Posted on 07/31/2015 11:49:41 AM PDT by Slings and Arrows
The time has come to take action against thread hijackers.
Let me begin with an example of thread hijacking:
Like most Freepers, I am pro-life. Abortion and and euthanasia appall me, and marketing the results even more so. I support candidates who oppose the culture of death, and cheer when it is thwarted.
I also do not find it necessary to mention these facts on EVERY. FREAKING. THREAD.
There is a certain type of Freeper, though, who has no such restraint. For these zealots, any thread that deviates from the pro-life cause, no matter how trivially, is a heresy that must be immediately suppressed.
You are shocked by cruelty to animals? I guess that means you couldn't care less about the cruelty of THE MILLIONS OF CHILDREN ABORTED EVERY YEAR!!!!!
You lost a beloved pet? Why can't you mourn THE THOUSANDS OF ABORTED BABIES WHO DIED THE SAME DAY?!!!!
Your car shredded its transmission and you're looking at thousands of dollars in repairs? Why aren't you thinking about THE BABIES WHO WILL NEVER GROW UP TO BE AUTO MECHANICS BECAUSE THEY WERE ABORTED?!!!!
(OK, maybe I made that last one up.)
Arguing with these people is pointless. It's the same principle as wrestling with a pig - you just get muddy and the pig enjoys it. Similarly, trying to convince them that they are being rude is a waste of time - THE CAUSE is far more important little things like courtesy and respect.
So, what can we do about it?
We can get drunk.
I hereby propose The Thread Hijack Drinking Game. The rules are simple: When a poster tries to hijack an unrelated thread to his or her pet cause, you 1) reply to the hijack attempt by quoting the text in question, followed by the word "DRINK!", and 2) Take a drink (or any volume) of your favorite beverage (alcoholic or non-alcoholic). Moderation is suggested on animal cruelty threads to avoid alcohol poisoning.
This game will not, I admit, solve the thread hijacking problem. But after a certain number of attempts we will no longer care.
And if anyone is offended by my little proposal, I can only say...
DRINK!
That is so true. A dinosaur would be easy.
Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving, NC.
Stayed home, only Mrs. NoC, Beautiful Daughter and self so no need to get into 'impressive chef' mode. Had a turkey that was frozen stiff and a ham that was a bit more pliable, so the 'what to cook' part was seemingly predestined. And I'm not a (strict) Calvinist - because he wore a hat and on occasion talked through it (boy would I get flamed for that on that other forum.. ;-) I'll just need to remember the frozen bird come Christmas, or we might be having hamburgers then.. ;-)
Hope your day was good also, with any rebellions stifled, any inertia overcome, any fails not so epic, and DP and ewerself in good spirits, and - who am I leaving out.. ;-)
And on a totally unrelated note, there is a fan in my confuser case that is emitting strange semi-grinding noises.. I guess I need to do a hurry-up on the replacement box that is presently residing in an uncompleted state on the 'project table' to the left of the Linux box. Which is to the left of the WinTenTen box. Which is only what it is because I had no particular designated purpose for that box and I allowed WinDoze to 'upgrade' it. You know, to see if I h8ted WinTenTen as much as I h8 WinAte.
And now I will rejoin a firestorm I fueled on facepagething. Maybe it has been quenched in my absence but I doubt it since one of the lib's is out in the leftland where moonbeams govern and 'tis early there still. Unless the tryptophan has conquered. ;-)
So that’s how Grumpy Cats get that expression!
Yes, you’d look funny if you slept in that position, too.
I do look funny but I don’t have that excuse.
Nice!
I swear, catz has no bonz!
Afternoon. I had a choir practice. Then I had lunch. Next we’re going to the gym, but I guess we’re not going until DP has lunch.
I had a breathing treatment and then someone came and gave me some leftovers from yesterday. The corn bread stuffing tasted moldy.
Hmmm. Awfully quick to be moldy.
Back from the gym. It’s very warm here today. Tomorrow I’ll go to Weight Watchers.
I’m thinking the stuffing mix must have sat around for a while and the person who prepared it didn’t check the expiration date. I’m really careful about that because my stomach doesn’t like old stuff!
It’s been in the low 40’s since I got up. Earlier, the wind was blowing and that put the wind chill about 5 degrees cooler than what the thermometer said. If it had been blowing harder, it would have been a miserable morning!
We expect a high in the 70s tomorrow. After my shower, I had a little private time with Jake. He was feeling extremely needy.
I have been ignoring the alarm emanating from my ups (the uninterruptible power supply type, not the brown truck type) for, oh, two months now as it beeped continuously for 60 seconds every eight hours to inform me that the battery(s) had failed the internal selftest and I could possibly be unpleasantly surprised should the local electric utility ripoff, er,supplier suddenly loose power. After all, it quits beeping after a minute so why address it immediately... (Plus I forced the unit onto battery to determine if I still had sufficient time to shutdown properly if left in the dark by our local subsidiary of Con -aptly named- Edison.)
After listening/ignoring the periodic beeping, I did break down and order replacement batteries for the unit (2 12v 12AH) from that emporium of all things in the universe, EBay, so they would be available when I felt ambitious.
Tracking indicated that they would not be delivered until tomorrow, but when I took a trek to the postal facility (conveniently situated at the foot of the drive) I discovered the mail reception device filled with a box that weighed 35 pounds. I carted the box into the house and inspected the contents, set the contents on the desk, and placed the box (after removing a bunch of those inedible plastic after dinner mints) on the floor with the top flaps closed for the felines to investigate. (Last time I saw it, one of the felines had his paw stuffed into the gap of the four lidflaps and could not retrieve his paw - the flaps gave when he pushed, but when he pulled they closed back up - with his paw inside.. He ‘carried’ the box out into the hall as if seized by a leg-hold trap.. (The box is in the hall sans cat at the present moment.)
Anyway, I informed the computing females in residence that the system would be down for maintenance and shutdown my computer so I could yank the UPS and replace the batteries. (APC will sell me a replacement battery which is in reality two batteries with a fused jumper that wires them in series, covered with a pretty label that serves to 1) inform you of the proper APC part number and warn you to use only genuine APC batteries because the world will come to a tragic end should you use anything else, and 2)stick the two commercially available batteries together in a manner that obscures the generic model number so that APC can make a buck if they are able to convince you that it is really a super special proprietary battery which they will gladly sell you. For $30 more than you can buy the two commercially available cells, transfer the fused center connector, and break out the tape made out of gorillas to make the two batteries one.. (Hmmm.. I wonder if that counts as ‘earnings’ since my labor was used to make one ‘battery’ out of two, thus effectively paying myself $30.)
So, I installed the new battery (which of course is the battery assembly I self-assembled) into the UPS hull, connected the pretty color coded wires to the corresponding colored terminals, closed it all back up, returned it to its spot on the floor and pushed the little round button. The unit started up, went through its self test without a murmur, and sat there with its pretty green light looking at me with its unblinking eye.
Only remaining task was to fire up my computing device (the one with the internal fan or fans that periodically emits/emit grinding noise(s) - that is watching me as I build its replacement on the desk beside me and internalizing fears of soon-approaching abandonment.) The psychological affect of these feelings of soon-abandonment have so affected the old computing device that it conspired to kill the cmos battery and instead of the normal bios screen I was greeted with the ‘Hey dummy, your internal clock is waywrong, press F2 to enter setup’ nag..
So, date/time/boot order/all that stuff have been reset and, if all remains well, I will not have to deal with that again until AFTER this box is disconnected and its newer bigger’n’better replacement is in place and I am pondering what to do with this box. Unless of course, another hurricane Sandy blows through and we are without power for five days again.
Even with the new batteries, the ups will not run THAT long. ;-)
When you’re talking days, mere batteries are insufficient.
And if the proximate cause of a lack of power is something like a Hurricane Sandy, then solar panels may not do the trick either.
My analysis says that true security comes from having a Plan B for all contingencies. At a first approximation then, you may need a generator.
Short diversion: Generators can bring hazards. One of the less obvious is that in the silence of your power-out community, your generator will be broadcasting the fact that you are prepared even though your neighbors may not be.
The most obvious risk is the fumes. You can’t operate the generator inside anything. It might kill you. And if you put it out on the sidewalk, it might walk.
I saw a dual-fuel generator at Costco. It could be started on gasoline and then switched to propane. Or maybe vice versa. Still noisy though.
Theoretically, if you can afford it, a whole-house generator would be the way to go. That could even be made silent enough to avoid neighborly curiosity, if you are smart enough to keep your lights turned off. The best fuel for this kind of thing is natural gas. Although propane would also work, it’s usually more expensive.
But probably the cheapest way to go would be to invest in two “jump-boxes”, normally used to jump start a car whose lights stayed on too long.
This presumes you have two vehicles in your family. If each has a jump-box, and you keep them charged, you can use them as the power source for your UPS. Some jump-boxes even have inverters built into them.
Or you could figure out a way to patch in the vehicle batteries to be the UPS secondaries. It’s easy enough to use regular ROMEX wiring as a really long jumper cable.
By the way, even if you have power for your computer, your connection provider may be without power in your neighborhood, especially after a day or two. The usual Plan B for that situation is trying to connect through your smart phone.
Of course, if you had a smart phone, you could use it as your computer.
Two Swedish kittens, because it's Caturday.
Happy Caturday.
Sorry was AWOL. Had to take a mental break for a day or two after the Paris attack then my family had some drama over turkey day,
It all came out well. The guest of honor was delicious.
Now I have a cold coming but I’m off to WW. I’ll be back in two hours to read 8 days of freepimg I’ve missed as well as kitties.
Yay kitties!
Awww...cute little pug-faced squee!
38 degrees, and I forget how cold it will be today. Maybe 45. I want to stay in! I’ll be taking a shower soon. Just so I can warm up!
It’s cold outside the covers!
I went to WW this morning: lost 1.0. Now, although I should be finishing the dusting, we are headed to a local historic site for historical Christmassy stuff and outdoorsiness.
The Advent Kitteh will be leaving me a hairball, I fear.
I’m up after a not-too-fun night. I’ve had a shower and don’t really feel any better, but I smell a LOT better! LOL!
I may think about putting up Nativities. Maybe. Even though I have a large one out all year long. I’m still looking for a large star for it (about 4-5” at the widest point) but I haven’t been lucky in that endeavor.
It’s chilly outside. It was 38 when I woke up and probably only about 40, now, give or take a degree. While I was lying in bed, under the covers, all I could think of was how much I wanted summer to be here. :o|
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