Knuckledragger

The new machine is certainly shiny. This 16" display is pure pleasure after 6 mos of staring at the three ghetto-ass panels I have attatched to my Wintendo. Also everything is amazingly fast and responsive. With that said, this has been the bumpiest ride in a new Mac I've ever had. I have mostly sorted out 1Password (NOT the SaaS version, KTHX) now. Mostly. AgileBits are downright malicious with their browser extensions. I sorted out a weird "log in to you Apple account to continue" issue that had been resulting in an endless gear icon yesterday. I even got notoriously finicky Mixlr up and running./ Where I have not been so lucky is Traktor. I installed a fresh version of Native Instruments's utility "Native Access" and through that a fresh version of Traktor. So far it launches and immediately beachballs. I've done a number of google searches and NI swear up and down that the latest version of Traktor Pro 3 (3.5.2) works just fine with OS X Monterey. Not for me, it doesn't. I haven't even attempted to import my 6000+ tracks, nor gotten to the point where I can try.

Yikes. I just heard that one of my mum's oldest friends (named Susan, like half the women from her generation are) died of Covid. Her husband was very sick with it, but has survived so far. Neither were vaccinated. Robert, the husband, was a Vineyard native. He was a good friend of my father's growing up. He was an odd character for his entire life, but very mechanically inclined. He fixed everything from 2 cycle lawn mowers to large yacht engines. Over the last ...35ish years, he withdrew into right wing media, mostly via AM radio. In a less divided time than our current one (that post-9/11 idyll known as 2005) he confided to my mother that his only source of news was "right wing radio." I hadn't seen either of them in over a decade. Certainly not in the Trump or "post" (MFer ain't exactly gone) Trump era. At no point going back to the 1980s did I ever discuss politics with Robert. I strongly suspect he was hugely anti-vax and therefore Susan had to be as well. This marks the first time that someone I've known personally (and for my entire life, I might add) has died to covid due to their anti-vax stance. I'm gonna be "Knuckles at the end of his radio show" real here for a second: I can be friends with people with whom I have massive disagreements. We can have irreconcilable differences on tax or military policy, gay rights, what the fuck ever. As long as I don't have to hear about it, we're good. I'd like to ammend one my precvious statements:" This anti-vax bullshit isn't "pants-on-head" retarded. It's beyond that. It's "what are pants?" Water boils at 212 degrees Freedom and 100 degrees Communist. Reality is what remains when you stop believing in it. Get fucking vaccinated, you are a danger to yourself and others. When did we collectively lose 2/3 of our IQ points? Good fucking LORD.

#ScottishPeopleTwitter

Man, AAPL has just sure made using the Migration Assistant (formally one of the platform's greatest strenghts) into an absolute nightmare to use.

TL;DW: Would anyone like to buy a Synology NAS?

Visited some friends in the fine city of Gloucester (GLOAHstuh). It's a wonderful fishing port that's being (not so) slowly gentrified to the moon. While there I picked up a shiny new MacBook Pro (yay!), a new iPhone (double yay, my old one was nearly dead), got my vacc booster, and got a bottle of Georgian (as in the country) catsup as a gift. Weirdly, getting my vax boster shot proved to be a PITA. The first THREE places I called said "yeah, we don't do that anymore." As best I can figure, most of the country is already boosted and the remaining population mostly consists of pants-on-head retard anti-vaxxers "the vaccine-hesitant." ADD fucks who are a day late and a dollar short but not Flat Earth Society antivax like myself are a rare breed. In any case, I got my jab and my arm hurts like hell.

No, I'm not Kuckles' Tech Tips. TBH, the new Macintop is STILL in its box and it'll be a bit before I have it fully spun up. In the next few days I have to: Either un-fuck my current version of 1Password or upgrade to the new one, which SaaS with a monthy fee. Ugh Aftering doing the above, get 1PW up to date and running on 4 computers and one iPhone not including the new lappy. Sign up for Proton VPN (officially broke up with Nord) and get it running on the same machines. Did I mention I bought a new iPhone? Get IT working with all my various 2FA sites/apps/etc. Update a bunch of passwords that are past due for refreshing. Finally start in on the new lappy, which will take days of work including data migration and account/software setup. Pay my property tax, which was due on the first. I am a nearly 50 year old clown.

Soon.

Tweets that aged like a fine wine:

Was supposed to pick up my new lappy and iPhone yesterday, but an unforscene complication on the other end put the kibosh to that at 9:30 in the morning. Currently everything is up in the air.

Malcom Cecil and Robert Margoule's Tonto synth.

RIP Douglas Trumbull.

A fascinating short on the attempts to save an amazing bit of architecture: Also holy shit is the Scottish accent like getting hit by a claymore when you don't expect it. I say this as someone who has watched 5 seasons of Shetland.

Ew.

The Chinaman doesn't have battery life issues, Dude. Also, Dude, Chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature.

Gah. Just went out and cleaned off part of the Fit so I could plug in its trickle charger. Yep, that's some fuckin' snow. Biting arctic wind as well. It's pretty awful outside.

This is going to exceed the attention span of ...nearly everyone. I watched it tonight. I found to be utterly fascinating. It starts with the '08 housing crash, the birth of crypto and the "rise" of NFTs. It confirms many of my prejudices and biases, but also covers a lot of areas where I frankly I had no fricken clue. YouTube really is the best worst thing ever.

Canon is shutting down its Zhuhai factory in south China, citing low compact camera demand and chip shortages. Unsurprising, but still ...ulp.

Craaazy winds here. Power was out for six hours, tidily from ~6AM to noon.

America, fuck yeah!