20210218

Thu Feb 18 06:00:01 EST 2021 ======================================== Slept from ten to six-thirty. Woke briefly around twelve-thirty. Chance of snow early in the morning, then snow in the late morning and afternoon. Accumulations around an inch. Highs in the mid 20s. Northeast winds 5 to 10 mph. Chance of snow 80 percent. Lowest wind chill readings 4 below to 6 above zero in the morning. Work ---------------------------------------- - 10 AM business team meeting Missed due to helping Mr. Hartman with iPad. - Review credit card statement (done yesterday?) No. - Review Newegg invoices No. Damn it, Mr. Hartman asked me to come into the office for a vague computer problem he won't describe. Went into the office by Mr. Hartman's order. Maskless, he asked me to troubleshoot his personal iPad. This made me _very_ uncomfortable. No easy fix. Now, he wants me to explore repair options. Not cool. Twenty-minute walk in the snow during lunch. And then, in the afternoon, Mr. Hartman decided he didn't want to wait on repair, and had me drive the iPad back to the office. Well, I guess my car battery is charged up now. Home ---------------------------------------- https://lwn.net/Articles/845446/ > The world wide web is truly a wondrous invention, but it is not without flaws. There are massive privacy woes that stem from its standards and implementation; it is also so fiendishly complex that few can truly grok all of its expanse. That complexity affords enormous flexibility, for good or ill. Those who are looking for a simpler way to exchange information—or hearken back to web prehistory—may find the Gemini project worth a look. https://local.theonion.com/something-about-the-way-society-was-exposed-as-complete-1846251067 > Unable to shake off an overall negative feeling he couldn’t attribute to anything in particular, local man Paul Carpenter confirmed Monday that something about the way society was exposed as a complete illusion over the past year was really getting him down today. “Maybe it’s just quarantine talking, but the reality dawning on me that American life is a fundamentally hollow cesspool of spectacle and misery is really bumming me out lately,” said Carpenter, adding that he had the vague idea that living in a social system based on brutal competition that made all human relationships transactional and perverted the very idea of community might have something to do with it. https://virtualvacation.us/guess Munich looks nice. Ed: > Apparently someone asked TE Lawrence what qualified him to translate the odyssey, and he said “I have killed many men” Me, lazily imagining a series of nationalistic action movies: POETRY SLAM: Communist Radicals hijack Air Force One with The U.S. President and his Poet Laureate board. The Vice President negotiates from Washington D.C., while the Poet Laureate, a Veteran, fights to rescue the hostages on board. POETRY SLAM II: A staged kidnapping of the President of the United States becomes very real, forcing U.S. Poet Laureate Elizabeth Bishop to save the day. POETRY SLAM III: After discovering that an asteroid the size of Texas is going to impact Earth in less than a month, NASA recruits a misfit team of sonneteers to save the planet. POETRY SLAM IV: A non-NATO nuclear missile is fired from Turkey at USSR, where it detonates. Soviet response is automatic as it's seen as a NATO missile. Can continued escalation be avoided? We follow U.S. Poet Laureate Stephen Spender and a bomber crew. POETRY SLAM V: U.S. Poet Laureate must retrieve the briefcase allowing the President control of America's nuclear arsenal before massive destruction ensues. POETRY SLAM VI: U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins is drawn into an illegal war fought by the U.S. government against a Colombian drug cartel. POETRY SLAM VII: Poet Laureate Robert Penn Warren triggers a path to nuclear holocaust that a War Room full of politicians and generals frantically tries to stop. POETRY SLAM VIII: The Poet Laureate of the United States must deal with an international military crisis while confined to a Colorado diner during a freak snowstorm POETRY SLAM IX: A Colonel working at the Joint Chiefs of Staff uncovers a plot by his superior to use military force to remove Poet Laureate Robert Lowell, who always opposed Pentagon budget increases, and to replace him with a much tamer versifier. POETRY SLAM X: In 1997, when the U.S. president crashes into Manhattan, now a giant maximum security prison, William Carlos Williams is sent in to rescue him. POETRY SLAM XI: William Carlos Williams is once again called in by the United States government to recover a potential doomsday device from Los Angeles, now an autonomous island where undesirables are deported. POETRY SLAM XII: A technical malfunction sends American planes to Moscow to deliver a nuclear attack. Can Robert Frost avert all-out war? Servings: grains 3/6, fruit 2/4, vegetables 2/4, dairy 3/2, meat 3/3, nuts 0/0.5 Brunch: banana, egg and avocado wrap, coffee Lunch: apple, carrots, two hot dogs Dinner: mushroom soup, French break 118/77

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