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Category: Tutorial (Page 2 of 3)

“Fine as Kine” not “Finest Kind”


“How are you today?”
“Fine as kine!”

“Fine as kine” is a common expression in the State of Maine. Those who are not from there often hear it as “finest kind”, “fine as kind”, “fine is kind”, or something similar, which doesn’t make any sense.

The word kine is an Old English word that means cattle. The expression “fine as kine” has a nice ring to it and it implies “in good health” or “strong as an ox”.

Some fine kine

The word kine appears rarely in English literature. However, one of those cases is the King James Bible. Avid readers of the King James Bible would be very familiar with the word kine because it appears in 20 different verses of the Old Testament:

Genesis 32:15 Thirty milch camels with their colts, forty kine, and ten bulls, twenty she asses, and ten foals.

Genesis 41:2 And, behold, there came up out of the river seven well favoured kine and fatfleshed; and they fed in a meadow.

Genesis 41:3 And, behold, seven other kine came up after them out of the river, ill favoured and leanfleshed; and stood by the other kine upon the brink of the river.

Genesis 41:4 And the ill favoured and leanfleshed kine did eat up the seven well favoured and fat kine. So Pharaoh awoke.

Genesis 41:18 And, behold, there came up out of the river seven kine, fatfleshed and well favoured; and they fed in a meadow:

Genesis 41:19 And, behold, seven other kine came up after them, poor and very ill favoured and leanfleshed, such as I never saw in all the land of Egypt for badness:

Genesis 41:20 And the lean and the ill favoured kine did eat up the first seven fat kine:

Genesis 41:26 The seven good kine are seven years; and the seven good ears are seven years: the dream is one.

Genesis 41:27 And the seven thin and ill favoured kine that came up after them are seven years; and the seven empty ears blasted with the east wind shall be seven years of famine.

Deuteronomy 7:13 And he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee: he will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep, in the land which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee.

Deuteronomy 28:4 Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep.

Deuteronomy 28:18 Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep.

Deuteronomy 28:51 And he shall eat the fruit of thy cattle, and the fruit of thy land, until thou be destroyed: which also shall not leave thee either corn, wine, or oil, or the increase of thy kine, or flocks of thy sheep, until he have destroyed thee.

Deuteronomy 32:14 Butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape.

1 Samuel 6:7 Now therefore make a new cart, and take two milch kine, on which there hath come no yoke, and tie the kine to the cart, and bring their calves home from them:

1 Samuel 6:10 And the men did so; and took two milch kine, and tied them to the cart, and shut up their calves at home:

1 Samuel 6:12 And the kine took the straight way to the way of Bethshemesh, and went along the highway, lowing as they went, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left; and the lords of the Philistines went after them unto the border of Bethshemesh.

1 Samuel 6:14 And the cart came into the field of Joshua, a Bethshemite, and stood there, where there was a great stone: and they clave the wood of the cart, and offered the kine a burnt offering unto the LORD.

2 Samuel 17:29 And honey, and butter, and sheep, and cheese of kine, for David, and for the people that were with him, to eat: for they said, The people is hungry, and weary, and thirsty, in the wilderness.

Amos 4:1 Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say to their masters, Bring, and let us drink.

Now you know.

Chai Flavored Iced Tea

My friend and I drink a lot of iced tea, so I make about a gallon a day. I keep two one gallon jugs in the refrigerator and one is always full.

I joke that I make iced tea on a semi-industrial scale so it has to be quick and cheap. While I like plain black tea, I prefer a chai-like flavor and slightly sweet. I use 1/3 to 1/6 the amount of sugar in Southern sweet tea. There are chai tea bags but I can’t always find them and they are more expensive than generic black tea you can get at grocery stores and Walmart for next to nothing. So, I decided to try to get close enough to the flavor of chai by using my own spices. I found a way that’s stupid simple.

You need a 2 quart saucepan. I prefer heavy stainless. You need a 1 cup measuring cup, measuring spoons, allspice, and black pepper. I use tagless bags or rip the tags off of regular bags.

Fill the saucepan with water and bring to a boil. When it reaches a boil, I turn off the fire and toss in six or eight bags of black tea, or the equivalent. On an electric stove, you should move the pot to a cold burner. I let it steep for 3 minutes or slightly more.

While the tea is steeping, I measure one cup of sugar. On top of the sugar I place 1/4 tsp of allspice and 1/8 tsp of black pepper. Use more if you wish.

When the steeping time is over, I remove the bags and squeeze them out. (I know you’re not supposed to do that.) Then dump in the contents of the measuring cup and stir. I put a lid on it to prevent contamination and set it aside for several hours to cool.

Lastly, I take a gallon jug, stir the pot one more time and pour it into the jug. Add plain water to fill the jug and place in the refrigerator. Done. I’ve done this so many times, I can do it in my sleep.

Try it and please let me know what you think.

Install Fails, Files Out of Date

The other day I was trying to install the software for a digital oscilloscope and ran into a problem.  The software is written in Visual Basic.  The installer said that “certain files are out of date” and offered to update the files before rebooting the system.  If you answer no, the installer quits.  If you answer yes, the system reboots and when you run the installer again it repeats the “files out of date” message.  There’s no way to get past this, but I have found a workaround.  The problem occurs with both the Microsoft and Nullsoft installers, and it happens on Windows 2000 and XP.

How To Fix It

Your installable program will consist of at least a setup program, a CAB file, and a file called SETUP.LST.  SETUP.LST is structured like an INI file so you can open it with a text editor like Notepad.  Don’t use a word processor.  If you open SETUP.LST you’ll see the file organized into sections that look something like this:

[Bootstrap]
SetupTitle=Install
SetupText=Copying Files, please stand by.
CabFile=app.CAB
Spawn=Setup1.exe
Uninstal=st6unst.exe
TmpDir=msftqws.pdw
Cabs=1

[Bootstrap Files]
File1=@VB6STKIT.DLL,$(WinSysPathSysFile),,,7/15/00 12:00:00 AM,101888,6.0.84.50
File2=@COMCAT.DLL,$(WinSysPathSysFile),$(DLLSelfRegister),,5/31/98 12:00:00 AM,22288,4.71.1460.1
File3=@asycfilt.dll,$(WinSysPathSysFile),,,3/5/10 7:37:40 AM,65536,5.1.2600.5949
File4=@olepro32.dll,$(WinSysPathSysFile),$(DLLSelfRegister),,4/14/08 6:42:04 AM,84992,5.1.2600.5512
File5=@oleaut32.dll,$(WinSysPathSysFile),$(DLLSelfRegister),,4/14/08 6:42:04 AM,551936,5.1.2600.5512
File6=@stdole2.tlb,$(WinSysPathSysFile),$(TLBRegister),,4/13/08 10:12:08 PM,16896,5.1.2600.5512
File7=@msvbvm60.dll,$(WinSysPathSysFile),$(DLLSelfRegister),,4/14/08 6:42:02 AM,1384479,6.0.98.2

The problem is in the [Bootstrap Files] section.  Several of the files in that section are unnecessary.  If you comment them out (by putting a semicolon at the start of the line) your install will proceed without any problems.  You may have to experiment with how many files to comment out but in general you should keep the first two or three files in the list and comment out the rest.  The configuration that worked for me is below.  Your SETUP.LST file will probably be slightly different.

[Bootstrap Files]
File1=@VB6STKIT.DLL,$(WinSysPathSysFile),,,7/15/00 12:00:00 AM,101888,6.0.84.50
File2=@COMCAT.DLL,$(WinSysPathSysFile),$(DLLSelfRegister),,5/31/98 12:00:00 AM,22288,4.71.1460.1
;File3=@asycfilt.dll,$(WinSysPathSysFile),,,3/5/10 7:37:40 AM,65536,5.1.2600.5949
;File4=@olepro32.dll,$(WinSysPathSysFile),$(DLLSelfRegister),,4/14/08 6:42:04 AM,84992,5.1.2600.5512
;File5=@oleaut32.dll,$(WinSysPathSysFile),$(DLLSelfRegister),,4/14/08 6:42:04 AM,551936,5.1.2600.5512
;File6=@stdole2.tlb,$(WinSysPathSysFile),$(TLBRegister),,4/13/08 10:12:08 PM,16896,5.1.2600.5512
;File7=@msvbvm60.dll,$(WinSysPathSysFile),$(DLLSelfRegister),,4/14/08 6:42:02 AM,1384479,6.0.98.2

Good luck!

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