Canon is a shitty company that sells printers and print cartridges. The cartridges have a built-in chip that, if it’s missing, won’t let your printer print. That chip is only in genuine Canon print cartridges. If you buy a cartridge made by some other company, even if it fits and it’s full of ink, this intentionally, immorally, and ought-to-be illegally chip prevents the printer from printing.

But now, due to ever-increasing supply-chain issues, Canon can’t source enough of the electronic chips, so it’s selling cartridges without the chip, and telling customers how to override the printers’ error messages and use the chipless cartridges anyway.

Capitalism is hilarious sometimes.

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Alternative ways to live cheaper but still comfortably have always fascinated me, like this guy who lives in an old Peapod delivery truck. He’s made it into a very nice DIY home at a total cost of less than $20,000, and that includes buying the truck. In the video, he keeps saying that he didn’t really know what he was doing as he built it and put everything together, “but I figured it out.” Excellent, mister.

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In related news, I’m surprised that Peapod still exists. My wife and I were customers in San Francisco, way back in the 1990s when the concept of having groceries delivered was a big innovation, but I thought Peapod had long ago gone the way of Pan American Airlines and Tower Records.

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Virginia AG sues town of Windsor over wildly racist police department

Black drivers accounted for approximately 42% of the department’s traffic stops from July 1, 2020 through September 30, 2021 (810 of 1,907 stops.) During that time period, the Town stopped Black drivers between 200% and 500% more often than would be expected based on the number of Black residents in the town or county.

That’s ordinary almost everywhere, but a lawsuit about it is good news.

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Spoilers ahoy, so skip this if you’re planning to see the new Aaron Sorkin movie, Being the Ricardos, the biopic about Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, and their show, I Love Lucy. I don’t love Lucy, but I respect her. Her TV shows had a high-pitched slapstick style that played the same note in perpetuity, which grew tiresome as I grew older, so the movie held little interest for me.

And then I heard something that killed even my minimal interest. The story’s dramatic crux is that Lucy was suspected to be (and factually, was) a former member of the Communist Party. In 1953, that could’ve gotten her show and career ‘canceled’, so the accusation was a Big Deal.

In the movie’s happy ending, there’s a phone call with FBI Director J Edgar Hoover, wired over the public address system so the studio audience can hear, as Hoover announces that Lucy has been proven to have no commie connections.

Yes, the movie makes J Edgar Hoover into the surprise good guy, which is horseshit. Did not happen, could not happen, and it’s at odds with everything known about J Edgar Hoover. He was a monstrous man, and of course his FBI kept files on Lucille Ball at least until Hoover died, and probably after.

On the off chance anyone reading this doesn’t know the name, I recommend The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover: Official and Confidential, by Anthony Summers. It’s been some years since I read it, but it’s great, and I’m always happy to recommend. In no sense and at no time was Hoover the good guy.

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You know what I like about living alone? Lots of things, yeah, but after a lifetime of good manners it’s great to cough or sneeze without even thinking of covering my mouth.

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I liked Allan Sherman’s parody songs, like his famous “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh,” and owned some of his albums when I was a kid. Now I’m somewhat saddened to learn that he was a prick.

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Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is trying to keep teachers and students inside the schools — brick petri dishes — despite the forever pandemic.

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In my apartment building for the past few weeks, someone keeps playing loud or maybe just super-woofered music. I can’t hear the music, but the bass vibrations rattle the walls and floorboards. It’s not terribly annoying, but it’s… moderately annoying.

Not sure who to hate, though. It might be coming from the apartment across the hall, or it might be an apartment upstairs, or the apartment next to mine on my side of the hall. Since I’m not sure, not annoyed enough to knock on three doors, and it’s only happening once or twice weekly, I’ve spoken to no-one about this.

Instead, when the bass starts thumping, I play this brown noise from YouTube at full blast, amplified by this Volume Booster app, which lets me quadruple the sound. My cat doesn’t like it, but it drowns out everything, and brings peace and loud quiet.

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“I can already smell the gas.” True crime accounts are generally not my bag, but this one from before I was born got me. It’s about the 1955 bombing of United Flight 629, just after the plane took off from Denver. 44 people were killed, but the term ‘terrorist’ wasn’t yet in the American vocabulary, so it was simply called sabotage.

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The Tokyo subway system is huge, and on this website it’s delightfully visualized. Never been to Japan, but I’m hypnotized and wanna go.

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One-word newscast:

• cops

• COVID

• supernova

Dead:
• Barry Harris
• Michael Lang

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 Mystery links  — Like life itself, there’s no knowing where you’re going:—①—
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