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I know some are going to find this subject offensive and deeply distasteful.

Let's talk about socks. Garibaldi was unsuccessful at bringing up this delicate subject with Cmdr. Sinclair.

When I buy socks, I find a pair that I like. Then I buy the whole rack. It's nice to have, say, 15 or 20 pair of the exact same set of socks. I figured out this algorithm optimization 30+ years ago.

Think about this for a moment.

When putting away clothes from the dryer, one of the rituals everyone must endure is the sock sorting procedure.

Find a sock, iterate through the remaining socks to (hopefully) find a matching sock. Then repeat that procedure until all possible pairs are matched.

List<Pair<Sock>> matchedSocks = new List<>( 2_000_000_000 );
List<Sock> unmatchedSocks = new List<>( 2_000_000_000 );
Iterator<Sock> socksToMatch = socksFromDryer().iterator();
while( socksToMatch.hasNext() ) {
      Sock sockToMatch = socksToMatch.next(); // select from pile
      socksToMatch.remove( sockToMatch ); // remove from pile
      Sock sockMate = socksFromDryer.find( sockToMatch ); // find a mate?
      if( sockMate == null ) {
              // unmatched -- drat!
            unmatchedSocks.add( sockToMatch );
      } else {
            socksToMatch.remove( sockMate );
            Pair<Sock> p = new Pair<>( sockToMatch, sockMate );
            matchedSocks.add( p );
      }
}

Funny how it seems that (almost) every time there is a sock missing that is unmatched. One might suppose that come the next wash day, it might turn up again. But nope. Never again! This is according to the scientific theory which explains how socks are sucked into the same universal black hole that accumulates missing pens, combs, and for some people -- cigarette lighters. Maybe even keys.

Advantages of many pair of the same socks.
1. You never end up in a twisty little maze of many socks, all different! When one sock disappears into the black hole of missing pens and combs, you simply now have an odd number. Next time, you're back to an even number. When one sock disappears, you barely notice it.
2. sock pairing on laundry day is much easier.

This creates a new problem which requires solution: only one style / color of socks in drawer!

As it turns out, there is a solution. Have several different pair, a small number, say no more than five, different socks. For each type, be sure you bought about 15 to 20 pair of the same.

This doesn't undly complicate the sock pairing ritual on laundry day. Yet it maintains the advantages of not having a large pile of all different single socks that would otherwise be good if they only had a matching sock.

(Updated above to fix angle braces.)
Replace every < with &lt;
Replace every > with &gt;
So that it appears correctly.

According to this source:

The story of Mary Had a Little Lamb originates from a true story. It happened to a 14 year old girl whose name was Mary Sawyer [ . . . ]

There are some theories that the poem or part of it would be written by a young John Roulstone who was visiting the school that day.

[ . . . . ] Today Mary’s Little Lamb statue can be found in Sterling, MA, after a fire destroyed Mary’s native house in August 2007.

Also her school, known as Redstone School (1798) has been removed, and can be found in Sudbury, MA on Longfellow’s Wayside Inn land.

The lyrics of “Mary had a Little Lamb” were the first words in the history captured by a phonograph. Thomas Edison recorded his own voice reciting the rhyme, around the year 1877.

After reviewing this poem, I can only conclude that it is the sad story of how a backward school was intolerant and unwelcoming of emotional support service animals.

Something must be done!

Shirley, there must be a lawyer willing to take this worthy case.

Okay, I love me some country music (not twang pop) but I also got a sense of humor, so this shit struck me as hilarious when I read it this morning: Country music is farm emo.

It seems that our court system is backed up. Not enough judges to handle all the court cases efficiently.

Consider this worthy case the text of which is hear.

Twitter Summary:

A Twitch viewer is suing the Amazon-owned platform because the female streamers are too sexy so he:
a) has felt compelled to use a Fleshlight that has chafed his penis
b) has bloodshot eyes from ogling
c) shortcircuited his monitor by ejaculating on it

Quoted from court filing:

4. Introduction/Statement of Facts

The plaintiff has been a Twitch Prime and Turbo subscriber for years now, who also suffers from Depression, OCD, Panic Disorder, Agrophobia and Crohn's Disease. And because of these maladies, he heavily relies on the internet for all his entertainment purposes as many others do during this difficult time. And due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many people HAVE TO STAY HOME FOR ENTERTAINMENT and are quarantining themselves, including the particularly vulnerable - children. As for the plaintiff, he only leaves his house for Inflectra infusions having to deal with hos Crohn's disease; otherwise, he's always on the computer constantly using and watching Twitch. [ . . . . ] Twitch has extremely exacerbated his condition by displaying many sexually suggestive women streamers through Twitch's twisted programming and net code making it nearly impossible for the plaintiff to use Twitch without being exposed to such sexual suggestive content. [ . . . . ]

[ . . . . many mini NSFW images in court filing omitted . . . . ]

6. Claims and Harm

The plaintiff who suffers from Sexual Addiction has suffered much worse given that Twitch has exacerbated his condition. The plaintiff's username on Twitch is [ . . . ] Twitch an be held liable for their misconstrued and devious actions if done with extreme disregard for the customer's well-being through negligence or fallible company policies. [ . . . .]

One can only be saddened and sympathetic for such an individual who has been so horribly victimized by Twitch's (owned by Amazon) callous and thoughtless actions and web site programming. To add insult to stupidity injury, this guy's case will no doubt have to wait in line with many other court cases that are far less worthy of the court's consideration.

With so many court cases what other possible solution can there be except to appoint more judges. Hopefully these judges will have the wisdom to carefully consider each case diligently, giving each one all the careful attention it deserves.

Please Mr. President, appoint more judges so that all of these worthy court cases can be heard without delay with appropriate justice.

Not noticing any attorney representing the Plaintiff, I believe this would be a Pro Se litigant. This also brings up the issue that the courts should be able to appoint attorneys for plaintiffs in civil cases as well as criminal cases. Just imagine how many people might file civil lawsuits but don't, because they lack the skill to represent themselves, or the financial resources to hire the very most expensive law firms in the nation to represent them. Imagine how wonderful it would be if the courts (the taxpayers) could provide the financial resources to enable such harmed litigants to avail themselves of the very finest (and most expensive) teams of lawyers for their worthy cases and complaints.

So, I'm driving along, and none of the stations are coming in well. I'm scanning the FM spectrum, looking for SOMETHING that isn't retarded. Finally, something came in clear - some asshole spouting his opinion about something. That something was COVID19. I listen a few seconds. Hmmmm - interesting.

The per capita COVID fatality rate is lower in all of those states that kept their economies going, than in any of those states that simply shut down for COVID.

Hmmm - wonder if that's true? And, who is that asshole? Listen awhile longer - hell, it's Limbaugh.

So, I'm still wondering if it's true. So, right now, after beginning my journal entry, I'll try to find numbers . . .

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covid19-death-rates-us-by-state/

Hmmmm - something's not right. There are supposed to be eight states that did not shut down. There are 15 states with lower fatality rates than Arkansas, which did not shut down. Soooooo - the statement that every state that did NOT shut down has a lower death rate than any state that did shut down cannot be true.

Which states did NOT shut down again?

April 3 - not quite what we're looking for here. https://www.travelbinger.com/13-u-s-states-have-not-ordered-a-lockdown-yet-take-a-look/

April 17, but it seems to reference much the same as Limbaugh was pontificating over.
https://www.lendio.com/blog/coronavirus/states-lockdown/

However, 8 states (Arkansas, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Utah, and Wyoming) still do not have any lockdowns or stay-at-home orders.

Compare that list of 8 to the table found in the first link - and Rush is full of shit. Oh well. There's a reason I never liked listening to him . . . Only on those rather rare occassions when the AM/FM couldn't find anything except Rush Limbaugh, did I ever listen to the old fool.

The chart does seem to indicate that all of those 8 states have had low mortality rates, compared with New England and Great Lakes states. Then, there's Louisiana, ranking right below the District of Columbia.

Well, all I can say is, "Fuck you, Rush!" The fool had me hoping that something all scientifical-like was going to prove all the fuss to be wasted.

I wanted a small, quiet, fanless machine to act as a router (firewall) between my two LANs in my house, something that I could leave on all the time, and something that could also act as a printer server and run my VPN client.

I saw some very cool things, including a quad-core Jetway system with 10 Gbit LAN ports! However, that was a little out of my price range just now, and I couldn't think of what to do with all the LAN ports.

I bought a Mini PC from a company called InsideTech, It's got an intel Celeron N3160 (1.6GHz) quad core CPU, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD, 2 HDMI ports, 2 LAN ports (intel), 6 USB ports and WiFi (intel). It cost a shade under £250 with a spare HDMI cable and postage. The case is aluminium with some small fins on the top. It came with Ubuntu on it, which I promptly replaced with slackware64-current downloaded yesterday, kernel 5.4.47. I've got Arno's IP tables on it and the multilib patches. For now, I've got my WAP plugged into it and it's routing. My old Phenom II X6 is now retired from routing duties.

Since I got the printer stuff working, I thought I'd install it on this new machine and see if I can let CUPS through the firewall so that all the machines in the house (including the Windows ones) can print over WiFi. That's for another day.

I completed the backup, shut the HP down to let it cool, and then tried to get it to run Linux from the DVD. It locked up before it got to the part where it asks if you want to try it or install it, so apparently the DVD is as worn as the headphone jack. Maybe I can find a USB drive with Kubuntu on it already, but I’m not hopeful.
        For a week or so I used my phone’s Bluetooth to hear KSHE, using the Dell to play OGGs. Not an ideal solution. Then I remembered that I still had the old phone, although it no longer has a carrier. The KSHE app was already installed on it, so I started using it.
        In the two months since I replaced it I forgot how often it crashed when it used Bluetooth. So that was out, and went back to using the new phone. Then I thought “wait a minute, I can use the headphone jack.” I dug out a stereo RCA cable and couldn’t find an adapter.
        Digging through the fire drawer; the kitchen drawer with matches, light bulbs, and other assorted fire stuff for an adapter, I found the old Wi-fi dongle I’d searched for and couldn’t find. Now I have two I don’t need.
        But I did find an an adapter and plugged it all up and into wall power, and tried it out.
        With the headphone jack it was all bass. It only took a few minutes to come up with a solution; there must be an equalizer app available.
        There was. It took a little fiddling to get the sound right, and it’s still not quite as good as from Bluetooth or the computer, but it will do.

I suppose everyone knows that every politician, and every executive officer in the world feels the need to "do something" about Covid19.

We've been doing that social distancing thing since early in the game. Everyone has. Face masks, not so much.

Suddenly, our executive branch has decided that face masks are mandatory to even enter the plant. I went to the doctor's office immediately to get an excuse not to wear the mask. Doctor and I had an interesting discussion, in which she reiterated what I already know: masks are bad for healthy people.

Meanwhile, I talked to my co-workers, and told them all that if they didn't want to wear the masks, they needed to get a medical exemption. Everyone says, "I'm getting mine tomorrow morning!" Then it became, "I'm waiting to see what they do about you before I give them mine!" Bunch of no-balls assholes, this is why collective bargaining never works in the south.

So, I take my medical note to HR. Stupid broad lets me work without a mask - for one night. But she's talking on the phone to some bitch somewhere far away, and the second night, I'm barred from entering the plant. Talk, talk, talk, all around the country with people who all think that they're important.

Finally, it's decided that I need to wear a mask to get through the turnstile, and walk through the plant, to my shop. More, I'm being offered a half dozen different options for masks, as opposed to that silly gauze hanging off my ears. I'll test them all out, and see how they work.

BUT - most importantly, I don't have to wear the damned mask for eight, or ten, or twelve hours. Only when I'm face-to-face with someone. Otherwise, the stupid mask can be stuffed into my belt, or pocket, or whatever.

And, I got a near-admission that the masks are pretty meaningless. They do not stop the transmission of the common cold, flu, or Covid19. It's just a feel-good stopgap that shows everyone cares. And, it helps to mitigate any potential liability the company may face for keeping the plant in operation.

Funny thing about the masks I've already seen. There are no brand name tags, or instructions, or anything on them. The best thing I've seen yet, is just a tube, you pull over your head, and down around your neck. Single layer of some artificial fabric, stretchy, and very easy to breathe through. No hot air blowing back in your eyes, or whatever. Did EVERYONE in the boardrooms forget that it's summer now? It's far too damned hot to be breathing into some stupid bag of gauzey cotton or paper.

I got my point across pretty effectively though. If those assholes in the offices want me to wear a mask that interferes with breathing, they need to bring their fat asses into the factory, follow me around, and breathe through the same damned masks they want me to breathe through.

The message would have been far more effective, if all of my co-workers had followed through on their promises to bring doctor's excuses in on Monday, like I did. Assholes all need to grow a pair. They can talk a good story, but they have no real fight in them.

I promise that whatever mask I decide to carry around with me, it will almost never be over my face.

Tonight, we see what we see. Maybe they'll just get pissed off, and lay me off. I can lay around the house and collect unemployment for awhile!!

BTW - as an aside - I mentioned 8, or 10, or 12 hours above. Which explains why I've not been so active here on Soylent. Too many days and too many hours for me to spend much time on the internets. Nice paydays though!

I'll try to post back, and let you all know which mask works best for me.

And, yes, claustrophobia is a legitimate excuse not to wear some stupid rag over your face. There are others, but claustrophobia is about the easiest to "prove" to anyone's satisfaction.

I don't like that SpaceX named their big project "starship". For decades starship has been understood to mean a ship that can travel between stars -- even though this is only science fiction at present.

Such a misuse of a name can only be the work of a marketing department somewhere.

Other terms that lost their meaning.

"Relational" database, in the late 80's early 90's. Suddenly any indexed record system was a "relational" database.

Megabyte / Gigabyte, etc. Once long ago it was clear that
KiloByte = 1024
MegaByte = 1024 * 1024
GigaByte = 1024 * 1024 * 1024
It's funny that this fuzzy contamination of measurement didn't happen to main memory. We all know exactly how many bytes are addressable in a stick of memory.

Another one: 5G
I'm sure it has / had some technical meaning. But ruined by marketing.

There are other technical terms similarly ruined, I'm sure.

In 2009 I bought a Xerox Phaser 6125N colour laser printer for only £120, with a second set of toner cartridges included in the price. It's a WinPrinter (the driver has to do more work) and there was no official Linux support for it, but a bit of googling revealed that it was in fact a re-engineered FujiXerox printer and that the FujiXerox Linux driver worked with it (Fuji_Xerox-DocuPrint_C525_A_AP-1.0-1.i386.tar.gz).

The driver was supplied as a 32-bit binary (several, in fact) and I have been running and old 32-bit machine, with CUPS, as my printer server. I want to get rid of the old machine. I came up with all sorts of ideas, I discovered on the FujiXerox website that you could also get the source for the filter (driver) for that particular model, so I tried to compile it myself in the CUPS 2.3.3 source tree for 64-bit. It didn't work.

Anyway, the solution was to use Alien Bob's Slackware multilib packages to run the 32-bit binaries on the 64-bit machine. Alien Bob's instructions were very clear and it only took a few minutes to install his packages, reboot, rebuild my nVidia driver and get the printer going.