Tech musings, 30.7.16

So, I recently went to the dark side…

I bought a Kindle Fire.

Yeah. I had never been too keen on the idea of e-books before, but it’s really neat. I use the Fire a lot as a tablet as opposed to an e-reader, which has saved my phone battery the workout it’s gotten up to now. There are a lot of really cool games available for it too.

I did finally take the plunge and downloaded my first e-book on it a couple of weeks ago. Only fitting, I suppose, that it was a Tom Clancy book, 1989’s Clear and Present Danger. I have bought at least two or three copies of that book over the years, with the first one being in 1992. It’s even better than I remember it. I remember really enjoying the movie, too.

And with that, here is my favorite scene from it.

Man, that was Harrison Ford’s Jack Ryan at his absolute best, right there.

Yup, he’s exactly right.

Ruben Navarrette, in today’s San Antonio Express-News:

Don’t get it twisted, Cruz haters. The Texas senator is a straight-up hero.

Yep. There are quite a few things I do not agree with Navarrette on, as you know if you’re a longtime reader — but he’s pretty much dead-on here. I know well what a lot of people are saying about Ted Cruz keeping his word, but it deserves to be asked what good his word is if he’s keeping it to a slimy creature like Donald Trump? It’s almost literally like casting pearls before swine — even more so considering how Trump attacked Ted Cruz’s family.

Speaking of that:

“I mean give me a break Ted, go ahead and endorse the man,” Robertson said on FOX & Friends following Cruz’s Wednesday night speech at the Republican National Convention where he failed to endorse Trump. “I mean, you lost, he won.”

The Robertson patriarch continued, “I love that dude [Cruz] but all the guys who lost and gals, they all need to swallow their pride and say the people [and] the Republican Party has said Donald Trump is the man we want in the White House.”

Is that right?

“…you husbands must give honor to your wives…”

“…honor thy father and they mother…”

..Yeeeeah. Tell me more about what a fine, upstanding Christian mayyyyun Phil Robertson is.

FFS, dude, just play with your thirty pieces of silver and keep your mouth shut.

Granger Smith:

“I’m very, very, very blessed to have had the Texas music scene as a testing ground,” Smith recently told The Boot and other reporters. “I had singles — on-the-radio singles — I had a radio tour a couple times … [We] had been running in the minor leagues; that’s really what it is.”

Well then.

I guess we should just consider the source and think of what Smith said as a compliment given such, but it’s still bullshit, and rather inaccurate bullshit to, uh, boot. Such a statement would seem to imply that Texas is the farm team for Nashville, and that in turn would seem to imply that what’s done in Nashville and what’s done in Texas somewhat resemble one another. And we all should know by now that such is far from the case. But no matter what, it strikes me as more than a little bit insulting. Like this scene and all that it stands for wasn’t good enough for him. And beyond that, what does that say about his opinion of all the Texas guys who went to Nashville before and came back to Texas later, like Wade Bowen, Pat Green, Cross Canadian Ragweed, and the Randy Rogers Band? That they weren’t good enough to make it in the so-called major leagues? That is every bit as offensive as “if you’re not on country radio, you don’t exist.”

Also, along the lines of my previous comment, if Smith’s analogy was anywhere near accurate, Aaron Watson would have been made a mainstream star with The Underdog and “Rodeo Queen” would have been the closing track on it. To paraphrase a commenter at Galleywinter’s FB page, Smith’s commentary is going to serve him quite well when he comes slinking back to Texas after his stint in Nashville.

And mark my words, he’ll be back at some point. And he will deserve every bit of the ridicule that he gets.

Well, that’s news to me.

President Barack Obama:

“It’s easier for a teenager to get his hands on a Glock than a computer…or even a book!”

Really? Because I remember when I bought my last computer off the Internet:

• I did have it shipped to the Apple Store, but I could have had it shipped straight to my home had I not been concerned about theft. I didn’t have to have it shipped to a Federal Computer License holder, because of course that is not a thing.

• I did not have to be at least 21 to order it. If I remember correctly, the minimum age to order was 18, but that was a matter of Apple policy — not a matter of federal law.

• I did not have to fill out a Bureau of Computers, Tablets, and Smartphones Form 4473 at the Apple Store when I picked up that computer, because just like the Federal Computer License holder, the  Bureau of Computers, Tablets, and Smartphones is not a thing, nor is the Form 4473 for it.

Beyond all that, of course, unlike with gun stores, more “progressive” municipalities aren’t trying to drive the electronics stores out of town under the twisted guise of “social justice,” they’re not proposing to tax electronics or peripherals…

I could certainly go on, but such would be belaboring the point.