I’m moving into a heat wave, here in the crappy old CatBox for the next several days, but nowhere nearly as bad as what you guys in the East and Midwest will get. Please take care! For the next two days, please expect no more than a Personal Update with no links messages on Care2. Tomorrow is a WWWendy day to destink the rancid TomCat, and we’re going to the shiny new CatBox. Monday, I have to go to TriMet for lift bus recertification. I need to prove that I have not grown a new leg and that my power chair has not mutated.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 4:07 (average 5:23). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From YouTube (a blast from the past): Watch Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon
The only thing they could have done better is to give the honor to be first on the moon to a cat. Ah… the memories. RESIST!!
From YouTube (Oregonian Channel):Portland protestors throw fake blood on street in front of ICE headquarters
Kudos to the protestors! Oregon leads the way! Put ICE on ice! RESIST!
From NY Times: Gabriel Weinberg is taking aim at Google from a small building 20 miles west of Philadelphia that looks like a fake castle. An optometrist has an office downstairs.
Mr. Weinberg’s company, DuckDuckGo, has become one of the feistiest adversaries of Google. Started over a decade ago, DuckDuckGo offers a privacy-focused alternative to Google’s search engine.
The company’s share of the search engine market is still tiny — about 1 percent compared with Google’s 85 percent, according to StatCounter. But it has tripled over the past two years and is now handling around 40 million searches a day. It has also made a profit in each of the last five years, Mr. Weinberg said.
Mr. Weinberg, 40, is among the most outspoken critics of the internet giants. DuckDuckGo’s chief executive has repeatedly called for new privacy-focused legislation and has warned at hearings and in newspaper opinion pieces about the problems that big companies can cause by tracking our every move online.
I often use DuckDuckGo for research and recommend it. RESIST!!
Cartoon:
14 Responses to “Open Thread – 7/20/2019”
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6:16 Less scary than a human clown.
Oh gee – and I’m moving out of a heat wave, at least for about a week. Even the one I’m moving out of isn’t as bad as the ones we had last year (although the bank said, as I was leaving Las Animas, the temperature was 111°F). Hang in there!
YT – Neil insists that he said “one small step for a man,” but I can see why no one heard that, even though it makes more sense. I didn’t hear it myself, and I was listening for any sound that could have been overlooked – but nothing.
Oregon – Kudos indeed. Fake blood is just the right note to protest a fake government that puts out fake news for fake patriots and fake Christians. Perfect.
NYT – DuckDuckGo is recommended by pretty much everyone who has any kind of privacy concerns. I need to get deeper into it. What’s been holding me back is that my gmail account is my only other real email account besides my primary one, and for many sites, one is required to have a backup. Anyone know a good, reliable, respectful free email provider?
Cartoon – Yup.
JD, I can set you up s PP email account, because you’re staff.
From decades ago when I dropped AOL, I did keep my AOL email address – and it’s free.
It’s my “dummy” email address when you’re forced to provide an address to some place you will not be using regularly, and you really don’t want to compromise your “real” address.
From a cursory search it looks like you can still obtain one for free, w/out having to use AOL otherwise. About every couple of months I go in to keep it active & empty all the mail that still comes from use decades ago.
YT: I remember this like it was yesterday!! Seeing history being made. I was still in boot camp, but we were allowed to view this momentous event.
Oregon: Kudos to the protesters! How awesome is this?? Pretty dam awesome!
NYT: I didn’t know anything about this…but if you use it, it’s good enough for me. Thx for the head’s up!
Cartoon: Cool and historical indeed !!!
Hope that you get a chance to rest for your undertakings the next couple days! I live in Hell, as the weather here is @99 right now, and no letup in sight. The heat just saps any energy one may have…..thank gawd for AC…
*This just in: “Angela Merkel has a PhD in quantum chemistry, while the dotard couldn’t even compete in a 5th grade spelling bee.” ~ Joel A. ~
2. “Republicans need to stop circling the wagons around dt, and start circling the wagons around the Country.” ~ Elijah Cummings ~
3. “What’s the difference between a (R) politician and a catfish? One is a bottom feeding dwelling scum sucker, and the other is a fish.” ~ Bob G.
Plant trees while you search the webWe use the profit we make from your searches to plant trees where they are needed most. Get the free browser extension and plant trees with every search.
https://info.ecosia.org/
I like DuckDuckGo, as well as Ecosia. I use both as alternatives to “do be evil” Google.
We should have followed up the Apollo landings with an international permanent base on Luna. But 50 years later we are squabbling about immigrants, political correctness, and pop culture stars.
Y/T-Moon: Saw it as live as the lag time from the moon to the Earth, from my friend, Doug’s, parents’ home. I remain amazed that cynical fools, thinking themselves smarter than everybody else, continue to doubt its having been real. I was talking to one recently, who was proud to be seen as so cynical, and not until some time later did I come to think that his cynicism thoroughly clouded his thinking, and pushed him to seek alternative, what he might think of as “knowing,” explanations for what the rest of us accept as “normal” or “ordinary” reality.
Oregonian: Wonderful!
DuckDuckGo has been part of my system for a year, or two. I do not recall how I came across it.
‘Toon: Amen! But Freya is right. We’ve spent time pissing over such trivia as the Kardashians, and whatnot, instead of building unity as a species.
WRT Your Heat Wave:
Above all else – keep yourself hydrated!
If you’re going to be outside in this heat, plan on drinking roughly 8 ounces of water every 15 to 20 minutes. That’s about two 16-ounce water bottles every hour.
But do NOT take more than 48 ounces of water in an hour (which can cause water intoxication and secondary Secretion of Inappropriate Antidiuretic Hormone [SIADH]) – a potentially lethal (or brain damaging) complication.
YT: Amazing watching these astronauts. Landing on the Moon and Neil Armstrong speaking those famous words. Watched it on CNN this evening.
Oregon: Bravo to the protesters! They showed who has the POWER.
NYT – Never heard of DuckDuckGo. Will check it out. I don’t want anyone tracking me. I like privacy.
Cartoon: Amazing what they accomplished. I too agree with Freya, that they need to pick up and get their butts into action NOW.
Keep cool. I know we are going to have another one hitting here too. Up and down with the heat. Not good.
Just keep thinking of your new studio. Where you will have a deceit working A/C.
What browser are you using? Some have a “Do Not Track” setting applying to all sites, not just search engines. (of course, some sites may not let you in using it.)
I know Crome, which I use, does. But I don’t trust Google Chrome ti enforce it on Google search engine.
Yeah, I don’t trust Chrome for anything. But Vivaldi, which I now primarily use (with Opera as my secondary) has an agreement with Google that allows them to use a few Chrome components without reporting anything to Google, and it has a “Do Not Track,” so I expect that’s one. (Opera works very similarly to Vivaldi, but I haven’t checked for a “Do Not Track.” It has a built-in Ad Blocker, which means some of my favorite sites won’t allow it in.)
3:42 Even though it’s clownish, too cute to eat.
CBS: Just a moment ago scientists revealed in an interview here on TV that the first thing that landed on the moon, even before Neil Armstrong made his first step, was a little white bag with garbage, which probably still is right where Armstrong dropped it standing on the first rung of the ladder on his way down. Yes, those memories…all wrecked now by knowing our garbage preceded mankind.
Oregonian: Republicans will call it pointless vandalism, but let’s call it excellent and just protest.
DuckduckGo installed.
Keep coll in all possible ways during the heatwave, TomCat.
Thanks and Hurry Hugs to all.