Friday Un-Funnies

It's been a sad week with the loss of two great performers barely 24 hours apart, Robin Williams and Lauren Bacall. 

Ms. Bacall succumbed to a massive stroke at age 89. Mr. Williams, 63, reportedly took his own life. Media reports have covered unceasingly his public admissions of battling depression, alcohol and drug addictions. As if that wasn't a triple threat, late this week, his wife reported that he was dealing with early symptoms of Parkinson's Disease. It's the same disease that actor Michael J. Fox has been battling publicly for many years.

Over the past few days, myself (and the rest of the world) have been reading many accounts of Williams genius as well as his demons. “The demons are still there,” he told one interviewer, describing his battle to beat depression even after giving up alcohol. Another time he said, “Reality is just a crutch for people who can't cope with drugs.”

While I did not always like Robin Williams' performances — the same be said of any performer — I admired his genius, spontaneity and the ability to make people happy and laugh whether at him or anything else. News accounts have described his tireless energy in entertaining U.S. troops. Also his active involvement in the Comic Relief stand-up specials with fellow comedians Whoopi Goldberg and Billy Crystal has raised nearly $100 million for people in need over 20 years.

The reason(s) for his death may never be fully revealed. Contrary to some public opinion, everyone (aside from family and officials) does not need to know nor should they judge his actions. It is a sad event that no amount of commentary can reverse.

“I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up all alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people that make you feel all alone.” Robin Williams

Time for A(nother) Change

No, this is not Tinkering, OK maybe it really is but when the Who can Comment? setting was reset to Anyone this week, those REALLY annoying Anonymous comments started again. Seems that  spammers have nothing to do but send out those ridiculous Anonymous comments — all get deleted by us before even being published. Did I mention how they are REALLY REALLY annoying as most fellow bloggers already know.

Who can comment?

• Anyone - includes Anonymous Users
• Registered User - includes OpenID
• User with Google Accounts
• Only members of this blog

An earlier change to User with Google Accounts unfortunately excluded some great blogger friends like Christer (The Cottage by the Crane Lake Part Two) who don’t use Gmail from posting a comment. Those folks can still read the posts, just not comment.

Grenville and I really really enjoy reading everyone’s comments BUT the Anonymous ones while being bothersome,  take time to delete and we would MUCH rather be doing other things when online like posting or reading your posts.

To all fellow bloggers who left comments on the previous post about this issue; most preferred Registered User.

Who can Comment? has been changed to that — so Take that Anonymous

Lesson Learned — Don’t Tinker

Sometimes the less known about something, the better and leaving well enough alone can be the best thing to do.

WHY? Fellow bloggers commenting on a recent Working in the Yard post said:

Montanagirl ...  Everything looks nice, but I see a lot of ovals with a white line through them....Exactly what are those? Maybe it's supposed to be a photo there or something.
Elaine ... I see the same thing as Mona, with only four photos coming through, and the last several posts have reverted to the same thing.

Anvilcloud ... I also saw that oval on one pic in Reader, but they're all here on your actual site. 

WHAT HAPPENED?

I tinkered in Picasa Web Albums last night, deleting photos as there were many duplicates — at the time didn’t know that doing so ALSO deletes the photo (in this case many photos) from any blog posts in which they have been used.

 

This online definition of tinker describes why this was NOT a good thing to do:

Verb - Attempt to repair or improve something in a casual or desultory way, often to no useful effect.
v.intr. - To make unskilled or experimental efforts at repair; fiddle: tinkered with the engine, hoping to discover the trouble; to manipulate unskillfully or experimentally.

Luckily, I was able to locate images from this recent post and some older ones on my computer and was able to repost them.

Thanks to those fellow bloggers for letting me know about my goof.

UPDATE: An earlier post When Nothing is Said  discussed setting the choices for Comments — comments choices in Blogger are:

Who can comment?

• Anyone - includes Anonymous Users
• Registered User - includes OpenID
• User with Google Accounts
• Only members of this blog

Forgot to mention in that post that I reset to Anyone as the previous option of  User with Google Accounts excluded folks without a Gmail account. BUT, now we’re getting some of those VERY annoying Anonymous comments again, which is WHY the option was changed, so just wondering . . .

Would Registered User – includes OpenID be a better choice ?

Seeking others thoughts BEFORE tinkering (again).

When Nothing is Said . . .

Most bloggers like receiving feedback in the form of comments — including Grenville and myself.
So, my apologies to bloggers who may have tried to comment on any of our blog posts. On Blogger, I made the BIG mistake recently of changing a setting in Comments under who can comment. And, I didn’t think HOW this would affect folks without a Gmail address.
Recently, I noticed that some blogger friends who previously had commented were no longer commenting. Curious as to why, I contacted one of them and learned that it was my setting change.
SO in case anyone else ever has this dilemma, you can find this in Design (it’s in the upper right corner after you sign onto your blog) then on the left side select Settings (there’s a small wrench icon next to it) and then click on Comments and posts and under the Comments section, you get these choices:

Who can comment?

• Anyone - includes Anonymous Users
• Registered User - includes OpenID
• User with Google Accounts
• Only members of this blog

My mistake was choosing the third option — User with Google Accounts — which excludes anyone who doesn’t have a Gmail account from posting a comment on any one of our  exciting (tongue in cheek) blog posts or at least Grenville’s often funny posts.
I choose the 1st option and in recent days we have started receiving spam, so this option may be changed later.
The selection was made in an attempt to limit any spam comments, but checking for any inappropriate or spam comments under the Comments and/or just deleting also works.
THANKS to blogger friend, Christer of The Cottage by the Crane Lake Part Two for letting me know.
My OOPS has been corrected.