Joke of the Day

[yogi]

The article is worth reading but the joke is clearly stated in the headline: https://linuxiac.com/linux-hits-3-percent-market-share/

Pardon me for my arrogance, but I find that article truly hilarious. 30 years to capture a whopping 3% of market share !

[Kellemora]

Great article!
However, did Linux RISE as claimed, or did folks not use Windows as much since they all have Schmartz-Fonz now?
Then too Schmartz-Fonz are a good selling point for getting folks to try Linux at home, since it is in their phones and they are used to their phones now. Which most don't run Windows apps anyhow.

[yogi]

You keep confusing Android and iOS with Linux. All three are different animals. A clear example of the differences would be to compare your truly Linux based Silver Yogi to what you see and do on Android and Apple devices. Android and Apple have some visible similarities, but neither look like the Debian you are using. It's not only appearances that make the difference. The capabilities of all three operating systems are unique onto themselves. Yes they all have CPU's controlled more or less by a software kernel, but that is where the software similarities end.

The quoted article addresses the desktop market, which would also include laptops. Linux rules the server world and nobody is questioning that. The popularity of a desktop Linux never materialized as they expected simply because it's too demanding to use Linux. Of course there is a learning curve with Windows as well, but it's very familiar and intuitive compared to many Linux distributions. Keep in mind that most Windows users are airheads and can't be bothered with the complications involved with using Linux. A close reading of the article verifies what I just wrote. The author is fairly certain that the increase in Linux usage from 2.9% to 3.0% is mostly due to developers switching over. Developers are not your typical desktop user. They are more like the network admins who made Linux a staple in the server world.

I could also make the argument that Linux is trying to copy the friendly environment all Windows users have known for decades. Take a look at the Ubuntu desktop for example. It is gradually moving away from the traditional desktop look and feel and migrating to what can easily substitute for an older version of Windows. Maybe something from the Vista era. LOL Ubuntu isn't the only distro I can cite as Windows wannabe's. I can understand there being a few disgruntled Windows users, but really now. Does .1% of them migrating to Linux really mean anything? Apparently the denizens of Linuxland think it does.

And, BTW, I did pair my Pixel to the Bluetooth speakers. I have an app that can receive all the Chicago stations and they sounded beautiful. It was music to my ears.

[Kellemora]

My day is going so bad, you would not believe.
I almost didn't make it up to my office at all. Took a few false starts and some help to make it up here.
And here I am stuck, still, no lunch, and doing very poorly.
Then to take the icing off the cake.
My wife went to pick up some meds I'm nearly out of, and was having trouble getting.
Her car broke down and it took 3 hours to get a tow truck.
In this 88 degree weather, she looks really bad herself.
She's so worn out, she won't be able to help me down to the house, and I can't get there on my own right now.
I thought about calling an ambulance three times already. I'm doing that bad right now!

Amen on the LInux!

[yogi]

I'm deeply concerned about your difficulties today. I truly hope this evil day is temporary. I can also sympathize with your concern's about Deb's well being. There is no doubt in my mind that she is doing all she can, or all that you allow her to do. But, as you know so well, people our age have limits we didn't experience in our younger days. I have some similar concerns about my own wife who suffers from bouts of depression at times. Those are not the times to ask her for help should I need it. I'm not sure what to do here or what to suggest in your situation. It seems you could \use some social services and I can't believe the state of Tennessee has none to offer you. Nobody wants that kind of help, but it's not good for you to be alone for several hours while your damsel in distress is waiting for her knight in shining armor to arrive.

I realize you will be at the doctor tomorrow and that you may not be here as a consequence. Hopefully everything will be under control by then.

[Kellemora]

She got the new starter put in the car, and we picked up up on the way home from the GI doctors appointment.
I'm not used to driving in my reduced capacity, and that too took its toll on me.
To help cheer her up, she decided to go get a haircut.
Wouldn't you know it, when she left to come home, the car would not start.
Fortunately, the mechanic who put the starter in lived in that direction and he stopped by her car.
They did get it running, but she was told to go straight home and don't shut off the car until she got there, because it would not start again if she did.
He will come by our house on Monday to replace the new starter with another new starter.
Either that or get the car started again, and have her drive it up to the shop where it would be easier for him to do it, while she waits.
He couldn't apologize enough, she said every other word out of his mouth was he was sorry. But they do get bad new parts from time to time.

[yogi]

As the saying goes, "when it rains it pours." Deb sure is getting her share of rain with that car. It doesn't happen too often but, yes, brand new parts can be defective. It's just unfortunate that your wife was the one to discover that truth at the most inopportune time. I have to give kudos to that mechanic of hers. I've not heard of a mechanic coming out of the shop, or his home, to take care of a customer of his. And then offer to make a house calll. Wow. That man is a god-sent mechanic and deserves a lot of credit for what he did and will do. There is a tendency to blame the installer if parts go bad, but as you know that isn't always the case.

Hair-do's and shopping are the cures for stress experienced by the fairer sex. My wife of many years has used those techniques. That and eating a pint of iced cream seems to do wonders.

After what you wrote here yesterday, I find it hard to believe you were even capable of driving home. You must have some kind of super powers.

[Kellemora]

The city took or long-time mechanic's place for an expansion of the street corner he was in.
And he's not yet found a new place to get set up.

Debi's bro-in-law has a friend who's son was a mechanic for a dealership for years.
Decided to open his own place, which is not yet actually open, they just poured the new concrete floors after putting the car hoists in place, and other things that required they tore out the old floor.
We had her car towed to his place, and he said he wouldn't be able to even look at it until Monday.
But since it was a nice tall Blazer and it was parked in the shade, he pulled jack over and tested the starter.
Ordered a new one and they delivered it in about an hour, so he put it on. Worked fine for four tests.
Then you know the rest.

All I had to do was get out of the passenger side, walk around to the drivers side, then sit there for about 15 minutes until my heart rate was back down a tad and my O2 was up and I wasn't feeling in panic mode. I took it slow and easy, using the back roads to get home where I could go slow and had plenty of places I could pull over if need be. Made it home OK.

[yogi]

The mechanic being a friend of the family explains a lot. LOL The timing of the breakdown is uncanny. Then to have the new replacement break shortly after is almost too extreme to consider it a coincident. I'm thinking you might find the services of an exorcist worth the price about now.

Well, I am shocked at times to see who dives on the streets of O'Fallon. More than once I've been in a store shopping, Schnucks for example, and seen a little old lady in one of those motorized carts trying to pick a can of soup off the shelf. I sympathize with such people and due to my experiences with my mom I know what they must be going through. Everyone is courteous and helpful to such folks, but oddly enough they frequently refuse the offer of help to load their groceries into their vehicle. They do it themselves. Then they park the cart and get into the drivers seat of their car, or truck, and drive off into the sunset. I guess you do what you got to do in order to get the essentials done. I don't think you should have been driving, but then there likely was no other option. Same goes for little ol' ladies in go-carts, I guess.

[Kellemora]

I don't know if he is a friend of the family. Turns out he just goes to the same church as Debi's bro-in-law, who has some clout there.
I wish I could afford a better car for her!

We have a lady here who I think finally got bad enough they put her in a home.
She would travel from the projects all the way to the grocery store on her little electric wheelchair.
We would see her out and about at least two or three times a week.
What would she do if it broke down? I don't know any place around here who even fixes anything medical related.
Heck, I can't find anyone to fix my oxygen concentrator with only 5000 hours on it. Other than shipping it to Ohio.
I would be too afraid to take off to town on a wheelchair, hi hi.

[yogi]

The closest small grocery store is around two miles away, and that is on the outskirts of town. The real stores begin to populate Main Street about four miles from here. I'd not want to be using a wheel chair down Highway P to get to the closest store either. The good news is that several of the stores, Schnucks is one of them, will shop for you and deliver the goods to your front door. The not so good news is that they charge extra to do that, but at least you won't starve from lack of provisions. Walgreens will deliver most drugs the same way, but then I deal with CVS and I don't know if they deliver to the house or not. But CVS does have a mail order service.

One of the disappointing facts of life in a smallish city is that they don't have all the services that a place like Chicago would offer. Fixing an oxygen concentrater would be a challenge even for Chicago, but I have no doubt such services do exist in a town like that. My UPS, for example, is getting to the point where the battery should be replaced. I probably could buy a new UPS somewhere within driving distance, but replacing the battery would require sending it to the manufacturer, which by the way is located in Chicago. LOL Auto mechanics, on the other hand, are about as prolific as are dentists. The only other service around here provided in such great numbers is dentistry. This place is a gold mine for such services and I can't imagine what is the attraction.

[Kellemora]

You are dang lucky if you managed to get Walgreens to deliver to you.
Their mail-order facility will NOT fill Part-B prescriptions at all.
And although I'm set-up for express pay, and selected the deliver by mail option.
They have NEVER sent my orders that way, not once.
They say if I want to do that, I have to use their Fulfillment Center, which also does not send Part-B drugs.

Wow, my UPS unit, when it worked, the battery could be slipped out and a new one in through a side door on the unit.
Also, Electro Battery in St. Louis carried the battery it used in stock, or did back then when I got the UPS unit.

UofM had a dental school for years, tons of graduates, more than the market could bear, so they closed the school.
I had a lot of work done there, and it was always excellent work, because, they were trying to get a high grade, hi hi.

[yogi]

It would be close to 35 years ago now that I built that last house up in a Chicago suburb. I was the first one on a five acre piece of overgrown prairie, complete with a small wetland et. al.. I had only one acre of that parcel and two years later all the rest was taken up by individual residents. One of those houses was build by a dentist whose services I used for all the years I lived up there. As it happens, he graduated from the dental school at the U of M and practiced down here for a couple years. One of his three daughters also took an interest in dentistry, but I am not sure where she went to school. If the U of M closed their school, she obviously got her training somewhere else.

The battery in my UPS is not as easy as replacing the batteries in my computer mouse. It's not obvious how to break into the cabinet, but I'm sure it can be done easily enough with the right tools. Also, I'm thinking it might be easy enough to get the exact replacement battery from the manufacturer. The cost of said replacement, however, would approach the cost of the entire unit. I've not checked into it yet, but I will when the need arises. It could be possible for some shop in STL to have what I need. I might even try to find that shop some day.

Walgreens sends me e-mail all the time regarding their home delivery program. Since I stopped dealing with those people because I did not like the way they handled Internet ordered prescriptions, I don't know which drugs qualify for home delivery. I do know they delivered some non-prescription items the same day for free during the pandemic. It was a total shock to get that kind of service, but Walgreens did come through. They charge for home delivery now, but there are times when they have special deals where the delivery is free if you order enough. If I recall correctly Walgreens had their own delivery people drop off what I needed, which is why they could do it the same day I ordered. Also, I I recall correctly, Walgreens owns a separate company that does mail order drugs only business. Many years ago I used that service but I don't know if it's the same one they use today. I can say it's not part of the chain of stores we have in town.

[Kellemora]

Wow, I didn't think there was a space that huge anywhere in Chicago, perhaps out in the suburbs.

A house my uncle rented had a large farm right behind his back yard. Nice view too. But then the farmer sold to subdivision developers and suddenly, nearly overnight it seemed, it was wall to wall houses, all packed together like sardines.

Seems odd they wouldn't make it so it would be easy to replace the battery. One UPS I had, there was a door on the bottom that opened up. My latest one the side opened up where the battery was. But then it's been years since I had one.

I switched to Walgreens then away from them, but moved back to them, for one main reason.
When I get overcharged, and their audit department catches it, they send me a check.
And now that I'm on express pay, rather than sending me a check, they put the money back onto my credit card.

They don't pocket the money like everywhere else does.

Our local Walgreens does deliver, for a hefty fee of course.
If I want it mailed, they send my order to a Fulfillment Center which takes 5 days to get it to me, so I quit that right away.

[yogi]

Wow, I didn't think there was a space that huge anywhere in Chicago, perhaps out in the suburbs.

That is a correct observation. My home was built almost on the border of Cook County which includes the entire city of Chicago and a few adjacent suburbs. My home was as far away from the city as it could be and still be in the same county. The vacant land was indeed unusual, even for the suburbs. Originally there was something less than twenty acres that belonged to a church that was a few blocks from my house. The church sold off parcels over the years and people built individual residences on them. Several of those people divided their lots in half and still had an acre of land left for their own use. What started as a single five acre parcel ended up with about a dozen houses on it. The remaining dozen acres or so were sold to a developer after I lived there maybe ten years. That developer build home starting at $700,000, and a few over a million. Considering that happened about twenty years ago, those home were extremely expensive for their time. But, every one of them sold quickly. People laughed at the developer for building something so expensive in a middle class neighborhood, but I was glad they did. It helped raise the value of my own home.

Walgreens is pretty decent for in store shopping. Unfortunately I do as much as I can online and Walgreens essentially ignores what goes on with their website. That defeated the purpose of having a website in the first place. Then, one fine day, they refused to answer the phone when my doctor's office tried to call in a renewal. It turns out the same pharmacist who ignored all the web messages also never calls back doctors when they leave messages. So, I switched to CVS which is twice the distance from my house. My wife, on the other hand, loves Walgreens. She doesn't use the Internet to deal with them. And, to be fair about it, Walgreens has some terrific deals on non-prescription items. They deliver in three days too but seem to have a high threshold for "free" delivery.

[Kellemora]

Sounds about like where I am. I WAS in the county until Knoxville annexed my side of the street and almost to the top of the hill. So I do still have about a 1-1/2 to 3 feet at the top in the county.
No ritzy houses around me, that's for sure. This is a poor area and becoming a slum now, hi hi.

I do all of my pharmacy stuff with Walgreens on-line and don't have a problem, other than they ignore the box that says deliver by USPS, hi hi. I get refill notices via e-mail with a link to the website to reorder.

Last night was not a good night for me. Up all night trying to breathe. If I got an hour of sleep on two different times last night, I don't know which hours those would have been on. This is the first night I've had to get to the kitchen for nebulizer treatment around 3:30 am though, and Debi put me on a rolling walker to get me in there.

[yogi]

I bought the property for my last house many years before I actually built the house on it. The guy in back of me worked at Motorola and mentioned at lunch that he was dividing his property and putting it on the market. I had my bid in before the real estate office could even publish that it was for sale. LOL

My buddy lived in unincorporated Cook County and that is how the land I purchased from him stayed until I built my home. The taxes were dirt cheap, literally. But, since I had to access the utilities maintained by the village people, they forced me to incorporate as they did with the neighbors who did something similar to me. About 90% of that village was in Du Page County and we had a heck of a time with the building permits and inspections because we were in the next county over, which is Cook. The village people were not familiar with Cook County's requirements because there were so few residences in that county and in the village too. Those mini castles that were eventually built around the corner from me also had to incorporate when they were built. About the only difference I could tell between being incorporated and not was the snow plows came from a different garage. Oh, and the police were now village people instead of the county sheriff.

I can't say the village up north was anything more than middle class. However, there were a few upper class homes on the opposite side of town. The original town had all the old buildings a you would expect and they were ringed by the newer homes build over the years. The real estate situation was very mixed as was the population. It was interesting to say the least.

I'm glad Deb is taking good care of you. I know you don't like to be a burden to anyone, but you have been very generous and kind to others throughout your entire life. A little payback seems proper when you need it most.

[Kellemora]

The only property I ever bought empty was two adjacent lots near a lake area.
I bought the first lot and decided I wanted the second one also.
They said they could not sell it, because it was almost like a cliff.
I said, that is why I want it, I want to build an earth sheltered home, and the cliff would give me an open living room looking over the land.
They ended up selling it to me dirt cheap, but then I could not get permits to build such a home there.
So, after the divorce, the ex-wife took it for camping purposes.

I didn't know they could force someone to incorporate?
Usually, all the people in an area have to vote to do so, and or allow themselves to be annexed.
Not like here where the city just does it, hi hi.

Yes Debi is a real life-saver!

[yogi]

I didn't know they could force someone to incorporate?

I didn't understand all the legalities, and I think you are right. They gave me the option to incorporate. We were the only ones involved at that time, so that we were the entire voting population. LOL If I chose not to incorporate, then the village would choose not to give me a residency permit nor turn on the utilities. Actually, I believe I had access to the sewers regardless because that was under the county's jurisdiction and not the village. It seemed as if both the county and the village had to approve the house and the village people were not real cooperative. We had a lawyer to take care of the closing and more or less went along with his recommendations.

I had my ears tested today by an audiologist. Between 40 and 50 percent of my hearing is gone, which makes me a candidat4e for hearing aides. The left ear has high frequency loss and the right ear has low frequency loss. You would think that might balance out, but all it does is make it harder to hear a normal conversation. Much of the music I listen to is distorted as well. So, at the end of the month I get to sit down with the audiologist once again for an hour's consultation. She will go over the various types of hearing aides that would be suitable for me. Then I get to decide which one, or not.

[Kellemora]

When I lived in Creve Coeur, it actually wasn't Creve Coeur yet, it was an unincorporated area within St. Louis County.
We had Chesterfield, Maryland Heights, and Creve Coeur all trying to annex us every year. Which meant having to go vote NO three times each year.
At our local twin-subdivision meeting, we all agreed to let Creve Coeur annex us the next time it came to a vote. The taxes were higher than Maryland Heights, but not as crazy as the way Chesterfield was run.
Getting to vote sure beats the nonsense things they do down here in Knoxville!

I only have that high frequency little girls squeal at. But then too, I now confuse words, which makes it hard to hear if there are many noises or other people talking in a room. It is attributed to my tinnitus being so high now, and age of course.

Sorry to hear you've lost so much of your hearing, that's a lot, and I hope it doesn't get worse.