Low and High Tech, Tactics, Front-End Fixes

Thursday, March 28, 2024

An Early Friday Hodgepodge

Spring break with the wife and kids, and other travel/family obligations will occupy me over the weekend and into next week. I plan to resume regular posting here April 7, although it is possible I'll be back earlier.

***

1. If -- after having to rid your person of metal objects -- you then wondered how the headphones inside an MRI machine work, wonder no more.

Hint: It's not the same technology as the sound-powered telephone, another neat piece of low-tech wizardry.

2. A couple of years ago, I replaced my laptop with a Framework computer so I could upgrade components over time or make simple repairs.

I'm quite happy with it so far and, because there is a hacking culture among Framework users, I tentatively plan to replace the guts of my desktop with Framework components whenever that need arises. (Folks share instructions, specs for 3-D print parts they need, and do other things that make it easier for not-quite-hackers like me to join in the fun.)

As always with such things, I keep an antenna out for interesting news, and have found a someday/maybe project (video) that is too neat not to share:
In this video, I will go over why I felt the need to create my custom portable all-in-one computer. Thanks to #framework I was able to put together something that's super easy to assemble and reproduce.

I generally use my #dygma Defy split keyboard, but working around my Macbook Pro's keyboard was always a pain, especially on flights and other places with limited space.

One of the options I considered was a Lenovo Yoga, but I wanted something more repairable. My wife thought of the name Flying Lotus, which I really like, but like I said in the video is not for everyone...
At the link are the video showing how he made this, the many uses and advantages his design opens up, and a link for kit parts to make one for yourself.

3. A little over a decade ago, this Arsenal fan was overjoyed to see the English Premier League become widely available over cable in the United States. Streaming services eventually plugged whatever gaps there were in cable coverage of the Premier League, as well as other competitions: Now it's possible to see just about any game live one has time to watch.

Just when I thought I couldn't be any more spoiled as a fan, I learned of the many podcasts by more knowledgeable fans. My favorite is the Arsenal Opinion Podcast which is a near-perfect mixture of analysis and entertainment for me. I follow that one regularly.

My second-favorite is FourFourTwo, which is all about tactics. I don't regularly go there, but it's really good, as exemplified by the below embedded podcast about the tactics of Arsenal's "Invincibles" undefeated team of '03/'04.

There has never been a better time to be a soccer fan.


4. Recently, I noted that I had learned about NewPipe, an open-source software front end for YouTube, whose interface is even more frustrating to use on a mobile device than on a computer.

Having now used it on walks and on errands for a week, I highly recommend NewPipe.

Who would have thought being able to easily find what you know is out there, pick up where you left off listening, or even (gasp!) be able to put your phone in your pocket while listening might be desirable features in a streaming app?

(Snark aside, it's possible some "update(s)" changed default behavior to become less usable. My wife's iPhone version of YouTube can run with a locked screen, after all. But if that's the case, why should I stick with something whose maintainers are that incompetent or capricious?)

To install the Android version, I recommend verifying and installing F-Droid, and using it to install and update NewPipe.

Incidentally, you can dodge many of the annoyances of YouTube on a regular computer by using an instance of Invidious.

(Believe it or not, although both of these tout being free of commercials, that isn't at all why I use them. I do not object to commercials, as long as I can otherwise conveniently find and enjoy what I came for.)

-- CAV


'Globalism' Is Now an Alt-Right Smear

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Defending Ukraine against Russia is not automagically the same thing as being in league with Klauss Schwab and the WEF.

***

Today's GOP is not only not your father's GOP, it's much closer to his Democratic Party, with the lone exception being its full embrace of your great-grandfather's Christian prudery.

Today alone, we have the increasingly nutty Issues and Insights -- within recent memory a redoubt of relative sanity on the right -- hawking pacifist Tulsi Gabbard as Vice-Presidential material:
Image by Gage Skidmore, via Wikimedia Commons, license.
The Samoan-American, a U.S. Army Reserve lieutenant colonel and decorated combat veteran, showed her plucky streak, and her inclination to think independently, while speaking in December at Turning Point USA's Americafest. She cautioned that "the future of our country is at risk." Her former party, she said, in language similar to that she used when she announced she was leaving the Democrats' fold, is "under the complete control of an elitist cabal of war mongers who are driven by cowardly wokeness." [links omitted, bold added]
Following the links shows Gabbard also smearing Nikki Haley as a "neocon" and railing against "this ongoing proxy war against Russia."

And since today's GOP has no real identity -- except as supposedly the opposite of whatever the Democrats happen to be at the moment -- this makes Gabbard a darling and automatically makes suspect stopping Russia's incursions against the West.

To its small credit, even Issues and Insights can tell that Gabbard isn't a lockstep Trumpist.

That said, it speaks volumes that the GOP is having trouble admitting that, despite Ukraine's imperfections and the fact that the Democrats somewhat support it, perhaps a proxy war now can be a good way to avert a real one later.

This would entail seeing Russia as the threat to the West that it is. And after seeing "An Obsolete Alliance Turns 75" in Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, all I can say is Good luck with that from today's conservatives:
That the West felt entitled to dictate the forms, structures, and ideologies of the post-Cold War world was palpable to Russians and the rest of the world. It never occurred to anyone in power to ask what gave "the free world" the right to determine the forms of government, economy, and social mores in countries that were not their own. It was taken as a given that the West had such a right, and a condescending, patronizing, arrogant attitude was pervasive in the corridors of power in Washington. [bold added]
(1) This sounds like a leftist discussing the alleged "right" of pestholes during the Communist era to vote themselves into slavery. (2) And I guess we're supposed to not ask what gave Russia the right to just go in and take over neighboring countries?

The piece is littered with errors and deserves criticism on multiple fronts (particularly using capitalist to describe either of Russia's oligarchic, post-communist political economy or that of the mixed-economy West), but my short, hot take is this: If you wanted to read a piece by a Democrat defending Russia against NATO, back when Russia was communist, you can get the same flavor by reading this piece -- against NATO, now that Russia is against "woke," never mind that their "woke" includes our enlightenment-era institutions as well as the leftist cancer that has, I admit, infected NATO.

Russia has designs on the rest of Europe, and its threat will need to be addressed sooner or later. Whatever the merits of continuing NATO, it is fortunate that, whatever its flaws, it's still around now that Russia and many other authoritarian regimes have become actively belligerent.

I would hazard a guess that bureaucratic alliance with less-than perfect allies is better now than no such alliance at all.

During the Cold War, Ayn Rand, who emigrated from Russia, and saw that it had far more wrong with it than just communist rulers, said:
Observe the double-standard switch of the anti-concept of "isolationism." The same intellectual groups (and even some of the same aging individuals) who coined that anti-concept in World War II -- and used it to denounce any patriotic opponent of America's self-immolation -- the same groups who screamed that it was our duty to save the world (when the enemy was Germany or Italy or fascism) are now rabid isolationists who denounce any U.S. concern with countries fighting for freedom, when the enemy is communism and Soviet Russia.
Today's right uses globalism in a similar way: to smear as leftist, woke morons anyone who is concerned about what Russia is doing.

-- CAV


Coward Maduro Bans 80-Year-Old Opponent

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

If Venezuela's Chavista regime held actual elections, they would probably lose the next one, according to a recent Wall Street Journal profile of Corina Yoris, the 80-year old grandmother whose 10-party coalition carefully vetted her and applied for her to run as their standard-bearer against Nicolás Maduro, the leftist dictator of Venezuela.

This they did after their previous candidate, Maria Corina Machado, was blocked from running:

Though respondents to a poll by the American company ClearPath Strategies haven't heard of Yoris, the results clearly showed that Venezuelans want change -- reflecting previous polls by other companies. In the past decade, the economy contracted 80% as oil output fell precipitously, and inflation at one point hit 2 million percent.

The poll showed that an opposition candidate backed by Machado would win 49% to 27% for Maduro.
Even a candidate who doesn't have her support would squeak out victory over Maduro, 35% to 27%, the poll shows. And though Maduro's regime has jailed political activists -- including seven of Machado's campaign workers -- the poll shows that 76% of opposition and undecided voters want a chance to cast a ballot. [bold added]
The candidate, unlike the two incoherent old men running for President in the United States, is someone I might support.

For one thing, she advocates free markets:
Yoris is opposed to socialism and communism; she says that the free market regulates prices, that communism was responsible for the death of millions and that the ideology resulted with Venezuela becoming divided.
For another, she is in full possession of her mental faculties, unlike her American counterparts, and uses them more effectively than most people do at half her age:
Image by Voice of America, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
Asked what she, as president, would do for Venezuela she recalled the democratic years when the country, though flawed in many ways, appealed to immigrants escaping Latin American dictatorships and hardship in southern Europe. "I want to give Venezuela what Venezuela has given me," she said. "I could study in this country. I could educate my children in this country. I could do all manner of things in this country."

While not a politician, Yoris said she has taught classes on logic and such esoteric disciplines as the philosophy of argumentation, where she has delved into the concepts of Chaïm Perelman, a Belgian who was one of the 20th Century's most renowned argumentation theorists, and British philosopher Stephen Toulmin. Two years ago, she was named by civil-society groups to serve on an opposition-led commission, which was responsible for organizing the primary elections last year that Machado won by a wide margin.

...

"I'm totally for Madrid, and people laugh a lot about this," said Yoris, who during a recent match tweeted out: "This is a scandal! The referee ends the game and takes a goal away from Real Madrid."

And though she fires off messages about blackouts and the work of Albert Camus, she also takes photos of the fog-covered hills, flowers and fruit stands overflowing with Venezuela's bounty. She explained that her desire is to show beauty. "It's a message of joy because we've been submitted to a very ugly dark cloud," she said. "So I try to send out a message of optimism, and I take photographs of my surroundings." [bold added]
Oh, and she is also much more benevolent than the two bitter old men we have here.

Sadly for Venezuela, the Maduro regime, scared of this kind, elderly lady and the optimistic, sunny view of the world she represents, has, predictably, blocked her election bid, like the cowards that they are.

-- CAV


Four Years Since "15 Days" Flattened Freedom

Monday, March 25, 2024

John Stossel reminds us of the government's inappropriate, authoritarian response to the Covid pandemic:

They complied with teachers unions' demand to keep schools closed. Kids' learning has been set back by years.

Politicians destroyed jobs by closing businesses. Some shutdown orders were ridiculous. Landscaping businesses and private campgrounds were forced to shut down.

Both former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden sharply increased government spending. Trump's $2.2 trillion "stimulus" package, followed by Biden's $1.9 trillion "American Rescue Plan," led to so much money printing that inflation doubled and then tripled.
I recall being much more worried about what the government might do than about the illness itself at the start of the pandemic.

I was right to be concerned, and Stossel is right to remind us of those dark days.

But I would continue just about where he left off when he reminds us that Sweden, which had one of the more sane pandemic responses, did not go on to become the object lesson so many journalists assured us it would.

Yes, some countries dealt more or less appropriately with the pandemic, but which ones, and what did those countries get right or wrong? It's one thing to learn not to repeat a mistake, but that isn't the same thing as knowing the right course of action.

In that vein, I recommend reading (or re-reading) A Pro-Freedom Approach to Infectious Disease, a white paper by Onkar Ghate of the Ayn Rand Institute, which is discussed in the video embedded below.

In the episode of New Ideal Live embedded above, Ben Bayer interviews Onkar Ghate of the Ayn Rand Institute and Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease expert, to discuss Ghate's recent paper "A Pro-Freedom Approach to Infectious Disease," linked above.

The paper begins in part:
Government's public health goal in the face of a novel respiratory virus like SARS-CoV-2 is to remove the threat posed by carriers of the virus -- primarily by testing, isolating and tracking those carriers. Trying to save every life from a novel virus whatever the cost, or to balance some people's lives against other people's livelihoods, is not a valid public health goal. Apart from testing, isolating and tracking, government should issue only voluntary guidelines and then leave us each free to take the countermeasures we individually think necessary in the face of the new reality.

To accomplish its proper public health goal, the government must catalog the severity of various infectious diseases and then, for severe infectious diseases, it must have the ability to test, isolate and track contagious individuals. All of this can and needs to be carefully codified into law.
The above would have lead to a very different course of action than most governments actually took, but it is one that would have made the pandemic much more bearable, and likely far less deadly than it turned out to be.

-- CAV


Four Random Things

Friday, March 22, 2024

A Friday Hodgepodge

1. I mentioned finding a sandwich shop that sells muffulettas shortly after we moved to the New Orleans area.

Wanting to know more about the origins of this local sandwich, I found an article about the Central Grocery, where Italian immigrants created it over a century ago.

From the article:

Image by Richard Martin, via Wikimedia Commons, license.
Around this time, someone -- perhaps Lupo himself -- dreamt up the muffuletta. Culinary origin stories are often difficult to prove, but it's hard to find a more compelling tale than the one his eldest daughter Marie Teresa recited to countless customers, as well as in interviews and her own self-published cookbook, Marie's Melting Pot. French Market Sicilian vendors, as the story goes, congregated at Lupo's for lunch, where they ordered trays of salami, ham, and cheese, a few spoonfuls of olive salad, and a wedge of bread. The grocery lacked tables and chairs, so the diners settled for seats amid the barrels and crates, precariously balancing their lunch trays on their knees. Lupo, whom everyone called "Toto," a common Sicilian diminutive for Salvatore, eventually offered to stuff all the ingredients inside a sliced muffuletta loaf. Soft and sesame-seeded, round and flat, the muffuletta, a common Sicilian bread likely named for the mushroom cap, or muffe, it resembles, seemed custom made for sandwiches.
While I am happy to know that Central Grocery's muffulettas are available for purchase, the website tells me that my pilgrimage to the original store will have to wait for the completion of repairs to the damage Hurricane Ida dealt it.

2. Speaking of immigration, something this foodie liked about H-Town back in my Houston days was the fact that I could get good Tex-Mex and good Cajun/Creole food, even in grocery stores:
Houston is very cosmopolitan and has heavy Cajun and Creole influences already. I can and do buy roux, andouille, and boudain in ordinary supermarkets here. Crawfish, fresh seafood, and good, cheap restaurants (of all varieties, including Cajun) abound.
Nearly two decades (!) since Katrina hit New Orleans, it's a little bit like that here now, with many of the Hispanic workers who helped rebuild the area after that storm putting down roots here.

That said, it's not exactly the same. Whereas Houston had a Brennan's location and (I think) a Copeland's, I'm not finding old favorites from Houston here, and my itch for Tex-Mex has remained un-scratched so far.

To be fair, I did walk into the grocery last weekend to the pleasant suprise of them selling boiled crawfish by the pound just inside. I never got that in Texas.

Or, to put it more positively, I get to explore some more and possibly come up with some more recipes.

3. Sticking with Texas for a bit, there is an interesting piece in Atlas Obscura about a desk that decades ago, some college students hauled to a hilltop in western Texas so they could study in the magnificent solitude afforded by the view:
They would spend their afternoons and evenings studying at this spot and taking in the great views offered by the west Texas sun and expansive plains and mountains extending in every direction. One of the students decided to bring a notebook and wrote a note in it. When he returned later, he discovered that someone had

Today, the notebook kept in the desk's drawer offers visitors the chance to write to other visitors and reflect on what it means to leave a mark and make a statement in such a place at whatever moment in time they happen to be there. Completed notebooks from the Sol [sic] Ross desk are kept at the Archives of the Big Bend...
I never made it out to Big Bend, while I was in Texas, but a friend of mine from grad school once spent a week there alone to collect his thoughts.

Now, I can see why.

4. After yesterday's mention of a compilation of Machiavellian triumphs at Ask a Manager, I recommend another compilation, titled "Mortification Week." A sample:
If you lived in New England during 2020, you were not only dealing with the pandemic but also a large amount of stink bugs. During a Zoom call, a bug flew into my hair while I was on camera. My colleagues got to see me scream, flail, and proceed to fall out of my chair. The recording of this moment still makes the rounds once or twice a year, though I have learned to laugh along with it.
Also amusing are entries involving typos and auto-correct.

-- CAV


'Machiavellian' Triumphs and Traps

Thursday, March 21, 2024

In a compilation of reader submissions for what she calls "Machiavellian Triumphs at Work," Alison Green presents the following crafty solution to a problem that would drive me crazy if I had to deal with it:

Image by Teepetersen, via Wikimedia Commons, license.
The Voicemail

Had a sales guy at my first job in the late 90s who used to take ALL his calls and listen to ALL his voicemail on speaker. LOUDLY. We were a small company with a cube farm. This was the days before caller ID.

So one day some of us called when we knew he was out and left a voicemail saying something along the lines of "Hi Fergus, I went to my doctor and the rash is all cleared up."

He never listened to his voicemail on speaker again. [formatting in original]
Assuming this guy ignored polite requests or direction to stop blasting his office-mates out of their minds, this is a perfect solution: Either he did not know or did not care that everyone would hear things he'd rather they not hear.

Now he knows and cares, even if he remains unable to realize that his office-mates' ability to get work done is also in his best interest.

The whole list is amusing, although not necessarily reliable as a how-to guide for navigating tricky situations. For example, the person who "accidentally created a shadow government" might have found life more bearable that way, but the boss getting "80% of her job [done] and ... the entire department" run for her was still getting paid to do so, while this subordinate wasn't getting any credit.

-- CAV


'Not Collecting Stamps' Isn't a Hobby

Wednesday, March 20, 2024

"Atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby." -- Penn Jillette

***

Lately, articles about the increasing percentage of Americans who aren't "religious" -- like this and this -- have been popping up.

Please consider the italicized quote above any time you encounter one of these.

Why?

Because (1) In today's increasingly tribalistic, anti-individualist Zeitgeist, it would appear that the first impulse is to lump together any group of people to which one can apply a label. (2) So many people lack intellectual rigor that many labels are next to meaningless, anyway.

The first piece, about "nonreligious" people includes some whose stated beliefs include all the hallmarks of religion; they just aren't enrolled in a church:
Although he doesn't believe in organized religion, he believes in God and basic ethical precepts. "People should be treated equally as long as they treat other people equally. That's my spirituality if you want to call it that."
Indeed, somewhere, buried in the piece, is the closest thing it comes to offering its own definition of "nonreligious:" They. Really. Don't. Like. Organized. Religion.

Given how "the nones' diversity splinters them into myriad subgroups," don't expect to be able to learn anything meaningful from the rest of the piece.

Even the second article, about "atheists" talks about people I'd say are actually religious:
Image by François Barraud, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
Atheists also have different interpretations of what it means to not believe. While nearly all self-described atheists don't believe in the God described in the Judeo-Christian Bible, 23% do believe in God or some other higher power or spiritual force in the universe, according to a Pew Research Center report published in January. [bold added]
With that much latitude in the term, it is ridiculous to wonder -- as the article starts out doing -- why more atheists are reluctant to volunteer that fact about themselves.

The negative stereotypes and bigotry on the part of many religious people don't help, but if a term has been emptied of all meaning, why bandy it about?

I am an atheist, and would describe myself as circumspect, but not shy about it. I reject nearly everything about religion, especially professing to believe things absent evidence, and equating morality to a set of supernatural orders that have nothing to do with reason or life on earth. These two things are direct threats to a life proper to a rational animal.

If I have a realistic chance of making my world a better place by challenging these evil practices, I will do so. (This is the not shy part.) If doing so will change nothing, except expose me or loved ones to harm by bigots or actual thugs, I will not. (This is the circumspect part.) Self-sacrifice is against my moral code.

But simply saying I'm an atheist, or I'm not religious at all is only the start of a conversation.

Religion is not the only alternative out there for moral guidance or reflection. Not adhering to religion is not the only aspect of my thinking and my personality.

Stating that I am an atheist is thus something that I would hope would at least provoke thought in another, and perhaps require a conversation on my part. The person hearing that from me, or the occasion calling for me to say this, has to be worth it.

I find the widespread need to "come out" as something that is so common today both sad and puzzling. Our culture causes most people to feel alienated because it is increasingly blind to or disdainful of the individual. Many people yearn for some measure of visibility, and aren't getting it. But past a certain point, it is puzzling that many people have such a weak sense of themselves that they will compromise on almost anything to "belong."

I'm not sure what to say about that, except, perhaps to advise that one should well understand one's reasons for disclosing one's beliefs, or not. Fashion is probably the worst reason to do either.

-- CAV