Occupation of Independence

Freakish weather has the effect of making you observant.  And what could be more freakish than two consecutive days of rain in a western state?  That happened recently.  The next morning large pendulous drops were hanging on plants in a way that didn't seem real. The photo, bad as it is, still gets the idea across that drops of water held onto plants like Christmas tree ornaments.  This kind of thing happens so infrequently I cannot predict it. But it makes me nostalgic for returning to a real camera instead of a smartphone.   For years I used a compact zoom.  It really was more fun taking photos back then.  And the moisture/water/fog photos turned out rather well: The photo above was taken near Moab on a chilly, autumn morning.  Our bike ride had taken us downhill, into a frost pocket.  It was shockingly cold in that hole. One winter morning, after some generous rain in southern Arizona: Sometimes even fog is photogenic: Even spider we...

It might sound silly to imagine oneself as an armchair media critic, but consider how much of your life can be squandered "watching" talking heads on You Tube.  Some method is needed to reduce the wasted time.   Most talking heads are simply too wordy.  They use words like most customers at a car wash use water: unconscionable quantities of water, blasting away at high pressure.  Noise and waste.  Do they expect to achieve the desired results through pure erosion? Consider the image of a skilled carpenter, or at least, a hammerer. Light tap, tap just to start the nail. Then a crescendo of harder strokes, with each one bringing the nail closer to home.  Three is usually enough. There is a German journalist (Patrik Baab) who talks like that, and in English, not his native language.  

 It's time to admit that it is harder to be an armchair general or armchair geopolitical analyst than I used to think.  Our current president makes that so.  And to some extent, Putin is to blame. So what is a retiree, with too much time on his hands, supposed to do?  How about being an armchair media critic, especially when you live in a time when a new medium is developing, as You Tube is. I have tolerated too many talking heads who speak half-English.  Even Brits with non-rhotic English have become tiresome -- or should I say ti-uh-some? Some guys flap their hands around on You Tube while over-hyping everything, like a salesman.  And there are female talking heads who expose too much skin and wear too much makeup.  Shameless! There are several talking heads that I have a high opinion of.  But the minute they show up on screen with an entire wall of bookshelves in the background and they talk like a professor, I should turn them off.  Do ...

 It seems like Microsoft-Hate is in a growth phase these days.  You would have to know a lot about operating systems to sum it all up, fairly.  Hating Microsoft appeals to some of us on an emotional level, especially for people who are suckers for an anti-establishment, anti-mainstream cause. One practical issue is that laptop PCs only seem to last about three years, these days.  And it's getting harder to buy a replacement for $300, as in the recent past.  Chromebooks can be bought for that, but that just switches you to Google-Hate .  Chromebooks don't even have a delete key .  They are too browser-oriented for me -- Google deprives Chromebook of reasonable memory in order to force you to shove everything onto Google Drive , Google Photos, Google Docs, etc.  And Google will find a way to defeat any ad-blocking by the browser.  I was turned off by going to the Linux operating system by partitioning the drive of my current laptop, dual-b...