

    People still have until 7pm to get theirs in.

    The deadline is 7pm in whatever time zone you live in .

  54. 54.

    The Pale Scot

    @Brachiator:

    From what I’ve read, the MI machines are excellent devices. Get as much memory as you can afford. The USB C ports allow to you to plug in external hard drives and external Graphics cards/boxes that are almost as good as built in.

  58. 58.

    The Pale Scot

    @Ruckus:

    M1 24 inch iMac just to see how good it is and I’m impressed, and I use a 27 inch high end iMac

    The M1 chip seems to be a big deal. Techos have opinioned that it puts Intel etc five years + behind. Which I find disappointing that integrated boards are the future. No more swapping parts from all my “obsolete” Macs and having functional machine. They’ll have to pry my 2010 Mac Pro from my cold lifeless hands. or the power supply fries. WECF

  62. 62.

    Kalakal

    @Ruckus:

    And if you compare similar models of differing brands at the same level, the costs are actually very close

    I’d agree up to a point. It breaks down as you go upscale. I use fairly high end pcs for music and graphics work and the projected prices of the M1 mac pros are eye-watering compared to a highly specced AMD based machine.

    I loathe the form factor of imacs, let’s have a few limited ports stuck at the back of the monitor, have they never heard of flash drives?

  63. 63.

    Another Scott

    @Kalakal: Hit the “Reply” button for the first person you want to include.  Hit the upper right X in the editor to close it.  Go to the next person you want to include, hit the “Reply” button.  Both author “@” links will be in the editor.

    Delete the extraneous white space, write your reply as usual.  Hit the Post Comment button.

    You’re done!

    HTH!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  69. 69.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Another Scott: Thanks!  I knew there was a site dictionary thingy, but I couldn’t find it in the links on the right hand side.

    (Yeah, now I know the link is up on top, along with the arrows and stuff. But I needed to be reminded that ‘lexicon’ was the magic word to search the page for.)

  70. 70.

    Ruckus

    @Kalakal:

    Yes the iMac pro is expensive. To say the least.

    However.

    My current iMac is a 27in with the next to the fastest available main processor, 24gigs, 512gig SSD. When I compare this to windows computers, it’s performance and pricing are compatible with similar performance and pricing, without the Microsoft crap. And if there is a problem, which I’ve never had with any Apple device I’ve owned, and I can not say that about the numerous Microsoft based computers I’ve also owned because the software I then needed did not come on Apple, I can take it and get it checked for free. And the last time I had trouble with Microsoft, it was a program on my windows computer that Netflix had to use that failed all the time, had to be deleted and reinstalled or Netflix didn’t work, but could no longer be deleted, Netflix referred me to Microsoft, who told me I had to pay them $45 to tell me how to delete it so I could reinstall their free program. I told them I could fix it for nothing by taking this shitty Microsoft based computer outside and letting a semi truck run over the fucking thing and never have anything to do with their shitty company ever again. I didn’t let a truck run over it but I did throw it away and have never had another shitty Microsoft based computer. And my life is better for it, and Netflix has worked ever since.

    I started computing back in the early 70s, punch cards or paper tape. I’ve owned a few MS based computers, versions of windows, my first computer I bought was an Apple II and it was flawless. The only MS based computer I can say that about was the last one I owned, which I still have, with it’s copy of Windows XP, which they didn’t want to support or maintain, and I think that was because they didn’t know what to do a program that actually sort of worked and they couldn’t make enough money not charging people to fix their crap. I have used the latest windows, where I worked and it is better by miles. But so it Apple. When I bought my iPhone it was actually cheaper than the then current Android phones of equal capacity and can be updated for a long, long time, unlike my last cell phone, an Android phone that after 2 updates couldn’t be updated and actually stopped fully functioning because of it. Hardware and software by the same company removes a problem and that is two (or more) companies that want to make a bundle and only control half the equation, in this case the hardware or the software. Any differences are blamed upon the other side. Apple can’t do that and they don’t need to because they control both and know which is which. Do you want to buy a Ford, with Ford motor and a Chevy transmission? Yeah I didn’t think so.

    I can use flash drives with my iMac and it has 6 ports, ethernet, an SD drive slot, and an earphone jack. Do you actually need more? They make adaptors to have more if you need them..

  71. 71.

    Kalakal

    @Ruckus: Sounds like we started with computers around the same time, Fortran was my first language. I’m not crazy about either Apples’s or Msft’s operating systems, the only one I ever really thought was a grown up OS was UNIX. I’d actually prefer to run Linux but it would restrict my software options too much. Apple would restrict it also over Pc but it wouldn’t be a deal braker. ( music software makers tend to be small operations and several don’t have the resources to develop for both Os, PCs are a bigger market so they drop OSx. Most are good for either)

    My gripe about the ports is more where they’re positioned, they are not easy access .

    Another factor for me is I use huge amounts of drive space and it’s very easy to upgrade PCs by adding extra drives.

    I’ve heard very good things about the M1 macs, I’m actually wondering about getting a mini  and networking it to run the more cpu melting stuff

  72. 72.

    Ruckus

    @Kalakal:

    The ports on the back of an iMac are very easy to connect to anything and 27in gives you those 6 usb ports. It really isn’t difficult at all. It isn’t all that difficult to add extra drives or get large ones. But you may be one of the people that has to use PCs because of this. The new 24in top pick has 2TB SSD available for $600, 1TB SSD for $200. The 24in top pick still only has 4 USB ports but you can buy an extender. The 27in has some upgrades that boggle, up to 8TB SSD, 128GB ram or you can upgrade for cheaper your self up to 256GB ram.  It of course would still have to be able to run your software and you can purchase a windows OS for an Apple. I’m not saying Apple is better for you, just that it isn’t near as weak as a lot of people think. I ran windows boxes for decades because that’s all the software I needed was written for, although some stuff was written for Unix, but was way, way over priced for what it did. So same boat here, I’ve just found that the Apple experience is better for me now.

  74. 74.

    Kalakal

    @Ruckus: good point, I’d forgotten about bootcamp ( I think that’s what it’s called. I’m neither a Msft or Apple fanboi, I’ll have to look more closely at the M1s. I never thought Apple was weak, their stuffs very good, and I’d be happy with one. A lot of pcs are overpriced for what you get  unfortunately the Apple high end stuff is seriously expensive, same with pcs but not as much. Fortunately I don’t require super high end graphics cards, thanks to Bitcoin they’re crazy prices One thing I would love never to deal with again is all the overheads with windows multiple user system. Don’t what, don’t need it and would like to not have a C drive running out of space all the time.

Comments are closed.