The story of how Clapton created the song. I have to confess I like the slow version on Unplugged better, but then I’m more into acoustic in general.
Kerbal Space Program
So, one of the reasons I upgraded my computer was so that I could do things like running Kerbal. I’ve got a new motherboard, with a Ryzen 5 3600 processor, and 32G of RAM. But when I load KSP, I develop cursor lag. Is this because I only have two gig of memory on the graphics card?
McCabe And Trump
…and Frodo Baggins.
End Of An Era
I’ve been noticing that every time I go to Fry’s the shelves are emptier and emptier, and fewer and fewer staff. I went looking for a graphics card today, and they had a grand selection of zero. They are clearly not restocking inventory. I doubt they’ll make it to the end of the year. Discussion here. I had to go to Best Buy (which was fortunately just down the street).
This is frustrating, because they were one of the last places you could buy computer and electronics components off the shelf. But they couldn’t compete with next-day, or even in some cases same-day delivery from Amazon.
Collisions Hazards And Space Debris
An article on the issue, quoting (among others) Brian Weeden and Glenn Reynolds.
The Divine Right Of The “Democratic” Party
Thoughts on the planned totalitarianism and oppression from Kevin Williamson. [Scare quotes in the post title mine.]
[Update a couple minutes later]
More related links from Instapundit.
The Lunar Tardigrades
A good discussion of the legal issues involved.
Computer Follies
So, I bought a new motherboard, CPU, and memory. I’ve installed it in the old case, but I discovered that the only video output on the board was HDMI, and my monitor had no HDMI input, only VGA and DVI.
Fortunately, Patricia’s monitor has VGA and HDMI, so I took my monitor and replaced it (she was using VGA), which is what I’m using to post this. Next step is to take her monitor and finally see if the new computer works. But I wanted to catch up on email and Twitter before I embark on that adventure (and post a few things).
[Update a while later]
Oh, this is fun. The motherboard wants an 8-pin connector for the CPU, and the PS only has sixes. Guess I need to upgrade that, too.
[Frustration update]
OK, so I got the new power supply. It has four 6+2 connectors, and one 4+4 (which I originally thought was eight). So I plugged in what I thought was the 8-pin, and the computer fires up, but no post beep or monitor signal. I figure that it has to be because there is nothing in the 4-pin slot, but I don’t have an 4-pin connector. Then I figure out that the 8-pin is two fours that can be separated. But when I replace the 4+4 with a 6+2, the machine won’t start. It will only run with the 4+4 in the 8-pin socket, but then I don’t have a 4-pin connector for the empty 4. Anyone have any ideas?
[Update a while later]
OK, so I needed a graphics card. I hadn’t realized that the CPU didn’t have integrated graphics. I went out an bought a fifty-buck Radeon, with 2G DDR3. It’s a huge mismatch with the processor, but I have no immediate plans for gaming, and it gets me on the air for now; I can always upgrade later.
Those Plant-Based Burgers
They aren’t better for you, so why are you eating them?
They’re not only not better for you, but almost certainly worse, nutritionally. I don’t want “plant based” food. I want affordable lab-grown meat that is indistinguishable, in both nutrition and taste, from the real thing. And I’d want it in space, too.
[Update a few minutes later]
I just got around to reading it myself. It’s not about the calories or the salt, or even the saturated fat. If you don’t eat meat, you’re not getting (among other things) choline, which is essential for everyone, but particularly for growing kids.
Eighteen Years On
It’s hard to believe it’s been that long, and we’ve been through a lot. We’ve created new ineffective and unaccountable bureaucracy, instituted ever-more intrusive government spying on citizens, subjected ourselves to humiliating security theater in order to get onto an aircraft (and into a museum, or government building). We have discovered or re-affirmed the arrogant, incompetent fecklessness of those who falsely consider themselves our moral and intellectual betters, on both sides of the aisle, to the degree that we now understand that there was really only one side of the aisle, a discovery that has given us in the White House a boorish, exaggerating, constitutionally and economically ignorant impulsive lout, indifferent to the truth who, yet, is still vastly preferable to anything else realistically on offer. The decline of our educational system, from kindergarten through grad school, continues apace, with a majority of young people, innocent of or being mistaught history, under the burden of a disastrous and cruel college loan program, now ignorantly desirous of the ideology that murdered tens of millions of people in the last century, and believing that the world will come to an end of we don’t ban the energy sources that have brought so many billions out of poverty over the past two centuries, and will continue to do so unless they get their wish.
I’ll probably update this post throughout the day with further thoughts and links, but to start, here’s something from a Millennial (who understandably hates the term): The side takers:
…if you want a pithy term for us, something that quickly defines us, the thing that our lives bent on, don’t call us Millennials. The turning of the millennium only mattered from the cozy confines of the 1990s, looking forward unaware of what was coming. Nobody who actually lived through that time can still honestly believe that’s the most important thing that occurred. But don’t call us 9/11ers either, obviously, or nobody in our generation will ever get to fly on a plane again.
No, call us the Side-Takers. We’re Generation Faction, Gen Polar, the Pick-A-Team Kids. We showed up to a cold civil war that far predated us just in time to pick our friends. 9/11 separated the future Tea Partier and MAGAmerican from future Anti-fa terrorists, because it was the moment we truly became aware that there were two very distinct kinds of Americans and the two did not reconcile easily. It shaped our whole lives, and I suspect that long after we’re all dead, we’ll be remembered— not for organic gluten-free soy infused everything, stupid haircuts, excessive beards, phone addiction or the social media epidemic—but for that.
[Via Sarah Hoyt]
[Update a few minutes later]
A Twitter thread from Joan of Aargghh:
[Update a few more minutes later]
Thoughts on Flight 93, and the failure of the political establishment to make us afraid.
Also,
[Thursday-morning update]
More thoughts on the perfidy of the NYT from Jim Treacher, and Stephen Kruiser.
Plus, Mark Steyn on the language of losing.