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Here's an interesting OP/ED from our northern North American "allies", still unconquered/not annexed, like Greenland, but threatened with tariffs, some fairly major, and other random, blithering bluster. The upshot seems to be that the rest of the world has grown weary, but much less wary, of...

I can't really explain what it is I don't like about Scotch, maybe it's what they call "peaty". But I guess that's similar to the "smokey" taste you don't like about mezcal. To each his own. And make it a double. 😜

Oddly, I don't like Scotch, but I do like Irish. And/or a nice tequila or mezcal. But for me, "straight, no chaser". Or nowadays, I believe the term is "neat". 🥃

Searching for Malört seemed to agree with "disgusting". Luckily, Virginia ABC stores don't carry it.

I'll have to check into that one. Currently, I'm particularly fond of a nice Mescal.

WTF? I'm boycotting Kentucky – bourbon in particular, as well as the many other liquors they sell. I've switched to Canadian whisky.

Happy 5ᵗʰ of July‼️🧨🎆 And happy royal wedding 👰🤵💒: From NYTimes: It’s a love story What better way to celebrate America’s 250th birthday than with our own royal wedding? Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce tied the knot at Madison Square Garden last night, amid a constellation of stars from the...

Whoa, you don't have AC, Merc? We're in for a 4ᵗʰ of July flag-wave of heat in the great ol' USA: Here in VA, highs around 100 Thu-Mon. Good thing there's no such thing as Global Warming, or things could get really hot soon.

MS just quietly extended the Win 10 extension by another year: From https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/extended-security-updates: "You can enroll in ESU any time until the program ends on October 12, 2027. If you’re already enrolled, your coverage will automatically continue through that...

Naw, my script runs sudo efw disable, then nohup Rhythmbox & without sudo, then runs sudo efw enable. I might try closing the ports I opened when I started mucking with them for this UPNP adventure. I believe if I'm not at risk with the brief firewall disable, it won't matter what ports I have...

Unfortunately, when I open those firewall ports, restricted to my local network, there is still a long delay detecting upnp sources in Rhythmbox. So I wrote a little bash script that turns off ufw, starts Rhythmbox, then turns ufw back on. Then Rhythmbox sees the upnp sources right away. How...

Thanks for your input, sedrosken. I checked the router, and it does have a firewall that's blocking outside access, so that part is good.

Back to my firewall issues, it looks like something like this: ufw allow from 192.168.1.0/24 1900/tcp ufw allow from 192.168.1.0/24 3689/tcp would restrict the port access to just the devices in my local network. Would that be acceptable, or would it still be as insecure as I am?

OK, I deleted those ufw rules, and I'll check into how to make them specific to my little network.

Upon further review, I figured out that my other PCs connected quickly because they weren't running firewalls. I don't know why; all 3 are running regular Ubuntu installs to which I didn't do anything UFW related. I googled a bit, and I found to open ports 1900 and 5000, and then VLC would see...

Confession: I'm using Rhythmbox instead of VLC, because in my search for the nasty problem that VLC skips the first 2 seconds of every song, I haven't found a solution. So for now, I'm just leaving Rhythmbox up. I'll check into turning off the firewall sometime. I'm a sporadic multimediot...

It's running Ubuntu Linux, and the music is hosted on Windows.

Pardon my ignorance again, but I'm having a vexing issue on my main PC, a relatively fast (for me) Ryzen 3700x with a decent M.2 SSD on a gbps ether-network. When I open VLC to try to play music from my UPNP record collection, it takes quite a while to find it. I just checked again, and it...

Yes, looks like Arthur is heading straight NE on the Texas Gulf Coast, then right through Louisiana and into Mississippi: Lord help those poor people. We've had major weather disasters in significant areas of the country; perhaps El Niño will cut back on the Eastern U. S. hurricane season...

Sub-Subject: Trump's Birthday White House Fight-Club (Self-)Celebration This just reminded me of the ancient Roman Emperors' vicious gladiator "games". Caveat Emperor. Hilarious commentary from some Late Night hosts: jimmy-kimmel-jon-stewart-roast-trumps-ufc-white-house-event Luckily...

RIP, Sonny Rollins. . . . . . . . . . 🎶 Blue 7 from

Maybe tariffs / protectionism are playing a role? Keep out / price out foreign RAM/SSDs, as if that will magically create American manufacturing capability.

A week later, it's still running OK. It even survived a Patch-Tuesday "quality update" and forced reboot. It's been running World Community Grid cancer research tasks 24×7×4 cores×100%, as usual. Those tasks take about 1½ hours each, so there have been hundreds of work-unit downloads and...

Thanks very much, Merc and Sed, for your responses. I'm writing this on that WinPC, still going strong (?) after another half-day. And the Magician and CrystalDiskInfo both say the disk is OK. (I did a full scan with Magician.) Because I don't really use it much, I think I'll just let it...

Yo, I'm donimating:

So Saturday, about 11 months later, I woke up to find that PC had locked up. I tried a few restarts, and it would boot and run OK for a few minutes, then freeze up again. I pulled off the cover to see if it was something obvious, like the CPU cooler fan not running, but I found nothing...

More pickin' (and bowin' and slidin') (and fun): [1947 - seminal to rock & roll]

🎸🎶 (good vibes and pickin'):

Waddya, all off on Spring Break? 🥳 😜

The Empire has been declining for a long time (Big Brother 🔍👂 is at least 20 years old 😜): "The Whistleblower Who Uncovered the NSA’s ‘Big Brother Machine’" On January 20, 2006, the front doorbell rang at the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s offices . . . in the Mission District of San...

From this free NY Times article: Trump Seeks to Abolish Iran’s Atomic Stockpile, a Problem He Helped Create President Trump withdrew from the Obama-era nuclear accord in 2018, saying it was the worst deal ever. But Iran responded with an enrichment spree that haunts the negotiations to this day...

No, she's not. She's much too big to fit on my screen. It took much scrolling to see that she's in a bathroom. ;)

Yes, Merc, it looks like your world had gotten more perfecter. How big is your place, that you have room for all those people and computers (and cats old and new)?

Golden Delicious Apple oldie: fun article

From yesterday's Saturday Night Live, "quoting" tRump: “You might remember me from such campaign promises as lower gas prices and no more wars.” “Psych‼️ We love to make promises because a promise is just a lie that hasn’t happened yet.” 😜

Yeah, I don't read a lot of articles about Trump; I can guess the gist of them by the headlines. And a friend just sent me a link that I don't know if I'll ever open: LEST WE FORGET THE HORRORS: AN UNENDING CATALOG OF TRUMP’S CRUELTIES, COLLUSIONS, CORRUPTIONS, AND CRIMES

I just came across this damning testimony about Trump's failed 2020 election theft:

Interesting; I had just read https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/03/rfk-jr-can-promote-getting-measles-with-impunity-doj-lawyer-tells-judge. Trump lawyer asserts in federal court that RFKbaby is above the law. (Just like Trump thinks he is. Or maybe, Trump thinks he is the law,)

Oh, and as I just Emailed some friends about that warmongerer, What's One More War? I'm betting Trump will invade Cuba within a year. He's already "saber rattling" about it ("friendly takeover" - what's a little occupation between friends [they were asking for it]?). That should be a much...

An Ugly Building in a Beautiful City Gets a Much-Debated Makeover. The Tour Montparnasse is one of Paris’s least-loved landmarks. After half a century, it’s finally being remodeled. It's Paris' only skyscraper, and I loved the joke that the best view in Paris is from the observation deck on...

Donald Trump has been a tariffic president. 😜 From Trump throws a temper tantrum after tariff loss in the Supreme Court: At a hastily called press conference, an agitated Trump railed against the conservative Roberts and two of the courts other conservatives, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy...

(I just hope Trump doesn't rename it to Billionaire History Month.) About midway in the month, I'm "woke" enough to lament the countless horrific instances of discrimination against black people in the history of the U. S. (including recently) – no matter how much Trump and his MAGAots try to...

Happy SBS 🎉 Celebrating America's Highest Holy Holiday, Super Bowl Sunday 🏈 ‼️ But perhaps you have heard about the controversial halftime show, featuring recent multi-Grammy-Award winner Bad Bunny. The selection of this Latino star by the NFL created such a raging reactionary reaction...

Isn't it incredible that tRump is still trying to steal the 2020 election, 5 years later? After his January 6 instigated attack on the U. S. Capitol failed. "Luckily", he has pardoned all the thug rioters he sent to blitzkrieg congress, and offered them honorary memberships in ICE .

Another cowardly, criminal gang-related murder today in Minneapolis. 🔫 :cry: 🪦 The victim: an ICU nurse at a Veterans' hospital, armed with a dangerous cell phone, possibly to record the evil gang's crimes.

The Emperor's New Clothes:

Excerpts from this article – Trump Made Over $1.4 Billion Through Graft and Corruption: One year ago, Donald Trump took an oath to serve the American people. Instead, he has focused on using the presidency to enrich himself. President Trump has never been a man to ask what he can do for his...

Greenland of the Free

Buy Greenland? Take It? Why? An Old Pact Already Gives Trump a Free Hand. Analysts say the Cold War agreement allows the president to increase the American military presence almost at will. — This NY Times Article

Breaking News: a dangerous criminal terrorist was arrested yesterday in Minneapolis, armed with a viciously threatening giraffe costume, subdued by numerous masked, heavily armed gang-member thugs Homeland Security officers: The suspect will be charged under Donald Trump's newly-declared...