June 2020 – Page 2 – Splendid Isolation

Quote Of The Day

June 27, 2020 Kim du Toit QOTD, Sports

From The Coldly Furious One, speaking of NASCAR’s ritual self-abasement over nothing:

For the bigwigs at NOOSCAR, it’s extremely difficult to see a downside: they get to piously denounce all those icky, beer-swilling rednecks and their disgusting Rebel flags, suck up to their anticipated new audience of Nee-grows and the white SJWs who take a knee for them, and establish their PC bona-fides without breaking a real sweat. For that, they’ll gladly throw a nonentity like “Bubba” onto the pyre, strike a match, and send his ass floating off downriver.
Nice try and all, but it’s not going to work. And that serves ’em right, far as I’m concerned.

Ditto for the NFL. Both organizations, flush with TV money, don’t seem to give a rat’s ass about their actual audience.

Naturally, this whole thing is irrelevant to me, as I don’t follow either sport (being of the Europhile heritage, prefer the actual football, and Formula 1). So I can look at the situation dispassionately and with quiet amusement, treating the doings of both as a marketing exercise.

Not that football and Formula 1 are paragons of righteousness, of course; I expect them both to succumb to the blowjobs demanded of them by the various foul organizations such as BLM, feminism and Pantifa and their loathsome offshoots.

The nice thing about supporting a sport, however, is that participation is purely voluntary and money not spent on an NFL Redzone subscription can just be spent on ammunition or a new gun — which will really piss off all the Commies. And as for NASCAR:

Morons

June 27, 2020 Kim du Toit Technology

Several years ago, I had lying around the house some of those “bullet-hole” decals:

…which, for no reason at all, I affixed to the lid of my then-laptop (as I recall, a Gateway), to set it apart from the half-dozen other laptops in the house. All was well, and I forgot all about them until one day I called on a longtime client, and when I opened up the laptop, he chuckled and said, “Another satisfied Microsoft customer.” Statement, not a question.

I told you all that so I could tell you this.

I set up my shiny new HP laptop, transferred all the files and data over, and it all went off without too much fuss other than the Thunderbird email setup, but even that was just a small annoyance.

Next was to set up all the hardware. As I never use a touchpad, only a wireless Logitech rollerball, I went to disable the touchpad — because as we all know, when you type on a laptop, your hand will often brush over the active pad, which moves the cursor all over the place or, more annoyingly, you may hit the “Enter” or “right-click” button by accident, with the expected dolorous outcomes. This is a simple job: you find the hardware under Options, and click the “Disable” button. I say this in the present tense, but if fact, it should be in the past tense because — and here’s the executive summary — with the latest version of Windows 10, you cannot disable the touchpad. There is NO “Disable” button. Oh, you can (sorta) disable it, but every time you reboot, it comes back to life. And guess what? If you uninstall it, it gets reinstalled when rebooting, too.

So off I went to Microsoft’s “troubleshooting” web page to see if I was just being a moron or otherwise dense. I wasn’t.

There were TWELVE PAGES of questions on the topic, for both Synaptics and Elan touchpads, and the executive summary is that, in characteristic fashion, Microsoft’s “upgrades” have somehow just fucked this most simple of tasks in the ass. (Ever tried changing your Windows background to black with Win10? You can’t do that either.)

And the irritation from the users was, in a word, volcanic as fix after fix was tried, and found wanting. Even if you go in and physically delete the touchpad drivers, they’ll be reinstalled automatically either in the upgrade process, or (once again) upon rebooting. The fucking application cannot be killed.

One guy actually ended up going to a geek store and had them uncouple the internal connections so that the touchpad could never work again but, as he admitted, if his mouse ever crashed, he’d be stuck with essentially a brick. (Nobody knows how to use a keyboard to get around Windows anymore, and I think that some of the workarounds have actually disappeared over the years.)

What a goat rodeo.

So… what did I do? I did what a couple of users suggested. Here’s a pic of my new laptop:

And here’s the modified laptop:

Yes, Gentle Readers: I stuck a piece of cardboard over the touchpad. High-tech solution, n’est- ce pas?

One of these days, the bullet-holes in my laptop may not be decals.

Friday Night Music: The National River, And A Bat

June 26, 2020 Kim du Toit Culture, Friday Feature, Music

For those who don’t know the music I’ll be talking about here, a brief exposition.

The Moldau (Vlatan) River is regarded as the Czechs’ national river. Read about it here, then listen to the music here (not the one embedded in the article).

The young conductor, Nejc Bečan, is one I’ve never heard before, but his direction of the orchestra is absolutely stunning, and the rendition of Bedrich Smetana’s Vlatan is the best I’ve ever heard. It’s about a 15-minute piece, and it’ll make your evening.

Switching gears, here’s an old favorite, Strauss’s overture of Die Fledermaus. But instead of an energetic young conductor, we have the old maestro Georges Pretre, and instead of a young orchestra, we have a performance from the seasoned pros of the Vienna Philharmonic. It is probably my favorite rendition, and I’ve heard plenty. It lasts about ten minutes.

Take, therefore, less than half an hour from your hectic routine, sit back, and enjoy.

Outstanding Comparison

June 26, 2020 Kim du Toit Gun/Ammo Tests, The Gun Thing

I just watched Paul Harrell’s video comparison of the .357 Mag cartridge vs. the .44 Mag, and it’s the best yet. Basically, he compares identical bullet weight and barrel length (to make it “fair”) in an empirical study, then compares “common” gun choices and bullet weights for a realistic evaluation.

But what impressed me was that he doesn’t bother with any of that ballistic gelatin nonsense. Nope; he builds a realistic effectiveness measurement target using pork ribs, pork chops, oranges (to simulate vitals tissue) and back ribs. This is what I’d do if I wanted to get into what he does, on a full-time basis.

Watch the video for the full flavor. It’s long — as they all are — because he’s serious about the topic.

As for his bona fides, he lists them all at the beginning of this video, and let’s just say that his skills, knowledge and expertise are more than adequate for the task.

He’s done many more such shows, so wave good-bye to your weekend if you dive into the Harrell Matrix. That’s where I’ll be, if anyone asks.

Scrollwork

June 26, 2020 Kim du Toit Gratuitous Gun Pics, The Gun Thing

Reader & Friend JohnC sent me this pic of a Smith Model 629, which had all sorts of electronic drool stains on it:

I have to say, the artwork is well done, and extremely tasteful.

And yet, I have a love/hate relationship with engraving. On the one hand, I regard the gun as a tool, and adding embellishment like the above often seems to me to be like engraving patterns onto a screwdriver or a chainsaw.

On the other hand, I will never love any garage tool as much or in the same way as I love my 1911 — or pretty much any of my guns, really. Guns may be tools, in other words, but not quite so much.

My problem with adding engraving onto a gun is that it makes it pretty, and that means you start treating it differently, either in its actual handling or else in frequency of use. Turning a range gun into a safe queen… well, I think you all know where I stand on that issue.

Over at the Daily Timewaster, C.W. often has pics of fancy guns, like these two:

…and once again, I’m somewhat conflicted. While nobody can complain about the craftsmanship in either case, I just can’t get excited about it other than that: appreciation of the artistry.

Even with fine shotguns, I’m of a more conservative bent. Here are two examples, from Steve Barnett’s House Of Horrors, of otherwise identical Venere-model shotguns from Abbiatico & Salvinelli:

I love the first, but kinda “meh” about the second. And of course it’s not just the Italians. Here are three from J. Purdey, the ultimate stiff-upper-lip Brit company: