Thoughts For Thursday...

Today's post is brought to you by the wonderful world of technology, especially the part that refers to "planned obsolescence", and I'll explain why is just a bit, but we're going to soldier on in our best fashion here with a more "abbreviated" post.

 Our Hoosierland weather will bring us partly cloudy skies, temps onlty reaching to around 58 degrees, and an advisory to bring in plants and flowers tonight (may be looking at some patchy frost?) Great, gotta do that on top of everything else.
Still, we shall not let any of this dismay us as we all get that morning drink poured, and see what ELSE has been going on...
 *** First out of the maelstrom is the answer to yesterday's WHO SAID THAT? quote:
"There is something terribly wrong with a culture inebriated by noise and gregariousness. "

This was spoken by another "newbie", one George Steiner (born April 23, 1929) who is a French-born American literary critic, essayist, novelist, philosopher, and educator. And here is his WIKI:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Steiner
Now,George has written extensively about the relationship between language, literature and society. And, among his admirers, he's considered one of the great minds in today's literary world.
I'll let all of you read up on him (he is considered a Libertarian, just so you are prepared) and see what you think.
 *** Next up, we have our "What the hell happens today, Bob?" feature:
 OCTOBER 13 -
 ---Today is NATIONAL TRAIN YOUR BRAIN DAY

(to do what? jump through liberal hoops? no thanks)

---It's also NATIONAL YORKSHIRE PUDDING DAY

 (it's not jell-o instant, that's for sure)

 ---It's also THE BIRTHDAY OF OUR NAVY

(licking ass on the high seas since 1775)

 ---And, it's NATIONAL NO BRA DAY

(the less said, the better?)

 *** Next up, let's play "What the hell happened to Bob's other computer", shall we?

Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot - !

So yesterday afternoon, after the mail arrived with a new mouse for the older (XP) system, I proceeded to check the operation of the mouse.

THAT worked fine, even had to slow the pointer down, but for some odd reason, the keyboard was  not working. (heeerrrrre we go again...what NOW?)

I tried rebooting the system, and that's when the "bottom dropped out" metaphorically-speaking.

All I got was the screen that tells you which processor it has on board...no beep tone, no blue screen, no NOTHING else. That's a new one on me.
I opened it up and blew the system out...all the fans were working fine.
I have NO idea what it could be.

It might be the CMOS battery, the power supply or even the motherboard.

Thing is, THAT is the system that I use to do my photoshop stuff. I know that system is compatible with my cameras and I can resize and change formats of any picture (PNG to JPG, for example) I get in email or wherever.
That's about the only use I have for the older XP system, and works well enough for the job assigned to it.

Now, without that system, I'm "dead in the water" with picture-taking, unless I can get the same (older) software to work on a windows 10 system. There may not be any way to make that happen.

Wifey's gonna run the old system back to Stone Computer (where we blought it) in an attempt to resurrect it and keep it running.
We'll see what happens there.
 *** Next, another page in "The Hobo Chronicles"...

"You mean I can't haz no new pictures taken?"

Any pictures I took will have to wait for a bit until I can sort this crap out, so we'll just say he was out and about yesterday, but did come by for food, just not as often as I would like.

I have no idea where else he goes, but when I tap the food dish he usually shows up...not yesterday.

Took an hour before his food was touched.

"Breakfast, dinner...all the same to me."

This morning, he wasn't even around when I took the food outside for him (and I don't want any raccoon at it). He did show up  and had his fill.

 *** Last back to the SNAFU...you can never plan for things that go wrong, especially when it comes to our technologies.

Case in point - a computer failure.

There is rarely any evidence of an impending problem, and this is one instance where some "idiot lights" would be a HUGE help, like in our vehicles.
Used to be a time when you could "feel" the car around you. The sounds it made, the way it handled all gave you sensory input as to how it was operating, and you could take the appropriate actions.

Nowadays, we have sensors ALL over the cars, giving us everything from projected fuel economy and mileage to tire pressures. Worrying about "what warning light might come on next" is enough to make one a bit paranoid.
With computers, there is little to no sensory input for us to work with - we're at the mercy of what fate will allow, as it were.

One minute, everything's fine and dandy, and the next...you're staring at a good-size paperwight with lots of wires attached.

 There needs to be some "middle ground" here for those of us who DO depend on such things. We're not addicted to the tech as many already are...we just want to be able to muddle along, until the engineers manage to find a way around all this planned obsolescence.
 I don't think that's asking for that much.
 
Be well, make a difference to someone, and...
Stay SAFE out there, America.