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A Taliban leader stops WiFi internet in the province of Balkh to "prevent immorality"

This is just too stupid to not quote the article. Then again, we are talking about an Islamic fundamentalist state, which is so fundamentalist that it is quite stupid. So here's the quote: "It’s the first time a ban of this kind has been imposed since the Taliban seized power in August 2021, and leaves government offices, the private sector, public institutions, and homes in northern Balkh province without Wi-Fi internet. Mobile internet remains functional, however.

Haji Attaullah Zaid, a provincial government spokesman, said there was no longer cable internet access in Balkh by order of a “complete ban” from the leader Hibatullah Akhundzada.

“This measure was taken to prevent immorality, and an alternative will be built within the country for necessities,” Zaid told The Associated Press. He gave no further information, including why Balkh was chosen for the ban or if the shutdown would spread to other provinces."

Good luck creating that 'alternative'. I'm sure there's lots of people willing to sell you copies of Novell Netware and can lay coax cable for you. Meanwhile, families will be leaving the province and I expect you're going to see more young people thinking about pulling a Russian Exodus and never returning.

While they talk about cellular WiFi being available, it's slow and expensive and apparently also failing due to 'technical issues'.

https://apnews.com/article/afghanistan-taliban-internet-ban-balkh-0554049d724b8c8e0fb1e668ff34bbd2

Entry tags:

“had my first kiss on a friday night / reckon i didn’t do it right”

A few links hoarded up, sometimes for a while:

“This guy saved a PNG to a bird.”

A very small selection of very good P.G. Wodehouse quotes. (via)

From Neal.fun: I’m Not a Robot, where you solve increasingly ridiculous CAPTCHAs. Level 11: “Select all the squares with Waldo” (via)

---L.

Subject quote from Castle on the Hill, Ed Sheeran.

ecphrastic

ecphrastic or ekphrastic (ek-FRAS-tik) - adj., containing a vivid literary description of a work of visual art; clear, lucid.

That last sense appears rarely in dictionaries, though to be fair this word itself appears rarely in dictionaries, in contrast to ecphrasis, the description itself. A famous example ecphrasis is Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn," though I'm just as fond of Auden's "Musée des Beaux Arts." Like many terms from rhetoric (for literary works are all rhetorical acts) this comes from Ancient Greek ekphrastikós, adjectival form of ékphrasis, description, from ekphrázō, describe, from ek-, out (alternate form of ex-) + phrázō, explain/point out.

---L.

galactoid

galactoid (guh-LAK-toid) - adj., resembling milk, milky.

Another uncommon word I'll rarely use but am glad to know exists. The resemblance to galaxy is not coincidental, as that originally meant specifically the Milky Way, referring to the smear of stars across the sky, and only much later was it recognized that some of the nebulae in the sky are the same sort of structure as the one we're in the middle of. Coined around 1880 from Ancient Greek gála, milk.

---L.

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RIP: Robert Redford, aged 89

What a career! I think the first thing that I remember him from was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but he did so many things! Amongst them: The Way We Were, Electric Horseman, Ordinary People, Out of Africa, Sneakers, Quiz Show, and two Avengers/MCU movies - Avengers: Endgame and Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Not to mention starting the Sundance Film Festival!

In his early television days, as so many actors did, he did a lot of episodic work, including: Perry Mason, The Twilight Zone, Maverick, Route 66, Dr. Kildare, The Virginian, etc. He also did stage work.

And the awards! From Wikipedia: "an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and two Golden Globe Awards, as well as the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1994, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 1996, the Academy Honorary Award in 2002, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2005, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016, and the Honorary César in 2019. He was named by Time as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2014."

An amazing career and quite a legacy of work left for us.

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/robert-redford-actor-director-dead-obituary-1234810387/

atramentous

atramentous (a-truh-MEN-tuhs) - adj., black as ink, inky.

Also atramental, but that seems to be even less common. This goes back to the 1640s, a time when a lot of words were being imported into English directly from Latin, in this case ātrāmentum, a liquid used to blacken, which could be (and often was) ink but also a dye/stain for leather or wood, from ātrāre, to blacken, from āter, black, ultimately from PIE *h₂eh₁ter-, fire, so I'm guessing there's a sense of burnt hiding in that gap. Note that ātrāmentum also gave Middle English atrament, black ink. Me, I'm pondering possible uses of atramentous in certain styles of fantasy or horror writing.

---L.

So, the way I grew up I'm actually shockingly good at deep cleaning

I'm even not bad at decluttering, so long as it's okay to literally throw everything out. (They'll sooner or later send another copy of that late bill, don't worry! And you can always order another birth certificate, probably.)

But I'm not so good at routine maintenance. Does anybody have any already set up daily/weekly/monthly/periodically checklists for various areas of the house that they can recommend?

Current Mood: busy
Current Music: Hazbin Hotel - Addicted

Entry tags:

link-o-rama

Sunday Link-O-Rama

I have had the great misfortune to learn about Barbie Botox. Apparently a procedure that started as a way to help patients with neck and shoulder pain, as well as some kinds of headaches, people are now getting it to ... uh *checks notes* make their shoulders look slimmer. Kim Kardashian has been airbrushing her traps out of photos for a while now, in order to make her shoulders slimmer, and her neck longer, basically like a Barbie doll, which we all know is a perfect paragon of realistic female embodiment. I also want to point out that everything I've ever learned about Kim Kardashian has been entirely against my will.

As a palate cleanser, enjoy Nemo's Dreamscapes. I love a good soundscape.

Uneventful vacations are the best. Basically, overplanning and trying to have Maximum Fun every day is a sure way to burn out, get home exhausted, and remember much less about your trip. I see this with families on a big, once in a lifetime Disney trip - they pack too much in, trying to see and do everything in the parks, and wind up dead tired with crying kids and angry, stressed out adults. Everyone has a meltdown and no one enjoys themselves. I know that trying to get everything in on a trip you may only make once is very tempting - what if you miss something? But don't let FOMO rob you of the chance to have good memories of your trip later. Type B Travel for the win.

Mugolio syrup - the expensive pine cone syrup you can easily make yourself. I had never heard of this stuff until reading this article. According to other articles on it, you can also use Bald Cypress nuts. I might try making some but it's not really the right time here for young pine cones. We have a lot of Longleaf Pine and the cones are enormous.

I am still in the process of cleaning up the camper and everything from our trip, on top of which I get very sucked in to playing Silksong, which I'm enjoying immensely. I was going to finish the camper up and lower the roof, but we decided to air out the "rug" we like to spread out around the camper steps. Apparently it was much wetter than we thought when we put it up, because the compartment it was stored in was full of stinky water after just a few days. I thought an animal had somehow gotten inside and peed in it, but there's a LOT of liquid. Those woven plastic outdoor carpets must hold a lot more water than you'd think. Anyway we pulled everything that was wet out, hosed it off, and we're letting it dry in the sun.

I saw a whole family of deer the other day!

I'll try to remember to upload the pic later. It's not a very good picture, but then, I was wary of trying to get too close.

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Current Mood: awake

A Day Late and a Dollar Short

1. What is your favourite fruit?
Almost any citrus. I love grapefruit and I'm glad I'm off the meds that didn't allow me to have them.

2. What is the last book you read?
"The Difficulty in Being Good" by Gurcharan Das, a book about ethics in the Mahabharata.

3. Do you like any of your school photos?
Holy shit no.

4. Do you ever blowdry your armpits to get the deodorant to dry quicker?
I'm sorry, do I WHAT?

5. What was the last film you watched?
Coco - the Pixar movie. Really enjoyed it :)

mezcal & mescal

mezcal (meh-SKAL) - n., a Mexican liquor distilled from a fermented mash of roasted agave hearts; any agave that mezcal is made from, also called maguey.

mescal (meh-SKAL) - n., alternate spelling of the liquor mezcal; either of two species of spineless, dome-shaped cactus, Lophophora williamsii or L. diffusa, usually called peyote, that produces the hallucinogen peyote.

Peoples of Mexico fermented roasted agave hearts well before Spaniards arrived. The Spanish fermented this drink, which they called pulque (origin of the name unknown but possibly Nahuatl), to create mezcal/mescal/mexcal, as they variously spelled it, deriving the name from Nahuatl mexcalli, roasted agave, from metl, agave + ixcalli, baked/cooked thing. Tequila (named after a town in Jalasco, from Nahuatl Tecuila, place of tribute) is a mezcal made specifically from blue agave (Agave tequilana) in a specific region -- much like champagne is only made in a specific region. The cactus name is a misapplication of the agave name that no one can explain, and I only included that sense because the hallucinogenic compound it contains is called mescaline after it.

That was more complicated than I expected. I'm regretting not running this earlier in exchange for a simpler entry, because I held over a bonus word that I don't think I can get away with not running in a words-from-Nahuatl week:

axolotl (AK-suh-law-tuhl) - n., a paedomorphic salamander (Ambystoma mexicanum) native to lakes in what is now Mexico City.

The above is the standard English pronunciation. The name is taken directly from Classical Nahuatl āxōlōtl, pronounced ay-shoh-lohtsch, which is generally understood as from ātl, water +‎ xōlōtl, male servant, though the latter might have also meant axolotl, with the prefix added to distinguish the salamander from actual male servants.

And that finishes this theme week, and uses up all my planned words from various Native American/First Nations languages of North America. Back next week with the usual assorted heap.

---L.

Another year, another lovely day

Beautiful weather and all.

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We Are Not Responsible by Harryette Mullen

We are not responsible for your lost or stolen relatives.
We cannot guarantee your safety if you disobey our instructions.
We do not endorse the causes or claims of people begging for handouts.
We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.

Your ticket does not guarantee that we will honor your reservations.
In order to facilitate our procedures, please limit your carrying on.
Before taking off, please extinguish all smoldering resentments.

If you cannot understand English, you will be moved out of the way.
In the event of a loss, you’d better look out for yourself.
Your insurance was cancelled because we can no longer handle
your frightful claims. Our handlers lost your luggage and we
are unable to find the key to your legal case.

You were detained for interrogation because you fit the profile.
You are not presumed to be innocent if the police
have reason to suspect you are carrying a concealed wallet.
It’s not our fault you were born wearing a gang color.
It is not our obligation to inform you of your rights.

Step aside, please, while our officer inspects your bad attitude.
You have no rights we are bound to respect.
Please remain calm, or we can’t be held responsible
for what happens to you.

***********

Link

Let his own words be his epitaph

“I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.”

Not many of us get to die for our beliefs.

chipotle

chipotle (chi-POHT-lay, chee-PAWT-le) - n., a ripe jalapeño pepper dried and smoked for use in cooking.

Thanks, WikiMedia!

Dictionaries pronunciation guides also give other combinations of those syllables, but I have only so many pixels here. Jalapeños are a cultivar of Capsicum annuum developed in Xalapa (formerly spelled Jalapa), Veracruz, Mexico, and the green ones you usually see were picked while they were, well, still green, as in unripened. [Sidebar: Xalapa's name is from Classical Nahuatl Xalapan, from xālli, sand + āpan, place of water, so roughly "spring in the sand."] When ripe, jalapeños are red like most chilies, and chipotles are made by letting them ripen and dry on the vine, then picking them and smoking them for several days, traditionally for six days using pecan wood. The word was taken in the early 1920s from Mexican Spanish chipotle/chilpotle/chilpocle, from Classical Nahautl chīlpōctli, from chīlli, pepper + pōctli, smoke.

---L.

Entry tags:

politcs

Charlie Kirk assassinated at Utah university, aged 31

Kirk, a conservative activist, was the founder of Turning Point USA and a regular speaker at colleges and universities. He would challenge people to debates and was good at turning said debates to conservative talking points.

The shooting happened not long after his talk began, his security rushed him to a hospital where he was later pronounced dead. The campus, Utah Valley University in Orem, went into lock-down and shelter in place. While one arrest was made on-site, that person was later released. The assassin is still at large at this time.

POTUS has ordered flags at the White House to half-mast and Mike Johnson a moment of silence in the House of Reps.

It is reported that the shooter was on the roof of a near-by building, about 200' away.

Tots and pears. It's hard for me to say that our political process should not devolve into violence when the party in power incites violence daily.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/live/charlie-kirk-shooting-live-updates-conservative-activist-shot-at-utah-valley-university-event-school-says-190606372.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/live-blog/live-updates-shooting-charlie-kirk-event-utah-rcna230437

[Edit: the shooter was on top of the building 200 YARDS, not feet, away. I should have caught that. I believe the measured distance was 183 yards. The weapon was a bolt-action high-powered rifle, basically a hunting rifle. It was recovered a few hours after the murder, with the fired round still in the chamber.]

Finally got a call back from the repairfolk

And they now expect the part in tomorrow, at which point we should be able to make an appointment to repair.

As I reiterated - but briefly, because the person making the call was not responsible for this situation - a delay in shipping is one thing, but lack of communication is something very different.

mesquite

mesquite (me-SKEET, MES-keet) - n., any of a dozen species (genera Neltuma and Strombocarpa, both formerly part of Prosopis) of spiny deciduous New World trees and shrubs with bipinnate leaves and beanlike pods and often forming dense thickets; the wood of these trees, charcoal made from this wood; land dominated by mesquite trees.

Thanks, WikiMedia!

The pods of most mesquites are edible once dried, and those of the velvet mesquite pictured above are still ground and baked into a staple bread by traditional Tohono O'odham on the reservation west of town. We have two intentional mesquites in our yard, and several volunteers. Most species are arid-adapted, and outside the Americas are considered a noxious invasive weed (see: volunteers easily). They are hardwoods that grow very slowly (see: arid), which makes for a dense wood that burns slow and hot that as a bonus has a nicely flavored smoke -- making it great for grilling. Mesquite honey is readily available locally, and I prefer it over any other honey source, even clover. The name dates to the 1830s, taken from Mexican Spanish mezquite, from the Nahuatl name mizquitl.

---L.

Still no repair response

I sent them another voicemail and email saying that a delay in shipping or even ordering a part may be acceptable, understandable, or forgivable, but lack of communication is none of those things and if they don't get back to me with an ETA on this repair then they'll have to refund our deposit so we can call somebody else.

Either way, I know how I'm spending the next few hours (laundromat) and how I'm spending tomorrow morning (phone).

ocelot

ocelot (OS-uh-lot, OH-suh-lot) - n., a medium-sized spotted wild cat (Leopardus pardalis, formerly Felis pardalis) of Central and South America with a grayish or yellow coat with stripy black spots.

Thanks, WikiMedia!

Although I live at the very edge of their territory, I have only seen them in captivity and Minecraft -- which is as it should be as they are nocturnal and live in brushy woodlands, and have not adapted to human environments the way coyotes have. [Sidebar: Yes, captive ocelots do oscillate in an enclosure.] The name is from Nahuatl, but not the Nahuatl name for the ocelot -- ōcēlōtl is jaguar, while the ocelot is tlālocēlōtl, literally "field jaguar." It's not clear whether French naturalist Georges Louis Leclerc de Buffon, who introduced the name in 1765, made a mistake or deliberately shortened the long name. [Sidebar: Although ocelots can have ocellated ("eye-shaped") spots, the words are otherwise unrelated, ocellated coming from Latin. The pun may have been a reason to shorten the name, though.]

---L.