“Dreamers all”

Morpheus, master of the underworld, entertains his guest Carl Hausman by identifying for him various figures of the Earthly Paradise, “a sweet place to lie down i’ the shade awhile”:

Steven Millhauser, From the Realm of Morpheus (1986).

Related reading
All OCA Steven Millhauser posts (Pinboard)

The Scream?

[Illustration by Edel Rodriguez. Time, April 24/May 1, 2023. Click for a larger view.]

As seen here. The artist has done previous orange-themed covers as well.

Related reading
Edel Rodriguez’s website

[If this illustration has a title, it’s not on the artist’s website. The Scream would be a good one.]

Making HTML links with Alfred workflows

I finally found a good use for ChatGPT: I had it write two workflows for the Mac app Alfred. It took the bot about a half dozen tries over several days to produce workflows that work. Thanks, AI.

URL+text creates an HTML link with selected text from the current tab in Safari. It’s simple: highlight text, press Command-C to copy, and press the hotkey. The link will be on the Clipboard. You can make the hotkey whatever you like. I like Control-Option-Command-T, a combination not likely to be confused with anything else.

URL+title creates an HTML link with the title of the current tab in Safari. It’s even simpler: press the hotkey and the link will be on the Clipboard. Here too you can change the hotkey to whatever you like. I like Control-Option-Command-L.

It’s baffling to me that the App Store offers no decent extension to accomplish such elementary tasks. (URL Linker for Safari does not work properly in Ventura, at least not on my Mac.) It’s also baffling to me that the Alfred forums appear to lack Workflows for these tasks. Granted, it’s ultra-easy to create links in Markdown, but not everyone uses Markdown.

I’ve placed both workflows in my Dropbox for downloading: URL+text, URL+title. Use at your own risk. But I don’t think there’s any real risk involved. Note: Alfred is a free app, but workflows require the not-free Alfred Powerpack.

If anyone knows how to have a workflow recognize highlighted text without the need for Command-C, I’d love to know.

[What about asking ChatGPT to write a working Quick Action in AppleScript? Unpossible! AppleScript seems to defy both artificial and human intelligence.]

Happy returns

Two progressive candidates won seats on our town’s school board yesterday, and a regressive current member was defeated. That makes me happy. One of the winning candidates won by just fourteen votes. That makes me remember why I vote in every election.

Farther from home, Janet Protasiewicz won decisively and will have a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. That makes me happy too.

And faculty at my university go on strike tomorrow. I’m not happy about the strike, but I’m happy that the faculty are willing to stand up to an intransigent administration and insist on adequate salaries.

The indictment

Featuring “Woman 1,” “Woman 2,” and the “Doorman.”

Read it here.

[That’s a New York Times “gift” link.]

Goodbye to car words

I am a careful and courteous driver. But in many years at the wheel I’ve on occasion let fly with the choicest words about the care and courtesy of other drivers. The only problem: the person sitting shotgun has had to hear those words. And as she’s pointed out, more than once, other drivers don’t get to hear them. Only she does. And while cursing is supposed to be good for the curser’s health, it may not be so great for a listener.

So I’ve sworn (pun intended) off car words. The words that have replaced them: “What an inconsiderate driver.” That sounds like a plot point from a Seinfeld episode, but I say the words straightforwardly — and I mean them. Say them with me: “Did you see that guy? What an inconsiderate driver.”

Recently updated

No pictures The president of Hamline University is retiring.

ATTN: MSNBC

If I want to see moneyed persons exiting planes and stepping into big black vehicles, I can watch Succession. At least Succession shows what’s happening in the planes and cars.

Says Mary Trump:

Donald Trump will be arraigned tomorrow in a New York City courtroom to face 34 charges — that’s what matters. How he gets to the courtroom isn’t news.

The media’s insistence on covering every aspect of this man’s life to the exclusion of all else is one of the reasons this country is in such dire straits.

Enough.

Now with a white vehicle out in front on a highway, it’s like O.J. Simpson 2.0.

All ice cream, all the time

[The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 5, 1925. Click for a much larger and more readable view.]

“You can live on HYDROX Ice Cream alone”: I guess this advertisement makes Hydrox the Soylent of its time. And how strange to discover — this very morning — that Soylent offers a “Neapolitan Variety Pack.”

Related posts
Candy store with Hydrox Ice Cream sign : A 1961 Hydrox Cookies advertisement

More trouble, brewing

Here’s a “gift” link to a Washington Post article, “Justice Dept. said to have more evidence of possible Trump obstruction at Mar-a-Lago.” An excerpt:

Investigators now suspect, based on witness statements, security camera footage, and other documentary evidence, that boxes including classified material were moved from a Mar-a-Lago storage area after the subpoena was served, and that Trump personally examined at least some of those boxes, these people said. While Trump’s team returned some documents with classified markings in response to the subpoena, a later FBI search found more than 100 additional classified items that had not been turned over.

And:

Investigators have also amassed evidence indicating that Trump told others to mislead government officials in early 2022, before the subpoena, when the National Archives and Records Administration was working with the Justice Department to try to recover a wide range of papers, many of them not classified, from Trump’s time as president, the people familiar with the investigation said. While such alleged conduct may not constitute a crime, it could serve as evidence of the former president’s intent.

These people said prosecutors have collected evidence that Trump ignored requests from multiple advisers to return the documents to the archives over a period of a year, that he asked advisers and lawyers to release false statements claiming he had returned all documents, and that he grew angry after being subpoenaed for the documents.

A comment in Trump**’s recent interview with Sean Hannity may suggest a possible motive:

“This is the Presidential Records Act. I have the right to take stuff. Do you know that they ended up paying Richard Nixon, I think, $18 million for what he had?”

As FactCheck.org points out, Trump**’s claim about Nixon is both inaccurate and irrelevant.

[Two impeachments, two asterisks. And an untold number of crimes.]