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- December 29, 2017
- Alexa big seller for 2017
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As I pretty much figured, amazon's so called "smart speaker" called Alexa and their smaller Echo line is said to have sold tens of millions over the holiday season ... to the point that it's sold out and won't be available until early January.
Voice control of a "virtual assistant" continues to give me the heebie jeebies in my visions of eavesdropping and monitoring of privacy concerns in the context of simply being present and turned on in the home.
This echo line intrigues me in a similar vein to it's "bigger big brother" named Alexa — mostly for the "things to come" as my interpretation of big brother is now in widespread use in the "tens of millions" of homes ...
I sincerely hope that marketing is the worse of the intrusions possible by such devices and likewise, I keep wondering where the caution of these "tens of millions" of owners resides.
We'll have to see how things develop but I foresee some privicy issues sooner or later of more or less significance to the consumer.
I don't even allow the voice control to operate on my roku remote. Thats why we have soldering irons, micro diagnonal cutters, and superglue.
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- December 28, 2017
- More are heading to the cloud
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The growth of that misnomer called "the cloud" is proceding very quickly. It seems that IT departments everywhere are reduced to entrusting their resources and assets to an outsourced concern because they lack the technology and competent personel to handle their own business.
This is largely due to the lazier than lazy decision makers who are typically unqualified to do any work in the IT field relegating them to be in control.
This amassing of the incompetence to other peoples computers has me concerned from a standpoint of ownership. When you don't control your own data there is little to be said when a third party compromises or loses yours ...
The lesson brewing here is "it's your farm, take care of it yourself". Taking care of business means precisely that. If you lack the skills to do your own work then you deserve whatever you get. I don't wish bad on you but have this rising suspicion that compromised and lost data are that which we are cultivating with all this inability to handle matters ourselves.
Too many in IT cannot handle their own affairs.
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- December 27, 2017
- Carrying Vengeance and Anger in your Heart
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I feel a need to inflict punishment in retribution exacted on those who have wronged me. I have carried this feeling for in excess of 30 years now. I don't forsee it going away. Compounding this feeling are others viewed in a similar vein of offenses against me for which I too decline to let go. Likewise, I offer no apologies.
So like the stupid social justice warriors I see; many with their off color hair product concotions screaming as though it will impart relevance to their ridiculous rants to others more conservative; I wear my attitude beneath that layer which can be seen by others.
While I envision this as a projection of less sincerity or conviction regarding those feelings I choose to keep to myself I prefer ... it to the idiocy of the SJW going off on anyone and everyone public and on tape self righteous and seeking publicity regardless of their miscreant projection of 'it's all about me'.
I recall seeing a young stupid acting reddish blond haired woman on youtube telling a person that he was irrelevant and a misogynist pig because he was white and male. His attempts to pass on a public thoroughfare were rebuffed by her standing with cohorts telling him he would have to find another way.
I have wondered aloud what she would have thought of my reaction to her stupidity as she lay on the ground bleeding from her head in various places and how helpful all of those other SJW fools behind her would have felt knowing they were next.
That anger which sometimes rages deep within me does not need to be tempted by these persons who will find themselves unable to cope with a wrath which is not really mine to impart — but will certainly happen in the correct set of circumstances.
I do not suffer fools, SJW or otherwise and I have even more attitude than all of you combined so make sure you give me wide berth. You have no "safe space" options in my presence.
No one ever provided me with any notion of "safe space" or worse, "preferred personal pronouns" as an adult. Don't let some stupid educator or worse jurisdiction like New York City keep you in fantasy land too long. The real world simply doesn't work that way.
Welcome to reality, stupid. BOO !
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- December 26, 2017
- Saint Stephen's Day
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The day after Christmas is Saint Stephen's Day, aka the Feast of Saint Stephen which celebrates the first Christian martyr. That day varies between December 26 or 27 depending on which Calendar by which your church schedules.
The day is mentioned in the old Christmas carol Good King Wenceslas which relates the story of a Bohemian king to give alms to a poor peasant during the cold of Winter upon the Feast of Stephen.
The story of Saint Stephen itself is a wonder of professing faith with the speech given by him at the time of his stoning, the fact that Saul of Tarsas (later to be known as the Apostle Paul) held the cloaks of those who participated in his murder, and the ultimate location of the original site and the conditions surrounding the discovery of his relics — as well as those miracles attributed to them when they were transported for enshrinement.
It's an amazing account of just how far faith can take one before, during, and after the clay pot — which is our earthly body breaks and the spirit returns to He who made it.
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- December 25, 2017
- Christmas Day
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I remember one Christmas morning
A winter's light and a distant choir
And the peal of a bell and that Christmas tree smell
And their eyes full of tinsel and fire
Greg Lake from Father Christmas
Greg Lake, Peter Sinfield
1974 Manticore
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- December 24, 2017
- Christmas Eve
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It's Christmas Eve, the day before the traditional birth date of Jesus of Nazerath. While I am all too aware that His real birth happened around September 8th I am happy to celebrate in keeping with that merge of convenience between the Christian celebrations and those of the pagan saturnalia.
Though I won't be holding any vigils or other significant markings of the moment I do plan to venture out and visit my Mom and putz around the remainder of the day as is my custom since I became this ancient one steeped in perplexed uncertainty.
My faith has taken a trouncing of late and while I decline to give it up there are notions with which I remain uncomfortable. Let us hope that my heart finds resolution in the renewal of the advancing year.
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- December 23, 2017
- Christmas Eve Eve
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It's the day before Christmas Eve. I find myself continuing to fail that attainment of proper Christmas Spirit — though I try to acquire it in my ways and attitudes.
That underlying tone of the spirit of the season is pervading my thoughts of late ... and this day leading up to the eve of that biggest holiday in my history is not lost on me.
Still, that underlying personal meaning evades me and I continue to pursue it among those various other tasks in which I find myself immersed.
So yesterday I placed aside the code and the database for the remainder of the year. That nirvana which is a full appreciation of Christmastide hovers just out of my reach.
Maybe tomorrow.
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- December 22, 2017
- A New Spin on Vacation
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After today I will depart work for two weeks vacation. Normally I do a very piecemeal thing where I snag a day here two there and so forth. This year I opted for some bulk time off for the first time since I began my present work assignment ... some 10 (Really need to run the math anymore.) 8 years back.
So the aim is to gain some down time and forget the constructs and the database and the support for a scant two weeks then get back into the swing of things after commencement of the new year.
I'm ready, are you ?
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- December 21, 2017
- Winter Solstice
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Winter solstice Thursday, December 21, 2017
Northern Hemisphere 11:28 a.m. EDT
First day of Winter.
Shortest Day of the year.
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- December 21, 2017
- Forefathers Day
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A long while back I visited my navy buddy, Jerry Landry in Barnstable, Massachusetts for a brief while during a work related layover nearby.
He sported me all over Cape Cod showing me the various sites. One of those predominate destinations was Plymouth and Plymouth Rock.
While my minds eye had visions of a huge massive stone emblazoned with the date he was careful to temper my expectations prior to the event — and the actual size of the rock was decidedly smaller than all those accounts I read as a school child led me to believe ...
Be all of this as it may the visit did make me feel proud to see some of those places and things from my history lessons of childhood. And I will always remember them with those warm and fuzzys I keep in store for my late friend.
Today is Forefathers Day, a holiday celebrated in Plymouth, Massachusetts, since 1769 commemorating the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth on December 21, 1620.
It all has me waxing nostalgic for that heritage Jerry was so proud of during his lifetime and reminds me of those places we saw and things that we did so very long ago.
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- December 20, 2017
- Five Days Til Christmas
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So I remain the proverbial grinch.
I simply haven't made the leap into Christmas spirit this year.
It seems that life has snuffed it all out of me
From the standpoint of festivity.
So as I ponder the holidays one thing is mighty clear.
They seem to have passed me by so I can only await next year.
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- December 19, 2017
- Alois Alzheimer
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A number of my relatives have suffered the decline and death of Alzheimer's dementia.
Aloysius Alzheimer
June 14, 1864 – December 19 1915
The affliction robbed them of their ability to communicate, recognize others, perform cognitive tasks, and generally relegates them to a state of requiring constant care for all aspects of their existence.
To witness this state is a heart wrenching event that no one should suffer.
To suffer the disease is an unspeakable horror for the victim who ultimately lacks the awareness of who and where they are such that they no longer know they are living human beings ...
Alzheimer's dementia is a progressive mental deterioration which may strike in middle to old age because of generalized degeneration of the brain.
It is the most common cause of premature senility and the scourge of many who lose their golden years of old age to it's debilitating effects.
Alois Alzheimer, a German psychiatrist and neuropathologist is credited with diagnosing the first published case of "presenile dementia", which later became known as Alzheimer's disease.
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- December 18, 2017
- Majel Leigh Hudec Barrett-Roddenberry
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Majel Barrett was the stage name of Mrs Gene Roddenberry. All of we trekkies know this but some of you outside that realm may not.
Majel Leigh Hudec Barrett-Roddenberry
February 23, 1932 – December 18, 2008
She performed all manner of characterizations on the various Star Trek franchises from the computer voice through Nurse Chappell, various intergalactic species, including the flamboyant Lwaxana Troi ...
and these portrayals obscured that warm human being who cared about her fans and went out of her way to make herself available to them at various conventions of fandom which transpired during her life time.
"The First Lady of Star Trek" as she was rightfully known succumbed to leukemia on December 18, 2008 and it was then that she joined her husband Gene Roddenberry in the great beyond and that franchise called Star Trek became less for that lack of her presence.
I think about her from time to time when I consider the mess that CBS has made of Star Trek Discovery with all it's namby pamby politically correct undertones and the utter lack of that flavor which was Star Trek proper.
Rest in peace, Majel. They really made a stupid mess of the Federation.
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- December 17, 2017
- International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers
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Early in my life I raled against the world's oldest profession. Suffice it to say that I knew little of them personally and took my queues from that distinct lack of knowlege for those things carnal rendering me only able to subject them to my religious beliefs such that they were ...
However, I evolved beyond those notions as a matter of practicalities and the international environment I once found myself occupying.
When I was in the Navy whores were my friends. At least those abroad were my friends. Not the ones who worked the 'gut' of Spruill Avenue and that area right around the Naval Station in Charleston — for they were a different, predatory variety than those trying to eek out a living in the ports of call and cities abroad.
You might find it odd for a person to like whores; but in a never ending barrage of foreign countries and what seemed like endless days at sea those comforts you can find for yourself become increasingly important.
Today is the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. It is observed each year on December 17 and is held under the auspices of sex workers, their friends, families and allies, and advocates. It was first held to memorialize victims of the Green River Killer in Seattle Washington as a vigil but has evolved into the annual international event it is now.
The day draws attention to those hate crimes committed against sex workers worldwide and attempts to remove stigmata, violence, and discrimination which are part and parcel of that environment of violence against sex workers.
So when you see someone on their high horse railing against a sex worker who is out there trying to get by like the rest of us; perhaps a softer orientation to those needs of all people which are food, clothing, and shelter might come to mind instead of that method by which these things are obtained.
Some of us do what we must do to get by.
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