Wednesday, September 23, 2020

Administrative Down Day

Milton in Office Space
(As portrayed by Stephen Root)

It's been one of those weeks -



I'm not saying that the guys at work needed a flamethrower to calm me down, but it might have helped.

As le projet naval continues apace, I need to spend more time in the lab than I have over the past few months. I write procedures to test things, then I need to, ya know, test things. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. When they don't is where we engineers earn our paychecks. Or not as the case may be...

Now I may (or may not) have been a little pissy in the comments over the past few days, don't sweat it, it's not you, it's me. Lack of sleep and an overactive brain tend to make me crabby. Also as the weather gets cooler, stuff that aches when it starts to cool, well, starts to, ya know, ache.

Getting old ain't for sissies.

I'm taking some time to binge watch some stuff on Amazon Prime (quit yer whinging, they provide a service which pleases me, doesn't have to please others). Such as Generation Kill, a most excellent HBO series about Marines in Gulf War 2.0.

Another series I found interesting (and just a bit weird) was Fortitude...



The new Blogger interface, for those who didn't know it, sucks beyond belief. It's cumbersome, gives me less control of the content, and (drum roll please) it's hard to use. You might see a post get published, then go away. That's me checking to see if the videos I included actually worked. Someone at Google (the people who own Blogger), thought that the Blogger way of doing videos was the best way. It's not. They also crammed a bunch of useless HTML code in on the dark side of the blog, stuff you don't see but which I do. And trust me, it sucks.

I'm getting used to it, but it takes time and more effort than is really necessary. I wonder which idiot at Google gets a promotion for this POS. (No, that doesn't stand for "Point Of Service," just in case you're wondering.)

See, I am crabby!

Anyhoo, no WWII post today, sorry. I'm just not feeling all that creative today.

Carry on...




(BTW, feel free to hijack this thread, but fair warning, in the future I might delete comments which have absolutely nothing to do with a post. Especially if there are links to, ya know, elsewhere. If you think something is peachy keen neato, email me. If I think it worth sharing, I will. End of rant...)

40 comments:

  1. So, to be clear... You are writing this stuff, the night before it's due?!?!?!?! WOW. That is impressive. No, I know.... Just funnin' a bit.

    Grandma said having fleas warn't bad. KEEPING fleas on the other hand was just plain dumb... so..... If'n you are crabby, there is ointment for that.... I'll leave the contact tracing up to you.....

    Keep cool up there. It'll be in the 90's again down here this week. Fall was a nice couple days...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, I write the night before, but as for the book, that's always churning in the old brain box.

      Warmer yesterday and today, almost hit 80 on Wednesday, but no humidity to speak of. Very nice weather.

      Delete
    2. OMG! A HEATWAVE in Little Rhoddy! Doomed, doomed I say...

      Yeah, gonna be pert near 90 with a pert near 90% humidity and I have to go to WalMart...

      Delete
    3. Not really, pretty standard up here. What we used to call Indian Summer before the SJWs overran the place.

      Delete
    4. So it's 'Native American and First Nations annual heat increase period' then?

      Delete
    5. STxAR: Just so ya know fleas and crabs are not the same things...just so ya know...and while Sarge was in Maryland recently, which is known for it's crabs (the aquatic kind), I'm sure he didn't pick up any fleas or crabs or ticks for that matter...giggle...

      And yes the weather in the great Nor'east has been completely beautiful!!!

      Delete
    6. Suz has spoken!

      I know the difference, I've been in some pretty seedy places in my life, so yeah, say no more.

      Didn't get to dine on the Chesapeake Bay variety of crab last time I was down there, the virus thingee kept us close to home and the newest member of the family. Which I had no problems with. 😁

      Delete
  2. Sarge, I could not agree more on the Blogger interface. How anyone conceived of this being an improvement is beyond me.

    I hear you on the acceleration of projects. Somehow at work we went from zero to seventh gear in about two weeks and I am not taking it well. You are right, it does wear on you .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I wonder if the changes were made to ease the burden on Google servers. As much as I don't like the interface, it is free. It would have been better if they hadn't "sold" it as an improvement. Only an idiot would think it's an improvement on the user end.

      Delete
    2. It doesn't seem, to me, to be as bad as everyone makes it out to be. But then again, I'm weird.

      The whole 'posting it per your timezone thingy sucks, or not.

      Meh. Free. You get what you pay for.

      Now if I was paying for it and it had all these quirks, well, that would be different.

      Delete
    3. The scheduler seems to be working now.

      But yeah, free, the price is right.

      Delete
    4. Fair enough. It is free, so little should be my complaining. But yes, presenting it as an "upgrade" was a bit of a stretch.

      Delete
    5. When I install a new desktop or laptop or what have you at work, they always ask, "is it faster?" I just say, "it's new!"

      Delete
  3. The new interface is bad, I agree, but they did fix one of my gripes. I noticed on my last post that they added back the drop down for picture size. Previously, it was a + button that you had to click multiple times to get a picture the size you wanted. But ( and it’s a Kardassian sized but) the size on the interface did not reflect the actual size that would be published.

    All the hidden drop down menus really suck...bad.

    Other than that... it’s a step backward.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I can relate about aches - yard work all day yesterday, bending over pulling weeds - I'm headed for the NSAIDs as soon as I pen this comment.
    Good news is weather the last few days has been very nice - even getting into the high 40s at night, low humidity during the day.
    So enjoy some R&R from the blog perspective. We'll be here when you get back. And good luck on the testing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't think the hiatus will be that long, the Muse already has an idea for the next post in the book.

      Delete
    2. As an aside to the ground story, you could always incorporate a Luftwaffe pilot in an Me 262 - from both the German and the American pilots' points of view ... maybe the guys on the ground looking up at the weird planes and then transitioning into the cockpits of opposing fighters...

      http://donaldnijboer.com/who-shot-down-the-first-me-262-jet-fighter/

      Delete
  5. Once upon a time we could actually wrap text around images, but gargle improved that out of the mix years ago.
    Some sent me a link for a how to continue using the legacy [sic] interface, begetting there isn’t necessarily half the fun.
    There’s a lot on Prime that piques my curiosity, but MB and I just don’t turn on the tv unless there’s something really special.

    Posts get hijacked when the participants are comfortable in the environment and there are enough commenters to talk among themselves.
    Be happy.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If you have a link to continue using the legacy, render it hither! Forthwith!

      You're right about the hijackings, I get that, but there are days when the hijack is so far off base that, that, that...

      Man, I am crabby this week. Thank God the weekend is here!

      Delete
    2. In the words of our friend, Buck, check your email.

      Delete
    3. Got it, and it WORKS! Thanks Skip.

      Delete
    4. I hate to beg, but please sir, may I have legacy? shonny61atgeemaledotcommon

      I really do hate to beg. But not as much as I hate to try to find it on my own...

      SMHIS

      Delete
  6. Well, during the flight to Entebbe...

    No?

    Well, okay then.

    Work doth get crazy once in a while, doesn't it? At least it allows you to afford the munificent vehicle you drive and feed the cats, you know, the important things.

    Ha. Wouldn't it be funny if the next war post was about red tape, paperwork, admin pukes and how to get around them (without or with using an M4 Sherman?) Be even funnier if I was correct in predicting yet another post. Be not funny if the local bishop and several score of villagers decided to go all 'Salem' on me for having foresight. Nope, not funny.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Heh, I see what ya did there.

      Not a bad idea for a future post, gives the Muse something to chew on it does.

      Hey, is that the Bishop over there?

      Delete
    2. I will employ the Castle Defense!

      Delete
    3. Checkmate King Two, This is White Rook, Over...

      Delete
  7. I'm noting that a lot of bloggers find themselves in Procrustes' bed; seems to me you got two choices:
    1. sleep on the floor
    2. set a server and rent/purchase (slavery is still permitted - no?) a good coder to provide with exactly what the majority of you want.

    ReplyDelete
  8. One of those weeks here as well. Ups and downs; I pay too much attention to the downs. Little ones continually explode my heart with love and I whine about being the richest man in the history of the universe.

    Blooger -- I won't whine. I'll just pray that my rusty bowl soon runneth over with legacy...

    ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  9. While I have only worked with that new interface once, earlier this week, I didn't find too much to dislike about it, yet that is. I did like making the picture bigger just by dragging a corner down, vice having only 3 choices- small, medium, and large. Is it the same way for videos? That was always a difficult one for me, to find the right ratio of size and width larger than the default size.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I haven't used Blogger's method of inserting videos in years. I use the HTML shown below to insert the video directly, using YouTube's tag for the video. The height and width can be set explicitly in that html. Which looks like - (note change the square brackets to angle brackets)

      [div style="text-align: center;"]
      [iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="712" src="//www.youtube
      .com/embed/bT8CRi9k4bo" width="1100"][/iframe][br /][/div]

      The YouTube tag is bT8CRi9k4bo, the height and width are listed in the example above as 712 and 1100, respectively, those values being in pixels. Those two values work nicely for the Chant. Search YouTube for the video you want, then pull the tag out and put it in the HTML as shown. Works well.

      Check your email.

      Delete
  10. Hey AFSarge;

    I don't like the New blogger interface, they say it is mobile friendly....Well I like the "old" version a lot better, this new version is more difficult to manipulate and place pics and video clips than the old version. I kept bringing the old version back and blogger kept defaulting the new version. I guess it is a subtle hint that I better learn to use the new interface. It is clunkier than the old one and not as user friendly. I have had postings vanish along with comments...I ain't thrilled.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Shoot me an email MrG, I can hook you up with the legacy version.

      Delete

Just be polite... that's all I ask. (For Buck)
Can't be nice, go somewhere else...

NOTE: Comments on posts over 5 days old go into moderation, automatically.