All posts by Elliott

Elliott lives on a tidal river in coastal Georgia, loves to fly, writes a bit, works in healthcare for the federal government, and is system administrator for the swiftpassage webs.
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Yateveo Salad

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A Recipe for Yateveo Salad

4-6 yellow shoots of new growth Yateveo leavesyateveo salad
2 green onions
1/2 red pepper
1 stalk  white celery
1 black avocado

Take the usual precautions in gathering the Yateveo shoots, by first exhausting the plant for safe harvest. It is worth noting that a tree that is still somewhat “frisky” yields more flavorful leaves. Be careful!

Dice or shred all ingredients. Toss together with vinegar and oil. Arrange on small side plates, and garnish lightly with sawdust. Serves 8 Greys, 2-4 members of the Chromatocracy, or 1 Prefect, unless suddenly appropriated by an Apocryphal Man.

Jasper Fforde has reviewed this recipe, and proclaimed it “good”.

If this recipe puzzles you,  please find and read Fforde’s ‘Shades of Grey’. You’re welcome!

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Book review – ‘Shug’s Place’ by Bob Strother

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A Review of ‘Shug’s Place-A Novel in Stories’

‘Shug’s Place’ and Bob Strother’s writing can handily fill the shoes of Robert B. Parker, if you’ve been missing Spenser in recent years, for Strother’s characters share with Parker’s that same gritty kind of urban beat (Detroit in ‘Shug’s Place’, opposite Parker’s Boston and environs). Shug and Spenser, as characters have much in common: They are both “men in full”, strength combined with complexity, goodness with a shot of ethical pragmatism, which is a mix that works very well for these stories, which range over fast action, police procedures, ethnic divisions, and human relationships.NovelShugsPlace

 

In addition to Shug and the other engaging characters in Strother’s human cast, the title character should not be overlooked: This collection is named ‘Shug’s PLACE’; the present-day name of the bar Shug runs. Strother has lovingly imagined a deep history of stories connecting the ongoing tales born within those walls to persons, some long past and forgotten, whose lives were shaped by the same place; the building or ownership or patronage of the same little bar. Taverns, as a center for human congress, are fast slipping away from their original role in our history. American democracy, it’s been argued, was born in taverns. Strother has, like a film’s set designer, taken great care in etching careful details into this central setting, and using the flashback, has given the place its own deep back-story.

 

This all works very well, and the pages would “turn themselves” as I was reading. The book came my way at the recommendation of a friend, and I’m pleased to have received an advanced edition because of it. I always feel an obligation to provide a review when I get an ARC, but it’s not often such a pleasure to write them. ‘Shug’s Place-A Novel in Stories’ is a solidly entertaining collection for the “action/detective/tough-guy-with-a-heart-and-a-brain” audience. It will be available from Mint Hill Books, Main Street Rag Publishing Company, Charlotte, NC.

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‘The Calamari Kleptocracy’ – A New Audiobook!

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"The Calamari Kleptocracy" by Nicolas Sansone — cover image

Spoken-Arts.Swiftpassage.com and All Things That Matter Press are delighted to present Nicholas Sansone’s ‘The Calamari Kleptocracy’, my second narration project,  available now from Audible.com and iTunes. Click to hear a sample from the book:

Chapter 1

‘The Calamari Kleptocracy’ is a loss of innocence tale, the story of Thor Gunderson, a cheerful and congenial young man whose life is about to take a series of wild jolts and shocks as the people in his world each, one by one, bring Thor lessons in the complexity of human nature, and the existential character of the universe in general.

Sansone’s novel is ingenious for its capacity to craft a seeming allegorical  America, which ultimately proves to be barely an allegory at all. It is, rather, a clearer vision of the plight of our nation in economic turmoil.  Common people work hard, but don’t prosper. The rich get richer, and use the common folk as their pawns. The land of opportunity exists only as a memory of a dream.

The view-points and writing of Sartre, Brecht, and Ionesco all echo in this novel, but with their European existentialism adroitly imported and adapted to our native landscape. That mirror now reflects the hardships and harsh realities of an America enduring a crippling economy, turbulent sectarian divisions, encroaching Fascism, and a corruptly parasitic oligarchy.

But don’t be dismayed by the weighty underpinnings of this story. For all the complexity of the novel’s philosophical bones, the  surface of the tale is  light and humorous, and parades characters and events which are by turns sweet, amusing and colorful, before leading us with, at times, brutal honesty to the way things really are.

And how is that? Big business manipulates and gobbles up individual businesses. Individuals are manipulated into collectives against their own best interests. “Opportunity”  has vanished from the American landscape. The prosperous prey upon an ever-shrinking and downwardly mobile middle class, an astonishing number of whom enter into incarceration in for-profit prisons. And yet there is always to be found light within human life: This was one of Ionesco’s clearest truths, which Sansone, too, demonstrates over and again,  with a precise eye for the light, color, and minute details that fill the space in which his story unfolds.

Another brilliant aspect to Sansone’s story-telling is that he never demonizes anyone. All his characters, even the most corrupt, are complexly human mosaics of traits good and bad; full and simple at once.

For that, and many other reasons, I loved working on this audiobook presentation of Mr. Sansone’s novel. Find it today at Audible.com  !

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So, Now I’m A Narrator: Audible.Com and ACX

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Narrated by Elliott Walsh; available now at Amazon.com!

A sample from ‘Headwind’, the audiobook.

Old friends who know me well are familiar with my theatrical past.  There was a time, in another life, when I majored in Dramatic Arts at Boston University. I studied and worked hard at becoming a professional actor. I’ve been in plays and musicals off and on for many years. I’ve performed in New York City and Boston, albeit not profitably. My interest in theatre makes me keenly appreciative of good work when I see it, both the writing and acting; mostly in watching films or broadcasts, these days.

There’s scant opportunity to perform, though, in part because where I live is such a long drive to anyplace where a scrap of performance is happening. After a day at the hospital, it’s unthinkable to drive almost an hour north or south to keep a rehearsal or performance schedule, so I’ve steered clear of auditions. There has been a bit of “flash theatre” once or twice, when I could participate in a 24 hour play project, most recently in Brunswick a few months ago, but that’s another story.

What I have done to exercise those old actor’s reflexes and skills is to try my hand at auditioning for audiobook narration. A while back a writer friend brought ACX to my attention. ACX is the Audiobook Creation eXchange, a division of Audible.Com, which is, in turn, a subsidiary of Amazon. They are a clearinghouse for Authors, Rights-holders, Narrators, and Producers, and mediate between them to foster the recording and marketing of new audiobooks.  It’s really an amazing idea, and has garnered the support and enthusiasm of first rate authors, like Neil Gaiman or Janet Evanovich, and top o’ the line publishing houses, as well.

It works like this:  If you think you have what it takes to narrate someone’s book into a finished product, go create a narrator/producer’s account at ACX . You will be encouraged to flesh out your profile, and upload audio samples of your voice, which authors and rights-holders can find and listen to.  You can also browse a significant catalogue of projects seeking a narrator. They can be searched with filters leading you to projects that fit your gender, voice-style, and age. You can also filter for fiction vs. non-fiction, or for specific genres, such as mysteries or sci-fi.

The projects will be presented with myriad information; date of publication, length, author’s notes, etc, and an audition script will be attached. I hunted up a number of projects I thought would scratch that old actor’s itch, and recorded a trio of them one Saturday morning. The matter of preparing the tracks so they might present well is a whole other story. There is a learning curve for recording techniques, but I got started with a $2 electotet condensor mic, and  free, open-source recording software, called Audacity.

To my total surprise and delight, I had a quick response to one of my first auditions, a light crime genre novel called ‘Headwind’ by Christopher Hudson. Chris liked what I’d done with a lot of my audition, but wanted me to try some different voicings, too. I re-worked the chapter, and re-submitted it. With a bit of back and forth, we’d found a good fit between what he hoped for, and what I could do. With another click or two on the project page at ACX.com , we had a contract to make an audiobook!

At that point, I ordered some pieces of serious recording gear; a better microphone (the Rode NT-1A, which rocks, btw!), a stand, better headphones, and a USB interface to connect the mic to the computer. Which brings me to another great thing about ACX: They have pages full of wonderful tips, pointers, and training videos on how to set up a recording space, how to record, edit, and polish the finished tracks. They really want you to succeed!

And here it is,  now finished and available for purchase, the audiobook of ‘Headwind’ by Chris Hudson, and narrated by yours, truly! Find it at Amazon  or through Audible.com. 

And if you enjoy a good car chase scene…   Please visit my professional web at Spoken Arts .

 

 

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‘Searching for Sugarman’ – a film review

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searchingforsugarman1.jpgWe saw a real “feel good” documentary last night, that came highly recommended, and came away wanting to share it with others. ‘Searching for Sugarman’ is a story of validation, both personal and artistic, in a world where one’s seeming insignificance can never be presumed. It’s about a singer/songwriter whose work never caught on with his own countrymen, but contributed to the canon of social change in another land.

“Sugarman” refers to Sixto Rodriguez, or simply ‘Rodriguez’. In his two obscure albums in the early 1970’s, his voice cuts a high, clear path above a simple MoTown combo sound, singing lyrics which are at once sardonic and challenging, but oddly at peace with the rough edges of the society his songs criticize.  His lyrics and vocals suggest a blend of Nick Drake on mood-elevators, with an edge of Dylan to provoke the mind. It is surprising that his songs never caught on in the United States.

The name Sixto may refer to his being the sixth born child to immigrant parents, and it is unclear whether this was self-chosen, or actually used in his childhood Detroit, Michigan. Some of his songs are attributed to ‘Jesus Rodriguez’, others to ‘Sixto’. It doesn’t matter. What does, is that unknown to Rodriguez, his music struck a chord with the people of South Africa during its years of foment. Mandela was in jail,  apartheid was the rule, and that nation was a police state, oppressed. Certain of his songs were banned from air-play, and thus assured brisk sales of his albums, and wide exchange of boot-legged cassettes.

The story of this musician, as brought to film, becomes a kind of George Bailey story, in that even a minor artist may never realize the impact he has beyond his ken. Thematically, that is wonderful to explore, and the core of the movie. Viewed from an innocent perspective, the documentary is wonderful, and deserves its accolades. It’s also pleasing to consider that it can only do good for its subject, whose work does deserve the attention that passed him by when the tracks were new.  Like the documentary ‘Winnebago Man’, it  lifts a life out of a fabled-state, and brings a Lazarus back into the world. It’s ‘Sleeping Beauty’, only these are real people who left a mark, never knew it, and lived to learn that they had touched others.

That there are those who have taken issue with this film for overlooking certain facts in Rodriguez’s touring and performing history matters not a whit to me: Why let the facts stand in the way of a great story? That Rodriguez played as well in Australia and New Zealand doesn’t alter the unique story of how his art was appreciated in and affected the people of South Africa. This story concerns that special perception, and I’ll not quibble with the small minds of nay-sayers who have missed the point.

Hunt up a copy of ‘Searching for Sugarman’, and go find a copy of the film’s compilation album, and bask in the joy of a good musician’s re-discovery!

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HTC Incredible and Jelly Bean: How I almost “bricked” my phone, and what it took to recover it:

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I feel I owe it to others who may have done likewise to set out a record of what I did, and how I fixed it. The notes that follow are VERY technical and arcane to the world of hacking one’s smartphone, and for most of my blog’s readership I’d suggest passing this one by, unless you are hip to this kind of stuff. If you want to read on from curiosity, well, good for you!

 

What this is NOT: This isn’t notes on how to successfully get Jelly Bean on your Dinc. It’s all about recovering from a phone that is trapped in a boot loop after attempting to get Jelly Bean, and is further incapable of loading and booting a nandroid recovery rom.adr6300

 

My phone is a Verizon ADR6300, ie, an original HTC Incredible, and pretty old as smartphones go. As soon as I obtained it, I rooted the device, and have from time to time done my own Android upgrades by cook-booking the process from information in the various forums.

 

It was running Cyanogenmod 7 and somebody’s stock rom of Gingerbread since last summer, and as I’d had good success a few days earlier updating my Toshiba Thrive tablet to Jelly Bean, I was looking to see if this was now possible for the “Dink”.

 

Notes on the phone, how it was rooted, etc, because I’m fairly certain that being non-specific about those details is what may have led to my problems:

 

ADR6300

Android v.2.3.7

Baseband 2.15.00.07.28

Kernel 2.6.37.6-cyanogenmod+jistone @folkvanger #6

CPU ARMv7 Processor rev2 (v7l)

Mod version: CyanogenMod-7.2.0-inc

Build: GWK74

 

The phone had been rooted using the techniques shown at unrevoked.com , but quite some time ago: more than two years, I think, and without any recent updates. THIS IS LIKELY WHY I RAN INTO TROUBLE.

 

Here’s the specifics on how my Dinc was set up as unrooted at the time of my near-bricking, using unrevoked-forever, with PB31IMG.zip, and S-OFF. The bootloader showed this:

 

HBOOT-0.79.0000

MICROP-0417

TOUCH PANEL-ATMEL224_16ab

RADIO-2.15-00.07.28

 

 

ClockworkMod Recovery v2.5.0.5

 

 

Setting out:

 

I read up on how to update the Dinc to Jelly Bean, made a nandroid backup of my current working installation, backed up my contacts, used TitaniumBackup for my apps, and downloaded a Jelly Bean rom, and the associated Gapps.

 

I booted the phone into ClockworkMod 2.5.0.5 (volume down + on to HBOOT, then select RECOVERY with vol up/down, then press ON). Once in the Clockwork menus, I used vol up/down to select wipe data/factory reset, committed to it, and executed it. Next, selected wipe cache partition, committed to it, and executed it. Next, went to the advanced menu, selected Wipe Dalvik Cache, committed to it, and executed it. Those three tasks done, navigated to the main ClockworkMod menu again (one press of on/off button), scrolled down to ‘Install Zip from sdcard’, and selected the CM-10 rom for installation. I used this one from http://goo.im/devs/tiny4579/inc/cm10 , cm-10-20130118-TINY-inc.zip . After that installation ran, I again chose ‘install zip from sdcard’, selected gapps-jb-20121011-signed.zip , and installed that.

 

Unfortunately, I didn’t closely note the messages generated by those two installs. Anyway, as I went to reboot the phone, it got as far as the white HTC Incredible screen, and got no further. It was hung up at that screen for longer than 30 minutes, and could not progress. In the next couple of hours, I tried a different Jelly Bean rom, with no better results. (the rom was this one: jellybean-inc-RC3.zip) .

 

At that point, I abandoned trying to make JB work.

 

Fortunately, I was still able to get into HBOOT and CWM, so I selected ‘backup and restore’ in CWM’s main menu, selected ‘restore’, pointed it at my nandroid backup of Gingerbread that I’d made that morning, and launched it. Alas, it reported a number of errors, and was unable to build a working android system in the phone. It got past the white HTC Incredible start up panel, but went dark beyond that, and wouldn’t boot. The best clue was an error resembling this one:

 

E: Can't mount /dev/block/mmcblk0p2 (File exists)

The next eight hours or so were spent in searching for a fix online. The most helpful post I found was this one: http://forum.cyanogenmod.org/topic/6433-solved-messed-up-partitions-on-internal-storage/

 

The thread concerned a guy who was getting pretty much the same errors I was experiencing on attempting the nandroid recovery. There were two partitions in the phone’s memory that were failing to mount. His errors (below) were almost identical to mine:

 

E: Can't mount /dev/block/mmcblk0p2 (File exists)
E: Can't mount CACHE:recovery/log
E: Can't mount /dev/block/mmcblk0p2 (File exists)

 

Alas, I didn’t precisely record my error messages at the time, but they were VERY close to his, and centered on being unable to mount the /data and /cache partitions of the phone’s memory. The thread with these clues was very long, but the key help came from this section (#7) Here’s what he wrote:

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here’s the solution.

The problem was that I managed to screw up the partitions on my internal storage card, so basically nothing would work properly.  I could still get into recovery, though.  That’s key.

Here’s what you’ll need:

  • Working recovery, basic knowledge of adb & the shell
  • Parted (download here)
  • stock PB31IMG.zip


Note also that I had run unrevoked forever (so my phone was S-OFF) … I’m not sure if that’s required or not.

So, grab parted from the link above.  Now you need to extract the individual binaries from the .zip (the 6 files in the sdparted folder within the zip), ideally to your android-sdk\tools directory.  Now push all 6 files (adb push [file] /sbin/).  Next, we need to make them useable, so go into the shell (adb shell).  Change to your /sbin/ directory, and run: chmod 0755 <file> on each of the 6 files.

Now, we need to fix the partitions.  This is assuming that the partitions are there, just the wrong format (which is what happened to me .. I accidentally made them FAT32 instead of ext).  So, run the following: parted /dev/block/mmcblk0 mkfs ext2.  It will ask if you want to continue, hit yes.  When it asks for the partition number, enter 1.  Next, when it asks for the format, enter ext2.  Let it do its thing.  Now, once it’s done, run parted again.  This time, enter partition 2 (everything else is the same).

Once all that’s done, your recovery program should be able to mount both the /data and /cache partitions.  If that’s true, you’re pretty much done!  One thing I found was that I couldn’t directly install a new OS (I tried both Cyanogen and Ultimate).  In both cases, it would look for stuff in the davik-cache that it couldn’t find, so something wasn’t installing correctly I think.  So, if that happens, flash back to the stock PB31IMG.zip (put it in the root of your /sdcard/ and let hboot install it), and then root your phone anew.  That’s what I ended up doing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now, there WERE differences between his situation and mine. Most of his problem seemed focused on the partitions having been somehow reset to the wrong filetypes. On my phone, the filetypes appeared to be ok, but I suspect that they had been resized somehow by the Jelly Bean installer rom. Nevertheless, the basic steps this guy had taken to recover his phone ARE WHAT WORKED for me.

If you’ve read this far, I’m guessing you have an almost dead Dinc, and are hoping for a precise guide of what to do next. Be warned! I’m only reconstructing the late hours of a very bad day from memory, so please take the following notes as an outline to guide you, but IT’S NOT A RECIPE you can completely trust. You’re going to need to read, and think, and proceed cautiously if this is going to work, maybe. If you don’t have command-line experience in linux, and a basic understanding of navigating through file structures and permissions, and using command line partitioning tools, well, go find someone who does, and ride shotgun as they try this out for you.

Here’s what I went and did:

  1. I installed android sdk tools to my Windows desktop system. Google was helpful in locating a download for them: http://developer.android.com/tools/sdk/tools-notes.html
  2. The main thing about step 1. is getting ADB working as a command you can access from the Windows Command box. I’d used ADB before, and there was a re-learning curve to get the hang of it again, but this guide was helpful getting started: http://droidlessons.com/how-to-install-adb-on-a-windows-7-pc/ The business about changing the path variable isn’t really necessary, because you can execute adb if you simply navigate to where you installed it. It’s less elegant, but I was in a hurry to fix my damned phone.
  3. Follow the guy’s link (http://www.sendspace.com/file/w6hi6x), and download the sdparted-recovery.zip file. It’s a command set of partitioning tools. Unzip and put those executable files into the same place where adb.exe is, so it’s easy to move and use them where needed when you get to that part.Ok, those first three steps all took place on your desktop system. It’s time to connect your phone to the desktop and test adb’s ability to work within the phone.:
  4. Connect the phone’s usb cable to the desktop system, and boot the phone with “vol down + on” to get to the HBOOT screen. Watch the messages there. After a few seconds you should see HBOOT USB PLUG. Then launch Recovery from the HBOOT menu. The phone is now tethered to the desktop.
  5. Test adb, by running cmd to open a command line box on the desktop. (Win+R keys together, then type cmd in the Run Window). Then navigate using the cd command to the path where you installed sdk tools, and the parted tools. (For me the path I used was c:\program files\android\android-sdk\platform-tools). The dir command will show you if adb.exe is in there. If so, try typing:

 adb devices 

 If the desktop is connected to your phone, it will give you;

List of devices attached

HT00XX1234 …… recovery

…or something like that.

If you’ve unzipped the six sdparted files into the same directory as adb.exe, then you are ready to move those files into your phone using the command:

adb push <filename> /sbin/

Do this for each of the six files (e2fsck, mke2fs, parted, resize2fs, sdparted, tune2fs).

Next, make them useable by changing their permissions: Use:

adb shell

to start navigating the file structure within the phone. You will see:

~#_

Navigate using linux commands now, and enter the sbin directory by typing:

cd sbin

Use:

chmod 0755 <filename>

on each of the sdparted commands you pushed into that directory. Now the parted command will work when you go to run it on the phone within the adb shell environment.

This is a very good place to slow down and BE VERY CAREFUL! You are about to run commands that will alter the partioning of the phone’s internal memory. You might very well make things worse unintentionally if you get sloppy here. I cannot promise that what you are about to do won’t TOTALLY BRICK your phone. I got mine back again, but your milage may vary, and lead you down that highway to hell.

I knew at this point that the information I’d found and was working from didn’t precisely match what I had been seeing in my phone’s error messages, or in information I looked at within my phone. Mostly, the partition file names were a bit different, and as I’d said before, that guy was talking about have wrong filetypes specified in his structure, and that didn’t seem to be my exact problem.

At this point you need to be sure of the correct device block names of your /data and /cache partitions, and maybe your /sd-ext partition, too. You can find out by doing this:

cd /etc

cat fstab

This will print out the partition structure in your phone. The lines that matter are those referencing the suspected bad partitions. The suspect partitions are the ones you’ve been seeing in your error messages on failed nandroid recovery attempts. For me those were, I think:

/dev/block/mmcblk0p1 /data auto rw

/dev/block/mmcblk0p2 /cache auto rw

It’s possible that the /sd-ext partition needed the parted command, too, but my notes and memory are incomplete here and I’m not exactly sure what I changed. Too, I’m guessing that the structure of the memory in the phone was changed again when I succeeded in running nandroid recovery after these steps, so for your situation let the error messages you’ve been getting be your guide. Less is generally more, when it comes to tinkering with re-partitioning. BE THOUGHTFUL AND BE CAREFUL.

The main thing is, I wouldn’t re-partition anything that wasn’t reporting a mounting error or formatting error of some sort as you were trying to get nandroid to do its thing.

Take a deep breath, and run:

parted /dev/block/mmxblkx mkfs ext2

using the block identifier that you think needs fixing. Leave off the “p” part of it. It will ask if you want to continue, hit yes. Then it will ask for the partition number: For me, I entered: 1. Next it might ask for the format, and enter: ext2 . Just as the author of the thread did, I needed to repeat this sequence for the second partition on the same block, like so:

parted /dev/block/mmxblkx mkfs ext2

Do you want to continue? -Yes

It asked me what partion number, and I entered: 2 , and it asked for the format, and I again entered: ext2 .

Now, you type:

exit

and that takes you out of the adb shell.

  1. At this point, you are ready to re-attempt the nandroid recovery of your previous working android version. Make sure the backup files are on the sd card in the phone. I disconnected my phone from the desktop system, and rebooted into HBOOT, and then clockworkmod recovery in the usual way. Then followed the menu to “backup/restore” , “restore”, and chose the image of the system I’d saved that morning: -2013-01-27.55/ I pressed the button, confirmed my choice, and set it in motion.

And it worked!

I sincerely hope these notes will help someone out of a frustrating situation. At this point, I have notions of what I might try if I re-attempt to install Jelly Bean, but I’m a little gun-shy, and in no hurry to waste an entire day again with a broken phone. From what I’ve read, I do think the old ADR6300 can be made to run Jelly Bean, but it would be very wise to update ClockworkMod Recovery to something more recent first. That’s my best guess.

If anyone reading this has any insight as to why my partitons got screwed up from what I did with Jelly Bean, I’d be really glad to know. Please leave comments.

 

 

 

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A Whelk’s Chance in a Supernova…

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super novaAdelaide, Australia reached 113 degrees F. in the first week of this year,  with higher temperatures expected elsewhere. The Australian interior anticipates temperatures widely topping 120 F. this summer. Forecasters and climatologists have added two new colors to the temperature mapping system in Australia.

It bears consideration that our planet is not a static system. The Sahara wasn’t always a desert. West Texas was once an inland sea. And climatic change doesn’t necessarily take thousands of years to progress.

Inconvenient truth. Al Gore couldn’t have chosen a better title, unless, perhaps, he’d borrowed a phrase from Douglas Adam’s ‘Life, the Universe, and Everything’.   A snatch of dialoge :

“True? Of course it’s true.”

“… then we don’t stand a whelk’s chance in a supernova.”

“A what?” said Arthur sharply again. He had been following the conversation doggedly up to this point, and was keen not to lose the thread now.

“A whelk’s chance in a supernova,” repeated Ford without losing momentum. “The …”

“What’s a whelk got to do with a supernova?” said Arthur.

“It doesn’t,” said Ford levelly, “stand a chance in one.”

This passage and the chapter it’s from didn’t specifically refer to climate change, but rather concerned a galactic disaster born of tribal differences and impending war,  but Adams, as so often in his quirky fiction, made the brilliant leap in linking the most extreme of environmental disasters,  “a whelk’s chance in a supernova”,  to the pernicious, wasteful distraction of tribal warfare.

My birth tribe has been American West-European Judeo-Christian Transplants with a big dose of New York regionalism.

My chosen tribe has become the tribe of listening, thinking, analytical, scientific, mystic/mythic-skeptic, who would prefer to not hurt a spider, because they are much harder to put back together than they are to take apart.  This tribe transcends race and region, because listening and thinking, although not universal, is widespread. Pursued in a healthy manner, and to a logical outcome, listening and thinking will generally result in kindness, tolerance, and empathy.

If you aren’t spending all your time fretting about who’s god is the real god, and imagining that your birth-tribe is the best and only GOOD tribe, there actually IS time enough in the day to step back, and connect the dots on climate change, and maybe take a step or two back from ending up as a sizzling amuse bouche of escargot in clarified butter.

 I’ll save you looking it up, as I had to do.  A whelk is a snail…

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The Dead-Blog Blog

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P13122093
Vitalis, with V-7!

So, from time to time the Postmaster at the Swiftpassage webs will get a robotic email from the WordPress system cheerfully informing me that qrrkcft@numnutz.lv, or some equally prosaic entity, has applied for citizenship as a “member” of this blog. More excitingly, they might have placed (or attempted to place) 173 or so new spamments, offering up their insights on what’s here to read, along with enticing offers for  services, or goods. Most often the latter are pharmaceuticals with charmingly mispelled names, such as Ciagra or Vialis.

( Incidentally,  and appropos of nothing at all, my father’s preferred hair grooming tonic, back in the “Mad Men” sixties was a fragrant liquid called “Vitalis”, which was fortified with a magic ingredient called V-7, which made his hair kind of stiff.  Google tells me this hair-groom is , through the good graces of the Clairol company,  still available at Wal*Mart and through Amazon. Wikipedia, however, seems not to have heard of it. Indeed, the disambiguation choices at Wikipedia for Vitalis are intent on sorting out a platoon of Middle Age monks and saints, most of whom lived in hermetic seclusion, probably because of poor hair grooming, due, perhaps, to a lack of stiffness?)

Because I cannot vouch for the safety of Ciagra should it be a pharmaceutical, although, I suppose it MIGHT be a simple transposition error for the plural of cigars in Latvian,   (Well, noo,  Google-translate tells me that “cigara” in Latvian means “weed”.  Oh, wait,  I wonder!  Now, that’s a pharmaceutical I’d not have suspected…),  nor can I report on the efficacy of Vialis,  it seems prudent to remove these offers and links to commercial websites!  However, I could imagine making an exception for “Vialis, With V-7”. Yes,  I’d let that one pass.

Long story short,  this is the kind of problem a web blog develops when IT SITS TOO LONG!

I have been remiss!  Bless me WordPress, for I have sinned! It have been almost SIX MONTHS since my last confessions here,  and we have both suffered for it. In this, the new year, the first since the expiration of the Mayan calendar, I shall make amends. I am determined to post something, A N Y T H I N G, at least monthly,  to extirpate my past sins of omission, and to expiate the Mayan gods, who have so graciously allowed us this new year, at least until the next asteroid lines up on us.

I feel better already! Now, I’ve got to go run an errand; it seems I’m running low on hair gel…

 

With V-7!
With V-7!