The AH Coffee Shop and Reading Room 09

[NotWise]

The sky is clear; the air is cool and fresh. I'll just relax here in the sunbeam with my coffee and let the shop cat wind around my leg while I read the morning news. Wait, Excel Energy wants WHAT?

 

[Duleigh]

I picked up a down-vote on one of my old, little-read stories in SF/F. One Night in Gormaz was for Chloe's "One Night in XXX" story event, which only ran one year. The story is medieval witchcraft and warfare. It grew out of research I did for part 4 of A Valentine's Day Mess, and it's the darkest, bloodiest thing I've written.

The story once had a rating over 4.8 but now it's down to 4.62. I've never known how to feel about votes on the story. As much as I like my story, I have my own reasons and maybe I worry a little about people who up-vote it. I understand down votes.

I fully understand, my only foray into NC/R, the private photographer is a story of a photographer who was hired to photograph a BDSM orgy, and she got pulled into it. Not knowing the safe word she was manhandled. I'm embarrassed to have it listed with my other stories, and slowly the score is sinking. I told myself I was going to pull it when it hit 4.30 It was at 4.33 but some sicko reader upvoted it to 4.34 so it's going to be around a while longer.

 

[NotWise]

I fully understand, my only foray into NC/R, the private photographer is a story of a photographer who was hired to photograph a BDSM orgy, and she got pulled into it. Not knowing the safe word she was manhandled. I'm embarrassed to have it listed with my other stories, and slowly the score is sinking. I told myself I was going to pull it when it hit 4.30 It was at 4.33 but some sicko reader upvoted it to 4.34 so it's going to be around a while longer.

I went da udder way with my one NC/R story. It's actually a Romance with a start that I figured was too rough for the category. It features rough sex even after the start because that's Renée's thing, but it's consensual rough sex.

 

[Duleigh]

Wait till these guys see my LW entry!

 

[MillieDynamite]

From a secret location in Georgetown, Colorado (known as Clear Creak Inn), all is well! I hope everyone is having a wonderful week. Now, I'm back to doing nothing, nothing at all, except waking in nature, doing a little fly fishing (why, because I can), and enjoying other people doing the cooking and cleaning. I haven't written a thing for past four days.

 

[Rustyoznail]

From a secret location in Georgetown, Colorado (known as Clear Creak Inn), all is well! I hope everyone is having a wonderful week. Now, I'm back to doing nothing, nothing at all, except waking in nature, doing a little fly fishing (why, because I can), and enjoying other people doing the cooking and cleaning. I haven't written a thing for past four days.

Always good to have a clean break sometimes. Enjoy it!

- Heard back from HP. He's still on the slow road to recovery after a pneumonia relapse.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Sorry to hear that.

Always good to have a clean break sometimes. Enjoy it!

- Heard back from HP. He's still on the slow road to recovery after a pneumonia relapse.

 

[litfan10]

Always good to have a clean break sometimes. Enjoy it!

- Heard back from HP. He's still on the slow road to recovery after a pneumonia relapse.

Well wishes sent his way

 

[Duleigh]

From a secret location in Georgetown, Colorado (known as Clear Creak Inn), all is well! I hope everyone is having a wonderful week. Now, I'm back to doing nothing, nothing at all, except waking in nature, doing a little fly fishing (why, because I can), and enjoying other people doing the cooking and cleaning. I haven't written a thing for past four days.

I LOVE Georgetown! We got married in Georgetown in a little place that's gone now, the Raven Hill Mining Company. We stayed at the Hotel Chateau Chamonix (Right next to Rocky Mountain Cannabis) The owner of the hotel played guitar at our wedding and he even learned Time in a Bottle for the occasion. His wife Marie-Claude was from Chamonix France and she was so sweet. We got married on New Years Eve and that was John and Marie-Claude's anniversary. We could always get a room. Nothing beats watching the fireworks while sitting in a hot tub on the balcony. Even though I wasn't allowed to go above 7,000 feet after my lungs gave out, I always went up another 1,500 to Georgetown.

 

[Candy_Kane54]

Always good to have a clean break sometimes. Enjoy it!

- Heard back from HP. He's still on the slow road to recovery after a pneumonia relapse.

I'll raise my cup of Earl Grey to H_P's health and hope he can rejoin us soon.

 

[theWollstonecraftWoman]

Good morning, Literotica! It's a wonderful day in the neighborhood. I'm wearing my comfy sweater and waiting for my grandson's arrival. We're going to have a nice day in our little world. Good Lord, I've been doing this doting grandmother stuff a bit too long, haven't I? I'm not a pretentious snob about my coffee, like others around here; I'm having some good ole Keurig K-cup coffee.

 

[NotWise]

Enjoy whatever coffee you like, even K-cups.

I took my morning walk in the garden and came back with tomatoes, cucumbers, bell pepper, jalapenos, sweetcorn and flowers. I'll do my first chile harvest this weekend. It's going to be a big one.

I have two pounds of jalapenos and at least five pounds of cucumbers, and I need to do something with them. I'd start pickling, but my grocery store isn't carrying canning salt yet. I might have to go down the street to Bezos' new place.

Maybe I'll have a BLT for lunch.

 

[MrPixel]

It's going to be a mad rush today to finish a project - gluing laminate to a kitchen countertop I built - while our son is still here. It takes two with reasonable strength to move this thing. I have it in my workshop rather than pollute the cottage with the overwhelming odor of the adhesive, so it has to be done before he leaves. Weather is great and I can open the roll-up door in the workshop for ventilation. The first instruction on the can of glue is "Turn off gas at the main valve." Apparently the fumes are highly flammable, so there are to be no accidental flames or sparks. We both can certainly confirm the need for fresh air breaks after doing the first half of the job yesterday.

I take him to the airport tomorrow on the first leg of his trip to his next assignment, India. He's already had one stint there, but he's been promoted and will be a department manager at a consulate this time. It's been great having him around and he enjoys working with me on various minor projects. He commented yesterday that the "chores" are pleasant enough and don't take too much of the day because I burn out after 2 hours (stroke aftermath) and can only do two sessions a day.

 

[litfan10]

Again, sitting in my comfy chair looking out at my backyard, peacefully meditating.
Bliss.
I send wishes of wellness and happiness to all.

 

[dmallord]

If you want to complain about me or my review I'd prefer you do so openly on my review thread, instead of off to the side here.

@yowser I did. Did you read my comments, Jul 17th?

 

[dmallord]

Some significant percentage of the computers at my work were nonfunctional most of the day, including mine. I was able to borrow a co-worker's, but mine didn't get fixed until after 2pm.

I use a Mac. There are no problems here. Does that affect everyone, or am I just an outlier?

 

[Duleigh]

I use a Mac. There are no problems here. Does that affect everyone, or am I just an outlier?

It only affected Window systems that used the Crowdstrike software or home systems connect to the Microsoft OneDrive and then it only confused your Microsoft office, so you were not affected.

 

[Rustyoznail]

I read that years ago, the EU forced Microsoft to allow other software access to the processor kernel as part of some deal. Apple didn't have the same legal issues at that time.

 

[Duleigh]

It's Thursday, the day named after the God of Thunder!
Coffee is ON!

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I read that years ago, the EU forced Microsoft to allow other software access to the processor kernel as part of some deal. Apple didn't have the same legal issues at that time.

Hence Microsoft blaming the EU for it all. I have no idea how accurate that accusation is.

I plan to treat myself to a very nice coffee this afternoon.

 

[Lifestyle66]

I use a Mac. There are no problems here. Does that affect everyone, or am I just an outlier?

The one major advantage of Apple computers is that Apple always retained IRON-FISTED control over every application ever developed to run on their computers. Third-party developers MUST go through Apple to provide any software, and you pay for that overhead.

IBM tried to do the same thing starting in the mid-1980's when they came out with the PS2. But they lost control when Bill Gates took his PC-DOS from them and supported a more open system to evolve with MS-DOS.

I preferred the open system method of Microsoft. But my computers weren't affected because I DO NOT set them immediately update when they detect a new security patch available for download. They're all set to update after one week.

 

[Duleigh]

The one major advantage of Apple computers is that Apple always retained IRON-FISTED control over every application ever developed to run on their computers

That's also a HUGE drawback. Apple users miss out on a lot of software that MS users enjoy and the software they do get that also works on Windows machines is usually an old version of the software that has been bastardized to work on the Apple platform

But my computers weren't affected because I DO NOT set them immediately update when they detect a new security patch available for download.

Do you subscribe to CrowdStrike? Because that's the 3rd party software that took down so many computers, not Microsoft. The only thing that affected home users was Microsoft's OneDrive servers going down so home users couldn't get to their cloud storage

 

[Lifestyle66]

That's also a HUGE drawback. Apple users miss out on a lot of software that MS users enjoy and the software they do get that also works on Windows machines is usually an old version of the software that has been bastardized to work on the Apple platform

Do you subscribe to CrowdStrike? Because that's the 3rd party software that took down so many computers, not Microsoft. The only thing that affected home users was Microsoft's OneDrive servers going down so home users couldn't get to their cloud storage

No, I don't subscribe to CrowdStrike.

But when it comes to patches, NEVER trust the systems to do their own thing IMMEDIATELY (as is one option in the settings.) That takes a paranoid mind to want to ensure you have the latest security patch IMMEDIATELY. Let the patches go out and give them some time to find the bugs. That's why I set them to one week before accepting an update.

And I don't depend on OneDrive. I use that for easy file transfers between multiple computers I have personally. But i have my own common file server set up for all backups.

 

[dmallord]

I appreciate the feedback on the CrowdStrike situation. I'm not a subscriber.

When I bought my first computer I had briefly worked with a RadioShack 12" floppy four-bay expansion system, then 'graduated' to 5.5 floppies. Later, PCs came around with hard drives. Everyone using them seemed to be like guys with old cars: backyard scenarios with the hood open and always changing the 'oil' or tinkering with some hardware improvements forever and a day.

Apple appeared in my life when a guy I met had an SE30 and was using it to handle spreadsheets. He gave me a few lessons. So easy! No formatting difficulties, no backslash, colon this or that with drive designations etc. Virtually no update difficulties compared to the PC fellas in the 'backyard' group. Though they were very expensive in comparison and still are today, I was hooked on how little technical support was needed. Networking was nearly as easy as pie with the term plug-and-play almost true for Macs.

I have an iCloud account with Apple that I don't use today. How that came about I don't know. These days, a simple need for word processing, email, and some Excel usages meet all I need. I was forced into MS Word and Excel due to business needs long ago but kept and used 'the bastardized' Mac version. I don't know what I missed out on by not forcing myself to learn PC, but it didn't hamper my work. [Then, again, you don't know what you don't know!]

 

[MillieDynamite]

We're loading up the car now and heading back soon.