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A New Arrival in the Testerman Tech Family

I've been very, very happy with my MacBook Air, which I picked up in 2013 and which sailed by its three-year milestone with flying colors, no less capable now than it was when I first got it. It is, without a doubt, the best all around computer I've ever bought. That's not to say it's the most powerful (it isn't, and never was) or best featured (though it might be, if I consider all the apps I use on it that simply don't exist for Windows or Linux). However, for writing and all but the most demanding video stuff I do with a computer, it is my preferred machine. (It's been so good I invested in additional desktop Macs that I otherwise wouldn't have looked at twice.)

With that said, I'm not sure it's the absolute best value-to-cost computer we have in the house. It's a near thing, because I do use use the heck out of the Air, but I think the award might have to go to the Chromebook we picked up a few years ago for Sean. Like the Air, it's been around for a few years, is aging gracefully, and gets more and more use as time goes on and Sean grows more adept with it (so its cost-to-value ratio grows ever more favorable). It cost us $150 bucks at the time (thanks to some Amex points we had stored up), and it's been great.

This Christmas will see a new contender for the Value-to-Cost throne in our house, as we're getting a new Chromebook. It just showed up today, I had a chance to play with it check it out and get it set up for its intended users.

The machine in question is an Acer R11 Convertible. It's a solid Chromebook (same brand as Sean's current machine, though smaller) with (basically) a 10-inch touchscreen that you can flip over and use as a tent display or a nice tablet, with 4GB of memory, and 32 gig drive, all for less than $300.

Two USB ports, HDMI mini out and SD card slot. Battery life is supposed to be in the 10 hour range (we'll see).

And, as a huge bonus, this is one of the models that can run Android apps natively, which means I can install stuff like Jotterpad, Firefox, Skype, Lightroom, and even some cool Android ports of games like Final Fantasy Tactics. (!!!)

All of which is to say that if you’ve been waiting for a perfectly good Chromebook that you can also use as a perfectly good tablet, for under $300, this thing looks pretty good.

Amazon.com: Acer Chromebook R 11 Convertible, 11.6-Inch HD Touch, Intel Celeron N3150, 4GB DDR3L, 32GB, Chrome, CB5-132T-C1LK: Computers & Accessories
Amazon.com: Acer Chromebook R 11 Convertible, 11.6-Inch HD Touch, Intel Celeron N3150, 4GB DDR3L, 32GB, Chrome, CB5-132T-C1LK: Computers & Accessories

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The Fact They’re Surprised Says So Much

Trumpgrets (tagline: "suck it up, buttercups") is a tumblr collecting tweets from Trump voters who've started processing the fact their candidate is already breaking his campaign promises.

I have to confess there's more than a little schadenfreude involved in scrolling through the entries. That's mixed, equal parts, with anger at people whose votes have pulled the country down a dark four-year path (complaining Trump isn't being shitty and vindictive enough), and real sympathy for people who are in a place so bad they were willing to bet on anyone who seemed likely to change things; there is, simply put, wrong in America, right now, and we should have seen that and seen TO that without having a cheeto-colored racist dropped in the oval office as a wake-up call.

https://trumpgrets.tumblr.com/

Trumpgrets.
suck it up, buttercups

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Let’s Get Familiar with the First Amendment Defense Act

The basics: The First Amendment Defense Act (often abbreviated FADA) is a bill introduced into the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate on June 17, 2015. The bill aims to prevent the federal government from taking action against people who discriminate against LGBTQ people for religious reasons.

In short, FADA would allow hospitals, universities, and businesses to ignore same-sex marriage, deny women health care, and fire gay people.

It is the nuclear version of the so-called “religious freedom” laws that have appeared across the country, most infamously in Mike Pence’s Indiana. The Republican House will surely pass it, the Senate will pass it unless it’s filibustered by Democrats, and the President-elect has promised to sign it.

To put it bluntly: If it becomes law, FADA will be the worst thing to happen to women and LGBT people in a generation.

FADA’s basic principle is that it’s not discrimination when businesses discriminate against LGBT people, if they claim a religious reason for doing so. The most famous situations have to do with marriage: wedding cake bakers who say that if they bake a cake, they’re violating their religion; Kim Davis, the government clerk who said that signing a secular marriage certificate was a religious act that she could not perform.

But the more important cases are ones like hospitals refusing to treat LGBT people (or their children), pharmacies refusing to fill birth control prescriptions, businesses refusing to offer health benefits to a same-sex partner, and state-funded adoption agencies refusing to place kids with gay families. That is what FADA is all about.

Any business, agency, or individual, including government employees, hospitals, or huge businesses like Hobby Lobby or Chick-Fil-A — covered.

Old-age homes and hospices that turn away gay people are covered.

Hospitals that refuse a same-sex partner visitation rights – covered.

National hotel chains that refuse to rent rooms to gay couples (or unmarried straight ones) – covered.

And finally, since “moral conviction” is written into the bill, no actual religious grounds are necessary; just some moral conviction that you are right and THEY are wrong.

Oh, and if a State has a law that prevents such discrimination? This is specifically written to supersede that, unless the state laws are written to be even more extreme than FADA… in that case, the state law supersedes.

FADA effectively overturns Obergefell without anyone having to file a lawsuit, because it creates a loophole as large as the right to marry itself. Any governor, mayor, or clerk could proffer a “moral objection” to same-sex marriage, and stop all employees under his or her authority from registering gay couples or certifying gay weddings. And even absent such action, any employer or business can act as though the marriage simply does not exist.

And it has the support of the republican House, Senate, and president-elect.

First Amendment Defense Act – Wikipedia

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Just a brief word about the news-related stuff I post

I don't like it.

I don't like doing it.

I don't enjoy myself in the process, I don't like knowing that people I know are blocking me, or rolling their eyes, or just (even if they agree) settling me into that category of "those people who are always posting political stuff."

I don't like cold-calling volunteers at district congressional offices.

I don't like sending blankets and safety gear to the water protectors in North Dakota WITHOUT knowing if it'll do any real good, or be enough – I want to help, you know, but I don't want to waste money, either; I want to know it'll help, and I just… don't. It stresses me out.

I don't like following every breaking story on the Washington Post, or scouring the four-page-long posts on 'what you need to do as an ally' from the LGBTQ people I know, just in case there's something I should be doing that I didn't know about.

And I don't like that I almost never LET myself just repost something someone else said – that I have to rewrite everything myself, so at least it's not just a spammy re-post – it's a spammy original post.

So… I don't like it. Don't imagine I do.

I don't like paying my mortgage, either. I do that.

I don't like getting up at 6am to get my kids breakfast. I do that.

I don't like doing laundry, or doing dishes, or a hundred other thing that I do anyway.

I do them, because I signed up for them.

I wanted the house.
I am a dad.
This is what's required.

And all this other stuff? The politics? The calling? The researching? The reading?

I asked for it.

Because I'm a dad, or a husband, or an uncle, or just a friend, and I can't see these people in my life in pain, or in danger, or in fear. I won't.

I don't enjoy any of it – if nothing else, I don't like knowing even more about politicians I didn't like much in the first place. I have a hard time understanding folks that do genuinely enjoy breathing this stuff, day after day. Maybe they don't exist – maybe it's all people like me, doing it for a reason. Maybe. Nice to think so.

So: sorry if it's tiresome to see on your newsfeed. Sorry if it's annoying or just boring. I understand, but please don't imagine I'm like some kid at a birthday party, throwing cake frosting around and having a grand old time. That's not what this is.

But I'm not going to stop, either.

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On Charged Language

So I’m posting a lot of stuff on politics.

And I get emails about the words I choose to use.

As if I did so by accident, or casually.

(So, you know, clearly not emails from people who know me.)

Anyway, I wanted to speak to that topic.

There’s a desire for temperance. I get it.

Don’t escalate a situation. Don’t meet charged language with more charged language.

But here’s the thing.

If I see racism, or fascism (nascent or not, doesn’t matter), or bigotry, I prepare for that thing I see.

Hitler went from “the guy that won the election” to “no one in this country can stop my control” within forty days of taking power.

Because people went along until it was too late.

You want to mutter about Godwin’s Law? This isn’t applicable.

I’m not calling someone Hitler because they wrote my HOA about leash laws.

I’m saying we have fascists and neo-nazis actively supporting our president-elect.

This was Washington D.C., two days ago:

[Spencer] railed against Jews and, with a smile, quoted Nazi propaganda in the original German. America, he said, belonged to white people, whom he called the “children of the sun,” a race of conquerors and creators who had been marginalized but now, in the era of President-elect Donald J. Trump, were “awakening to their own identity.”

As he finished, several audience members had their arms outstretched in a Nazi salute. When Mr. Spencer, or perhaps another person standing near him at the front of the room — it was not clear who — shouted, “Heil the people! Heil victory,” the room shouted it back.

Please, tell me how I’m fear-mongering or worrying about things that could never happen in America.

Please, tell me how I’m applying harsh labels too quickly.

Godwin’s Law isn’t relevant if you are talking about Nazis, you know? Fun fact.

There is a train coming. A full-on, diesel-powered machine, and it is gaining speed.

If we act like it’s going to brake at the last minute, or as if it isn’t a “train”, not really, not in America, surely…

We are going to get run, the fuck, over.

If hindsight proves I overreacted? I will dance a jig.

Until then?

No cutesy nicknames from 4chan.

These are Fascists. Racists. Bigots. Nazis.

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There Are Some Important Things to Talk about With the Hamilton/Pence Drama

But it's not about the time Pence went to see Hamilton.

(Even Pence said that was no big deal. His comments on the event were far closer to a statesman's than Trump managed, (he said, damning with faint praise).)

But no. The thing I want to focus on is the Hamilton show in Chicago, a few days later, and an event probably… I'm going to say "incited" by the Pence story.

A Chicago man was arrested Saturday after what several audience members said was a disruptive incident at the PrivateBank Theatre.

Accounts say the audience member began loudly ranting after actors playing Alexander Hamilton and the Marquis de Lafayette sang “Immigrants — we get the job done!” — a lyric that always draws cheers.

“He started raising his voice and throwing up middle fingers at anyone who looked at him."

Kate Hoyt: “He was saying things like, ‘We won. Trump is president. Get over it.’ At some point Ken leaned into the aisle to try and tell him to leave and the guy then put up both his fists and said ‘Let’s go, Democrats. I’ll kill you all.’ ”

So here's a few interesting bits.

The Hamilton cast in NYC didn't boo Pence. That was the audience.

The Hamilton cast read a pre-written speech that asked the VP to represent all of a diverse and vibrant America… and thanked him for coming and sharing in the show. That's it.

And people are mad.

This guy in Chicago is mad. And drunk, also, but mostly mad.

But… when does he get mad?

The immigrants line.

I look at this – all this, all the reactions and yelling, and you know what I see?

I see a whole lot of people who thought – really, truly believed – after Trump won, all the minorities and immigrants and gays and marginalized not-us people would, finally, after eight years, sit back down and shut up.

And then this calm, well-spoken brown man stands up on a stage and has the temerity to address an older white man as an equal.

So that sitting down? That shutting up? It's not happening.

That's what they're mad about.

Trump won (the electoral college), but no fairy dust came to make it 1950 again.

All these other people keep… talking like they have some right to.

I mean, I could be wrong. Sure.

Sure.

——-

I stand by what I said, every bit of it
You stand only for yourself
It’s what you do
I can’t apologize because it’s true.

— "Your Obedient Servant", Hamilton

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Under Pressure

Finally replaced my (badly beat up and aging) slow cooker with an Instant Pot pressure cooker (that also does slow-cooker duty, as needed).

Broke it in this weekend to make some steel-cut irish oatmeal for brunch, then some chopped up some garlic and celery and tossed it into the pot with some frozen chicken (covered in 2:1 water and white wine) for supper. Took probably 45 minutes to cook, which I consider pretty good for rock-solid frozen chicken, and came out yummy. I'm sold.

Ditch your slow cooker for a pressure cooker
On Serious Eats, Kenji Lopez-Alt tests out different recipes using slow cookers, Dutch ovens, and pressure cookers and comes to th