Catch-22

Obviously, Mike Rogers, House Intelligence Chair (now there’s an oxymaroon if there ever was one) has drunk the cool-aid, along with everyone else:

“you can’t have your privacy violated if you don’t know your privacy is violated, right?”

TechDirt link here.

I can remember reading Heller’s Catch-22 more than a few times, and each time, I had more than a few moments of insane laughter at the craziness of it all.

From Catch-22, by Joseph Heller:

“You’re wasting your time,” Doc Daneeka was forced to tell him.

“Can’t you ground someone’s who’s crazy?”

“Oh sure, I have to. There’s a rule saying I have to ground anyone who’s crazy.”

“Then why don’t you ground me. Ask Clevinger.”

“Clevinger? Where is Clevinger? You find Clevinger and I’ll ask him.”

“Then ask any of the others. They’ll tell you how crazy I am.”

“They’re crazy.”

“Then why don’t you ground them?”

“Why don’t they ask me to ground them?”

“Because they’re crazy, that’s why.”

“Of course they’re crazy,” Doc Daneeka replied. “I just told you they’re crazy didn’t I? And you can’t let crazy people decide whether you’re crazy or not can you?”

Yossarian looked at him soberly and tried another approach. “Is Orr crazy?”

“He sure is,” Doc Daneeka said.

“Can you ground him?”

“I sure can but first he has to ask me to. That’s part of the rule.”

“Then why doesn’t he ask you to?”

“Because he’s crazy,” Doc Daneeka said. “He has to be crazy to keep flying combat missions after all the close calls he’s had. Sure I can ground Orr. But first he has to ask me to.”

“That’s all he has to do to be grounded?”

“That’s all. Let him ask me.”

“And then you can ground him?” Yossarian asked.

“No, then I can’t ground him.”

“You mean there’s a catch?”

“Sure there is a catch,” Doc Daneeka replied. “Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn’t really crazy.”

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, that specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane, he had to fly them. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of the clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

“That’s some catch, that Catch-22,” he observed.

“It’s the best there is,” Doc Daneeka replied.

Streets & Trips 2010 won’t load

Update October 18, 2013: I just updated to Windows 8.1, and Streets & Trips 2010 continues to load and function.

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I’ve been using MS Streets & Trips forever. About a month ago, v2010 (I know, I’m cheap frugal. I can’t help it.) stopped working on my Windows 8.0 laptop installation. Something about registry errors kept popping up. This was after the September 2013 Patch Tuesday update. Go figure.

I did a search – well, duh – and discovered a bunch of solutions that don’t work. Imagine that.

Here’s my answer to the mfc100.dll file is missing error, and/or the registry error. I downloaded and reinstalled vcredist_x86.exe by selecting “Repair Microsoft Visual C++ x86 Redistributable to its original state”.

As it says on the page,

  1. Install the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package. You do not need to uninstall/reinstall S&T for this.
  2. After it is installed – try launching S&T again.

RCMP Goon Squad bags another trophy, shoots it in the back

The RCMP Goon Squad, forever on the prowl for new shooting targets victims in British Columbia, has bagged another trophy man by shooting him in the back. To me, that’s not even sporting.

Come on guys, you back-shooters out there should at least grow a testicle and look one of your victims in the eyes before the chickenshit psychos among you pull a trigger. If you can’t bear to look your victim in the eyes, at least take your shot at the victim when he’s facing you.

I mean really, the stapler can’t do a lot of damage unless you’re hard at work writing untrue reports and filing them under “F” for fiction.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/10/07/inquest-hears-rcmp-shot-former-canadian-soldier-twice-in-the-back/

slate.com: end-user fail

Updated December 16, 2013: From a recent gigaom.com posting:

Publishers must break free of the Newsstand and InDesign/PDF trap…

<snip>

The Newsstand and tablet magazine honeymoon is over.

More here on the demise of tablet magazines.

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Slate.com recently redesigned their site. Call me a Luddite, but the new design is a complete fail. Pages won’t load. There’s no search bar. Comment log-in/sign-up won’t load. Timeouts loading pages in a browser are interminable. The entire site update has been designed to be “looked at” and to “look pretty” on a tablet or smartphone. Ho-hum.

If you really want a summary of how some of slate.com’s formerly dedicated viewers feel about the site redesign, check out the comments – if you have time to wait for them to show up.

Here’s a timely article on why tablet/smartphone magazines are a fail on gigaom.com. Slate didn’t really turn itself into a smartphone/tablet mag, did they? Perhaps that’s why there’s no search bar.

I’ve already jumped ship to http://www.theatlantic.com/.