Microsoft Vs. My Favorite Sheriff
(CW: suggestive)
Microsoft Windows has lately become a really good advertisement for Linux. It was a little after midnight, when I opened the video player, getting ready to play a hand of solitaire with my favorite sheriff. Now I don't know what Microsoft was thinking, but when you open a video player after midnight, you probably don't wanna see a full screen overlay advertisement for Windows 11. But that's what I got. And there's no easy way to close it. I know I'm using Microsoft's own speech to text features to trash Microsoft, but it's the best I can do right now. So, long story short, I paid the sheriff his due, but I didn't really need the interruption from Bill Gates's love child. (Scroll down for photos!)
Me with the sheriff:
The sheriff's name?
Twitter Spam Chaos
Twitter's changeover last week to x-dot-com has been chaotic, at least for me. Most importantly, the quality filters have completely stopped working, swamping my timeline with engagement farming. Considering how many of those spammers are asking for common password-reset questions (like “what was the name of your first-grade teacher?”), I'm calling it engagement “pharming.”
Happily, there is a great, open-source add-on that tames the Twitter spam. It's called “Old Twitter” and you can install it on Chrome, Chromium, and Edge for desktop from the Chrome web store. By default, it shows you only tweets that were liked at least once by someone you follow. (It's not currently working on Firefox.) [Edited to add: If you delete cookies on browser exit, you may have to disable Old Twitter before logging in, then enable it and refresh the page. It's worth the additional step to clean up the timeline.]
I hope this helps my friends to stay in contact with me. Remember, my Mastodon and social links are always at the top of this blog.
Horse Medicine
Sometimes you have to wonder who writes those weird headlines. Like this one: politico.com, White House weighs Fudge replacement options at HUD. That one threw me for a loop. Like, what the fudge? I mean, if it had said transportation department, it would have made more sense to me. Come on, I know you laughed at that. At least a little. I can't say that on the elephant site, or at least not on the BS forum.
And how about the names of medications. Like clopidogrel, which they gave me after my heart surgery. Doesn't that sound like horse medicine? Clop, clop, but it's better known as Plavix.
And speaking of horse medicine, how about the names of those Covid vaccines. The one from Pfizer is called Comirnaty, which is supposed to be a mash-up of community and immunity. On the other hand, the one from Moderna is called Spikevax, which sounds kind of like a metal band. I finally got my updated vax a few days ago, and it was the metal one. I'm still feeling knocked out by it. I feel like I should have enough immunity for a whole community by now.
Thank you all for being such a great audience. If you enjoyed this program, please think about buying me a cup of coffee. It doesn't have to be Starbucks, which would cost a Satoshi these days.
Audio version HERE
Real food costs less than junk food?
At least around here it does. Since I moved out of the shithole apartment to a somewhat better part of town — which I can't afford — the nearest store is a Kroger, versus a dollar store with boarded-up windows.
I'm still reverberating from the dietary change from off-brand cookies and tuna to actual food that has flavor and nutrients. Honey peanut butter, which my teddy bear likes 😉 was only 1.00 at Kroger, while the short-dated one at the D.S. was “on sale” for 2.35. (I can't put a dollar sign w/o fooking up the page.)
As to bug spray, better known as “B.S.,” I haven't even had to use it at the new place, which is why I'm keeping the title of my novelette flexible as “B.S. and Teddy Bears.”
Enjoy my teddy bear enjoying honey peanut butter and instant coffee:
Post-dot-News Edited on May 20
So I was on Post for a few months but found it to be a centrist echo chamber, just “Biden” its time, as it were.
Since the B.S. site didn't really work out for me (too much B.S., not enough teddy bears), I had planned to be more active on Post as well as Mastodon, but Post recently announced it is closing down (or has already done so by now).
Even though my risqué sense of humor got me “cancelled” at the B.S. site, I'll still be posting images on Pixelfed, some real and some not so real. All my active Social Media links are pinned at the top of this blog.
Like Night and Day
I famously can't read dark themes on a PC — that is, thin light text overwhelmed by a dark background.
I've tried various fixes, including a bookmarklet and Stylus for Firefox, but I just found the most counterintuitive and easiest fix yet. The Firefox add-on “Dark Background and Light Text,” despite its name, is fully configurable to do the opposite by swapping the background and foreground colors and making link text a little darker. The icon can be pinned to the toolbar and easily be switched on and off as needed.
I hope this helps other people with vision sensitivity. You can find this recommended add-on at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dark-background-light-text/
(I'm using it now: it's the only way I can read this blog!) 😀