Starting the new year today with the same old habits.
Got the DVD of a classic 1945 French film ("Children of Paradise"), ordered two CDs of vintage jazz pianist Art Tatum, and watched "Godzilla vs Destroyah".
Dave's Journal, Jan2021
Starting the new year today with the same old habits.
Got the DVD of a classic 1945 French film ("Children of Paradise"), ordered two CDs of vintage jazz pianist Art Tatum, and watched "Godzilla vs Destroyah".
Some of my favorite movies are foreign-language films with English subtitles. For a year, I have been struggling to copy some DVDs I have to mp4s so I can view on my netbook. I use the "Handbrake" program to do this and it is not known for its fine documentation, and I never got the subtitles to copy..... until the last few days.
I was determined, and spent hours trying the various options, clicking the various boxes, and viola ... I got it to work.
No one needs to know this detail, but this is a safe place to store this screen cap, for reference:
A Christmas present - literally every work of art in the world's most famous art museum is shown in this book. (It weighs about 10 pounds.)
Washington, D.C., officials say four people have died, including one in a shooting inside the U.S. Capitol, and more than a dozen police officers were injured after a mob of supporters of President Trump stormed the nation's legislative building, temporarily shutting down a vote to certify his successor's win.
The U.S. Capitol Police says "thousands of individuals involved in violent riotous actions" stormed the building that houses Congress. The extremists attacked police "with metal pipes, discharged chemical irritants, and took up other weapons against our officers," said late Thursday morning, in its first statement about the events.
Officials say one woman was shot by a Capitol Police officer amid the chaos near the House chamber where lawmakers were sheltering in place, and that she later died from the injury. The agency identified the woman as Ashli Babbitt.
Three others died after separate medical emergencies, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and D.C. Metropolitan Police Chief Robert Contee said during a news conference.
The news has my nerves ever so edgy-edgy. Really. At my age, I should not be worried about the future of my country - I won't be here, and no one listens to me anyway.
But my blood pressure does spike, as it did yesterday.
This morning I soothed my soul with a treat. Apple slices pan-cooked in butter and cinnamon on wheat toast. Espresso on the side - yes, caffeine, I know.
In my defense, this was after I had a healthy bowl of Cheerios with raisins when I first got up, and a "second breakfast" of a mashed potato omlette.
I feel a lot calmer now. Let those people in Washington do whatever they desire. It's not my fault.
Last May, I nervously bought a MacPro. (I am a Linux user for ....what? .... 25 years.) And it takes a lot to get used to "the Apple way" of doing things and finding where things are and why are they there and please turn off this automated crap ...... etc etc etc
But I have progressed and got the Mac to operate as I like it.
One very big limitation has been with a Tcl/tk utility that I wrote years back and I love and in fact it is the html editor I use to write davesjournal here for the last 13+ years. Sadly, I could not find how to get it to run on the Mac. I read volumes of complicated internet stuff about this and that and packages that "help" (they don't) and .... it goes on and on. This is important because I would very much like to write davesjournal on the Mac, using my own utility (I labeled it "SantaFe.tcl").
This morning, I turned away from the internet advice, opened a terminal window and started poking around /usr/bin and inside SantaFe as it runs in Linux. Throwing caution to the wind, I kept typing commands and looking around system folders and .... and .... it ran !!!! Well it did not crash and it kind of ran. It looks like I have some moderate debugging with colors and folder names from my Linux netbook .... but it ran on the Mac (screen capture above).
I made an avocado omlette for breakfast. Parmesian sprinkled on top, French dressing on the side. Flip it in the pan (don't fold it) . French press coffee too.
Very exciting times, we live in.
My favorite news source for truthfullness is the Christian Science Monitor, and I've said that a bunch of times. Their output is fair and non-incendiary. It comes off as rather boring, compared to other sources. But it keeps a cool head and does not tell half-truths or outright lies.
I bring this up because today, they have a respectable comment of (what else, these days) the transition crisis at the White House. I won't comment on this, here it is copied&pasted.
In the early morning hours of Nov. 4, 2020, President Donald Trump told possibly the most consequential falsehood of his life. The lie was that he had been reelected by American voters to a second term, despite tens of millions of votes still outstanding and rapidly narrowing margins in key states.
"Frankly, we did win this election," he said.
What happened on Jan. 6 spun directly out of the original falsity and its subsequent embellishment. Supporters stormed the Capitol, wrecking historic rooms, barely missing the chance to seize elected officials. President Trump was impeached by the House for inciting the riot.
Lies can be powerful. Some wear on the truth and lead those who want to believe into a parallel world more in accordance with their presuppositions. The notion that Mr. Trump actually won the election, and that a liberal-elite conspiracy is denying him a second term, is such a lie.
It is not a "Big Lie" in the sense of establishing an entire, sinister, and false view of the world, as did the Nazi myth that Germany lost World War I because Jews and socialists stabbed the nation in the back. But it is big enough to shake American democracy.
Research by Leicester University and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found there is a devastating long-term toll on survivors of severe coronavirus, with many people developing heart problems, diabetes and chronic liver and kidney conditions.
Out of 47,780 people who were discharged from hospital in the first wave, 29.4 per cent were readmitted to hospital within 140 days, and 12.3 per cent of the total died.
The current cut-off point for recording Covid deaths is 28 days after a positive test, so it may mean thousands more people should be included in the coronavirus death statistics.
Researchers have called for urgent monitoring of people who have been discharged from hospital.
Study author Kamlesh Khunti, professor of primary care diabetes and vascular medicine at Leicester University, said: "This is the largest study of people discharged from hospital after being admitted with Covid.
"People seem to be going home, getting long-term effects, coming back in and dying. We see nearly 30 per cent have been readmitted, and that's a lot of people. The numbers are so large.
"The message here is we really need to prepare for long Covid. It's a mammoth task to follow up with these patients and the NHS is really pushed at the moment, but some sort of monitoring needs to be arranged."
The study found that Covid survivors were nearly three and a half times more likely to be readmitted to hospital, and die, in the 140 days timeframe than other hospital outpatients.
Prof Khunti said the team had been surprised to find that many people were going back in with a new diagnosis, and many had developed heart, kidney and liver problems, as well as diabetes.
Speaking of scary stuff, Train to Busan is an excellent movie, despite that it looks like another cheap zombie movie. It really has a personal storyline and very worth watching. In fact I just dropped some $$$ on the DVD.
Rare person .... he actually listened to you !! and didn't open his mouth until he knew what he was talking about.
It is very cold out there this morning - coldest morning in a long time. Winter makes me want to sleep a lot, despite the espressos I have during the day, and lately been enjoying these lovely pastries from Gerado's. Good that the Dr is not doing blood sugar tests on me.
I renewed my NewYorker subscription after a 2-year break, and I am really getting back into their style of seeing things. Over the decades, this magazine did more to shape my view of what's going on around me than any other publication. They just have this very "upper NewYork" way of seeing and reporting things.
I am glad I signed up again.
