Glanced across a headline yesterday about a person stuck in Thai jail saying she can spill the beans about #Trump’s pee tape. Or something like that. Actually, dear worst-reader, I’ve been trying to forget about President Stupid and his antics. It’s the only way to deal with what’s going on the world today if you know too much about failure, losing and all things worst. But then I got up this morning with certain things on my mind and ended up doing a quick news scan and to my surprise there was nothing to find on my obsessions this morning–that were probably caused by that damn article yesterday. Luckily there’s the search tools of yore. So I searched for “Russia Thai Trump” and the link below was hit #1. Cool, eh. It was the same article that I glanced over yesterday. And it’s not from some simpleton click bait source. Does that mean one should take it seriously? Could this person really spill the beans–if journalists help her get out of Thai jail–on Trump’s pee-tape? Say… if only someone could find the sheets like someone found that blue dress. Boy, would that be cool.
Been fiddling with a Raspberry Pi 2 for a while now to get the best sound possible to a save-some-money audio system. Even though these little, credit card sized mini-computers are über rocking cool, the only thing I can figure them for is as clients for servers. I currently have two running. RPI 3 is a media client and the RPI 2 is the same, albeit with with a HifiBerry DAC+ Pro is mostly for my audio listening needs. For example, as I worst-write this I’m listening to Robert Plant’s Dreamland. Oh. And before I forget: More on audio on the cheap here.
Although I was able to get the Hifiberry to work from the get go, there was always some software adjustments that it needed and since I’m really, real lazy when it comes to software stuff, it’s taken me a frustrating while to fish through it and not just get some get-go but get it going get-go real well. Which brings me to this post. As you, dear worst-reader, may not note from the pics above, two pics were taken while on a relaxation, i.e. clear head walk in order to figuring out how to configure the config-txt file on both RasPlex and Volumio so that the sound card (Hifiberry) can take full advantage of the RCA cables from it. Then all I had to do was set the client software (i.e. RasPlex) to send 92khz signal (it’ll go up to 196!) through the Hifiberry Dac and bing-bong, whoopsidaisy. Then the next problem.
While on the walk to clear my head, I saw a dead bird and a fishing lure where no bird or lure belonged. The lure belongs no where near the friggin Rhein River where I was walking. In fact, that is not even a river, lake or fresh water fishing lure. But what do I know about fishing–I’m on my third marriage or so? As far as the dead bird goes, I couldn’t help but stare at the thing for a long while wondering if there was a connection. Indeed. I first saw the lure then the bird. On top of that, the bird somehow looked familiar to me. But, like the lure, I couldn’t place it or how it got there. Nomatter.
The remaining pics are from the damaged package I received from you-know-who. I had ordered two 5 volt 3,3 amp powers sources for my RPI/Hifiberry setup. As you may or may not know, RPI require only 5 volts of power. The amperes of the 5 volts, though, determines what you can run with or, as in this case, on the RPI. It seems that the error that I was consistently getting from both RPIs was due to electric inefficiencies. I had been running both PIs using old iPhone USB chargers and whatever USB A to USB micro that I could find. The RPIs weren’t getting enough electricity. These new powers sources seem to have solved the problem. Audio is fantastic. Thank you Robert Plant!
Rant on.
-T
PS Of the USB pic, the one on the left is the proper micro connector. It’s both longer and, because it’s transformer is permanent, seems to provide optimal 3 ampere power to the RPI with the HifiBerry DAC+ Pro, which requires more than an RPI without it.
PSS My next project is to try another RPI 3 with the HifiBerry Amp2.
Are you serious with this pic on the back of your book, Mr. Wolff? (Taken with iPhone6s directly off back cover.)
Books with scary pictures of authors on inner or back covers should be avoided at all costs. I suppose that goes for worst-writers, too. At least that’s what I used to tell myself–about real writers that actually get paid to write stuff. With that in mind, hats off to you Mr. Wolff. Which brings me to this worst-question: did Michael Wolff pick the pic (above) for the back cover or did some corpo automaton pick it for him? Answer: Nomatter.
Just don’t let you kids near this guy–or President Stupid.
And by-the-buy, I didn’t buy this book. Never in my wildest thoughts did I ever seriously consider even going near this book. What can one read about President Stupid that one hasn’t already had stuffed down his/her throat with gulps of desperation? Either that or one can just watch some moronic TV, preferably WWE or reality-tv, and one can be just as informed. And that’s not all. One can also watch redneck, white trash #americant. Indeed. Watch it or read it. For between the lines of this book might just be a chronicle of the end of the beginning… Or is it the beginning of the end? Nomatter. At the least Wolff is a damn good writer.
I mean, he can spell and he knows how to use some big words. Or maybe not.
Kudos to my son for gifting me this book for my birthday. It’s his thing, don’t you know. I mean, gifting books during gifting season. As best as I can tell he’s mostly only gifted me, his stepmom and his mother, books. Wait. He gifted some bath oil to my better-half recently. So I could be wrong. Jeez. He’s twenty now. I don’t really know what he’s up to anymore anyway, what his motivations are, youthful prodigy confusion, etc. Yet he gave me a book that he should be reading. Yes. This book is for the youth of tomorrow. For those who would see how things shouldn’t be. Oh my. Confusion. Ditto. Confusion.
Let me begin this pseudo-review with some outtakes.
Chapter 20 (about The Mooch): “He had paid as much as half a million dollars to have his firm’s logo appear in the movie Wall Street 2 and to buy himself a cameo part in the film.”
Chapter 19(a): “Donald Trump’s sons existed in an enforced infantile relationship to their father, a role that embarrassed them, but one that they also professionally embraced. The role was to be Trump’s heirs and attendees. Their father took some regular pleasure in pointing out that they were in the back of the room when God handed out brains. Their sister Invanka, certainly no native genius, was the designated family smart person, her husband Jared the family’s smooth operator.”
Chapter 19(b): “The real swamp is the swamp of insular, inbred, incestuous interests (of Washington DC).”
Chapter 16: “In presidential annals, the firing of FBI director James Comey may be the most consequential move ever made by a modern president acting entirely on his own.”
Chapter 13: “The world of the rich is, in its fashion, self regulating. Social climbing has rules.”
Chapter 8: “It became almost immediately clear that the common purpose of the campaign and the urgency of the transition were lost as soon as the Trump team stepped into the White House. They had gone from managing Trump to the expectation of being managed by him–or at least through him and almost solely for his purposes. Yet the president, while proposing the most radical departure from governing and policy norms in several generations, had few specific ideas about how to turn his themes and vitriol into policy, nor a team that could reasonably unite behind him.”
Chapter 7 (on how money laundering works): “One way the process can work is, roughly speaking, as follows: an oligarch makes an investment in a more or less legitimate third-party investment fund, which, quid pro quo, makes an investment in Trump.”
Chapter 7 is a particularly interesting chapter. It contains five theories on Trump’s Russia collusion which is, probably, the most significant aspect of Trump–other than his regime increasing the US debt to new highs. Of course, dear worst-reader, I read the book in February 2018. The book doesn’t really contain anything new as its content pretty-much ends around the fall of 2017. With that in mind, it does feel like the book is the script from which all news is being reported now. Yet some of it kept me almost enthralled.
This book is, at best, a well chronicled history of the first six months to a year of President Stupid and more importantly President Stupid’s… Trump-ism. If you are anti-Trump then you can easily stomach this book. If you’re pro-Trump this book doesn’t matter because, well, like Trump, you probably don’t read anyway. Also, Wolff does a good job of hiding his biases in this book. Yet when one watches him try to sell it on tv or when he appears on the Interwebnets, it might not be so obvious if he is anti-Trump. Oh how the appearance of being objective might help sales. Except, of course, for the child molesting pic he put on the back cover of this book.
Anywho.
Even though I did find myself struggling through chapters here and there, skipping huge parts of Wolff’s attempt at making something interesting that obviously isn’t, I’d recommend this book. Reason? Trump is literally a projection of not just a weak, spoiled mind, but also of an America that is just as rotten. I mean, come on. How else could such a person get elected? And I’m not sure that was Wolff’s intention. This is certainly no prize-redeeming piece of work. Indeed. Wolff has done nothing more than chronicle a huge $hitshow. And he’s done it fairly well.
Don’t you hate it when that happens? This particular wheel lasted for well over ten minutes–until I forced a restart on my MacBook Air 7,2. This is but another reminder of how much I’m gonna enjoy making this my last Apple hardware purchase (I spitefully hope). As far as MacOS goes, Apple has really dropped the lead ball and shown its corporate intentions with this once great computing platform. Obviously iOS is the future (for Apple). And that’s all fine and dandy–if you don’t mind obnoxious closed eco-systems and pseudo-computing. I’m just too old for that sort of thing. Seriously. I tried iOS. I purchased an iPad4 from Apple US refurbished store about three years ago. I used it on and off for about a year, testing if it could replace my 2010 13″ MacBook Pro. I bought a keyboard for it, too. Even typed a few thousands words on it. But was seriously no match for a real computer. The new iPad Pro is another story. My better half has one. Other than her work’s krappy use of spreadsheets and closed eco-system corporate communication, she uses her iPad for everything. It has replaced her use of a PC. My problem is, even after trying an older iPad and still using an iPhone is different. I just don’t like iOS. System upgrades on that platform are worse than on regular computing platforms. I’m assuming the reason for that is simple: they got you more by the balls with their closed eco-systems then they do with real computers. With every iOS update (especially on my iPhone 6s) I’ve never actually seen any improvement in the device. The only thing you get is the/a need to replace what Apple is making obsolete. Btw. When I started computing it was all about owning a device. It was about data being mine. It was about me being part of something as an individual. The thing is, I’m seriously not impressed anymore with the industries move away from personal computing to collective, eco-system digital consumption. But then again, I haven’t been impressed with an OS since I moved from WinXP to Mac Snow Leopard about ten years ago. With that in mind, I suppose my time is up. Indeed. Time to move on from Apple. Time to figure out how not to follow trends. I guess.
MacPro 5,1 with Snow Leopard
The pic above is from a system downgrade I did recently on my ageing MacPro which serves as my home network server. I was upgrading drive capacity and decided to do a clean install. I used to do them every year so this one was long overdue. While erasing and cleaning disks, I installed Snow Leopard 10.6.3 (yes, from original disks) for the heck of it. Nostalgia rules, baby. And boy does it still work great. Since I mainly use this device as a “headless” server for iTunes, Plex and file sharing, it’s not possible to keep Snow Leopard running. Also, even though I boot El Capitan from a PCIe SSD on the motherboard, the important stuff is on old fashion spinning drives. Apple’s High Sierra is using a new file system specifically for SSDs. Sure, the new file system will work with old spinning drives. But I’m not going there on this device. El Capitan is the end OS for this great machine which no existing NAS can replace. After it no longer works, then maybe I’ll just finally get to install Snow Leopard and do lots of nostalgic fiddling or maybe even turn it into a fish tank.
It’s such a shame that Apple and its Macintosh has gone down the road of suck.
Don’t know why, but I’m totally into collecting these phishing emails. Here’s another one I got a few months back. Of course, when I get them I think of two things. One, of course, is to make sure I don’t click the wrong links in the email. The second is, …ha ha ha ha ha! John Podesta clicked one of these links and directly partook in the dumbing down of my beloved #americant. Wow. Rant on.
