Wordle 1759 Hint

Hint: Like Legolas or Galadriel.

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First Letter: E

Wordle 1758 Hint

Hint: Not quite a proper street (but if it's covered it's an arcade).

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First Letter: A

Applicable(?) Aphorisms #14

"Happiness comes to those who bring happiness to others." (Zoroastrianism, Yasna 53:3)

True, false, good, bad, useful, not so useful, etc.? Discuss.

My thoughts:

Another version of the Golden Rule, but as observation rather than prescription.

The observation seems valid to me -- "you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar" -- but your mileage may vary.

The more interesting thing to me is that the Yasna seems to pre-date Jewish, Christian, and Muslim versions of the Golden Rule by quite some time. It's hard to say for sure, since the Yasna wasn't published in written form until the 5th century AD (so it's possible that this aphorism arrived late to the script), but its oral transmission began, historians think, in the second millennium BC, more than 1,000 years before Hillel and Christ.

I suspect variations of the Golden Rule go all the way back to the beginning of humankind communicating ideas with each other.

Wordle 1757 Hint

Hint: A proper prissy pearl-clutcher.

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First Letter: P

Hopefully Helpful Definition

 trade deficit, n. a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Wordle 1756 Hint

Hint: When you're on the rebound.

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First Letter: C

Wordle 1755 Hint

Hint: Handle today's Wordle with care -- it's loaded.

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First Letter: L

IMO, It Doesn't Matter Much Who the "Real" Satoshi Nakamoto Is ...

... but if it is Adam Back, as John Carreyrou claims in the New York Times, I have to say:

Job well done, Mr. Back.

Not very many people really, noticeably change the world, even fewer change it for the better, and even fewer knowingly in advance change it for the better.

The writings (on e.g. the Cypherpunks list) of both Back and "Satoshi Nakamoto" display both a clear understanding of what "the better" is, and a clear desire to accomplish it, and Back has a discernible record of working to do so over a long period (supporting PGP and opposing the US regime's attempts to prevent its spread, for example -- I'm old enough to remember that fight, and to have sent a copy to a friend abroad just because the regime said I mustn't).

We've got Satoshi's work product, and we're far better off having it than not having it.

Knowing his or her "real" name or not won't change that, and I'd personally prefer that his or her privacy be respected. I hope Mr. Back isn't given a hard time by the paparazzi and so forth. But I'm sure he will be.

Wordle 1754 Hint

Hint: An arm, but made of water.

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First Letter: I

Another Benefit from the Change of Linux Distributions

I wanted to give it a few days just to make sure it was a permanent feature, not a temporary anomaly. It's the former:

MX Linux (XFCE desktop version) is easier on my computer than Linux Mint was. According to psensor, I'm running noticeably lower CPU and drive temperatures.

I suppose that could be because I've installed less stuff -- stuff that might leave rogue processes running even when the apps themselves are supposedly closed -- but my recollection is that Mint ran higher temperatures than I'm seeing now even upon install.

Not that Mint was red-lining my CPU temp or anything. But presumably lower temperatures on a regular basis should mean longer CPU -- and fan -- life.

Wordle 1753 Hint

Hint: Thick (as in "as a brick").

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First Letter: D

Wordle 1752 Hint

Hint: Bound by oath.

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First Letter: S

Wordle 1751 Hint

Hint: Not quite an ambassador, but more than a mere chargé d'affaires.

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First Letter: E

MX Linux, Day 2 Observations

OK, I've had a full day plus since install to put MX Linux through its paces, meaning I've been able to do pretty much all the things I do on a computer with this operating system. Still liking it. I've only really got two observations, one very positive and one very mildly negative.

Positive Observation: This morning, the little task bar icon that means "it's time for updates/upgrades" turned green. I pressed it. A window opened and showed me a list of OS and app updates/upgrades available. I pressed the OK button, entered my password ... and 20 seconds later (by my count) it informed me that it was done downloading and installing them. Since I did a full update/upgrade on install, there wasn't a lot for it to do. I'll expect downloads to take longer when there's a full new browser version or whatever. But it was easy, and the post-download installation/check was very fast.

Negative Observation: Several times, my task bar has just ... disappeared. It seems to have something to do with power management. It happens when the screen goes dark from inactivity. It's easy to get the thing back (about 10 seconds in settings -- I put the particular function on the desktop after the second or third time it happened), and I expect there's a permanent fix for it that I'll research, find, and implement, but if you try MX out, let me know if it happens to you too.

Other than that, it seems at least as stable, reliable, and easy to install, use, and maintain, as Linux Mint and other good distributions. Which means it's a lot more stable, reliable, and easy to install, use, and maintain than Windoze.

Applicable(?) Aphorisms #13

"The wise man is one who knows what he does not know." (Taoism, Tao Te Ching 71)

True, false, good, bad, useful, not so useful, etc.? Discuss.

My thoughts:

To me, understanding the limits of one's own knowledge seems like a basic requirement for survival, or at least for flourisihing, rather than an indicator of wisdom as such. But I could be wrong.

Wordle 1750 Hint

Hint: Like a desert ... or a beach.

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First Letter: S

And The Winning Candidate Distro Is ...

MX Linux.

After messing around with Devuan as a live USB, I did the same with MX Linux, and I just like it better. 

The install to hard drive is as easy as it should be (as easy as Ubuntu or Mint, much easier than Windows), it has a nice intuitive app installer, and so far everything I've mess with has worked easily (for example, setting up Dropbox).

All of this was by way of moving to a non-systemd Linux distribution (MX gives you the choice between systemd and sysvinit), but I was also looking for something "Linux Newbie Friendly," and MX qualifies:

1. Download the iso you want (I chose the one with the XFCE desktop/GUI, but you can also go with KDE or Fluxbox);
2. Burn the iso to a thumb drive;
3. Boot your computer from the thumb drive;
4. Mess around with MX a little and see if you like it;
5. Click the "Install" icon on the desktop and follow the easy instructions;
6. Enjoy!

I considered installing MX next to Mint and Windows, but then I had a better idea: I had it nuke the whole hard drive and just completely take over.

Why? Since I've had this computer, I've used Windows two or three times ... to play Starcraft. If I really want to play Starcraft, I'll do the Wine or virtual machine thing. I'm tired of wasting hard drive space on Windows and after logging into it this morning to grab the product key just in case, I hope it's the last time I ever do that.

Wordle 1749 Hint

Hint: Today's Wordle burns, but just a little.

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First Letter: S

Immediate Ergonomic Improvement!

Preemptive for the economically delusional: According to Amazon's AI, "[t]he product information for the HUANUO Dual Monitor Mount [not an affiliate link] doesn't specify the country of manufacture," but I can reasonably surmise that the item is "cheap Chinese junk."

In this case, I went for the cheapest option not beause I'm unwilling to pay more for exactly what I want, but because I wasn't sure if monitor arms of any kind were exactly what I wanted.

I thought putting my monitors on adjustable arms instead of stationary risers might improve the ergonomics of my desktop setup, but I wasn't sure, so why spend three times as much on the fancy-schmancy gas spring, etc. stuff as a first step?

If the cheap ones worked exactly as I hoped, I'd have spent less money and got what I wanted.

If they worked, but not as well as I liked, I could hand them down to someone else in the household after buying better ones.

If I decided I just preferred risers to arms, I could still hand them down and not buy the better ones.

Evaluation after one day of use:

They work pretty much exactly as I'd hoped. The more expensive ones might be a little easier to adjust, but these do a fine job. Instead of either:

1. Accomodating my body position to the height and distance of the monitors; or
2. Spending a lot of time moving risers back and forth, stacking or unstacking stuff underneath the monitors for height, etc., I
3. Sit comfortably for myself at the moment and just reach out and put each monitor where I want it in a couple of seconds.

I also have a lot of options that I wouldn't have at all with monitors that sit on bases and risers. If, for some reason, I want to tilt a monitor 90 degrees on its side, I can do that. If I want to add a third or even fourth monitor (perhaps to run two computers simultaneously?), I can buy separate single arms and mount the additional monitors to the sides of the desk. And so on, and so fourth.

It was a good use of $25. I probably won't bother "upgrading," at least for now. 

Wordle 1748 Hint

Hint: Sersly ossifer, I ain't drank a drop (hic)!

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First Letter: S

I Happened to Be Thinking About Coffee ...

... because of this story at the National Post:

U.S. researchers found that people who regularly drank two to three cups of coffee or one to two cups of tea per day had a lower chance of developing dementia than those who drank little or abstained altogether. Though caffeinated coffee intake was “significantly associated” with lower risk of dementia, the same wasn’t true of decaf, according to the study.

Challenge accepted. OK, not really. I already drink two to three cups of coffee per day. I'm on my third at this very moment.

So why not blog about coffee because reasons?

Tamara and I do not drink the same coffee. In fact, I don't recognize the stuff she drinks as coffee.

The most important difference between what she drinks and coffee is that she drinks "decaf," so what's the point?

She also drinks, at strongest, a "medium" roast, regular grind, and sometimes even goes off into "breakfast blend" and "blonde roast" territory.

And, finally, she prepares her coffee using a Keurig machine, which is really just a pretty fast drip method. I'll do the k-cup thing when it's all that's available, but I barely consider it coffee under the best of circumstances.

Since I like to both taste my coffee and get an energy boost out of it, I go with a dark/bold roast in an espresso grind (usually Cuban, such as Cafe Bustelo), and if I use the Keurig at all, it's just to heat some water.

Because cheap espresso machines just aren't very well-made and don't last very long in my experience, I use one of three methods:

1. French press. I use that if I want cold brew. Throw in the coffee, add hot water, let it steep a little, throw it in the fridge. The next morning, press and pour it. It's not a pressure-brewed espresso, but the time factor does give it a nice, strong flavor.
   
   
2. Moka pot. It's technically a percolator, but a pretty pressurized one and makes a nice cup of coffee. Not really espresso, but pretty nice.
   
   
3. Aeropress. I got a good deal on an Aeropress Go, their travel model, a few years back (current price is twice what I paid), and bought an after-market "flow control cap" so that it takes pressure to get the water through the grounds instead of just being a compact drip unit. I'm still not sure I'd call the result real espresso, but it's pretty close.

I've mostly been using the Aeropress lately. It's quicker than the moka pot, I don't have to remember to prepare things the day before for cold brew as with the French press, and overall it produces the best quality brew IMO. But as the weather warms up, I'll probably switch to cold brew.

One thing I finally got to decide against is the "Nespresso" line. I'd been wanting to try one, and finally got the opportunity during a recent hotel stay where that was what they had for in-room coffee. The damn thing sounded like a Mack Truck coming down the road and produce, IMO, an inferior cup of ... well, something. I'm not even sure what brew they were going for with the particular pods included, but it just wasn't very good. I ended up going downstairs each morning for a cup of Colombian dark roast from those thermosy things.

One of these days I may buy a "real" espresso machine, but they tend to run several hundred dollars minimum and that seems like a mal-investment to me, at least for now.

Wordle 1747 Hint

Hint: Like a carbonated beverage.

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First Letter: F

Thanks For Asking! -- 04/01/26

Can I get an AMEN ... er, AMA?

Ask (in comments) and it shall be answered (applies to regular people pseudonymous trolls/bots are required to ask interesting questions to get answers).

Wordle 1746 Hint

Hint: Politicians live there and love it (but constantly claim they're going to drain it).

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First Letter: S

Another Recommendation for Prospective Linux Converters

It's one I knew about but hadn't noticed or thought about in a long time, because when I want to install Linux on a computer, I:

1. Look into various distributions online for the features I want;
2. Download a disk image of the distribution I choose;
3. Burn that image to a USB flash drive;
4. Boot my machine from that USB flash drive;
5. Check out the distribution and, if I like it, use the "install" option to permanently install Linux on my hard drive.

I had basically forgotten that there's a cheap (and less time-consuming) way to shorten the process:

1. Look online for a USB flash drive that already has Linux on it (they generally run $15-$25);
2. Order it and wait for it to arrive;
3. Go to step 4 in the previous sequence.

Since I haven't used the one I'm about to discuss myself I can't necessarily recommend it, but in terms of bang for buck:

I see that Amazon offers a 64 Gb USB flash drive with 17 different operating systems -- Windows 11 and 16 Linux distributions -- on it, and supposedly that flash drive boots into a menu that lets you choose whatever one you want to run direct from the USB to audition and maybe install.

It's $21 (not an affiliate link).

You can try out all of those Linux distributions right from the USB (they will probably run a little slower from USB than they would if installed to your regular hard drive) without affecting your computer's permanent setup. That way you get to know for sure you like one before you commit.

And when you do commit, you can either keep that flash drive in the ol' drawer in case you ever want to change or need to reinstall, or just format it and have an extra 64Gb flash drive for other uses. It looks like empty flash drives of that size cost nearly as much, so the whole thing seems like a no-way-to-lose proposiation.

Preemptive note to pseudonymous trolls who pretend they don't use Chinese stuff: According to Amazon's AI, "the specific country of manufacture isn't listed on the product page." My guess would be that the drive itself is Chinese; where the people who put the distros on it and resell it are located is anyone's guess.

Wordle 1745 Hint

Hint: Halley's comes around every 75 years or so.

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First Letter: C

Motorcycle Maintenance Time Coming Up ...

The Italica Bulldog 150 is about to hit 3,000 miles. That may be the last time I take it to the shop for regular maintenance. I'm fully capable of changing the oil (and, when needed, gear oil) myself, but after the mods I had the shop do, the guy wants to look at the variator upgrade (w/kevlar belt) at 3k anyway, so I'll just have it all done.

Especially since it's using a little oil (about 1/4 of a quart since it hit 2k). I haven't found a leak, but it's going somewhere.

I've had both the Bulldog (twice) and the Lifan KP Mini 150 (once) out for fairly short trips the last few days.

Both Bulldog trips involved carrying stuff back from a store, and the Bulldog is permanently set up for that with the built-in storage compartment and the rear top box I've been keeping on it. To carry anything substantial on the KP Mini I either have to put on saddlebags or wear a backpack. Which I will do if I'm making a 100+ mile trip that's mostly highway, but not for a 2-10 mile trip that involves low-speed-limit streets. I ran the KP Mini out to a store just now, but it wasn't for anything that wouldn't fit in its small tail bag; I mostly just like to make sure it gets out and about at least once a week.

Embarrassingly, I laid the Bulldog down on one outing. No damage to me or the bike. I was on the cowpath between our house and the paved road, going maybe five miles an hour, when I perceived a need to stop (because my phone rang -- one of the kids reminding me of an item to get at the store) just as the rear wheel was doing one of its little slaloms in the sand and I braked. My foot came down in soft sand as the bike stopped -- exactly the way I put down the old 50cc scooter a few years ago. I think I may start putting my phone on silent when I ride.

Non-systemd Linux -- First Success Post

I've had nothing but trouble trying to install a non-systemd Linux distribution (see here for why) on my Raspberry Pi 5.

No need to belabor the details -- some things just don't work, and others require a bunch of command line messing around to make work, and my whole approach as a Linux evangelist is "make this easier than Windoze for people." For the Pi, it's simply not easier than Windoze (or easier than Raspberry Pi OS, which is easy as, well, pie).

On my x86 PC, however, it took me about 10 minutes to get Devuan Linux up and running, and nine of those minutes were downloading the disk image and burning it to a USB drive. Once I'd done that, all I had to do was reboot my machine to boot from the USB. Loaded right up, and once I logged into a wifi network I was ready to do things.

The first thing I did was move the task bar from the top to the bottom because that's how I like it.

The second thing I did (after taking the screenshot above) was open up Firefox (which comes preinstalled) so that I could write this post.

As I'm writing the post, I'm also installing some stuff on the live CD version to test out -- I want to know certain things work and that I like the feel before doing a full hard drive install and replacing Linux Mint on my main machine. I expect that the full install will take a little longer than a live CD run, but not much -- basically just telling it I prefer the US keyboard layout and US Eastern time zone, that kind of thing.

So far, so good.  Once I've had some time to mess around with Devuan, I suspect I'll be able to honestly recommend it at least to those who want to avoid systemd, and possibly just overall as a good Linux distro for people who want to get away from Windoze but don't want the getaway plan to be complicated.

Wordle 1744 Hint

Hint: In an alphabetical list of synonyms, today's Wordle falls between "boob" and "dolt."

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First Letter: C

Applicable(?) Aphorisms #12

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." (Stoicism, Attributed to Plato)

True, false, good, bad, useful, not so useful, etc.? Discuss.

My thoughts:

Probably true, definitely good and useful ... when I keep it in mind and apply it, which isn't all the time.

If you perceive someone as causing you to have a bad time, it's probably the case that they're having a bad time. If you can cut them a little slack and treat them in a positive way, maybe they'll have a better time, and stop causing you and others to have a bad time.

But the natural reaction is to meet negativity with negativity. And I react naturally more often than I should. Maybe you do too.

Wordle 1743 Hint

Hint: What the game is, according to (among others) Henry IV and Sherlock Holmes.

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First Letter: A

Wordle 1742 Hint

Hint: Traditional (but now obsolete and/or illegal) piano key material.

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First Letter: I

Should Have Done This Before ...

I had an old analog wind-up alarm clock, but it  disappeared during the move. I've been meaning to buy a new one, but it keeps slipping my mind.

I've been using an Amazon Echo Dot as my alarm clock.

Usually it's not an issue anyway -- I tend to wake up 15-30 minutes before the alarm goes off.

But this morning I didn't ... and Alexa seems to be experiencing  service disruptions in my area.

So I overslept by an hour.

Not a HUGE deal since I don't report to an employer on a time clock, but I had to skip my half-mile pre-dawn "become fully awake" walk and get directly to work.

Guess I'll just go ahead and buy a new alarm clock today.

Wordle 1741 Hint

Hint: If there's an occasion today, today's Wordle is appropriate to it.

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First Letter: B

OK, Finally An Actual Similarity

As long-time readers know, I called out the "Russiagate" scam for what it was -- a pathetic attempt to find someone, anyone ... "hey, how about Russia, that will work!" ... other than Hillary Clinton to blame for Hillary Clinton's piss-poor 2016 presidential campaign and loss to Donald Trump -- from the beginning.

Over the time since, I've found comparisons (coming from the same corner) of Trump to Vladimir Putin to generally be real stretches and often outright fantasies.

But Daniel Larison's column at Eunomia this morning strikes me as an apt comparison -- other than that he doesn't make the comparison, just lays out a basis for it:

If the reported details [of Trump's 15-point proposal] are correct, the so-called plan includes many of the same unrealistic and maximalist demands that the administration has been making for the last year. It was based on the U.S. proposal from 2025 before the June war. It is hard to see why Iran would agree to such terms now when their government has more leverage than it had before.

Which, apart from the April 2022 "Istanbul draft" (despite rumors you may have heard about Boris Johnson "killing" it, it was amended by Zelenskyy for Ukraine, then publicly rejected by Lavrov on behalf of Russia before Johnson even arrived in Kyiv), very resembles Putin's proposals for ending the war in Ukraine:

"Give me everything I want, but have utterly failed to get with military force, and I pinky promise to  stop trying to take things with miitary force!"

To the extent that it's a similarity, though, I don't think Trump is copying Putin. He seems to be copying ... Trump. He has a long record of failing, then trying to crybully the world into pretending he succeeded.

Wordle 1740 Hint

Hint: Like the Magi or a Mafia "guy," only more so.

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First Letter: W

How the Republicans Could Remain Competitive in Elections

Various outlets have been reporting that there are "negotiations" between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Cuban regime for e.g. "a friendly takeover" of the island by the US.

I'm not sure how much stock to put in those stories, but it does occur to me that the Republican Party could probably benefit, for at least some time, by pursuing the following course:

1. The US government announces that Cuba is now a US territory.
2. Trump appoints Rubio governor of Cuba.
3. Whether organically or with significant US assistance, Cuban revolutionaries seize control of at least a significant sliver of the island's territory/population. Hey, Guantanmo Bay is actually already full of US troops, isn't it? There's your initial voter base right there!
4. The voters of the area under US control hold a plebiscite to request statehood.
5. Congress grants statehood.

With a population of 10 million, Cuba would get seven or eight US House seats and two US Senate seats.

And the people voting on the disposition of those seats would likely support the party that gave those seats to them.

Maybe not? Well, remember ... once Cuba was a state, any further resistance to US rule would be insurrection, right? We've seen what that looks like before. It would have to be put down, of course. And then there'd have to be an interim phase of, you know, "reconstruction," with voting rights contingent upon "loyalty." Does anyone happen to recall the dominant party in the American south from 1865-77?

No, I don't support the idea. But I can see why certain people and factions would.

A Lot of Yard ...

... with basically nothing in it except the Starlink receiver (which may be going away*) and one tree (out of shot to the left near the camera).

It's the space to the west of the house (that's the shadow coming in from the left), as seen from the rear fence. The trees to the right are on a public right-of-way that will eventually be a street. The trees at the far end of the shot are along the fence that separates our fenced-in house "yard" from the remainder of the lot.

I just mowed it, and as you can see there's not much to it, not even a lot of grass in the sandy soil. As space, it's currently pretty useless to us. We don't have kids of an age to want to set up a volleyball or badminton court or whatever; our outbuildings are located to the east of the house. The septic tank is located down near the far end of this stretch and has to be accessible for maintenance, but that's about it. But there are quite a few critter holes and mounds, which (as you'll see) is fine by us.

We're trying to decide what to do with it.

I'm generally anti-"lawn" (as today's Garrison Center column explains), and Tamara is even more so, even though she's not the one who's out with a mower, trimmer, etc. at least eight months out of the year (and that's not the big issue for me -- I can use the exercise). She wants flowers for the butterflies and bees, habitat for the rabbits and gopher tortoises and gophers and deer, etc.

We're in the process of deciding how to turn it into something low-maintenance and animal-friendly, but not unattractive (even though nobody outside the household can, for the most part, see it anyway).

We may plant a hedge about 10 feet west of the house from front to rear, with openings for deer to get in and out if they happen to wander through our yard instead of just jumping the west fence (the latter is their usual, but not only, method of entry).

Whether we do that or not, I'll probably be doing some light digging to put in a tiny "pond" liner, after which we'll move a large, conveniently shaped rock to the uphill side of the little pond and install a little solar-powered pump that will send water from the pond to the top of the rock, from which it will fall back into the pond: Water for the critters, but not stagnant water for mosquitos.

Around the pond, probably another rock to set a salt block for the deer on, and maybe a stone bench to sit on.

Then we'll get to work trying to kill off the remaining grass and replace it with flowering plants, low ground cover plants, cacti, etc., except for a plot near the front or rear that I'll turn into a vegetable garden.

And, as a bonus, it will be probably a good third of an acre less to mow.

* I'm still very happy with Starlink (yes, that's an affiliate link, grab yourself a free month and get me one as well if you're looking for Internet service), but now that Cox is offering gigabyte fiber to our house at a reasonable price (with a five-year price guarantee), there's agitation from other family members to switch over. I'm resisting, but I expect to lose the argument.

Wordle 1739 Hint

Hint: If you have multiple young, they are today's Wordle; if they're sulking, they're doing today's Wordle.

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First Letter: B

Reza Pahlavi is the "Crown Prince of Iran" ...

... in, at most, the same sense that Franz von Bayern is "by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of His other Realms and Territories King, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith."

But really, not even that much.

The form of the regime that James Francis Edward Stuart and his Jacobite "pretenders" attempted to assume chiefdom of  by "succession," starting in 1701 with the death of the exiled James II/VII, remains in existence.

The Iranian monarchy itself -- not just a particular Shah -- was extirpated nearly half a century ago.

Pahlavi's claim is pretty much a dead parrot.

Can Any of Y'All Explain This?

I am not an "investor" as popularly (as opposed to technically) defined, nor do I play one on TV or the Internet. To put that a different way, I do not engage in ongoing trade of stocks, commodities, etc. for the purpose of finding and exploiting specific profit opportunities, nor have I put a lot of study into the practices involved in doing so.

That may explain why I find recent headlines (for example, this morning, "Gold and silver in freefall as investors flee safe haven metals trade") and associated charts (both gold and silver seem to be down about 20% over the last month, with most of the fall occuring over the last 10 days or so), somewhat counter-intuitive and confusing.

My intuitive understanding of the situation is that this is when investors should be BUYING, not SELLING, gold and silver -- things are looking pretty bad and set to get worse, so get the hell out of the volatile sectors and put some gold bars in the safe until things settle down.

Why is the opposite happening?

The two explanations I can think of are:

1. Investors think the bottom is in or near to being in on the stock market (which has also been down over the last month, but not by as much as metals), and are selling their metal to buy stocks cheap before the Dow heads back up; and/or
2. Investors are moving out of metal and into petroleum as a commodity to take advantage of the spikes associated with the war.

Both of which seem a lot more risky/speculative -- to me, anyway -- than just sitting on a pile of Krugerrands. If things get back to normal, those metals will still hold long-term value. If things go completely to shit, well, let me quote from Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon:

[P]articularly at times like 28 November 1941 ... even a grunt like Bobby Shaftoe can understand that it's better to be holding silver than piles of old cut-up newspaper. ... This is an ultimate settling of accounts before the whole Eastern Hemisphere catches fire.

The piles of cut-up newspaper in the quote are Chinese currency, which even as late as December 1941 were, unlike US Federal Reserve Notes today, at least theoretically backed by metal.

I happen to know that at least some of KN@PPSTER's readers are or have been "investors" in the popular definition mentioned above. Can any of you explain to me why now would be the time to get out of metals and into something else?

Wordle 1738 Hint

Hint: Think Times New Roman (as opposed to, say, Helvetica).

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First Letter: S

Wordle 1737 Hint

Hint: You'll need this if you want to make pesto.

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First Letter: B

Devuan Linux VERY First Impression

I'm auditioning non-systemd Linux distributions (per this previous post), and the first candidate is Devuan Linux.

My very, very, very early impression is three words long:

Not for beginners.

Here's why:

These days, most Linux distributions are at least as easy as, usually easier than, Microsoft Windoze to install and configure.

Devuan clearly isn't.

The first part is: Get an installation medium with the operating system's image on it, and boot from that medium. I did that by grabbing the Devuan package for my CPU (the Raspberry Pi 5's Arm 64-bit chip), burning it to an SD card, putting the SD card in the Pi (and removing the USB SSD that I normally run the Pi off of), and turning the Pi on.

At the second part, it goes sideways from a novice's point of view, though.

With most Linux distributions, that first boot shows some text scrolling along as the OS does things, then a lovely welcome/configure screen opens up and you do a few simple things like telling it what time zone you're in, what wifi or ethernet network to connect to, etc. Boom -- a graphical user interface opens up and you're off and running.

The first thing Devuan does is ask you for your login and password. And of course, having never used this OS before, you don't have a login or password. Looked that one up -- the default login is "devuan" and the default password is "devuan."

And then you're just at a Linux command line after a prompt letting you know you'll need to run menu-config to get any further.

At which point you discover things like:

1.  That it expects an ethernet, not wifi, connection, and that you're going to have to do some command line stuff outside of menu-config to change that.
2. That you have to install your graphical user interface of choice (I recommend XFCE, as do others),  which you must have said Internet connection to do.

That's as far as I've gone, because I have some other stuff to do this morning. I may get the installation, up to and through getting an Internet connection, installing a GUI, installing my browser of preference, etc. this weekend. Whenever that gets done, I'll up date you.

None of this is intended as a slam on Devuan -- just as notice that if you are brand new to Linux you may find the installation process intimidating. Variants like Ubuntu and Mint are akin to falling off a log in complexity, so unless you've got a specific reason to be looking at Devuan (such as the systemd thing), I wouldn't recommend Devuan as your first foray.

Side note: All this may be unique to the Raspberry Pi/Arm-64 version. I haven't yet looked at Devuan on an x86 machine; perhaps it has the warm and fuzzy install process!

Applicable(?) Aphorisms #11

"All experience is preceded by mind, led by mind, made by mind." (Buddhism, Dhammapada 1:1)

True, false, good, bad, useful, not so useful, etc.? Discuss.

My thoughts:

I've always found Buddhism fascinating as a "religion" -- in most forms it is non-theistic (although some Buddhist sects to tend to treat e.g. Amitābha as a god figure, and Tibetan Buddhism features "demons" embodying human flaws). Buddhism is really more of a philosophy than a religion in my opinion, and it's an odd one in that its metaphysics and ethics seem to flow from its epistemology rather than vice versa. Almost everything in Buddhism seems to be about "state of mind."

This particular aphorism immediately brought Descartes's "cogito ergo sum" -- "I think, therefore I am" -- to my mind, but they're actually very different.

Descartes presented an elegant metaphysical proof of existence (you can't think if you don't exist), while today's aphorism is epistemiological -- your experience (and therefore your knowledge of that experience) is shaped at all points by your thinking.

If I was looking for a modern/western analog to the aphorism, I'd probably turn to Bayesian integration as applied to how prior experience shapes current perception, rather than to Descartes.

Wordle 1736 Hint

Hint: A smooth operator on a slippery surface would constitute two uses of this adjective.

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First Letter: S

Linux Bleg

Instead of getting overly technical, in this post, I'll just point you to Sk's explanation at OSTechNix of what all the systemd merge of Pull Request #40954 -- adding a "birthdate" field to userdb JSON records --  entails and why some people find it concerning.

I'm one of those people. Specifically, I consider the "slippery slope" argument compelling. Yes, the field is "voluntary" for now ... BUT!

1. It's being done specifically to facilitate "compliance" with surveillance state laws; and
2. Having that "compliance" hook installed at all will just encourage more such laws and eventually some kind of process that switches the field from "voluntary" to "mandatory" and comes with some kind of intrusive method for ensuring the supposed accuracy of the information in it; and
3. The birthdate field is NOT encrypted, so any attack that grabs data from JSON records will reveal that personal info to the attacker.

IMO, that's bad from two standpoints. First, it's a surrender to / empowerment of the surveillance state apparatus; second, the "mandatory" and "verification" elements, when they arrive, will mean more bloat and less efficiency in systemd itself.

The two main OSes I use -- Linux Mint and Raspberry Pi OS -- have systemd as their system/service manager (ChromeOS, on my laptops, uses Upstart).

So -- does anyone reading this post happen to use a Linux OS that doesn't incorporate systemd? And if so, what you think of it? I prefer a Debian fork to more ... sui generis ... distros, but I'm willing to consider the latter.

It's Not Really About the $25, @LPNational

Yesterday morning, I received an email.

Subject line: "Your receipt from Libertarian National Committee."

Content summary: "CiviCRM every 1 year(s) USD25.00."

Went and checked: Yes, there was a debit card charge for $25 to the Libertarian National Committee.

Having authorized no such charge, I filed a support ticket with LPHQ, on the generous assumption that this was just some kind of data processing error.

Response:

Hi Thomas, 

I was able to cancel your yearly recurring membership for you, so you won't receive further charges in future billing cycles. 

If there is anything else you need help with, please let me know!

My reply:

[T]here was no recurring membership to cancel. I paid dues one time (after having manually renewed and/or been a monthly pledger for many years), and didn't authorize any recurring charges.

Haven't heard back.

I'd still like to believe that this was just an error.

But if it was just an error, the obvious response would have been a refund, or at least an offer of a refund.

It's not really about the $25. It's about taking the $25 without permission, and about treating/counting me as a "sustaining member" of an organization I don't want to associate with at the moment.*

Mistakes get corrected. If it's not corrected, it's just theft, and I'm definitely willing and able to deliver more than $25 worth of pain in the ass to the LNC over it.

Has anyone else out there noticed recent unauthorized debit/credit card charges from the LNC? If I'm the only one, then it looks like a mere mistake, just poorly handled. No biggie. If it's not a mere mistake, on the other hand ...

* My position for some time -- recently publicly reiterated -- has been that I won't go back to financially supporting the LNC until and unless they take steps to recover the funds embezzled by the former chair. If they do that, they'll probably get a monthly contribution, totaling considerably more than $25 a year, from me.

Wordle 1375 Hint

Hint: When you leave this desert watering hole, don't look back in anger.  

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First Letter: O

Wordle 1734 Hint

Hint: Where celebrities usually go (instead of to jail) after e.g. a DUI.  

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First Letter: R

The Iran War: Possible Silver Linings?

No, I don't go for the Broken Windows Fallacy in the form of "if you look at it a certain way, war actually makes things better." But I do at least try to emulate the Life of Brian finale song:

So, two ways in which the idiotic war on Iran might benefit Americans:

1. According to various polls, the US population's support for continued kow-towing to every demand from the Israel lobby has cratered over the last couple of years, and this war seems to be accelerating that trend. Even as soon as the mid-term elections, American politicians may no longer believe they can only get elected if they pledge undying and total loyalty to that hostile foreign power. That could end up saving American taxpayers billions of dollars per year in welfare checks to the Israeli regime, not to mention significant numbers of American lives the next time Netanyahu demands human sacrifices to his regional power plays.
2. Until very recently, most regimes in most wars eschewed (at least in public) the practice of attempting to kill the political leaders of their adversary regimes. The US has been an exception (see e.g. Saddam Hussein and Moamar Gaddafi), but even the Russian and Ukrainian regimes have held to that (while accusing each other of not doing so). The open bragging about taking out e.g. Khamenei may be bringing that era to an end. If the Iranians can pull a tit-for-tat by taking out Netanyahu or Trump, or even some of their subordinates, there won't be any straight-faced grounds for complaint about it ... and that will probably cause future politicians to think about whether they're willing to put their own skins at risk by playing the war card.

Are those two possible salutary effects worth the costs? No. The war is still a net loss to anyone who's not a member of the elite political class. But they're at least something.

Wi-Fi: The Problem Should Have Been Obvious

A couple of weeks ago, I started experiencing really bad Internet in the pop-up camper "home office."

I guess you could call the problem "intermittent," but the intermittent part was when I just wasn't online. The rest of the time, it was just slower than it should have been, tended to drop out for a minute or so, etc.

I asked around the house. No, no one else was having new problems either with wifi or with Ethernet-cabled Internet (Tamara's laptop always seems to have problems getting a good wifi connection, and did at the old house and regardless of location in the house as well, but those problems hadn't worsened so far as she could tell). So it wasn't a problem with Starlink or with the router.

My next focus was on the wifi "extender" I bought to make sure I got strong signal out at the camper. Re-setting that didn't seem to help. Maybe the extender had just gone bad?

I also ran some tests with multiple computers to make sure it wasn't just a problem with my "daily driver" machine's wifi apparatus. Nope. It was universal, at least within the camper.

Then, a couple of days ago, I realized something ...

The problems started, I think, around the time that I flipped the insulating foam board I use to enhance climate control in the camper "shiny side out" to reflect head outward now that the weather is warming up (during what passes for winter here in north central Florida, I had it "shiny side in" to make it easer to keep the office warm). That outward-facing aluminum foil, one piece of which is pretty much directly between my computers and the extender, was probably acting as a radio wave reflector, reducing the signal strength reaching my desk.

Duh.

So I bought a cheap USB adapter with an antenna, which arrived yesterday afternoon, plugged it in, and voila, normal Internet again. I haven't noticed it falling below 60% signal strength since, and usually 70% or higher.

Wordle 1733 Hint

Hint: The only way I can think of to be generous/sufficient with today's hint is to let you know that today's Wordle is the adverb form of a synonym for generous/sufficient (so now you know the final letter). 

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First Letter: A

Also, the New Chromebook is Better Than I Thought

Before my recent trip (for a backgammon tournament), I purchased a new (to me) 14" Chromebook because I felt like the 11.6" screen on my old one was just too small to get much work done. But even though it's newer than the old one, it also felt slower than the old one, for the obvious reason that it has half the RAM (4Gb v. 8Gb). So I took the smaller one on the trip, and kind of regretted doing so. Trying to get work done was really annoying.

Yesterday, Tamara had a medical procedure that required me to sit in a waiting room for an extended period so that I could drive her home (they won't release you post-anesthesia without a driver). I broke out the "new" Chromebook, let it it do its software updates, etc., and took it with me.

It performed reasonably well, and the bigger screen was a great relief to my eyes. I didn't have to put it through its full paces (writing columns, extensive editing, etc.) -- I just tracked down and bookmarked content, mostly -- but it was about a thousand times less unpleasant than the smaller screen.

Before I travel again (I've got nothing immediately planned), I may bust it open, remove the write-protect screw from the SSD, put it back together, and install a fairly light Linux distribution on it. I still like real Linux better than ChromeOS.

I may also (or instead) see if I can get it to treat my little HDMI projector as a second monitor. That would not only give me two work screens in e.g. a hotel environment, it would let me use the thing to stream the media I want to watch instead of whatever channels the hotel happens to offer.

My Next Likely Office Equipment Purchase

Lately I find myself more concerned with ergonomics than with electronics. For example, I purchased a little "clamps to the edge of the desk" arm rest that takes a lot of strain off my forearm/wrist.

This morning, for the first time, I considered getting a pair of "monitor arms," and I think I will do that the next time I turn some Bitcoin into Amazon gift card credit (or when someone decides it's time to send me something from my Amazon Wish List).

That I haven't done so before is mostly because I overlooked their main use case.

I always thought of them as space savers, and since I tend to keep my desktop surface minimally occupied and efficiently organized, I already have plenty of space. Every time I try to optimize for space, I feel like it was a waste of time and money. Another square foot of desk space makes zero difference to my quality of office life.

But this morning it finally and belatedly occurred to me that using adjustable arms would do more than free up desktop space currently occupied by risers.

As I age and my vision gets (thankfully pretty slowly) worse, I might want them closer. When I want my chair further back or closer, or want to sit up straight vs. lean forward vs. lean back, I might want them closer or further away; higher, or lower; perpendicular to or tilted vis a vis the desk surface, all of which would amount to "grab and reposition" with monitor arms, but would require extensive remodeling at present (with the monitors on bases, sitting on risers, sitting on the desktop).

Other than some possible cable management issues to resolve and some minimal expense (about $45 for the pair I'm looking at), the idea just seems infinitely superior to my current setup.

Do any of you use clamp-on monitor arms? If so, what's your opinion of how much better or worse they are than monitors sitting on a surface?

Wordle 1732 Hint

Hint: If you grab something, give it a hug, then fasten it to something else, you will have done today's Wordle three times.

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First Letter: C

Wordle 1731 Hint

Hint: In film, think On the Waterfront as opposed to, say, The Odd Couple.

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First Letter: D

About Time

Per The Verge:

You can download Chrome for Linux, and you can download Chrome for Arm devices — but if you’ve got a computer running Linux on Arm, not so much! Now, Google says it’s finally bringing Chrome to ARM64 Linux machines in Q2 2026, following Chrome for Arm Macs in 2020 and Chrome for Windows on Arm in 2024.

I'm not going to try to sell you on Chrome.

I happen to prefer Chromium -- which Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Opera, Brave, and Vivaldi are (or in some versions have been) based on.

Chromium is more naturally private (it doesn't send analytics data to Google), and it's open source for those who want to customize.

On the other hand, Chromium can be a little more work -- it doesn't come with some media codecs, etc. pre-configured and the updates are manual rather than automatic.

There are also, I understand, some browser extensions that demand Chrome rather than Chromium to work, but the reverse is also true -- Chrome does the "walled-garden" thing to keep you from running extensions Google hasn't approved.

The reason I say "about time" is a market thing. Low-end Arm Linux may not be a huge market segment, but its occupants are people who tend to throw money at offerings within the segment. They're always buying special add-ons, accessories, etc. that will work with their machines where generic stuff from Best Buy might not. Why would Google leave money on the table by making it harder to identify and reach those users more directly through its proprietary browser?

I guess there are counter-arguments to be made. Is someone whose "daily driver" PC is a Raspberry Pi really that likely to want Chrome? In this day and age, running a low-end Linux PC is kind of an attitude indicator, and that attitude problably correlates strongly with anti-Google sentiments. Those machines, in addition to Chromium, can also run Brave, Vivaldi, Firefox, etc. So maybe it really is an afterthought kind of thing.

Wordle 1730 Hint

Hint: Numbers and letters indicating, respectively, what year of school students are in and those students' performance.

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First Letter: G

Applicable(?) Aphorisms #10

"Truth alone triumphs; not falsehood." (Hinduism, Rig Veda 10.16)

True, false, good, bad, useful, not so useful, etc.? Discuss.

My thoughts:

True, or just aspirational? The sentiment seems to be universal or nearly so, not just across religions but among humans. We want to believe that the truth always comes out sooner or later and that when it does come out, it defeats falsehood and evil.

I'm not sure it's true, but I do hope it is.

Wordle 1729 Hint

Hint: The only time you probably think about it is if you happen to sprain it.

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First Letter: A

Wordle 1728 Hint

Hint: The post-consumption state of food.

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First Letter: E

Wordle 1727 Hint

Hint: The nose knows (the answer to today's Wordle).

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First Letter: S

Wordle 1726 Hint

Hint: Picture a stuffed bear ... wearing lingerie.

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First Letter: T

Wordle 1725 Hint

Hint: Today's Wordle is actually rather shallow.

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First Letter: S

Garbage In, Profits Out?

I've had reason to think about garbage a bit recently, and that resulted in an idea. I don't know if it's a good idea or not, but it's an idea.

Why have I been thinking about garbage recently?

Prior to buying the new house, we rented, on a fairly standard residential street. Right on the edge between being "suburban" and "rural," in that the lots are large (an acre) and so it's not especially densely populated, but it's a pave street with frontages not far from the homes. So we had "garbage service." It was built into our lease (the obvious reason being that the landlord didn't want cheapskates just piling their garbage out back and leaving it).

Now that we own, the system looks like this:

You can have garbage pickup priced into the property tax bill every year. It's about $300 a year for a standard residential size dumpster cart.

Or, with an  ID/driver's license linked to an Alachua County address, you can just take your garbage directly to the dump with no "tipping fee."

We elected not to pay for pickup, because instead of a real residential street we live on, more or less, a game trail (some dirt/sand ruts generously given a street name), and in order to have the stuff picked up, we'd have to drag it a good quarter mile to the nearest paved road.

We were going to just make a trip to the dump once a month -- it's only about five miles away -- but haven't had to yet, because one of my daughter's employers said "hey, we always have extra room in our dumpster, just bring a bag of garbage and/or recycling here each day you work, no problem." That keeps us pretty much caught up. We may make a trip or two to the dump each year if we have e.g. large appliances that lie down and die or whatever, but for the most part we're good.

That got me thinking, though:

There are a lot of people in this area who live on crappy rural "roads" (some of them shouldn't even be called that), and who have to either haul their stuff to the dump or drag it a significant distance for pickup.

Or, and I see this happen, quite a few of them seem to just "small bag" their trash --  every time they buy gas or stop at a convenience store, they drop it in the trash cans there. I'll see people pulling four or five plastic grocery bags out of their cars and cramming them in while they're parked next to the pump. It seems like a bit of a bother, but if it saves them $300 a year or having to go out of their way to the landfill, I get it.

I suspect most of the people in the area who live in "a pain in the ass to deal with pickup" areas still actually shop for groceries instead of having everything delivered.

And I suspect Walmart at least, maybe Publix and others, produce enough waste that they already run their own fleets of trucks to haul dumpsters to the landfill instead of just contracting that out.

So, why not use garbage disposal to attract customers?

Set up a dumpster system with a scanner. When a customer pulls up and scans a receipt from the store (maybe there's a minimum purchase requirement), the dumpster unlocks and they throw your trash in there. Not a little plastic grocery bag, a real full-size trash bag.

Since the big stores are presumably already invested in the infrastructure -- dumpsters, trucks, and people to do the hauling -- it's just a matter of scaling up some and creating a payment system (the payment being "you shopped here").

For some customers, being able to just drop their trash off when they shop instead of paying the county, visiting the dump, dragging dumpsters over long distances, etc. might well make the difference when they where to buy groceries.

Would that "pay for itself" and then some in terms of increased store patronization/profits? I think it might.