Archive for November 2018
Asus technical support
Second day owning the computer. No sound from the headphones plugged into the jack, but they worked last night.
Asus technical support answered the phone right away. A foreign woman trying to fake an American accent (which is way better than an Indian call center worker not trying to fake an American accent) helped walk me through going into Device Manager, deleting the speaker and microphone devices, then booting into the computer’s Bios (using the F2 key) and then using F9 to restore defaults and F10 to save the changes, which caused the devices to come back and start working again.
Problem fixed!
I never had this problem with Apple. I’m not sure if the problem happened because Asus sucks, or because Windows sucks. (The cure is a troubleshooting tip on the official Microsoft support website, so it’s probably a Windows sucks issue and not an Asus sucks issue.)
What did I do to my computer between yesterday and today? Only two things: (1) installed a lot of Windows updates; (2) installed Civilization 4, which is a really old game and could have screwed something up.
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I learned that I’ve been mentally mispronouncing Asus. You pronounce it ay-SOOS.
Jughead on Riverdale uses a MacBook. He’s way too cool to use an Asus. But given that he’s supposed to be poor, how did he afford the MacBook? Realistically, a poor kid like Jughead should be using a Chromebook or something cheap like that.
Instagram is ruining natural wonders
I’ve previously done posts about articles like this (which are kind of jokes, but not entirely jokes):
Things that Instagram is ruining
More thinks that Instagram is ruining
I’m surprised to see the New York Times stoop to this nonsense. If a particular hiking trail suddenly becomes popular, I don’t necessarily see this as a big problem. Aren’t the purpose of hiking trails that people can hike on them?
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Fiddlesticks writes in a comment:
This is certainly an about-face from (pre-Instagram mania) 2010, when the NYTimes was concerned that national “parks’ very survival” hinged on attracting more American NAMs, and there was also hand-wringing about occupancy rules hindering “extended Latino families” from enjoying big banquets on the land.
Good catch!
How about this quote from the article:
Park Service officials have identified factors like cost, travel distance and lack of information — for example, ignorance about what activities the parks offer — as barriers to visits.
But now that Instagram is supplying information about what’s offered at a park, now that’s said to be “ruining” the park because too many people are visiting!
My statement about Michael Cohen
Russia is not our enemy. Obama himself said that the Cold War ended in the 1990s, and he mocked Mitt Romney for saying that Russia was any sort of threat to the globe.
It’s not illegal to visit Russia, do business in Russia, talk to people in Russia.
Trump owns a huge business empire that has dealings in many foreign countries. There’s nothing in our Constitution that says you can’t run for office if you own a business empire.
When people talk to the FBI, police, Congress, whatever, they have the tendency to tell little white lies and spin things to make themselves seem more innocent, even when they aren’t guilty of anything. Mueller can turn these minor things into an indictment for perjury or “obstruction of justice.”
The lesson is to never talk to anyone (except for your own lawyer) if law enforcement is out to get you. Maybe Michael Cohen thought that, because he was a lawyer himself, he knew what he was doing. There’s a second lesson for you: hubris is your enemy.
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Our biggest global enemy is not Russia, it’s China. And Obama’s brother has much closer ties to China than anyone in Trump’s family has ties to Russia. So why don’t people think that Obama hopelessly corrupted by enemy influence?
And what about Uranium One, and Bill Clinton getting paid half a million dollars to give a “speech” in Russia? Are Bill Clinton’s speeches so amazing that they are worth $500,000 each, or was it some kind or bribe?
Asus Zenbook, first impression
Link to Zenbook at Amazon.com: https://amzn.to/2zpyXH6 and it’s STILL on sale!
Ran the Octane 2.0 benchmark using Google Chrome, it scored 35,856. Wow! The crappy Dell at work only scores half that, even though it has a Core i7 in it and this Asus “only” has a Core i5. My desktop computer scores only 21K. This little tiny notebook computer is a screamer. The 6-year-old MacBook Air scored 17,921, not bad considering its age. It still beat the crappy Dell at work.
Moore’s law has definitely ended. Computers have only doubled in power in 6 years, they have not doubled every 18 months like they used to. (If Moore’s law were still in effect, this computer would be eight times faster than the older computer instead of only twice as fast.)
The Asus Zenbook looks very much like a clone of the MacBook Air. Chinese people, even Chinese people in the free democratic country of Taiwan (where Asus is based), could never invent a MacBook design themselves, but once Apple led the way, the Chinese demonstrate that they can make the same for cheaper. Almost half the price. (Although the “Retina” screen on the lastest MacBook is probably better than the Asus screen, but the Asus screen is still pretty nice, it looks nice to me, and reviews say it has the full sRGB color gamut and very high color accuracy for a notebook computer.)
So far, don’t see anything to complain about. Except for an annoying Windows update that’s taking forever to download, but that’s not Asus’ fault.
Riverdale: Archie and Veronica sing “Mad World,” but Betty takes over
Wow! This is what passes for TV aimed at teenagers these days!
Spoiler alert: it’s possible that by watching this, you might get a clue as to what will happen during the first eight episodes of season 2, if you haven’t watched yet.
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I mentioned this show to my 12-year-old nephew at Thanksgiving, and he said yuck sounds boring, he heard some girls at his school talking about the show. So apparently middle-school-aged girls watch this show!
Trump is the weak one
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/418881-trump-blasts-cohen-as-weak-person-for-guilty-plea
Trump says that Cohen is weak, but TRUMP is the person who has the power to stop the Mueller probe and issue pardons, but he has shown no indication of doing such a thing, he just whines about it on Twitter. Obama would never have allowed himself and his cronies to be investigated and prosecuted in this manner.
I don’t blame Cohen for caving in. (Caving in means pleading guilty to a “crime” that makes Trump look guilty, regardless of whether Cohen could have reasonably been convicted of that crime in a real court, because Cohen thinks that by doing so, Mueller will go easy on him. Of course, Mueller isn’t a very trustworthy person to deal with, it looks like he back-stabbed Manafort after Manafort cooperated.)
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Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz on Thursday suggested Michael Cohen’s plea deal with Robert Mueller is another example of how special counsels can find wrongdoing where it doesn’t necessarily exist.
“I think the weakness of Mueller’s substantive findings are suggested by the fact that he has to resort to false statement prosecutions, which really shows that he didn’t start with very much, and that the very fact that he’s conducting an investigation has created these crimes,” Dershowitz, a frequent critic of Mueller’s federal Russia probe, told Fox News.
“These are not crimes that had been committed prior to his appointment,” he said. “They’re crimes that were committed as the result of his appointment, and that raises some questions about the role of special prosecutors in creating crimes, or creating opportunities for crimes to be committed.”
Alan Dershowitz is the only person in the mainstream media offering unbiased analysis of this issue.
Thank you to whomever bought that camera
Looks like Amazon pays a 4% commission on digital cameras. I made enough money to almost pay for two SWPL-quality Manhattan lunches.
If I had a blog with a hundred times as many readers, I could almost make a living by hawking stuff at Amazon.
Low oil prices bad for America
I agree. High oil prices create good-paying blue-collar jobs in the labor-intensive oil-drilling sector. Low oil prices could snowball into a recession.
Although it’s ironic that the NY Times is sticking up for these types of workers. Back when Obama was President, the NY Times had loads of articles saying how bad these jobs were, and that the workers would be better off without them. This demonstrates how the NY Times will do a complete about-face on any issue if they think it makes Trump look bad.
Some migrant caravan members going back to their home countries
Reported in the Washington Post
If they were truly “refugees,” they wouldn’t have any place to return to. Proving that their asylum claims are bogus.
8 USC § 1101(42)(A) says:
The term “refugee” means (A) any person who is outside any country of such person’s nationality or, in the case of a person having no nationality, is outside any country in which such person last habitually resided, and who is unable or unwilling to return to, and is unable or unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of, that country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion
These people are not “refugees” and are not entitled to asylum. They’re not being persecuted in their home countries for any of the reasons stated in the statutes. (The reason generally given is that crime is out of control in their home countries, but that also applies to some places in the United States like Detroit. Yeah, a lot of countries suck compared to the United States, but the entire population of the world aren’t “refugees” because their countries are sh**holes. However, maybe the U.S. should be a lot more proactive in de-sh**ifying the world, which probably requires tough love.)
Our legal system is f**ed up that we allow anyone and everyone to stay here for years just because they enter the country illegally and then make an asylum claim.
The future belongs to China
Chinese genetically improved children will dominate America’s dysgenically bred diverse children.
Lion of the Blogosphere 