Many thanks, ghostsniper. The geometric precision is certainly very reminiscent of M.C. Escher’s many mind-blowing images, but I’m delighted to say that I’d never seen Siena Cathedral before you showed it to us last Friday. I was going to say how sad it is that it took me until age 70 to view such a marvel of great European art, but that is dead wrong. The truth his how wonderful this world still is that I could have such great wonders of the human imagination and spirit to delight and inform me, and fine friends like you to do so!
Seeing the triple jabbed come down with covid and immediately jump online to inform the world how grateful they are for their boosters because they are “certain” it could have been “so much worse” is quite frankly the most amazing display of human stupidity I have ever witnessed.
Trooper John SmithSeptember 13, 2023, 1:45 PM
The patients I’ve seen with Kung Flu recently have all been vaxed. Haven’t seen one case in an unvaxed patient. Not to say that it doesn’t happen, but I ain’t seen it. Could be that they aren’t even seeking treatment. I wouldn’t. If I start feeling sick, I’ll just stay home until I’m symptom free. Not even going to test for it. I’ll just treat my symptoms like I would any other case of cold or flu.
ghostsniperSeptember 13, 2023, 2:57 PM
Trooper John Smith sed:
“I’ll just treat my symptoms like I would any other case of cold or flu.”
===========
What, are you antinarcissistic or sumfink?
There was a time when people played down their shortcomings, maladies, illnesses and injuries.
Spotlighting weaknesses was unheard of.
It made one seem less than capable, even untrustworthy.
Then, a small cable snapped in the character spine of the country.
Having a cold seemed to have benefit, maybe a day off work, maybe sympathy from a spouse, maybe a day without school. If something provides benefit you can expect more of it.
By the 80’s victimhood became fully intrenched in society. Got a papercut at work? Wrap that sucka with 20 feet of gauze and moan alot. But only when others are in earshot. Keep stirring the pot. Keep your eyes peeled for the next opportunity to don a new victim gown. Even grown burly men sought victimhood status. Hell, who doesn’t like taking a day off and blobbin’ on the couch in front of Jerry Springer?
Today victimhood is worn like a badge of honor. When the proper length of time for any given malady has been met the victims go on the lookout for the next potential method to gain the much needed spotlight. Everybody likes to be coddled like small children, everyone wants to “feel” special. Just about everyone likes kitty’s, puppy’s, gummibears, cartoons and gameshows, and a big fluffy blanky. And they all like to get their diaper changed.
What I’ve never liked about the standard keyboard is that you can type the foot key ‘ with one hand but the inches key ” requires two hands.
I do almost all of my typing in AutoCAD with my left hand but when I have to do a inch symbol I have to take my right hand off the mouse.
Yeah, you can do it with one hand but it’s a pain.
I never use the key to the left of them (; 🙂 and don’t even know what those 2 things are, so I’d prefer to have the inch symbol was in that one.
Does anybody make a reasonably priced standard keyboard where you can make all the keys be whatever you want?
That would be cool.
It’d also be cool to be able to incorporate some function keys into the regular line up as well.
The AutoCAD function keys I use all the time:
F3 = autosnap
F7 = grid
F8 = ortho
F9 = snap
I really don’t use the other function keys much though they all do something.
In the past, it was possible to lift/jimmy/pry off the keys from the keyboard and swap them around. The next step was to go into the guts of the operating system and find the file that mapped keyboard positions to letters. Somewhere there are files for all the standard language keyboards, and when you set up your system you select the US or Brit or French or … keyboard. You would have to find those and modify the one you are using. As software piles layers upon layers, the keyboard mapping files these days are buried pretty deeply in the OS file structure
Also, did you type something like (-: , the original keyboard typeout for a smiley face? If you do any programming or engineering, every character/glyph on the keyboard is used for something, e.g. “~” means “not” or “complement”, “\” means a following character escape, “|” is a pipeline joining two commands, “{}” “[]” “()” encode for different types of arrays and lists, etc. Different languages and shells have different semantics for these characters.
ghostsniperSeptember 14, 2023, 12:43 PM
You may be hinting at what, in AutoCAD, is called “LISP”, and I don’t remember what those letters stand for now. But it’s programming specifically inside AutoCAD. I dabbled with it back in the 90’s but I don’t know if it’s possible any longer. Since about the year 2000 I have been using their “2 character” method where any of the thousands of AutoCAD commands are reduced to just 2 characters. Probably the most common 2 character command I use each day is “PL” which stands for PolyLine. The diff between a PolyLine and a Line is that a PL can changed as far as weight (thickness) goes but a Line cannot. Since lineweight has meaning and line does not I use PL most of the time. I use L when I am drawing a quick reference line that will eventually be deleted.
Maybe there should be a stand alone program, or app, that you could install and through that app you could reassign purpose to each keyboard key. If you ever wanted to go back to normal just hold the Ctrl key and type “back”. Maybe even be able to do diff methods and save them for diff uses. Making all characters backwards, for example, would be cool.
Saw that yesterday, and all the whiney crybaby’s jumping on his case.
And he’s right, to a certain degree.
Lemme tell you something, in small numbers math.
In 1973 you could buy a Big Mac for about 50 cents but today it is about $5.
Ten times as much.
Also in 1973 you could get a job as a masons tender for about $5 and hour, so you would expect a mason tender today would make about $59 and hour, right?
Wrong.
I was talking to a young dood last week (that I may hire to do some “off the books” work for me) that currently works as a masons tender and he is getting $22 an hour.
How can that young dood be expected to buy Big Macs and all the other things people spend money on, that now costs 10 times as much as 1973 but with less than HALF as much money?
He can’t.
Unless he becomes an “Outlaw”.
Like me.
Work for individuals for cash and leave everybody else out of the equation.
Pay cash for everything.
Create no paper trail.
The only way to predict the future is to create it.
Create your own world.
The current world, as we know it, is slammed with many levels of weight bearing parasites dragging us down and backwards. The only way to survive and thrive is to get rid of the dead weight any way you can.
ghostsniperSeptember 14, 2023, 1:21 PM
That should say $50 not $59.
DTSeptember 14, 2023, 3:58 PM
I recall hearing a quote from a McDonald’s exec stating (a long time ago when a BigMac was $1.50 or so): “We still sell a 15 cent hamburger adjusted for inflation.”
Checking an inflation calculator site (assuming one can trust the numbers) a 1973 50cent burger should cost $3.46 in 2023. To my memory of 1973 prices compared to today, that seems low.
ghostsniperSeptember 14, 2023, 6:28 PM
That is too low. Go look at the menu and see for yourself.
My point was that wages have not kept up with prices, so everyone that works for wages are getting broker and broker because of gov’t induced inflation.
The only solution is to not play the game.
Break out and make your own game.
Start slowly, very slowly, do side work while still working your job. Then keep doing more and more side work and eventually let the full time job go. Pay attention to everything because now you are an outlaw and life is inherently more dangerous.
AnneSeptember 14, 2023, 9:59 PM
There is a new “bistro” in town. Modeled on the style of the French Bistro. Casual with very fine food on a limited menu. It was opened about two years ago by a team that has owned and operated another style of eatery very successfully for 12 years.
We went in to the French bistro last night. Young woman showed up in dress that plunged nearly to her belly button. She welcomed us with a giggle and asked if we wanted a drink we said we would like to wait until we decided what to eat–we did ask for water. She pranced off and about 5 minutes later someone else showed up and asked if we wanted to order a drink. We gave the same answer and asked again for water. The first gal came back and took our order–still no water. We did order some wine. Another person showed up and asked if our order had been taken–we said yes, and asked for water. Finally, a big guy came out with our light meals. We asked for water and he brought it. The first gal came back to ask if the food was ok we said yes. Someone else showed up to ask if everything was ok. When the big buy came back we asked for a second glass of wine. We finished our meal and waited and waited. The bartender was nowhere to be seen. Some gal brought us two glasses of wine after we had finished our meal and pranced off never asking if she should take our plates or even if we were still interested in our second glass of wine. All total there were five people who showed up at our table with a casual attempt at pretending to be waiters or servers. Service was clearly something they have no concept of, and neither did they express any interest in doing a good job. During this time I had to go to the ladies room several times. You must pass by the kitchen to get to the restroom. Each time I passed the kitchen ALL of the staff including the bartender were standing together laughing and giggling as if they were out on the street corner having a good time.
I am very tolerant of people in the service industries, but I have never seen anything like this before. It’s not only that they didn’t care about the strangers at the table, they didn’t KNOW they were supposed to care! When the first gal brought us our check she was very good at pointing the place where you posh the button for the tip–very clear and focused on that !
The virtue signalers are bringing in bus loads of illegal Mexicans and getting them jobs behind the scenes that is to say paid in cash by high end owners–it makes the big money people feel good about themselves because they are hiring illegals. My question is what the heck has happened to our white kids? You know the ones in the French Bistro who have no idea what work is about.
Anne, this ties in with a conversation I had with my wife last night. My first job was busboy at a Mr. Steak restaurant. Mr. Steak was then (1969) a new franchise out of Colorado. The manager was in his early 30’s. All the help, from cashiers, cooks to dishwashers, was made up of high school kids from the two high schools in town. They hired us, trained us, and set us to work running a restaurant. This meant giving up Friday and Saturday night party time to bust ass until 11:00 at night putting the store to bed. And we did it. We gave good service, and put out a good solid meal. For a while it was the most popular eatery in town. But the franchise over extended itself, we got new, incompetent managers, and the place eventually folded.
Real World Address for Donations, Mash Notes and Hate Mail
Gerard Van der Leun
1692 MANGROVE AVE
APT 379
Chico, Ca 95926
Green Pants Interior by Klahn
Who Am I? by Carl Sandburg
My head knocks against the stars.
My feet are on the hilltops.
My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of universal life.
Down in the sounding foam of primal things I reach my hands and play with pebbles of destiny.
I have been to hell and back many times.
I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God.
I dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible.
I know the passionate seizure of beauty
And the marvelous rebellion of man at all signs reading “Keep Off.”
My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive in the universe.
Duty, Beauty, Liberty, Country, Honor, Family, Faith — Plus a few simple easy to follow rules for guys
Men saw the stars at the edge of the sea
They thought great thoughts about liberty
Poets wrote down words that did fit
Writers wrote books
Thinkers thought about it
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
Many’s the road I have walked upon
Many’s the hour between dusk and dawn
Many’s the time
Many’s the mile
I see it all now
Through the eyes of a child
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
[Chorus]
Lost dreams and found dreams
In America
In America
In America
Lost dreams and found dreams
In America
In America
In America
And close your eyes
Leave it all for a while
Leave the world
And your worries behind
You will build on whatever is real
And wake up each day
To a new waking dream
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
[Chorus]
Change, change come over
Change come over
Talkin’ about a change
Change, change
Change come over, now
Change, change, change come over
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I see my light
See my light
See my shining light
I see my light
See my light
See my shining light
Gerard Van der Leun
Comments on this entry are closed.
Escher
Siena Cathedral
Siena, Tuscany, Italy
Completed 1348
Wiki here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siena_Cathedral
Aerial view here: https://www.google.com/maps/@43.3178036,11.3293475,221m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en&entry=ttu
Many thanks, ghostsniper. The geometric precision is certainly very reminiscent of M.C. Escher’s many mind-blowing images, but I’m delighted to say that I’d never seen Siena Cathedral before you showed it to us last Friday. I was going to say how sad it is that it took me until age 70 to view such a marvel of great European art, but that is dead wrong. The truth his how wonderful this world still is that I could have such great wonders of the human imagination and spirit to delight and inform me, and fine friends like you to do so!
Going to Nashville this weekend. Looking forward to consuming a few adult beverages and then dropping in here: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/hermitage-hotel-mens-bathroom
Never visited a famous privy before.
Seeing the triple jabbed come down with covid and immediately jump online to inform the world how grateful they are for their boosters because they are “certain” it could have been “so much worse” is quite frankly the most amazing display of human stupidity I have ever witnessed.
The patients I’ve seen with Kung Flu recently have all been vaxed. Haven’t seen one case in an unvaxed patient. Not to say that it doesn’t happen, but I ain’t seen it. Could be that they aren’t even seeking treatment. I wouldn’t. If I start feeling sick, I’ll just stay home until I’m symptom free. Not even going to test for it. I’ll just treat my symptoms like I would any other case of cold or flu.
Trooper John Smith sed:
“I’ll just treat my symptoms like I would any other case of cold or flu.”
===========
What, are you antinarcissistic or sumfink?
There was a time when people played down their shortcomings, maladies, illnesses and injuries.
Spotlighting weaknesses was unheard of.
It made one seem less than capable, even untrustworthy.
Then, a small cable snapped in the character spine of the country.
Having a cold seemed to have benefit, maybe a day off work, maybe sympathy from a spouse, maybe a day without school. If something provides benefit you can expect more of it.
By the 80’s victimhood became fully intrenched in society. Got a papercut at work? Wrap that sucka with 20 feet of gauze and moan alot. But only when others are in earshot. Keep stirring the pot. Keep your eyes peeled for the next opportunity to don a new victim gown. Even grown burly men sought victimhood status. Hell, who doesn’t like taking a day off and blobbin’ on the couch in front of Jerry Springer?
Today victimhood is worn like a badge of honor. When the proper length of time for any given malady has been met the victims go on the lookout for the next potential method to gain the much needed spotlight. Everybody likes to be coddled like small children, everyone wants to “feel” special. Just about everyone likes kitty’s, puppy’s, gummibears, cartoons and gameshows, and a big fluffy blanky. And they all like to get their diaper changed.
ghost sniper–you got that one right
What I’ve never liked about the standard keyboard is that you can type the foot key ‘ with one hand but the inches key ” requires two hands.
I do almost all of my typing in AutoCAD with my left hand but when I have to do a inch symbol I have to take my right hand off the mouse.
Yeah, you can do it with one hand but it’s a pain.
I never use the key to the left of them (; 🙂 and don’t even know what those 2 things are, so I’d prefer to have the inch symbol was in that one.
Does anybody make a reasonably priced standard keyboard where you can make all the keys be whatever you want?
That would be cool.
It’d also be cool to be able to incorporate some function keys into the regular line up as well.
The AutoCAD function keys I use all the time:
F3 = autosnap
F7 = grid
F8 = ortho
F9 = snap
I really don’t use the other function keys much though they all do something.
how’d that smiley get in there?
In the past, it was possible to lift/jimmy/pry off the keys from the keyboard and swap them around. The next step was to go into the guts of the operating system and find the file that mapped keyboard positions to letters. Somewhere there are files for all the standard language keyboards, and when you set up your system you select the US or Brit or French or … keyboard. You would have to find those and modify the one you are using. As software piles layers upon layers, the keyboard mapping files these days are buried pretty deeply in the OS file structure
Also, did you type something like (-: , the original keyboard typeout for a smiley face? If you do any programming or engineering, every character/glyph on the keyboard is used for something, e.g. “~” means “not” or “complement”, “\” means a following character escape, “|” is a pipeline joining two commands, “{}” “[]” “()” encode for different types of arrays and lists, etc. Different languages and shells have different semantics for these characters.
You may be hinting at what, in AutoCAD, is called “LISP”, and I don’t remember what those letters stand for now. But it’s programming specifically inside AutoCAD. I dabbled with it back in the 90’s but I don’t know if it’s possible any longer. Since about the year 2000 I have been using their “2 character” method where any of the thousands of AutoCAD commands are reduced to just 2 characters. Probably the most common 2 character command I use each day is “PL” which stands for PolyLine. The diff between a PolyLine and a Line is that a PL can changed as far as weight (thickness) goes but a Line cannot. Since lineweight has meaning and line does not I use PL most of the time. I use L when I am drawing a quick reference line that will eventually be deleted.
Maybe there should be a stand alone program, or app, that you could install and through that app you could reassign purpose to each keyboard key. If you ever wanted to go back to normal just hold the Ctrl key and type “back”. Maybe even be able to do diff methods and save them for diff uses. Making all characters backwards, for example, would be cool.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3Ik5BEs8ug
Saw that yesterday, and all the whiney crybaby’s jumping on his case.
And he’s right, to a certain degree.
Lemme tell you something, in small numbers math.
In 1973 you could buy a Big Mac for about 50 cents but today it is about $5.
Ten times as much.
Also in 1973 you could get a job as a masons tender for about $5 and hour, so you would expect a mason tender today would make about $59 and hour, right?
Wrong.
I was talking to a young dood last week (that I may hire to do some “off the books” work for me) that currently works as a masons tender and he is getting $22 an hour.
How can that young dood be expected to buy Big Macs and all the other things people spend money on, that now costs 10 times as much as 1973 but with less than HALF as much money?
He can’t.
Unless he becomes an “Outlaw”.
Like me.
Work for individuals for cash and leave everybody else out of the equation.
Pay cash for everything.
Create no paper trail.
The only way to predict the future is to create it.
Create your own world.
The current world, as we know it, is slammed with many levels of weight bearing parasites dragging us down and backwards. The only way to survive and thrive is to get rid of the dead weight any way you can.
That should say $50 not $59.
I recall hearing a quote from a McDonald’s exec stating (a long time ago when a BigMac was $1.50 or so): “We still sell a 15 cent hamburger adjusted for inflation.”
Checking an inflation calculator site (assuming one can trust the numbers) a 1973 50cent burger should cost $3.46 in 2023. To my memory of 1973 prices compared to today, that seems low.
That is too low. Go look at the menu and see for yourself.
My point was that wages have not kept up with prices, so everyone that works for wages are getting broker and broker because of gov’t induced inflation.
The only solution is to not play the game.
Break out and make your own game.
Start slowly, very slowly, do side work while still working your job. Then keep doing more and more side work and eventually let the full time job go. Pay attention to everything because now you are an outlaw and life is inherently more dangerous.
There is a new “bistro” in town. Modeled on the style of the French Bistro. Casual with very fine food on a limited menu. It was opened about two years ago by a team that has owned and operated another style of eatery very successfully for 12 years.
We went in to the French bistro last night. Young woman showed up in dress that plunged nearly to her belly button. She welcomed us with a giggle and asked if we wanted a drink we said we would like to wait until we decided what to eat–we did ask for water. She pranced off and about 5 minutes later someone else showed up and asked if we wanted to order a drink. We gave the same answer and asked again for water. The first gal came back and took our order–still no water. We did order some wine. Another person showed up and asked if our order had been taken–we said yes, and asked for water. Finally, a big guy came out with our light meals. We asked for water and he brought it. The first gal came back to ask if the food was ok we said yes. Someone else showed up to ask if everything was ok. When the big buy came back we asked for a second glass of wine. We finished our meal and waited and waited. The bartender was nowhere to be seen. Some gal brought us two glasses of wine after we had finished our meal and pranced off never asking if she should take our plates or even if we were still interested in our second glass of wine. All total there were five people who showed up at our table with a casual attempt at pretending to be waiters or servers. Service was clearly something they have no concept of, and neither did they express any interest in doing a good job. During this time I had to go to the ladies room several times. You must pass by the kitchen to get to the restroom. Each time I passed the kitchen ALL of the staff including the bartender were standing together laughing and giggling as if they were out on the street corner having a good time.
I am very tolerant of people in the service industries, but I have never seen anything like this before. It’s not only that they didn’t care about the strangers at the table, they didn’t KNOW they were supposed to care! When the first gal brought us our check she was very good at pointing the place where you posh the button for the tip–very clear and focused on that !
The virtue signalers are bringing in bus loads of illegal Mexicans and getting them jobs behind the scenes that is to say paid in cash by high end owners–it makes the big money people feel good about themselves because they are hiring illegals. My question is what the heck has happened to our white kids? You know the ones in the French Bistro who have no idea what work is about.
Anne, this ties in with a conversation I had with my wife last night. My first job was busboy at a Mr. Steak restaurant. Mr. Steak was then (1969) a new franchise out of Colorado. The manager was in his early 30’s. All the help, from cashiers, cooks to dishwashers, was made up of high school kids from the two high schools in town. They hired us, trained us, and set us to work running a restaurant. This meant giving up Friday and Saturday night party time to bust ass until 11:00 at night putting the store to bed. And we did it. We gave good service, and put out a good solid meal. For a while it was the most popular eatery in town. But the franchise over extended itself, we got new, incompetent managers, and the place eventually folded.
JWM