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The Politicization Of All Things
Prelude: The Good Old Daze Our ancestors, a term I’ve been using quite a lot and perhaps overusing, would go about their daily lives with the provisions, “Never discuss politics” and “Never discuss religion,” or some combination of the two concepts. These operating models were deployed at work, social, and pseudo-social gatherings. Sometimes, they were even operated within family units. For example, I nearly never heard the political beliefs of anyone born prior to 1930. Perhaps people might make comment on current political events, they may even lean towards a barely perceptible editorial comment, but the display of opinion lacked…
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Windows 11 – First Impressions
So, I’m a bit late to the game of Windows Insider builds for Windows 11. It seems that they’ve been available since June 2021. I’ve been preoccupied with other matters lately. Now I’m catching up: I missed the leak of the .iso that seemingly set the Windows tech media on notice. Not that I would have installed an .iso from a random website on my primary PC, but I do usually keep up with these things. Windows 11 will be, at the minimum, the 21st edition of Windows that I’ve used personally and professionally. Like many others, my love-hate relationship…
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Carol Janice Osborn, September 10, 1942 – January 4, 2021
As some of you may be aware, for much of my life, I have been trying to locate my mother. Note, that I do not refer to her as a “birth mother” as I was not technically adopted by someone else, though I have had many, many honorary mothers who readily volunteered for the role and continue to manifest A bit of backstory My mother left me behind in Flint, MI in late spring of 1972. I lived with my grandmother and great-grandmother (on my father’s side) until I was just past 17 years old. I moved into my own…
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David Paxton, June 13, 1944 – May 28, 2021
My father, David Paxton, who would have wished that I posted more and would have hated this post… unexpectedly died yesterday. His mother was Mary Frances Paxton of Flint, MI and his father was C.D. (Dee) Paxton of Genesee, MI. They preceded him in death in 1994 and 1999 respectively. David was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1944 and lived in Flint, MI, Pittsburg, PA, Tampa, FL and traveled the world many times over as an executive for Westinghouse and later ADP. His final home was in Brandon FL, outside Tampa FL. My dad was just a few days shy…
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The Long March To September
The article was originally published on 3/16/21 at covidtotals.com It’s been quite a few months since my last coronavirus update. There was a previous post that was an initial first warning and forward looking view. Like those earlier editorial statements, I will be warning, or attempting to warn family and friends, who will listen, of what will come in the next 90-120 days. At the time of this writing, 5 family members have been either fully vaccinated, or have received their first dose. Which is a relief. but there are many more to go in our family, not to mention yours.…
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Busy Work
During the pandemic I’ve continued to work the day job and I’ve launched a few new projects: meridianweekly.com – The Meridian Weekly covidtotals.com – Counting the coronavirus toprope.tv – Delivering subscription content from professional wrestling I also continue to maintain The East Village Magazine and Pure Pro Wrestling, which we recently redesigned. I’m working on a redesign for The East Village Magazine, which is rather long overdue. Top Rope TV is a division of Pure Pro Wrestling that is gearing up to launch thousands of hours of video content for a subscription audience. Though it’s not nearly ready for launch,…
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DAY 105: “I’M SAD… FOR NOW”
This article was originally published on May 6, 2020 at covidtotals.com It is probably time I level with all of you about what I think will happen. After 4 months of studying data, reading countless papers, books, and watching this migrate in our global culture, a few things have occurred to me. Those of you who know me, know that I do tend to go fast and deep on these things, I certainly have here. Even though I post articles to the news section of my own site, I do not often read Coronavirus-related news articles. I never watch the…
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Strange Projects
3/19/20 Welcome to https://www.covidtotals.com/ I am increasingly concerned, trying to find as much information as possible, and needed to build a single dashboard that would give high-level, as well as detailed information at a glance. So, I built: https://www.covidtotals.com/ For now, we’re going with data provided by Johns Hopkins University and visualized utilizing the datawrapper data visualization tools. This is an evolving project. Please stay tuned and “pardon our dust.”
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Salad Days
This is a typical news brief. I did many hundreds of these over the years. Whatever I was reading, that I though was interesting, or that I picked up along my travels, I would capture and drop into a list for others.
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Pure Pro Wrestling and paxtonland
Since October 2018, we’ve been on the road wrestling, training, and putting on shows. Dash has wrestled in front of thousands of fans, learned about the business of professional wrestling, and has performed at over 50 live shows. Pure Pro Wrestling and it’s owner Joe Byrd (Xavier Justice) have become part of our extended family and most of the entire company as well. We’ve been training kids for over 14 months now and our program has grown from six to nearly forty students. Some of the kids are definitely not going to be ever “picked for the team” and have…
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Meridian Weekly
We launched the Meridian Weekly website a couple of days ago. There were a number of difficult things to overcome, but it’s live. Also created facebook and twitter accounts for them to begin using. The Weekly is published in Ovid Michigan by a small staff and is living proof that print not only isn’t dead, it lives in small and almost unnoticed segments in our society. It’s just not what we think that it is, or rather what our idea of it was. Anyway, check them out, give them a follow. Support your local media content producers.
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Gary E. Fletcher
My friend Gary passed away. He was a great person and I was not a great friend. I will miss him. He was one of the reasons that I started my career in computers. I met him at a computer club meeting at Mott Community College in Flint, MI. We spent a lot of time early on in the x86 days with early versions of DOS, Windows, and the first releases of Linux. He was among the most knowledgeable computer people that I have ever met. He was a gifted systems engineer, software developer, and a great overall computing enthusiast.…
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News Briefs: “Put That Thing Back Where It Came From Or So Help Me”
Last space shuttle tank leaves New Orleans — by sea, not air — for its journey to L.A. First this then that? Titanic sinks in real-time – A 2 hour and 41 minute simulation. Fascinating. I’m sorry 1906 San Francisco earthquake photos are captivating The British Library has begun streaming more than 1,000 recordings made in India between 1912-1938. On Vanishing – Alizheimers and it’s invisible caregivers Waze is an awesome driving app that also lets hackers stalk you There is a subreddit for anything How the Myth of the “Irish slaves” Became a Favorite Meme of Racists Online 30 years after Chernobyl –…
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News Briefs: “I Can’t Conform To Your Normality”
Tinker with a neural network The Guardian’s breakdown of the Panama Papers The Verge reviews the phone I was most anticipating this year, the HTC 10. I’m disappointed. On to the Google Nexus 6p, most likely, or wait for the Galaxy Note 6. Remember that time Ted Cruz hated dildos? What is voter suppression really about? There’s a new 2+2 Buick convertible. The Cascade? Casandra Casaccaa? Quesadilla? Anyway it has all the appeal of a 2002 Pontiac Sunfire… *whomp wom* Charity analysis of the 50 biggest US businesses claims Apple have $181bn held offshore, while General Electric has $119bn and…
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News Briefs: Naked Schadenfreude
Mountains of Mouthiness – I’m crying laughing at this. Texas Governor Orders Guard to Monitor US Military Exercises – “Hi, I’m athe paranoid delusional that you elected governor! Don’t question me!” True schadenfreude is delicious Somebody had a better idea than latitude and longitude or street addresses for communicating location to other people – Not. Anti-gay rights republican turns out to be gay – I think there needs to be a “Wide Stance Republicans” party Check out the PBS documentary, Last Days in Vietnam – For a short time, PBS is streaming the film, here’s the site for more Classic films summarized by…
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News Briefs: Stacked Up For Days
Baltimore’s dual identity explains unrest – So many parallels to Flint. How Nepal’s earthquake was mapped in 48 hours – 2,182 digital volunteers, trawling 14,700 km2 worth of high resolution satellite imagery, identifying 3,128 damaged buildings. Public Opinion Shifts in Favor of Gay Marriage – Among Republican ranks, those under 50 are mostly in favor. An Anti-Creativity Checklist for 2015 – I think I’ve seen almost every most of these. The brains behind the ‘Aha!’ moment – Something that has fascinated me my entire life. There are regular “Ah-ha” moments, they happen all the time. Then there are revelations, less common, but they should happen a few…
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News Briefs: The links keep on coming…
Jon Stewart: why I quit The Daily Show – I really don’t care for Jon Stewart, there are those that do, more the better for ya Meet the New Wave of Chinese Designers – Assimilation will be total. I, for one, welcome our new fashion overlords. Trapped Into Selling Magazines Door-to-Door – I’ve wondered for decades if this was some sort of scam and how it was engineered. China home to largest Buddhist settlement in the world – 40,000 Buddhist monks and nuns. They can’t have TV, but they can have iPhones… Scientists Target New Painkillers From Spider Venom – Not opiates… E.U. vows…
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News Briefs: “You Spin Me”
Republicans push for a permanent aristocracy A.A. Sponsor Turns in Evans Woman for Underage Party. This story keeps getting better as you read it: Attorney for Evans Party Mom Releases Statement Candy Crush Saga: Man tears tendon in thumb from playing mobile game too much If you are an Android user, go to Google.com type in “find my phone.” You may have to log in to be verified, but it’s a very new(ish) cool thing. David Hasselhoff performs the Kung Fury theme The Age of Hubble a (2015) Documentary about Space – [50:01] – An army of high-tech telescopes, led by Hubble in space, has delivered…
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Ron Paul Did Not Vote for MLK Day
“Boy, it sure burns me to have a national holiday for Martin Luther King. I voted against this outrage time and time again as a Congressman. What an infamy that Ronald Reagan approved it! We can thank him for our annual Hate Whitey Day.” – Published in Ron Paul’s Newsletter (source 2, NYT)
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Obama Does Not Support SOPA/PIPA
Lest you be mislead by the abundance of misinformation, President Obama does not support SOPA/PIPA and that the office of the president “will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.” The statement further reads: “Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of online censorship of lawful activity and must not inhibit innovation by our dynamic businesses large and small. Across the globe, the openness of the Internet is increasingly central to innovation in business, government, and society and it must be protected.” Doesn’t sound like someone who…
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Nevermind
Due to an avalanche of emails (meaning 3), paxtonland will resume. After all it’s election season.
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Obscure Store Closing
“Obscure Store and Reading Room: Dear readers: After 13 years, I’m closing The Obscure Store.” Maybe I should take a hint?