Laws are discovered by sages. They explain how reality works.
Statutes are written by fools. They defy reality.
170120
Only Negan needs a bat!
Or….
It is the responsibility of The Militia to be as well armed as The Occupation.
170205
in re “Our Democracy”
<meta name=“description” content=“On missing the point in political discourse.”/>
As disturbing, and amusing, as that recent display of synchronized Sinclairian sycophancy was, even more disturbing, and less amusing, was the actual content of their robotic recitation (“…dangerous for our democracy.”)
It is not unreasonable to expect well paid and well groomed spokes-bots to mouth their corporate masters’ message, and it was certainly gratifying that someone took the effort to synch up these prattling parrots to show just how much independent thought goes into reading the news. Approximately zero.
Again, the saddest part of all was the actual message. Anyone who refers to the united States as “Our Democracy” betrays a deep misunderstanding of constitutional order and individual liberty.
On paper, at least ([“deity condemned”], according to BHWB43), the united States are a confederation of “Free and Independent” sovereigns, and NOT a unitary democracy. Ostensibly, the Constitution protects both the prerogatives of the States and the rights of the People.
In a democracy, 51% are entitled to kill and eat 49%.
On the other hand, the use of “Our Democracy” IS a convenient flag.
It says, “Stuffed shirt here! No need to waste any more time trying to learn from this ill-informed source.”
(And speaking of ill-informed, Bubback Hussein Walker Bush 43 = “Dubya“.)
180407
Wasted Votes
22 October 2004
I’m not super excited about Michael Badnarik, but I’ll be voting for him. Sure, he’s no Harry Browne or (former New Mexico governor) Gary Johnson, but he’s still a fur sight better than Dubya or Kerry.
“But Gene,” you bleat, “he can’t win. You’re just wasting your vote!”
Am I? How can you be qualified to tell me how much I value an action?
In order to make sense of the assertion, I need to understand what “waste” is. I will stipulate that “waste” constitutes expenditure without purpose. If I’m running the faucet into the sink am I wasting water or am I flushing the drain? If I leave my computer on am I wasting electricity or am I saving boot-up time? An evaluation of waste demands a metric. When it comes to voting, there are many. Most of us get at least an emotional rush out of it. Whether it’s that warm fuzzy from civic engagement, or the sober satisfaction of prudent strategory. As in: “I know Burry is awful, but Kesh is worse!” or “Vote YES 4 Kidz!” I get it. Emotionalism matters. Whether you’re voting for Dubya in order to keep the blood of President Kerry’s crimes off your hands, or just taking pride in NOT robbing your neighbors (Vote NO 4 Kids!), your vote is never wasted if it pleases you.
But enough of “rank sentimentalism” (Merci, M Renault!) Other than palliating the proletariat, what does voting actually DO? Practically? Really? Well, arguably it elects a president or a dog catcher. And it can qualify a political party for future ballots. Or does it? One of the best ways of revealing the value of something is to remove it from the equation and see what changes. If you hadn’t voted for Dubya in 2000, he still would have lost Hawaii and won the Union. That vote then, was wasted. It made no difference. By THAT metric, anyway. Of course, there is a chance, a very small chance, that your next vote is gonna put Geohn Burry over the top and defeat Jorge Kesh. There is a less small chance that my next vote for the Libertarian candidate will be the one that puts our party over the top and qualifies us for automatic ballot status next time.
So I’ll make you a bet! The same wager I’ve been offering around the last couple of months. I’ll put up an ounce of gold and you put up an ounce of silver. If the Presidential election comes down to your State, and your State comes down to your vote, you win! Otherwise you owe me an ounce of silver (or about eight bucks federal paper.)
I’ve been offering about fifty to one odds, and so far I have no takers, not even from the big noises who still scold us for “wasting” our votes.
update 180421: Bad Example #1 —
Kerry and Bush are both war criminals,
and therefore equally bad. I had preferred, and predicted, a Kerry win. I’d hoped that a Democrat in the White House might remind Republicans to feign free market allegiance again. Faced with a monolithic Demoblican OR Repucrat government, I’ll take division over union.
Give me Liberty, or Give me Gridlock!
Bad Example #2: Voting YES 4 Kidz never works,
as the beneficiaries of such regular larcenies continue to be
pampered educrats and union thugs.
I’m less excited about Gary Johnson now, having voted for him twice, than I was in ‘04, and continue to despair of seeing a candidate of the calibre of Harry Browne or Ron Paul any time soon (despite their respective “flaws.”) Nevertheless, I salute him, and his back to back record breaking runs. update 210228: I still salute him, even though Jo Jorgensen has just eclipsed his first record in her 2020 run. The Iron Man now occupies the first and third places in the LP’s Presidential Derby, with Dr JoJo now shoehorned in at second. It’s a pity that neither Mr Browne nor Dr Paul (in their own respective runs) enjoyed the general level of notoriety that libertarians do today.
America might have saved itself a lot of trouble! (frowny face emotji)
Meaningless Comparison
25 March 2018
If necessary, I will use my gun to protect my kid (and maybe yours, too.)
Your house and your car and your savings account are all probably worth more than my gun, too. So what? I expect you also think your kid is worth more than your house, your car, and your back account combined. You blather on about how no price is too high if it saves just one child. Really? No price? What about two children? “Marching for Life,” passionate grief, earnest resolve, and sincere expression all make for entertaining video, but they are poor substitutes for sober discourse.
Let’s dial back the histrionics a bit and agree that nobody (except for twisted nihilist punks and John Bolton) want to see more dead children. The question is, how best to secure their safety? Responsible grownups assess the dangers, and try to make rational choices, often balancing countervailing factors. You love your kid, and to protect him from rogue truckers crashing through the house you’re going to build a concrete wall around your property. Right?
“Are you kidding me? No way! Who could afford such a thing? And it would be an eyesore blight on the neighborhood, too! What’s that going to do to my property value?”
So are you telling me that your kid ISN’T worth more than your bank account or your house? Of course you aren’t. You’re just making a reasoned assessment of the risks and rewards, and settling on optimal solutions. Instead of bunkering down next to the Interstate, you live in a quieter neighborhood, and you teach your children traffic safety.
Well, it works the same way with guns. Multiple shooters who are stopped by armed civilians on the scene generally accomplish less carnage than those stopped by The Authorities. Of course, the leftie media won’t report THAT, because it doesn’t support their agenda. Besides, the greater the body count, the greater the ratings.
Final notes:
“My kid is worth more than your kid” is believed by every parent who is not a true communist or an insect. If you disagree you are not a parent. Or you are a liar. Or a fool.
In John Bolton’s defense, the only dead children he desires to see (so far), are Korean, Persian, and Syrian. Not directly of course, but (like Madeleine Albright) he accepts the collateral damage as “worth it” to his imperial designs.
Affirmative Reaction
18 March 2018
Which is more disastrous? Putting a “wise latina” on the Supreme Court, or putting an educated latina in charge of the engineering firm tasked with developing innovative pedestrian bridge designs?
Were six Floridian motorists just killed by affirmative action?
These are not conclusions, these are QUESTIONS.
If the latina in question is the most qualified ENGINEER available, then neither her genitalia nor her ethnic heritage are relevant considerations. But if she was merely the most qualified from an artificially reduced field of candidates, then that left potentially superior candidates passed over, and that ill serves engineering, safety, AND sanity. The optimist wishes to believe that she got the job based strictly on her technical qualifications, but the cynic suspects that the State of Florida is beholden to contemporaneous sensibilities and found her to be more demographically suitable than her paler, betesticled competitors. Do you want the girl who’s better than 95% of the guys, or do you want the engineer who’s better than ALL the others?
Unfortunately, MCM Project Exec Leonor Flores makes rather a big to do about bringing a woman’s “different perspective” into her trade, as if that makes the slightest bit of difference to compressive strength, wind loading, or material fatigue. If it turns out the cynic is more right than the optimist, perhaps Ms Flores might seek refuge from the insensitive math of engineering in the progressive protection of Google.
The racist* Walter Williams has often expressed his appreciation of the fact that he took his degrees before the institution of Affirmative Action called into question the accomplishments of all the boosted “beneficiaries.”
Gender norming, cultural norming, and affirmative action are all offenses to decency and responsibility, as they turn the focus from WHAT is accomplished to WHO is attempting it. If I’m overcome by smoke in a high rise fire, I don’t care what the firefighter is packing between his legs, as long as he can throw me over his shoulder and carry me down the six flights of stairs to safety. If my rescuer turns out to be Lady Brienne or Xena the Warrior Princess then I am singing her praises, but if Steve Buscemi or Paul Reubens show up instead, then I am kissing my ass goodbye.
So it’s possible that Ms Flores IS a decent engineer, and that she was betrayed by her contractors, or her suppliers, or who knows what yet. Disasters like these are the stuff of engineers’ nightmares, and I do not intend to diminish her concerns, nor too hastily impugn her integrity. However, engineers (and Supreme Court judges) handle matters of life and death, and no sane or humane person would want to put anyone into such a position solely to satisfy a quota.
(* Walter Williams would likely be denounced as a racist, were it not for his deep chestnut complexion, for stating such obvious facts as: the greatest danger to young black men in the inner city is other young black men, a child has a better chance of surviving to adulthood and staying out of jail if his parents are married, you are more likely to do well in life if you delay having children until AFTER you are employed, and big cities run by Negro Democrats go broke.)
Phenomenal Failures
26 March 2018
Based on Mr Trump’s nomination of John Bolton to be his nationalist insecurity advisor, there seems to be a bright future in government “service” ahead for MCM Project Executive Leonor Flores.
Of course, the deaths of six Floridian motorists due to the failure of her pedestrian bridge (designed to the specifications of a woman’s “different perspective”) pales in comparison to the hundreds of thousands of corpses piled up by Operation Iraqi Cakewalk. Still, she seems to be on the right track. There is very little that government loves more than failure — except perhaps “good intentions.”
She’ll have to follow Mr Bolton’s career path, I suppose. Perhaps a few years as Fox News’ “Engineering Safety Consultant” will prepare her for taking on Mr Trump’s Border Boondoggle. After all, that’s what the Berlin Wall was missing, right? The woman’s touch?
On Neighborliness
Good Citizens will cooperate with “The Authorities.”
Good Neighbors will hide you from them.
Philippe Petain and Vidkun Quisling were Good Citizens.
Corrie ten Boom and Oskar Schindler were Good Neighbors.
180303
Capital Crime
9 March 2018
“It’s only money. You can always get some more.”
Generally true. It is not a disaster of pestilential proportions to lose your wallet or to have your purse snatched, but it’s NOT “only money.” Money is just the most convenient form that you can manage to make of your talents, your efforts, and your IRREPLACEABLE TIME. Time is all we ever get, ultimately, to experience and create and savor life. When we are robbed, then, we are robbed of life. Admittedly small fractions, but finite nevertheless, and they add up. I’m not about to get all Ye Olde Testament on ya’ll and propose the gallows for purse snatchers and second story men, but, well… there is a limit.
Why do we punish homicide more than most other crimes? More than taxation, which is fractional (if persistent and cumulative), homicide is complete. It is the deprivation of an entire lifetime of experience and wonder and joy. Whether it’s for profit or pleasure or because of egregious and depraved indifference, if you kill it is not unreasonable to expect some communities to string you up or lock you up or otherwise contain the clear and present danger you present.
If we punish homicide to answer the loss of an entire lifetime, we might ask, “What exactly is an entire lifetime?” Let’s get metrical and let’s be generous. In contracts and statutes, terms are specific. Let’s say a lifetime is one million hours. That’s a nice round number and it works out to about 114 years. Not common, but not unprecedented either, and medicos continue to refine their craft.
Ever been in a traffic jam? Now multiply your anguish by the legions around you. Some severe traffic jams can add up to thousands of lost manhours. No fun time, but no hanging offense, either. Most of us feel for the poor schmuck whose tire blew out up ‘round the next bend. Besides, we make allowances for accidents. Now blow up a major bridge over the Ohio River during rush hour — and amazingly not kill a single motorist in the doing so. Even without immediate fatality, the resulting mess would back up literally for miles and hours. Along such a presumed major traffic corridor the loss of irreplaceable time could easily go into the millions of manhours.
Ever suffer a cyber attack? Virus infect your desk top? How much time did you spend recovering (or recreating) files? Were you alone in your experience or was this one of the notorious wide scale infestations? These deliberate acts of sabotage could easily end up squandering several megamanhours, even if the concomitant damage doesn’t result in any crashed aircraft or botched surgeries. These destructive and dangerous programs are launched intentionally for purposes of enrichment, amusement, and self-aggrandizement.
I’d say “Hangin’s too quick fer ‘em” if I weren’t so tender-hearted.
It is for just such tricks that we want Ol’ Sparky at the ready.
Due process first, please.
Salute and Thanks to Tom Woods (who still gives me WAAAAAAAY too much credit.)
September 23, 2017
Five minutes, he says, five minutes and I’m supposedly ’b logging. About an hour into this trauma and it’s still not fun.
update 170925: Into day three of my “five minute” ordeal. Obviously I can get in and edit, and probably even post, but still only through the handy e-mail portal that blue host sent me. And roundaboutly at that! However, I still cannot get in through the site itself… lower right of the screen… META… Log in… you’d think that’s where they’d take my e-dress and (ridiculously complicated) passcode…
Heavy sigh…
update 171112: Posting again… After six weeks I’ve cracked PART of the secret code; now I can get in other than accidentally, albeit through blue host’s “convenient” e-portal. Remote access is still a no go. I may have to suffer the “help” desk again. And graphics? That could be years away…
Also Tom, by explicit contextual definition, since I have not yet monetized this trauma, I remain a schmuck. (Maybe the reason “nobody ever does anything” is because “nothing ever works.”)
I hope you’re bearing with me. I have long been challenged by syntactical disciplines. It began, I am told (by parents and an older brother who were all there), with the English language. I did not speak for well past the expected period, and folks were beginning to wonder, “Is there something wrong with that boy?” As it turned out, there was. Nevertheless, one day at dinner I suddenly spewed forth both proper grammar and genteel table etiquette. (“Please pass the potatoes.”)
The painfully embarrassing cognitive debility extended to junior high French also, constituting my single scholastic failure, as well as to Les Mysteres Cybernetique.
correspondent TE (180111):
“Please understand: I want to help you. But you have to help me help you. I need an About page that is extremely straightforward. No jokes, no wit. Just plain Jane: this is what this site is. These are the opinions you can expect to find here. Otherwise, I am unable to promote your site effectively.”
update 180115: Composed and drafted an “About page” (sober complement to my “The Greigh Area…” description post), and while I sent the (implicitly) requested text and link, I still can’t figure out how to make it appear without loading “an about page” into the handy “Search” window. I suppose it doesn’t count if I don’t touch third base…
I hope this helps. It seems a little flat to me, but I’ll have to live with it for a while. I’m not sure how I’d find it again if I hadn’t recorded its address, as follows: http://thegreigharea.com/an-about-page/
I expect there are less cumbersome ways of going about this…
update 180119: WOW! I somehow tripped over the graphics switch, and after several hours of thumb-fingered fumbling, I now have illustrations!
I am tempted to find an unflattering photo of you, Tom, to post at the top of this rant, but I doubt that any exist.
My anger and frustration lie squarely on me. I’m sorry if I’ve allowed my careless wallowing to splash any of it out of my trough.
Oh! And look! I seem to have an “installed Plugin“. Where did that come from? Or was it always there? How did it happen? Did I trip over some new switch… ?
( from episode 1095 // 180215 — Tom’s late Valentine? )
“All right, now folks, you know that I promote websites that are created by people who listen to the show. And if they use my link to get their web hosting they get a good price on it, and they get free publicity from me and a bunch of other very very helpful bonuses that’ll get them free traffic, get them up and running quickly, get them help when they need it, they’re great bonuses, and you know you can get ‘em at Tom Woods dot com slash publicity.
Well I have to confess I do not know how to promote this particular website. I’ve tried, I’ve talked to the guy. I just don’t know how to promote it. The website is The Greigh Area dot com, but it’s spelled G R E I G H, because his name is Gene Greigh, so the Greigh Area dot com. You just have to see Gene Greigh’s writing for yourself. That’s all I can say.
If I tried to explain it to you, I don’t think I’ll be able to do it justice. The site consists of excerpts from works of fiction, published and in progress, poetry, but also, and I would say primarily, commentary on cultural matters, political, historical, even personal matters, much of it intended to be humorous. I don’t know what else to say, other than, I’m just going to have you be surprised when you go to The Greigh Area dot com.
update 180216: In fact, as far as I can tell, Professor Woods has delivered everything he’s promised. All flaws rest with this miserable troglodyte, who continues to struggle, as arcana mystify and confrontation confounds…
update 180218: So was that remorse I detected in Tom’s voice? Or consternation or exasperation or impatience or pique? Irritation? I wouldn’t blame him. I suppose we can be a bit of a trial — but he asked for it! As a consequence of his trauma he deserves every scintilla of attention we’ll offer and every milliray of mammon he can collect.
Nevertheless, I for one, remain grateful and resolve to go back to the end of episode 1095 and listen to Tom’s intro to my poor efforts, and DIGEST. EVERY. WORD.
Then go back to those intimidating tutorial videos again.
Then maybe into my time machine so I can make a better first impression.
update 180222: Bluehost has locked me out again. This is very frustrating. It’s difficult enough to learn this stuff without having chaotic cyber tricks giving me different results, even though I KEEP. DOING. THE SAME. THING.! “Five minutes,” Tom? “FIVE MINUTES?” Look, it’s been almost FIVE MONTHS, and while I’ve managed to get a little text up on the screen (the whole point of this exercise in anguish), I still don’t know how to get in and out reliably. When it permits, I get in through the portal that was provided in September, but I still have no clue as to how to get in remotely. Presumably through the “META“ function, which solicits a “user name or e-mail address, which I provide, then it asks for the ridiculously cumbersome and difficult to remember passcode blue host requires (instead of the easy convenient one that I can remember), which I provide. Instead of letting me in, it rejects my efforts. Also, it would be nice to “stick” my “about page” somewhere near the top of the file, or at least give it a recoverable label so new visitors can readily call it up.. That would be nice.
Dang! I think I’m going to actually have to talk to these people. Please let the next one actually speak English, instead of Cyberlogue, which only sounds like English I’m also going to have to wait to post this diatribe until I can get back in, so it waits on “Word” until I can wake up “wordpress.”
update 180228: Aaaaaaand back in! Just in case I am banish-ed from your in box AND you happen to glance here…
Dr Woods,
You have been very gracious. I appreciate your enormous patience. (Perhaps I am the beneficiary of your training with five daughters.)
I am pleased that you’ve seen fit to post a link to my site even though some of my vocabulary is inconsistent with your “family-friendly” philosophy (as I understand it), so thank you for the extra-contractual kindness.
As if you haven’t done enough for us, I have two additional requests (although one might be convolved enough to count as more).
Because I am a dithering fool I’ve lost the link to the twenty-five tutorials which you were kind enough to send me lo these many months ago. May we refresh the link or am I out of luck? I have managed to get a little text up on the screen, and somehow tripped over some of the secrets of graphics. But now I am locked out again (as of 2/18?), so I’m actually going to have to talk to these people. At least so I can get back in, maybe even remotely. Then to study study study…
May I know your advertising criteria? (Bucks per time increment — prerecorded v Tom’s recitation, and whether the phrase “…and I’m only saying this because he’s paying me to” would require any premium beyond the time it takes you to read it.)
I remain eager for your response, a loyal fan, and hoping that I am not damaging our relationship with my clingy neediness or embarrassing ineptitude.
update 180804:
As usual, I am a problem.
I just sent you 27 bucks for your “HappyEarner” program, and cheerfully so, wishing that I’d done so on the 23rd of September last when I first opened up this “start blogging in five minutes” nightmare.
If it measures up to the hype attached then I am going to send you another 27 bucks to squander as foolishly as you wish (even on progressive rock, if you can stand it). I am skeptical, but not necessarily of your benign intent. It is possible that I am THE most cybernetically retarded libertarian on the planet. It’s unavoidable that it be someone. Why not me? Do you know any other alleged grownups who are LESS adept at this stuff? In fact, I’d try to impose intellectual property rights on the neologism “Etard” (or “Schmuck” in Woodsian dialect), except that, as an anarcho-materialist, I have no respect for “IP.”
Anyway, I just want to express to you that despite the snark, and my own frustration with my incompetence, I have great respect and high regard for you and your good works, and am convinced that your every commercial move is honorable.
You’ve alluded to some of your own earlier frustrations, so perhaps you might consider bundling your “HappyEarner” offer with your “start blogging in five minutes” offer.
update 180922: “Outside of comedy…”? OUTSIDE? Please, Tom, we are some of the funniest people on line who don’t get paid for it. I know, some of us are a bit juvenile, and a few rather profane, but still… “Outside of comedy…”? Even an extra-bad ‘b logger such as myself, a veritable digital doofus, can feel the sting! And while we are often not as funny as we think, we are also funnier than we realize.
Licking my wound…
Gene
update 181025: Having surrendered to my debility, as painfully mature as that sounds, I’ve dropped a few more Fe’ral Reserve Digits for the special hand-holding service offered by “wordpresslive” so that I might actually pull myself out of these pitiable depths of non-monetizing schmuckitude.
It’s not that I haven’t tried. I gave those tutorials a shot, but they are so heavy with jargon that I can’t seem to start. I keep running for the glossary and more often than not find obfuscation rather than clarification. It’s now been an additional thirteen months since I tried ’b logging “in five minutes” and this is how I‘m doing. So far I’ve had at least TWO VISITORS (that I can discern, because they bothered to comment.) Maybe more but I have no way of telling, as I still don‘t know how to count “hits.”. I hope with the tender technicians’ help I might break up this cumbersome column and make the screen a little more than just text text text.
update 181107: correspondent TE claims that, “People in academia are so lost in their own jargon and lexicon, they have no idea how difficult they’re making things on the ordinary Joe.”
Perfectly apt, of course, with two caveats.
One minor: You can substitute the name of just about any other cadre for “academia” and it rings just as true.
One major: Many in their respective cadres do indeed have a very good idea of how difficult they are making things, as they are doing it on purpose. After all, language reveals, slang conceals; language includes, slang excludes.
update 181208: And at long last I have an “About” page that is NOT INVISIBLE to visitors. Assuming one can read English, now when arriving at the site one will find a menu with the actual words “an ‘About’ page” listed. This is much more convenient than entering “about” in the search window which was one’s only recourse for the last five minutes or fourteen months. The original that the “helpful” tutorials instructed me to establish remains concealed at http://thegreigharea.com/an-about-page/
The bizarre text at the beginning was suggested by the Standard English Obfuscators at Yeost (alleged on-line vendors) as a way of improving my site’s visibility. I’m not sure it actually works, as I’m still unable to count visitors. It just looks ugly and I rather strongly suspect that I’ve been scammed again.
update 190111: It may be for the best. I lost my identification and bank card a month or so back. It was a fairly cheaply bought valuable lesson. They may have been disappeared or destroyed, but they were not charged before I canceled them. Still, trauma remained. Called the creditors who were expecting to lean on my account based on our monthly agreements, and got them up to date so I wasn‘t risking any serious lapses.
HOWever… while the bluehost billing department was perfectly willing to update and bill me for another year of hosting, the hand-holding tutorial section of the biz was unwilling to accept the word of their own accounting department to extend my “help“ subscription, demanding that I send them a mysteriously coded e-message instead. The two or three months of expensive “assistance“ resulted in a table of contents reflecting more coherent “categories.” I guess they no longer will honor my calls or accept my dough. So be it. I‘ll continue to stagger forward on the merits of my (spotty) ability to read and understand English toward a more “WoodsWorthyWebsite“ (trade name bounty?) or ‘b log. After the recent trauma, perhaps the alleged tutorials might seem a little less jargon heavy, and maybe even comprehensible. It doesn’t seem likely that they’d be LESS clear by now.
A WordPress Tutorial Videos Revue (stream of conscious commentaries accompanying the campaign to conquer a shallow learning curve)
190129: “How to Install a Theme”
jargon dump: theme… dashboard…
Start from “dashboard“?
“click on right here” — look for “right here” key? or “One Penny”?
Wait a minute… before “here on appearance, click on themes” there was motion on the screen as cursor moved onto tab, but…?
Again with “One Penny” Who is that? Do I find it near my “dashboard” Is this the secret starter program ya’ll won’t share?
“add new” and ignore talk of “if you’ve purchased a theme”
Should see display of six pictures of “themes”?
Okeh… I watched that video several times, took careful notes and went to my “dashboard” and COULD NOT FIND either the “One Penny” key or the “Right Here” key. So I’m blocked!
Well, reviewing the video, and looking at my site (such as it is) it may all be moot. I’m not sure, but I may have already somehow “selected a theme.” I do a lot of fumbling around at this ‘b logging, largely motivated by the threat of “touch that strange button and lose files!”
It does seem I have an “appearance” key, I just have to follow a different trail to get to it! Nevertheless, the screen it delivers is rather different from the tutorial’s allegations, so still not much help…
190130: “How to Install a Plugin”
jargon dump: plugin…
Start from dashboard… “over here” “plugin” “add new“
Now I could search for or upload a plug-in, or even buy one, apparently, but I still don‘t know why I‘d want to. What is it? What does it do? In what way does it make starting easier or faster?
It feels already like the trainer who starts with, “You need to remember to do e,f, and, g, but before that you should make sure that c and d are straight, but first…” Okeh, back to our program…
“HIDE POST?” “HIDE POST?” What’s all this? Why on earth would I want to HIDE my posts? The whole point of this is so the world can SEE my posts. Oy McVey! …ahem… now then…”Hiding posts…”
Okeh, “activate…” that makes a kind of sense. If I wanted it I’d probably want to activate it. But still… Why did I want this? To hide posts?
WHOA! Someone thinks I bought a LOT of plugins! That is one monumental megalith of a list! And I still have no clue why I might want ONE let alone such a selection as shown! And this is an early tutorial? Do they get even more ridiculous and confusing after this? Or am I being scammed here?
“open” and “install now” and “activate plugin” are all straightforward instructions. Thanks at least for that!
Not quite understanding what “themes“ or “plugins“ might be, I apparently need to master those ideas BEFORE I attempt the dark arts of “Home Pages.” I guess I was naively thinking that one would START with a home page, get an idea of what I wanted to say with it, AND THEN maybe discuss the possible advantages of “themes“ or “styles“ or “motifs“ and the possible additional utility of “plugins“ or “tools“ or “napps“ or “accessories.” But that appears to be anon, as this is has been enough frustration for one day.
update 21 December 2023 — Six Years and Five Minutes later…
I may be the stupidest of Tom Woods‘ fans. I may also (but less likely) be the smartest of his fans. That is not a contradiction because those are independent phenomena; neither is the absence of the other.
Anyway, about two months ago I got hit by an unsolicited “upgrade” from WordHost or BluePress or more likely one of the cyberweasels working there. No flowers, no candy, no poetry, no lubricants, just straight brutal upgrade. I tried negotiating my way in, but they rejected my customary approach, which had theretofore worked just fine, which was probably the reason they had to sodomi– uh… “upgrade” me. I finally got through to an apparent human through “chat” and after a couple of hours of anguish, I finally wore him down enough for him to eschew the cyberlogue and to actually begin communicating in English. Obviously, I’m now back in, albeit through a newly confusing and circuitous route. But it works and I’m not fucking with it, at least not until the next unsolicited “upgrade.”
I’m not sure what’s more annoying: the arrogant condescension of the cognoscenti who’ve apparently forgotten that they too were born ignorant, or the arrogant presumption of team fans (they call themselves “sports fans,” but I’ve learned to see through that contemptible lie) who figure everybody they meet also MUST BE a team fan, too, and is therefore ready to discuss “the game” in excruciatingly mind-numbing detail.
Oy McFuckingVey!