There is a “Hate America First” group of people who have always been around and who always continue to denigrate America’s efforts to improve things.
Despite our faults, America tries to fix things. This is never acknowledged by the Hate America First Crowd. Slavery in Africa continues to this day but that is ignored and the United States continues to get blamed for its slavery of two hundred years ago.
NBC’s coverage is slanted to make up for its lack of diversity years ago. Back when NBC was mainly run by white folks.
Yes, blame America constantly for racism. And then think of a Japanese woman bringing a black foreigner home to meet her parents to talk about marriage.
While such marriages do exist in Japan, the attitude of the Japanese toward such a couple and their resulting children is undoubtedly generations behind what we accept here in America.
The Hate America First Crowd never recognizes achievements. They only find something new to complain about.
Perhaps this is rooted in hating their parents. Or perhaps they hate themselves and can’t admit it. Blame someone or something else. Right now they are staring at Twitter, looking for something new to be offended about. Hate never ends when self-loathing begins with yourself.
A few things they don’t mention. It is nearly impossible to describe the atmosphere of any time surrounding a movement. The Apple Community strongly supported Apple but it was often not the other way around.
We knew we were dealing with odd people from the start but knowing that didn’t help with predicting what would come next, or how long they would stay with one technology before abandoning it and thus putting another expensive accessory or a peripheral into the junk pile.
As a writer, an easily accessible word processing technology enabled endless editing instead of two or three drafts as done on typewriters. This was a major shift which enabled easier writing and less certain writing. That’s another story.
An Applesac member who got a preview of the Macintosh gave a talk on his look at the new machine. He opened with this, “Buy stock. Buy stock. Buy stock.” Apple at the time was trading at $18. After many stock splits over the years, it now stands at $148.
ROUGH TRANSCRIPT
Sound check, one, two, one, two, sound check, one, two, one, two, looking over Wikipedia’s article on the Apple to the. Originally, the more widely available computer that started Apple, the Apple one, was almost a prototype proof of concept not readily available to most people and very hand built. Apple two was what everybody had been waiting for back in the late 70s. I’m looking over Wikipedia’s article said it came out the apple to an.
Nineteen seventy seven. Well, true, but there was a waiting list months and months long and there was a lot of hype around the apple too. And tinkerers, inventors like my dad, were very excited to see a personal computer enter a workspace or to get one in the house. And we got ours. Dad got his in February nineteen seventy eight. It arrived. And one good thing about the delay was that it enabled us to get a real hard drive with a five and a quarter inch floppy up to that time.
A cassette tape recorder, believe it or not, was what you used to. How is your programs that’s if you had, oh, a simple word processing program, it that program lived on the magnetic tape of the cassette deck of your portable cassette deck, and it was all terrible to get going. And so the delays worked on several things. The progress came very quickly, though, the. I’ll give you an example, the. First screens, the monitors supplied by Apple was only 40 characters across all uppercase and no more than three months later, the aftermarket people came in and provided a plug in circuit board that gave you 80 characters across a screen with upper and lower case letters.
And it was so amazing. I really thought at the time. Can anything get better than this? And of course, it got different. It’s. So what else do we have? But that was a sign of how quickly the progress was moving. There were competitors, but I don’t know them well. The Tiara’s 80 at some point, we used to call it the trash eighty from RadioShack, but it was widely available, something you could tinker with.
There was a Commodore. Yeah, there some the Commodore. That was a really a lot of gamers went toward that. And from the beginning, the Apple never attracted the gaming community like the PC group has what we would later call the PC people or the PC types, the apple, the flight simulator came along and that was very popular. But if you were a tinker, if you really wanted to build something or code something, you generally went off to something other than an Apple Apple.
People generally wanted something to work, but that meant, too, that you had a limited number of programs to choose from. So if you wanted something to help your ham radio hobby or your birdwatching hobby, probably not having it probably wasn’t a program available at the time. So the other platforms this gets around a thing called DOS to disk operating system variations that other computer users use where you could actually program and write your own program that attract the PC types, the.
At the time, too, was that with the sort of the ability, limited availability of programs, you actually had magazines in which there were articles, column, articles, but they would have simple programs listed and type in the magazine that is line by line of code. And if you typed in successfully all of these dozens or hundreds of lines of codes into your computer and didn’t make a single mistake, brackets and every kind of weird character you can imagine, if you didn’t make a single mistake, your program might run.
But literally you were typing in programs from magazines if you wanted to. And it’s very strange, very strange time, very frustrating. And what else do we have here? The don’t mention the clubs, the clubs supporting the apple would too would have been called a cult computer today is strongly supported by anyone that could afford it. And they were expensive. The I think Apple Apple had a very odd relation with the clubs in that they the clubs were the most dedicated, the fans of the computer, and you’d think that would be an amazing resource to develop.
But I think Apple just countered that those people were already buyers. So support would come in. The speakers might appear at your club, and then Apple would disappear. No more literature, no more support. And then they would come back again. And they were always seemingly especially they all throughout the I’d say, the first 15 years of Apple, they seem to be wavering between going out of business or just nobody could really figure out what was going on in Cupertino.
Probably the same thing today. Apple really went after the education market early on with the Apple two, and they mention Vizi Colque vesicle as being a I hate the word game changer in business. But that business software, I wasn’t really I wasn’t familiar with it at all, but that did have a practical business use and a purchase could be based just upon that program. And we had all sorts of dullards, slow heads back at the time. We dealt with this question for 15 or 20 years.
Aside from business, the question would always come up, why do I need a computer? Why do I need a computer? And we’re constantly battling that stupid question like, you know, get with it. It is it’s it’s it’s an invention factory by itself. It enables things, your hobbies, your interests, your pursuits. It makes you think. Of thinking it opens the door to things that you haven’t considered. But it’s a closed door until you get the computer, once you get the computer, like, you know, with your phone and your apps these days, once you get the app, go to the website, you find out what’s happening or what’s possible.
But that question still upsets me. Why do I need a computer? So you had to begin your argument at, like, square one and then you decided on what kind of computer? And always it was that Apple’s too expensive. Um, what else? Yeah, fraudulence code, the programing languages, yeah, people have their favorites, Bill Gates and Jobs. They had a relation back in the time, I think all Apple dos, I believe it was.
And that and everything changed. Of course, when the Mac hit in 84, that went away from what we call a command line interface where you have, you know, one line after another on the screen and, you know, with a Mac, you go to a mouse and it’s all graphics, it’s all graphic driven. And you don’t have to type one line. You don’t have to deal with one line at a time and enter a command like you would have a command.
You’re looking up a card catalog at some library. And if you were connected at the time and then when you wanted to do something, you hit the command, the return key and off you went instead of pointing and clicking. So this command line interface continued with the PC people, even though it even even after the Mac actually the apple to Apple three, they continued well after the Mac was introduced. But there really wasn’t a bigger distinction between the old and the new than when IBM came out with their nineteen eighty four personal computer, one for the masses.
And that just represented old old thinking. You know, somebody finally packaged together this PC for the masses. And in 84, Apple came out with a Mac, which is the future. And so it’s always been this way. The interesting thing I’m looking through this is that a lot of us Apple people would say, well, Microsoft stole this, especially with Windows and they took this or this or that. But Microsoft always produce bloated software and buggy clunky didn’t work really well.
So on the one hand, sure, they may have stolen some stuff, but it never worked fairly well. But the thing to get back to it is that the whole. Interface, the approach for PCs was much more open than what, especially with the Mac, much more, you could tinker far better with a PC trying to look over what else? Yeah, that’s about it. Apple did have I was saying on outreach, they actually think probably depending on the health of the community health of their company.
I remember going downtown to a K Street mall and Apple had some sort of demonstration set up where it was on a closed circuit TV, believe it or not. And there was like 40 of us in the hall. They’ve reintroducing some computer, but they went to the trouble and expense of setting up that that site and, you know, pre Internet as far as pre graphical Internet, the commercial and Internet really became graphical with Mosaic. But that’s another story.
So it was a video conference thing on closed circuit. And that’s about it, I’m rambled on too too long, so that’s just filling in a little bit of the Wikipedia article.
Icona Pop’s joyous celebration about giving up and being glad about it.
My personality has changed after my ECT treatments. I’m manic, I’m angry, my sleep is wrecked, and I’m possessed with my aberrant art. I’m drinking again. Heavily. But I don’t care. None of my present behavior matters. None of my previous behavior mattered.
Nothing has mattered after I lost my parents in 2012 and I should have just admitted it. Who was I trying to be responsible to or please all these years?
In this song the woman finally dumps her loser boyfriend who was impossible to please. I’m dumping the life or the code of conduct I was trying to please.
No. Like the car in this song, my life has crashed into a bridge and burning. I don’t care. I love it.
… I got this feeling on the summer day when you were gone
I crashed my car into the bridge, I watched, I let it burn
I threw your shit into a bag and pushed it down the stairs
I crashed my car into the bridge
… I don’t care, I love it
I don’t care
… I got this feeling on the summer day when you were gone
I crashed my car into the bridge, I watched, I let it burn
I threw your shit into a bag and pushed it down the stairs
I crashed my car into the bridge
… I don’t care, I love it
I don’t care
… You’re on a different road, I’m in the Milky Way
You want me down on Earth, but I am up in space
You’re so damn hard to please, we gotta kill this switch
You’re from the ’70s, but I’m a ’90s bitch
… I love it
I love it
… I got this feeling on the summer day when you were gone
I crashed my car into the bridge, I watched, I let it burn
I threw your shit into a bag and pushed it down the stairs
I crashed my car into the bridge
… I don’t care, I love it
I don’t care, I love it, I love it
I don’t care, I love it
I don’t care
… You’re on a different road, I’m in the Milky Way
You want me down on Earth, but I am up in space
You’re so damn hard to please, we gotta kill this switch
You’re from the ’70s, but I’m a ’90s bitch
… I don’t care, I love it
I don’t care, I love it, I love it
I don’t care, I love it
I don’t care, I love it, I love it
I don’t care
I love it
I’ve ended my relation with Best in the West in Pahrump. It’s a souvenior and t-shirt shop that makes its living on laundry and dry cleaning.
I was selling some rocks and posters out of there with the encouragement of Frank who is the owner. No more than thirty or forty dollars a month. And then . . .
And then I made a one time sale of $144 with a speciality item. Without paying me first for what I was owed, Frank said I needed to now invest in his business. $250 a month to sell anything out of there.
Many full time rock shops do not make $250 in month. And that amount would be just to break even. Absolutely insane.
But it was a good time to leave. In the three or four months I have been around the shop, sometimes in for only an hour or two, Frank talks down about his wife. Constantly. In front of her, in front of me, in front of other customers. He’s a bully to his wife. In public!
And this guy goes to church every week. He and her are Jehovah’s Witnesses. I assume that means they are Christians.
But what kind of Christian bad mouths his wife in public every time she comes into the store? To her face? He also complains about her to customers when she is not in. I know she hates it. I’m not judging here, I am reporting a fact.
We are all sinners. For my part, I try to limit my sins to myself. I don’t embark on deliberate injury to anyone else.
Yet this guy goes about his life hurting his wife and then going to church every Sunday. It is appalling and toxic and I was stupid to stay there. I really wanted some retail space and I tried to ignore what was happening. That was my sin. But that sin is no longer ongoing. I am no longer part of that abuse.
When we meet someone new we desperately want that person to keep up with what we are saying. Tell me joke if I tell you a joke. Tell me you know the news like I know the news. Field a strange question. Are we equals? Do we have a chance together?
In this remarkable interview, the artfully obstinate and challenging Charles Grodin takes his comedically deadpan style against the master of interviewing, Johnny Carson.
It is a long video but it demonstrates how two equally talented people keep up with each other and how each challenges the other to go even further. Grodin doesn’t smile much but I am sure he is in awe of some of Carson’s comebacks. Grodin has a unique schtick but Carson benefits from having seen thousands of other schticks.
This used to be called one-upmanship but I doubt that idiomatic term is used anymore. My Dad was on the debating team at Michigan. If someone quoted a famous writer then Dad might make up a quote saying the opposite by that writer. There was no time in the debate to check the authenticity of Dad’s quote, but it worked to undermine and disprove the know it all on the other side of the podium.
How many of yesterday’s poets would have made it as rock stars today? I suspect several. Bono and the crew of U2 have often struck me as after their time.
Songwriting credits belong to: Adam Clayton. Dave Evans, Larry Mullen, and Paul Hewson
Until the End of the World
Haven’t seen you in quite a while
I was down the hold just passing time
Last time we met was a low-lit room
We were as close together as a bride and groom
We ate the food, we drank the wine
Everybody having a good time
Except you
You were talking about the end of the world
I took the money
I spiked your drink
You miss too much these days if you stop to think
You lead me on with those innocent eyes
You know I love the element of surprise
In the garden I was playing the tart
I kissed your lips and broke your heart
You
You were acting like it was the end of the world
Love, love, love
Love
Love, love
Love, love, love
Love (love)
Love, love
In my dream I was drowning my sorrows
But my sorrows, they learned to swim
Surrounding me, going down on me
Spilling over the brim
Waves of regret and waves of joy
I reached out for the one I tried to destroy
You, you said you’d wait
‘Til the end of the world
Nevada doesn’t have a closing time for bars unless the bar itself sets it or there is some local prohibition.
I’m in Tonopah, Nevada which is in Nye County. Tonopah sits on I-95 which is the route between Las Vegas and Reno.
I’m staying at the period correct Mizpah Hotel and across the street is the Tonopah Liquor Company where a fair number of people are hooting and hollering and carrying on. As they should be on a Saturday night/morning. Without the State shutting it down.
You can also buy alcohol at any time of the day or night from any market that is open. Nevada has no greater accident rate when it comes to drunk driving. There is no difference to our safety here compared to other states which mandate closing times.
That such laws are for “your own good” is just a way that joyless politicians and safety Nazis get back at people who are having more fun than they are. If they knew how to have fun.
I can’t abide Shakespeare. His Olde English is too old and it gets in the way of his message and the rhythm of his lines. We expect good poetry to flow like water from a faucet, instead, Shakespeare too often is a sputtering spigot of guess and analysis.
Never-the-less, his sonnets are well regarded to this day. I’m going to look at his first here and then move back to modern poets. There are some nice touches here that somehow survive the centuries.
Update: I wrote too soon. I liked the phrase “thine own bright eyes” but the rest is indeed a research project.
BeamingNotes.com for example, says Sonnet 1 is:
“A procreation sonnet within the Fair Youth sequence. The poem is essentially about the dynamic relationship between transience and continuity of beauty. It expounds the fact that beauty is temporary at an individual level but achieves permanency at the lineage level.”
Okay, fine. I’m sure with the tenth or eleventh reading I’d be more attracted to this poem. If extended analysis need be, however, I am more drawn to The Wasteland (internal link) or The Love Song of Alfred J Prufrock. (internal link).
Sorry to give up so quickly, William, but I need magic and movement. I know you have it but I want to see it more easily as easiness most characterizes or enables those qualities. Another time.
From Fairest Creatures we Desire Increase (Sonnet 1)
By William Shakespeare (1564–1610)
From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory;
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And, tender churl, mak’st waste in niggarding.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.
I didn’t put her there. A young woman director named Tanya Wexler put her there. Along with a chain around Beckinsale’s neck. Getting bound and tortured is the chief element in this supposed fight for justice and revenge flick.
It’s an Amazon product. Called Jolt. Apparently Beckinsale is fine with the movie’s direction because she went along with it. Got her check.
The chief character is Lindy who has a genetic defect that makes her go all Hulk on people when she gets angry. But the Hulk never got beaten in a sexual way while captive and hung from a meathook.
What do we have? Amazon, the movie company, this woman director, the advertisers, all of them want us to believe this is some sort of women’s lib production where the female takes control to exact revenge against evil males who started her agony. Yeah, right.
I’m not buying it. You have to watch Lindy get electrically shocked, time after time, by domineering males to really question who this film is supposed to appeal to. It was clearly produced to appeal to prurient interests. Believe me, I know that when I see it. (internal link)
Amazon isn’t engaged in an art project here, rather, the aim is to attract viewers who in turn will buy stuff.
Don’t blame me for watching. I didn’t make it, it was advertised to me and I chose to watch it. But I am the viewer here and not the Amazon boardroom and their bankers and that woman producer who decided to put their time and millions into making this film.
Who’s the greater pervert? The people that produced it or the people that watch it? This is corporate approved and manufactured misogyny.
I honestly admit to a fascination with disturbing images (internal link) but I doubt Bezos and Amazon will be so canid. (I’m waiting for their cover story or justification.)
Don’t tell me those scenes are for plot development. What plot? The only reason a guy would watch this is to see Beckinsale’s character kick ass and then to see her ass get kicked.
C’mon. This is trash. But sex sells. Always has, always will. And corporations like Amazon will always lie about advertising and sex. Or about bondage with a chain around a woman’s neck while she hangs from a meathook.
