I recall having seen this on the tube some time ago. It’s called The Librarians. Great fun stuff they get up to.

I see the series started in 2014 and ran for 3 seasons – so 2016 was it’s last. But Hulu has 30 episodes on and I’m enjoying the hell out of it.

It’s got Noah Wyle who place Dr. John Carter in ER, John LaRoquette who of course we remember from Night Court and a few other shows, Rebecca Romijn who was in the X-Men, Eastwick, and Ugly Betty and then there was John DeLancie  most famous for his portrayal of Q in Star Trek The Next Generation (STTNG), and even Voyager.

Also had appearances by Bob Newhart as Judson. Plus cutie John Harlan Kim as Ezikiel Jones.

Has the requisite magic, time travel, evil villains – and it looks as though it actually ran for 4 seasons. right up to 2018.

So I remember seeing this as a preview a few months ago. It’s gone from theater to Amazon in record time.

Overall not too bad a movie – the tech is pretty much believable but one thing bothered me. On one of the screens there was a metal bracket holding it down. Um, most screens built in the last ten years that aren’t part of a laptop have mounting holes on the back.

The premise is we start receiving radio signals and so a mission is on to find the sources. But the astronaut finds these spheres – they do interesting things. Like toward the end set the movie up for a sequel.

You see once he has all three transmitting stones – they combine and show another signal coming from the Oort Cloud. That’s the belt of dust, rocks etc. just outside the former planet Pluto. And so the AI that controls the ship named Ferdinand (Get it Ferdinand Magellan)

The real Ferdinand Magellan lived back in the 15th century – and he did the first circumnavigation of the globe.

Pretty decent movie – I’d give it 3.5 out of 5.

So I got one for the kitchen. It was interesting today watching the workmen – one stood around most of the time whilst the other was busy tearing out the cabinets and sink.

For instance here’s Joe the guy standing around:

Now the scuttlebut is that Joe is dating on and off with the landlady. And better – that when previous tenants who lived upstairs had a cell phone place, he stole a bunch of cell phones.

And here’s Bobby who did most of the work:

There’s another of the crew named Mike who if he comes back is getting a Samurai sword rammed into his chest. And I shall hold what I know about Joe over his head. He doesn’t know how nasty I can play.

And as you can see – the cameras now have location and timestamp information.

Everything is back in but now we’re minus three drawers but we did gain three cabinets. So that’ll be nice. Plus a hell of a lot more counter space – even if there is only one electrical outlet in that part of the kitchen. The plumber is coming back tomorrow to run new lines to the sink. I knew it would be a two day project.

Whoever built this place and whoever put electric power in did a terrible job. I guess those are the pitfalls of living in a place that is 118 years old as of this date.

I don’t know if any of my readers have been following I.T. news in general but there’s a nasty one out there. Has to do with a feature of modern (E.g. the last 25 years) processors – a predictive algorithm is the culprit. It’s what they call a side channel attack.

But if you’re running Windows 7 or Windows 10 you more than likely got an update pushed to your machine yesterday. I know both machines here did updates outside normal schedule so apparently Microsoft pushed the fix.

The blue signifies We are All Connected, the Red signifies my love of cats, and the black – well I get accused of having too many t-shirts in black.

Why? Because they just re-keyed the place to have common master key access. Now everywhere I’ve lived where there was master keys we’ve had issues with landlords entering when we weren’t home.

I got Uokoo IP Camera – it was $32 on Amazon. All hooked up – it has a few features I really like. It can record video – that’s a good one. And I set it up with video and audio alerts so I get an email with photo stills from the event.

Now RI law says the following:

§ 34-18-26. Access.

(a) A tenant shall not unreasonably withhold consent to the landlord to enter into the dwelling unit in order to inspect the premises, make necessary or agreed repairs, decorations, alterations, or improvements, supply necessary or agreed services, or exhibit the dwelling unit to prospective or actual purchasers, mortgagees, tenants, workers, or contractors.

(b) A landlord may enter the dwelling unit without consent of the tenant in case of emergency, or, during any absence of the tenant in excess of seven (7) days, if reasonably necessary for the protection of the property.

(c) A landlord shall not abuse the right of access or use it to harass the tenant. Except in case of emergency or unless it is impracticable to do so, the landlord shall give the tenant at least two (2) days’ notice of his or her intent to enter and may enter only at reasonable times.

(d) A landlord has no other right of access except:

(1) Pursuant to court order;

(2) As permitted by § 34-18-39; or

(3) Unless the tenant has abandoned or surrendered the premises.

So unless wires are sparking, or water is leaking – both of which are things that have occurred I must have at least 2 days notice, plus no harassment or if it is impracticable to do so they cannot enter this place. And if they do I’ll get notification plus a record of their entry.

It’s funny – the locksmith who did the work. He saw one of the locks on our front door and only changed the deadbolt lock, not the other one. So they’ll be unable to enter through the front door.  They must use the rear entrance and the cameras watchful eye, even in infrared will see them and record them. Put it this way if we’re both out of the house and the alert trips my next action is to call the local police.

So the premise of the Handmaid’s Tale – is that Christian bigots got control, took D.C. and Boston, and a bunch of cities.

Here in southern New England we have our religious bigots – things like Mass Resistance, numerous white supremacists, etc. But here’s what i see – they’re too inept to enact anything like what happened in The Handmaid’s Tale. And their message falls on deaf ears. A few of them have gotten into government – but they are a tiny minority of bigots.

Plus one other little fact about the area between say Boston, MA and Providence, RI – non-believers also known as atheists number a full quarter of the population.

And the premise of the show – handmaids were essentially breeding stock. But I got to Episode 10 and the acts of resistance started. From the girl threatening to jump off the bridge with her baby, to the rest of the handmaids that refused to stone her to death.

And it brought to mind a fact, that absolutist regimes tend not to last forever. We’re seeing this play out in North Korea right now.

Well – it definitely has that dystopian present/future vibe to it. Interesting episodic show.

I won’t spoil it for anyone – just imagine transplanting puritanism onto modern tech and you get the gist.

Oh and the woman who plays Aunt Lydia – all I can say is they wave that prod at me I’d rip it out of her hand and stuff it up her cooch. Yeah, she plays the scold well. Likely it’d be the biggest thrill of her life having an electric prod up there. But who knows.

Kind of how I can now safely hate Neil Patrick Harris after he portrayed Count Olaf – he does evil well enough to make you want to hate him.