Winter Rants (August 2015)

Windows 10 is dreadful. This was to be the free, seamless, hassle-free download. The downloading took me almost five hours. Then installation… about two to three hours. That was just the start. Finding out and setting up to my requirements, which of course I expected to take a while… well, it is still happening a week later. Windows 10 Mail is a mess, it seems to me. I am still unable to send email. Receiving email appears to be a question of whether the program feels like it or not. Creating files and subfiles for proper email storage remains a total mystery. I can’t get rid of Bing. Syncing just doesn’t happen, seems totally locked up. Mind you, I have less than the vaguest idea what syncing is or why it matters.

…and so on. Seeking help on what is billed as Microsoft Community or some such is useless. I would have thought that Microsoft would have quickly found out where customers are having problems, and send out fixes. Forget it. The free option seems now to have created a convenient global guinea-pig community on which Microsoft can experiment. I am so far seriously regretting ever replacing my Windows 8.1 which was working just fine. Moral: If it’s not bust don’t fix it.

Unbeknownst is a truly hideous word. The Shorter Oxford recognises it, although it prefers unbeknown (to). Unbeknownst might be OK if it precedes a vowel (eg. Unbeknownst among…) I suppose the word has been available for ever, but it has sidled into regular usage and conversation quite recently. My dislike of it is simply that it is such affectation, unnecessary, ugly.

Jack Tame wrote today in The Herald On Sunday about a Northland woman Kelly van Gaalen. Here are extracts:

"Last December she was one of 15 recipients of Northland's Local Hero medal, acknowledging her efforts in a community that has had more than its share of tough times. She's a former member of the Kaikohe-Hokianga Community Board, the former chair of the Kaikohe Community Arts Council and the former promotions manager for the Kaikohe Business Association.

"But van Gaalen is in prison. Last year her family was the victim of a home invasion. Three men broke in and beat up her husband. In the aftermath, police officers discovered a plump bag of dried marijuana in the van Gaalens' home. It was a big bag and van Gaalen acknowledged it was hers — all 684g, 24 times the limit for personal use. Her explanation was she had two marijuana plants and one grew especially well. She had smoked the drug daily since her teens and shared her supply with as many as 20 friends.

"Don't forget, the police had only been called to her house out of happenstance. No one had laid a complaint about the marijuana and the police found no evidence of money-for-drugs dealing. There were no incriminating texts on van Gaalen's phone, no wads of cash under the floorboards and no sawn-off shotguns on the kitchen bench.

"So what happened? Did the 32 character references provided in court allow for a discharge without conviction or a community sentence? Nope. Despite her "extremely worthwhile contribution" to Kaikohe, in the words of the presiding judge, the 38-year-old's plight ended in lunacy.

"Van Gaalen, home invasion victim, mother of three, Local Hero medal recipient and general menace of Kaikohe, was sentenced to two years in prison."

Yes, this makes me angry. What in heaven’s name is the point of putting this woman in prison? I have little patience with cannabis, but this woman is not only no danger to anyone, she seems an admirable person in the community. Where’s old Garth of Sensible Sentencing this time?