I've been looking at some marvelous pictures from the Hillary expedition up Mt. Everest.  I think they summited in 1953 making this the 50th anniversary.  Great shots from the days before tourist climbing of the world's highest peak.  Clicking through to the last picture of Hillary on top holding various flags on his ice ax.  Then my browser hangs waiting for www.linkedin.com.

Sorry, but I'm not interested in linkedin's services right now.  I'm trying to enjoy some great images of a historic event.  I see this sort of thing all the time.  Between google analytics and linkedin and facebook and twitter, I apparently have to connect to everything in order to to see what I want.

All you advertising  vendors and personal information gatherers can, well, just go to hell.  If you want to see the summit photo, please use this link.


Jim

What's wrong with America?

I've started a house painting project, inside, and am at a loss for the things I need. 

• Newspapers - nope.  I haven't taken one for years and so I don't have anything to cover the floor.
• Coffee can - it's always more convenient to put a smaller amount of paint into a container that can be easily handled.  Used to be there was always a coffee can available for this.  Haven't bought coffee in a can for years, do they still sell coffee in cans?  So don't have any of those.
• Frozen O.J. can - also haven't seen one of those in years.  Very handy for smaller things.  I think there is a many year old lemonade can in the back of the freezer but should I really open it up to throw away just for this project?
• Baby food jars - these may still exist, but I see baby food now comes in "pouches".  Wasteful and perhaps toxic.  I'm holding onto my stash that hold the small screws and nuts etc. in the garage.

Sigh...  I guess I'll just have to muddle through.  But really, all those reusable glass and metal containers were such a blessing.  Maybe another time we can discuss all the small plastic containers that have replaced them and the waste they create.

The Olympic Movement

Every four years or so, I wonder about this term.  Today's news includes the fact that the rowing course is full of dead fish.  This is in Rio, the next games location.  But not to worry, the movement is on course.  How do we know?  Because Coke is on your side.  What is this movement anyway?  I guess it's just a move towards profits.

Why is Coke part of athletics?  We all know that sugar drinks don't help performance, although we all drink Gatorade (which I think is owned by Pepsi anyway).  So why do I need to hear all this "movement" crap anyway.  There's no movement, it's just jockeying for market share. 

Rain squalls coming overhead every 15 minutes or so, I'll be watching those now for some real entertainment.  See you later.

Elephants and cats

There are an estimated 1500 pygmy elephants still surviving in Borneo according to article.  The reason it's become news is because someone has decided it's a good idea to poison them.

On my side of the world, it seems that cats are killing millions of birds and small mammals. 

Meanwhile in Syria, the killings go on.

My point is that I don't really care that much about people murdering each other, but I do object to poisoning elephants.  In the San Francisco East Bay Hills where I live there are so many Feral cats that are killing lots of the local birds and mammals.  There's good news on this front, a resurgence in the coyote population seems to be cutting back on the cats and some species of birds are rebounding. 

So, you humans, please feel free to kill each other, but lay off the animals.  They were here first.

What the internet is really doing

So I was reading today about Facebook's latest attempt to accumulate more of our personal informations and allow more people to get at it. It's clear to me that the Internet is now just a collection device for information to be fed into advertising engines to be processed and spit out in front of my eyeballs. Like yesterday when I kind of randomly searched for a product and the rest of the day that was on the top of my google search results. Well, fuck you all. I'm not buying any of your products now or every. Regards.

Teen age killers on the rampage

  In today's news, teenager killed his parents and then went on to take out most of the kindergarten class.  From the AP:

 "About nine months after Nancy Lanza filed for the divorce, the couple worked out an agreement that included joint custody of Adam Lanza, who was 17 at the time, although he was to primarly live with his mother, the records state."

Adam Lanza was the killer.  And other kids from his same situation will be more killers.

Isn't it obvious that the failed American family is at the heart of the problem?  This world of easy divorce and dump the kids isn't really working is it?

I apologize for the use of the term "take out".  This is not a movie we are in, this is reality.  Actually he shot and killed them with an assault rifle and they died in the school where they were growing and being loved.

The whole business makes me sick.  And don't give me any crap about gun control or not, until the family gets healed we will be hearing about this forever And also, take your grief control counselors and shove them.  People (govmnt officials) think that air dropping counselors into a situation will solve everything?  WRONG.  Take your sanctimonious asses back home and actually try to prevent these situations.  (see above)

Computer down

So why is it we accept the excuse that "the computer is down"?  It's the 21st century after all and we still hear this.  Just ran into it with the local paper.  So 50 years of computer operations and google etc with a million systems all around the world and this is what we got?

Embarrassing.  How about getting things right?  Not enough money in it?