Veggies

All the medics and dieticians keep pushing the value of eating veggies.  They are probably right, but a serving of green peas is never gonna have the attraction of a Big Mac and fries, at least for me.  But, I have found a few veggie things that taste pretty good.
   Lettuce.  In salads.  Conventional salads, chef's salads with a bit of sliced ham, and plain old steakhouse style.  Just a wedge of lettuce on a plate with your favorite salad dressing poured on top.
   Celery.  Stuffed with cream cheese, and cut into 3 inch lengths.  Crunchy.
   Carrots.  Raw, with ranch dip.  Either the expensive little mini carrots, or just plain old carrots, peeled and sliced.
  Artichoke.  Steamed, with a bit of garlic.  And melted butter to dip the leaves into.
  Apples.  I cut 'em into quarters, and cut out the seeds.  Less waste than just nibbling them down to the core.  With a little cheddar cheese on the side.
  Apple sauce.  Comes in little single serving plastic tubs.  Sweet and moist, just right during winter heating season when everything gets dry.  Also good with pork.
  Tomatoes.  Sliced with a bit of cottage cheese on top.  And a dash of basil.  Juicy.   
  Pineapple.  Cans of sliced pineapple.  Serve it with some cottage cheese on top. 

Broadband under repair

I got back from shopping yesterday, and found a bright international orange tag hanging on my doorknob.  It claimed excessive radio frequency leakage had been detected from my cable, FCC part 76 violations, yadda yadda, call the cable company and get ti fixed.  And my internet was dead. 
  So I called the cable company, and surprize, the tech showed up bright an early this morning.  I gave him a cup of coffee and than he go to work.  He replaced some coax going to the TV and the FM, and the modem, and replaced some connectors.  All was well, Channel 6 now comes in clear instead of fuzzy, and the meter says all is quiet.  So I am back on the air.

Firefox is getting flaky

More and more, Firefox is getting flaky.  Something goes wrong after some time active and it slows to a crawl.   Task manager shows firefox.exe and container-plugin.exe eating up 90 percent of CPU time, and hogging hundreds of K of ram.  Contain-plugin.exe is some kinda Firefox helper program.  In bad cases, Task manager will report Firefox is not responding.  And task manager has trouble killing off Firefox when he gets all bent out of shape.  So far after a lotta tries, eventually  the "kill" command works but it's getting harder and harder.
   Some Googling suggested  resetting Firefox.  The reset command is deeply hidden (Help ->troubleshooting info->reset. ).  It works, didn't break anything.  Didn't really help, I still have the problem. 
  Interesting side note.  Reset leaves a copy of your "old" profile after creating a new fresh clean one.  The "old" profile is 27 megabytes, which is a lot.  I can see how a single tiny error in a 27 megabyte database could throw a program into an infinite loop.
   Stay tuned for future developments.   

What's Gone Wrong with Democracy?

Cover story in last week's Economist.  They run a six page special section on it.  Lotta whining about failure of democracies to legislate things they approve of, such as balanced budgets and stable currency.  More whining about failure of democracy to "take" after the revolutions in Egypt, Libya, Ukraine, and other places.
   Seems to me, Economist is confusing two really separate subjects.  One subject is the planting of democracy in undemocratic states, the other subject is democratic decision making in traditional democracies.  The causes and cures for these two subjects are different.
   To plant democracy in an previously undemocratic state is a matter of a citizenry ready for democracy.  Needed is a citizenry willing to abide by the rule of law, which means you need fair courts, that are seen to be fair.  If the courts are seen as biased, unjust, and crooked, nobody is going to pay them much heed.  Once you have some decent courts, your citizenry has to be willing to accept the court's ruling even when that ruling goes to the other side.  And you need some decent people to staff the democratic government at all levels.  They must be able to place the national interest ahead of their personal, family, tribal, and local interests. 
   Growing these and other necessary attitudes among the citizenry takes time, generations. Where the citizenry lacks these attitudes, democracy won't work. The issue in these countries is the survival of the democratic government itself. 
   The other subject, the difficulties in well established democracies like the US, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and others, to make good decisions in areas such as budgets, national debt, taxes, education, central banking, foreign policy.  The established democracies are teetering on a cusp between the makers and the takers.  The takers want more free stuff, the makers don't want to pay for more free stuff.  Both sides have about the same strength, neither side has the votes to push thru their pet programs.  The result is called "gridlock",  but its really democracy in action.  If you don't have the votes, you don't get your way.  Most of the people whining about gridlock, are actually whining that they cannot get their way when they don't have the votes. 

Computer bugs/hackers/whatever hit All Electronics

All Electronics has been around for 5 may 10 years, so it isn't a newbie on the web.  They sell electronic parts, like you used to be able to get at Radio Shack.  I ordered a bunch of stuff from them last summer.  the stuff came in, works right, and I'd sorta forgotten about it.  Til the other  night.  I get one of those "Your All Electronics order number such and such has shipped" emails.  Hmm I said to myself,  I don't remember ordering anything from them lately.  Looking at the parts on the order, I remembered ordering this stuff, and receiving it, last summer.  Very strange.
  Next morning, another email from All.  They explained they had been doing maintenance on their system and something went wrong, and a batch of old shipping notices got resent.  Not to worry, just a computer glitch, we didn't reship this stuff, and we haven't double billed anyone's credit card. 
    How much of this do I believe?  Were they hacked like Target?  I'll surely double check my Mastercard bill this month. 
    Just to be fair.  All Electronics is a perfectly reliable supplier, good stuff cheap and fast.  I'll order from them again. 

Talking with Cats

Cats have a number of things that they say to their humans.
1.  Meow                                  I want something.  Human is expected to fill in from context. 
                                                 such as Food, In, Out, Petting.
2. Purr                                       I am pleased with the world.
3. Tail lash                                  I am upset and unhappy.  Back off or you might get hurt.
4. Tail held high                           I am feeling cool and groovy today.
5. Tail held straight out and level  I am hunting and I don't want to spook the game
6. Tail between legs.                    I am scared.
7. Siren Howl.                             A war cry.
8. Merrup (part meow part purr)  I was stroked unexpectedly.
9. Hiss  (raised fur, fluffed up tail)  I am mad, you are about to get clawed

Going the other way, cats pretend not to understand anything  said to them.  Cats know that understanding leads to demands for obedience, which is far beneath the dignity of cats.  Obedience is for dogs.  

Damn tool makers

Who make tools with round handles.  So they roll off the bench, onto the floor and disappear every time I set them down.  Tools ought to have hexagonal handles, or at least a single flat side, so they stay put when you put 'em down.