from here: Tech Thoughts

Assuming that critical thinking is reasonable reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do, a critical thinker:

1. Is open-minded and mindful of alternatives

2. Tries to be well-informed

3. Judges well the credibility of sources

4. Identifies conclusions, reasons, and assumptions

5. Judges well the quality of an argument, including the acceptability of its reasons, assumptions, and evidence

6. Can well develop and defend a reasonable position

7. Asks appropriate clarifying questions

8. Formulates plausible hypotheses; plans experiments well

9. Defines terms in a way appropriate for the context

10. Draws conclusions when warranted, but with caution

11. Integrates all items in this list when deciding what to believe or do

Robert H. Ennis

Soooo, DD came down Saturday, asked her to see if she could figure out why I couldn’t connect to internet with pc. No luck after half an hour or so. Called her roommate, who is in IT (he’s in The IT Crowd, not the show, actual IT). After around 90 minutes, taking the tower apart and reading off a bunch of part numbers, he decided I probably need a new network card, so we went out to lunch, then off to Best Buy, who of course, did NOT have the 15.00 network card, but did have a 40.00 substitute. Came home, ordered part from Amazon. Put pc back together until card comes, turned it on because I could, my weather widget showed current temp. Connected. Cancelled Amazon order. Seriously. It needed to be taken apart and/or unplugged, and that fixed it. Tech guys who were here, comcast phone help, no-one said to try that. Which I should have known to do. It’s what I always tell everyone, if ‘turn it off and then back on again’ doesn’t work. Unplug for at least five minutes is always next. Well, stand me in the corner and call me stupid, cause it just didn’t occur to me. Anyway, all is now well with the pc. Yay. It was a long time from Tuesday afternoon til Saturday evening, without my desktop. I have a macbook, but I am Windows through and through, apparently.

I had an exceptionally good day today, after being creaky and barely moving and breathing yesterday. Breathing issues are thank you to the renovations going on in the public areas of my building. Asthma does not love paint fumes, sawdust, etc. Anyway, I completely reconfigured my office area, and moved my electric fireplace and bookcases to a better part of the wall. Like four inches over. My homemaker helped with that, cause I couldn’t move it and keep the tv from falling off at the same time. So things look much better now. My desk area has organization, which it had before I got really ill, and which went by the wayside while I was living in misery. All better now. For the time being anyway. Organized. I like organized. I am not a neat freak, but I like to know where things are. It’s a good thing.

It’s getting a lot colder the past few days, but was able to have the windows open wide for a few hours today. Fresh air is good, especially when renovations are happening. When my homemaker went to leave this afternoon, we discovered that the workmen had taped my door shut while she was here. LOLOL

One last thing: What Does The Fox Say?

Finally had to close the windows.  Even though it’s been getting chillier outside, into the thirties at night, it’s been just coolish in here until just a bit ago.  Got quite chilly just all ofA sudden.  Closed windows, plugged in fireplace and put batteries in the remote. A remote-controlled fireplace.  Couldn’t do that with real fire.  Speaking of which, we had an alarm a couple of hours ago.  No fire, I think the workers set it off.  They are painting in the halls today.  Gertrude was sitting next to me when it went off, so I grabbed her and was able to get her into the carrier within getting g shredded.  Threw all my small electronics (cell phone, kindles) into my lovely purse and off we went. Forgot my cane, but no biggie.  Was only outside few minutes anyway.  The fire station is about half a block away, so they were already in the building before I made it down the stairs.  As for my lovely purse, I do not carry a purse, if it doesn’t fit in my pockets, it doesn’t go with me. But I keep everything in it when I’m home, so I never have to search for keys, wallet, etc. And so everything is handy in an emergency and my small electronics fit in just fine.  So.  LOL  Gertrude has been hiding under the bedspread since we got back in.  Probably won’t see her til later.

Where are the paragraphs, you may ask.  I switched back to ComcastTuesday, and neither the guys who did it or myself can get the pc to connect to the internet.  Typing on tablets is not so easy, and you can’t see much of what you’ve typed. So I just keep typing and typing and typing……   Proofreading isn’t easily doable, so just pretend everything is spelled correctly.  Thank you.

Had a nice reply to my slightly snarky email about returning books from the actual reader. Not helpful, but nice. I don’t borrow books a lot, so I was also taken by surprise when, after I had returned the book and gone back to the reader, I found I could not borrow another book. One book a month. ONE. BOOK. A. MONTH. These are not even real books. They do not exist in the actual world. They are cyber-books. Files. Binary? I can send one file to ten bazillion different people if I want to, and Amazon can’t lend more than one book at a time, or in a month?

I do not understand business models. Seriously. I do not. John has a house, falls on hard times, missing a few payments. Does the bank say, “Well, John. Let’s work something out so you can stay in your home and catch up when things get better. Smaller payments for awhile or something.” NOOOOOOO. Let’s throw John out and let the house he was keeping in good repair fall into decay, sit and rot away. How is this good business? I guess the bank finds a way to get their money regardless, and we all know that in the USA, the money is the only thing that counts. Maybe I DO understand business models.

I just cleaned out and rearranged the freezer. 9:30pm.  When I have energy and enthusiasm.  My whole life has been spent trying to fit into that ‘early to bed, early to rise’ nonsense, with only limited, and temporary success.  I have been reading more and more research showing some people are wired differently.  Today there was something about different gene activity.  So it seems to me that it is modern society that is in error, not those of us who can’t conform.  It’s like education.  School requires conformity.  Sit at a desk for x amount of time, even though your body is screaming at you to move.  Follow the schedule, learn by this method, not the one your brain requires.  See things differently than the ‘norm’. Do these things, fit in, or be labeled as slow, uncooperative, disruptive, whatever.  What a disservice the modern world does to a good portion of humanity, and what is lost to us because of it.

Wow. These are quite good. Nothing like the movie I saw. But Amazon. I borrowed the second book on my reader, finished it, had to then go to the computer to return it, back to the reader to borrow number three. Sent a teeny bit snarky email to Amazon about the inefficiency (I wanted to say stupidity of this system. What if you’re not near a computer?) of this method. We’ll see what they have to say about it. Sometimes I think they just don’t think things through.

rights-monitor-slams-gop-shutdown

and most particularly, this:

‘Nigel Rodley, a British human rights expert who chairs the committee, didn’t mince words about just who to blame for the delay. “The political party of Abraham Lincoln that, in fire and blood ended slavery and gave freedom to millions of people of African descent, seemed now to have party members who thought that wealth did not just rhyme with health, but should also determine access to it,” Rodley said, according to AFP reports.’

It matter who you vote for. Seriously. It matters.

I just read the first book.  My homemaker brought it over for me.  I liked it a lot.  Saw the movie a few years ago, was not impressed, so skipped the whole Potter Verse.  Now, I want to read the rest of the books.  Better late than never, yet again.

but not too much to post this.

I did stuff.  Yay, me.  Not a lot, but still.  And I actually went downstairs and got my mail.  I have not gone down to get my mail from the lobby without having gone out for whatever reason in a few years.  I don’t go out unless I have to, or am doing something with someone else.  I hardly ever just go out or even downstairs on my own.  There is no real reason for that, except I am weird.  So I enjoyed it.  Going downstairs, seeing the work they are doing to bring my building back to it’s ‘former glory’.  Didn’t know it had former glory, and I could use a new frig and to have this hideous and really old wall-to-wall crap ripped out.  Oh, well.

So it dawns on me that since I am better, it is no longer, I could, I should, I ought to.  It is I HAVE to go outside. I HAVE to get my mail.  I HAVE to reboot my life, or what’s the point of being better?  So.  I will.

And I cooked again.  I made this really good dish I found online with italian sausage, onion, mushers, and a nice cream sauce and campanelle, my fav pasta.  Oh, man is it good.  Enough for a couple of meals at minimum.  Would be more but since I’m really only eating about once a day, I tend to eat more of whatever I’m having.

I am rebooting myself.  Yes.  Yes I am.  I have stated it here, where no one ever sees it, but still…

And this makes me happy.  Gareth is ten English monies that I don’t know is it Pounds or Euros or how to type it.  But I am so buying him.  Oh, yeah.

Just had a long and fun one with youngest daughter, about the mess we are in due to certain members of Congress hijacking the government for their own ends.  They never seem to be looking out for MY best interests, or even the best interests of any one I actually know.  Nice to converse with someone who has a brain, nicer with someone who has a brain and it works.  Proud of my child.  Both of them actually, but this one is the one I have the political/sociological talks with.

I don’t understand the problem.

Doesn’t it seem like someone should be able to fire, recall, impeach, or just send to the corner those congressmen?  Aren’t there checks and balances that should apply to members of the government trying to usurp the constitution and the law for their own ends?  If not, why not?  IDEK, people.

Just noticed that my blog seemed to be all one page.  All One Page.  Holy crap.  You could scroll to infinity, which is, I found, a setting in the settings.  Unchecked that.  Now there should only be ten posts per page.  Whew!

Okay, so I googled ‘really long page’ images for something to put here.  This was in the first four results.  This. I’m not exactly sure how it relates to ‘really’, ‘long’, or ‘page’, or ‘really long’, or ‘long page’, or ‘really long page’, but I don’t work for Google, so what do I know?  It’s a puzzlement.

I’ve checked it out briefly before now, but am doing it again.  Came across this article, which explained a lot about myself to me.  There’s a bit in it about judging people without really understanding anything about their lives, as well.  But that’s minor.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-5-stupidest-habits-you-develop-growing-up-poor/

It got me thinking about the ways you adapt without realizing when you have a chronic, debilitating illness.  Which I do.  Even before I really understood what was going on, I stopped doing some things, like buying juice, because it’s heavy and takes a lot of strength and energy to get from the store to the car and the car to the frig.  Or having ‘laundry day’.  Wash as you go as long as you are able.  Or doing anything involving stairs, because it hurt and was exhausting.  Or worrying about things that really don’t matter, like are the sheets messed up.  Am I warm enough?  What else matters?  Is the bed made?  Don’t care.  Things we deal with mindlessly become major events when you are ill.  I used to make everything from scratch.  Now I open the box and eat the contents.  Or stick something in the microwave.  Whatever gets me fed with the least amount of time and energy and pain.  All the things I used to think mattered to me, don’t.  It’s very freeing, if at times unbelievably frustrating and disheartening.  You learn to adapt, without even knowing you are.  Don’t know if it’s good or bad, just an observation.  The pain is coming back, so the illness is on my mind.  It was fun having a few weeks of only feeling not great, instead of being in constant pain.  Oh, well.

Daily Kos: Obama refuses to capitulate, Republicans at a loss.

Daily Kos: House Dems to pursue discharge petition to force vote on reopening government.

Gay-Friendly Pasta 

You kind of have to like Jon Stewart to watch that one, but he makes some good points.  The first one is about what happens with the shut-down.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/01/the-nine-most-painful-consequences-of-a-government-shutdown/

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-september-30-2013/jon-stewart-s-rockin–shutdown-eve?xrs=share_copy

This is their leader.