Kill the Turkey

Turkey reheated.
Turkey sandwiches.
Turkey soup.
Stuffing sandwiches.
Throw out the bloody cranberry lump that Aunt Joan made to look like it just came out of a can, complete with lines....

• So the Remaining Royal got engaged. Fortunately there's absolutely nothing else going on in the known universe, so television, news, the internet, and people on the street can be completely absorbed in this great bloody nonsense. 
• As a Murkin, I'll obviously never understand the Royals and Britain's Royal Fascination. Not to mention the finances and ancient nefarious connections.
• Out here in the Real World<tm>, it turns out that people get engaged, marry, get knocked up, and divorce all the time.  Not one of us rates a notice, news story, or full Social Media Blitz.
• Sometimes, before or after engagement, sperm hits its target and a pregnancy results. Again, not so much as two lines on Faceyspaces, with four likes. The morning 'news' program has spent two full days on this. When we got married, we sent out email announcements. Not a single response, because everyone thought we were kidding. Imagine - me, kidding!

WARNING: if you need to wear a shirt with GORGEOUS or sweatpants with BOOTYLICIOUS on them, you're not.

• But it's ok - for the rest of us, who are sick of Royal News, there is still time to catch the ponderous, endless stream of Dog the Bounty Hunter marathon on A&E.
• Mrs. Dog, sadly, has cancer. This is not a problem for the show, which smelled ratings!
• If possible, they are going to livestream her chemo. Yes, the guy whose dog just went through chemo is now making human chemo jokes.

Those of you who survived Turkey Day lived to see Black Friday. This is a manufactured event, in which people are supposed to buy Stuff that's supposed to be on sale. Some of these deep-researching geniuses have come up with the perfect item that must be purchased and wait in line to purchase it, sometimes in tents. Things get interesting when they somehow manage to get inside the store. Things get even more interesting when there are tv cameras there, which document the carnage for the area and the rest of the world, via YouTube, to see. People pushing, people shoving, people taking sharp and blunt objects to each other - and that's in the parking lot. This is a sociology experiment gone really wrong twenty years ago, hence its repetition every year.

So you've pretty much digested your turkey and the alarm went off at 3am, and here you are at [insert generic electronics store that is not at all Best Buy], with the doors just opening and General Unrest rearing his ugly head. The great mass of (in)humanity surges toward the door. Unfortunately, physics dictates that the width of the great mass of humanity go through the choke point of two doors, so humanity goes ahead and chokes. Each other, if necessary. People have died by falling and being Trampled Underfoot (2nd song reference - did you get the first?). After hopefully making it through the doors, you vault ahead, as if shot from a slingshot, to the... I dunno.. where did we want to go?

The Prepared Shopper, whose tent is insulated and has flowing booze, sprints right to their preferred, highly-researched item. Oh, so sorry... the large screen tv that takes up an entire wall and connects to your neural pathways, is not in stock. You discover that there was only one for sale anyway, and that went to Ralph, the manager's girlfriend's special son, the previous evening. Oh well, at least you got to stay in a freezing parking lot overnight.

The Real Hip Genuine 2000s Smart Consumer, who really has her shit together, has also been doing her research, but only for what's coming on Cyber Monday. This is a veritable online orgy of alleged deals from innumerable retail outlets, only these don't require a tent or getting up at 4am, hence it doesn't really count as Family Time. These poor slobs have also been deluded into the false belief that there are some actual deals to be had. While there are no apparent limits on large screen tvs for sale, you will run into them in terms of finding out they're no longer in stock, approximately two days before Christmas. 

This shit is mandatory, in case you didn't get the email.

The email, by the way, promised deals in every department, backed up by incredibly annoying tv commercials, featuring singing flipping boxes, belting out the worst vomitous soft classic rock tunes from your misspent youth. 

This email is markedly different from the email from a random Nigerian prince, promising you untold wealth, if you'd only send him your banking information. It turns out you can't even pirouette in Nigeria without hitting a prince.

If you happen to be a musician and mysteriously got on the emailing list for Guitar Center, you're in for a real treat. I counted eleven emails over the weekend, all with promotions for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, plus a 25% discount coupon, good on anything in the store, except for two paragraphs of exceptions at the bottom of the email. If you take the time to do the math, you can save 25% on your choice of (new only) guitar picks or those tiny little rubber things that go on the bottom of boxes so they don't slip. This is the package of six tiny little things, not the thirteen piece pack. I expect their manager to be personally knocking on my door tomorrow, asking why I haven't used my coupon yet. He already sent me three emails. When he comes by, I'll ask him about left-handed guitars. The coupon, of course, applies to new lefty guitars, but they happen to be out of them. And when I say out of them, I mean they don't stock them, or happen to be caught naked with two cheapies hanging on the wall, one of which is used, which is not covered by the coupon. For some reason, it would cause grievous bodily harm to order a few lefty guitars for southpaw customers. Perhaps even Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I'd feel terrible if I inadvertently caused this with my selfish demands for a guitar I could actually play.

After you have completed this conspiracy by retail to further separate you from your money, there is a Brand New imaginary invented day: Giving Tuesday. This is the day you're allegedly supposed to give to charity.  The very clever joke here is that this day was also invented by the retail sector. It makes them look great and also disguises the fact that by the time you're done with Black Friday and Cyber Monday, you have absolutely nothing left to Giving Tuesday. It's brilliant in concept and execution. You don't even have room on your credit cards, which were so maxed out, you had to get a few more. If you're in the UK, you can get them in 39% or 59% interest, and payday loans up to the minimally impacting rate of 1239%. Yes, that's right - you read that right (third song reference), 1239 percent.  In fact, as soon as you get the money conveniently deposited in your checking account the next day, Uncle Luigi comes by to collect the vig. If you don't happen to have it the next day, Luigi says that's fine, the amount you owe has been 'adjusted upward' to 2977%. This is grand progress from the days when Luigi would break a few of your limbs. Payday Loans have realized they can hurt you far worse than physically by interest and credit reporting alone.

So if I, for some strange reason, happen to have a few shekels left to divest myself of, I conveniently have an entire inbox of Helpful Suggestions. Even the libertarian party has an appeal. To be absolutely honest, and I am scrupulously honest, as you read several times per week, there's an organization called Oldies But Goodies, which finds homes for older cockers. I'm pretty sure it's tax-deductible. A few hard-earned dollars went there, before our own issues with an even older cocker. Screw the humans - there's no hope for them. Give to dogs (and even cats) whose situation is caused by humans, and can be remedied with a few of your dollars.  Give money, in-person help, pet food, and blankets to your local SPCA. Overbreeding, lack of spay/neuter, and pure human stupidity have landed these poor guys there.

SHIT - I have actually promoted the thing I just got done skewering.

• My house is weird. You probably just shot your coffee out your nose, all over the screen, and said, "No!"
• It lags the outside temperature by strange amounts, so that when it's warm outside, it's freezing inside. I don't actually know this until I go outside, and I don't go outside because Bad Things Happen when I go outside.
• In fact, whenever I open the front door, the neighbors yell at me not to let all my cold air outside and make it cooler for the rest of them.
• Pretty soon I'll be the only house on the block with windows open after Thanksgiving.

Abandoned Army and NSA Intelligence Sharing System data was left exposed to the public on an unsecured server. These are the people 'protecting' us and 'keeping us safe'. Mostly just spying on us.

• The UK, long known for systems, spying, and intel, has decreed that porn sites must age-verify, so children under eighteen do not access videos of people performing relatively normal human activities. Just imagine the fun that will ensue once this data gets stolen due to a not-protected server somewhere. Plus, you raise wonderfully-adjusted children when you brand sex 'dirty'.

An important court case is being brought by the ACLU (for people who think they do nothing good, here's an example of why they do). The government, which, as mentioned early, 'protects' us by spying on us, maintains that you have no expectation of privacy when you voluntarily give out information. Information, in this context, is your cell phone's location data, only you haven't freely given it out. The case attempts to overturn a guilty ruling for a person convicted of a crime via location data, obtained without a warrant. The spy agencies maintain that they don't need a warrant to spy on you. You'll note that this is a popular, recurring thing. They will spy anyway, so this is just window dressing to make it look like they're not violating Fourth Amendment protections. Law is ill-prepared to deal with electronic communications and advancements. Use your imagination as to why the government would prefer not to rely on your constitutional rights and protections.

• Bulletproof Coffee has informed customers that although their coffee is bulletproof, their network isn't. 

Marshall's treatments approach the finish line. The last chemo appointment was last week, stopped one treatment early because he's doing so well. This week, his bloodwork came up just fine. Next week is a visual inspection to see if there are any lesions left. Meanwhile, the New and Improved Marshall is ramping up the annoying of his parents, whining pitifully for everything his little heart desires. This usually takes place when they are doing something important.

No matter how intelligent he is, and he's frightening, he still drinks from the toilet.

• Here's a great headline: "French president Macron says gender-based insults will become a crime, punishable by law."
• Countries are criminalizing speech. Spoiled as we are by our First Amendment, this is shocking. Freedom of speech includes speech that you do not agree with - potentially ugly speech, that you'd prefer not to hear. Political correctness (social justice warriors) demands censoring speech with which they do not agree). The fact that this is infecting entire countries is worrisome. It's like a bad nightmare from old science fiction come true.
• The point of this exercise is "educating the public and schoolchildren about sexism and violence against women."  What this means is that men are not allowed to say bad words about women, but it will be perfectly ok for women to say what they like to and about men. Isn't that wonderful?

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheerios? No.

• While we're all happy happy joy joy, I'll leave you with this small rant: we recently had our car's windshield replaced. When this happens, the service will give you the piece of the original glass, containing your stickers. All went incredibly well. This was followed in rapid succession by a number of police stops, demanding to know where the stickers were. Fortunately, they were all fielded by Mrs. lefty, who was none too pleased at the opportunity. Once the relevant documents were produced, the police smiled and she went on her way, semi-unmolested.
• Today's visit with the local constabulary produced nastiness and attitude on the part of the policeman. When the documents were produced, he angrily went on about how this wasn't supposed to be like this. Well, what would you like done and what are the legal specifics on it, Officer?  The kind gentleman then gave her a legal warning. Thank you, Officer Dickhead. There's always one.
• I suggested keeping the piece of windshield on the dash to avoid aggravation. Wife said this was a good idea, except when stopping quickly, when the glass would turn into a projectile. Well, yeah... there is that.

I gave up trying to find stuff years ago and now just ask

We Need More Diversity in the Blogosphere

Like that? I generally don't get to say hip things like blogosphere.
And I generally don't want to say things like diversity.

I just came across a disturbing article, describing how a diversity research group wants to bring greater diversity to the entertainment industry. Of course this is a college professor, because a really large number of really bad ideas come from college professors.  The original name of the group was Media, Diversity, & Social Change Initiative. The new name is the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative and it includes people from UMG, Disney, Sony, and others.

I hope that readers of ThermionicEmissions know by now that I have no problem with anybody except the Stupid. There are no problems with diversity, unless it's forced. And sure enough, this organization wants to force diversity upon the music industry. Not the artists - we can all agree that there are few fields as organically diverse as music. No, they want to make everybody from label owners down to recording engineers and coffee getters more diverse.

Most of the people I know are old-school, like me. They believe you should hire the best qualified person for the job, regardless of gender, race, origin, handicap, dominant hand, etc. The new breed of PC social engineers feels it more important to have diversity than the best person for the job. I find this infuriating, as it's gaining traction and being accepted, even if grudgingly.

Philadelphia had an issue in the past few years that perfectly exemplifies the issues with social engineering diversity.  Someone decided the Philly Police did not have enough black people on the force. I have no idea who or how they made the decision. So they did whatever was necessary to hire more black people. The problem showed up during testing, when some of the black people did not score well in the tests. Rather than hiring people who could pass the test, the police department lowered the standards for the test and for hiring.

I don't know about you, but I want the best and brightest protecting me. If you prefer a more diverse force over a good force, I suggest there's something wrong with you.

I want to emphasize that I'm speaking about people getting the job solely because of diversity. If they can do the job as well as anyone else, there is no issue.

If I'm recording, I want a great engineer and producer. I don't want a new hire who got in because she has internal plumbing, plus less skill than the other candidate.

A relative took a test for a government job. She did well. Unfortunately the minority lady who didn't test as well got the job, because they needed to hire minority people. This is called discrimination.

After the professor gets done making the entire entertainment industry inclusive and diverse, I have some more work for her to do...

• women need to start or get caught harassing men. There are no reports of this at the present time - all harassers are men. This is not inclusive or diverse. Something needs to be done.
• take a good look at professional hockey. See any Asians? Women? Jews? Get on the ice and get some diversity happening!
• Basketball and football have a black male majority. Is this tolerable in 2017? What about transgenders? Women who identify as Caterpillar backhoes? When was the last time you saw a vertically-challenged person (midget) on the court?
• My body is genetically male. I identify as male. This is not diverse at all. What can we do about this situation? Do I qualify as diverse when I have sex because I'm connected to a woman (customarily my wife)?
• NASCAR: men. Old and young white men. With silly hats outside the oval. Why not throw a few women in there, who have never operated a manual transmission? Some math geeks, who have never gone over 25mph? A few anarchists, who don't believe in seat belts or helmets?
• WHERE ARE THE FAT PEOPLE in olympic gymnastics? Sorry - people of size.
• when was the last time you saw a baseball game with a left-handed catcher? Or a donkey?
• Why are there no clowns in Congress?  Wait - let me rephrase that. Why are there no people with big red noses and thick makeup.. no, that won't work either. People with caked on white makeup, floppy shoes, and noses that light up. I give up. You get the idea.

In case you're amused or you just want some less than pleasant news, there's an android bug that can potentially affect up to 75% of phones, excluding the latest version of android (Oreo). The long and short of it is you need to be looking for a popup, asking permission for the MediaProjection service to access something. Unfortunately, a potential attacker can detect when this comes up and put another popup on top of it (tap-jacking). The immediate solution, as most of solutions go, is to Just Say No. This service is typically used in taking screenshots. IF you can locate the service, you can turn it off and/or disable it. Be aware with all popups.

• Linux users: here's a quickie on using the mlocate or locate commands, from the command line. Not to worry, there's a 'find' program in the graphical interface, so you don't have to use the command line. Wuss.

Germany has banned the sale, distribution, and possession of kids' smartwatches. Dropping my libertarian objection to government getting involved in business, this is a very interesting phenomena. Germany's problem with these is that they are spy devices, as I said when I discovered them. This is a case of government actually doing something helpful. In the US, we're more concerned about forcing a bakery to bake a cake for a gay wedding.

• Duckduckgo, the search engine that doesn't track you, has some stats and suggestions on privacy. I use it and highly recommend it. You can set it as the default search engine on most browsers.

Best phrase of the week: I looked down and there was a baby in my sweatpants.

• While people are busy dying, we must unfortunately add another name: David Cassidy, late of The Partridge Family. I don't think anyone makes it out alive, pardon the pun, from childhood stardom.
• David's cause of death was listed as complications from dementia. Two days ago, he went into the hospital with what was described as needing an organ transplant, other organs failing, and doctors induced a coma. Once again we have two completely different diagnoses. This happens a lot.

If you're gonna sext, which I don't recommend, here are Motherboard's basic steps to protect yourself. Good reading, regardless of information sent. I don't recommend sexting not for moral reasons - I just don't send anything out that could cause grief if read by anyone else. Email can't be unsent, texts are kept, and pictures are saved. Do not send or text anything you don't want people to know or see. This is also the reason not to store data 'in the cloud.' Look at the celebrities whose accounts got hacked and their very private pictures got posted all over the internet.

• There are certainly any number of reasons to hate Google. The most recent one is that since January, android phones have been sending your location information to Google. Google, of course, says they're not using the data and just throwing it away. This happened whether your location setting is on or off.  Naturally Google is horrified and has no idea how this happened. The practice will end by the end of November. Do. Not. Use. Google. For. Anything.

Net Neutrality is all we're hearing about, as the vote looms. The FCC, like useless corporate puppets they are, are about to drop network neutrality, which will potentially allow cable and other companies to give certain traffic or users priority or low priority. While most would encourage Net Neutrality, this is a red herring. The real issue is whether government should be involved in the internet. The answer, as it is with everything else, is no.

• Texas Rangers have sent Apple a search warrant to get data from the Texas church shooter's phone. The last time data was requested, Apple refused and the FBI paid a hacker to retrieve the information. I hope that Apple will refuse again.

A trombonist was practicing and somehow managed to send his wife a text message, via voice recognition on his phone. Google and Apple keep your voice commands - this is fact. Now they'll have recordings of you practicing your instrument. No data is available on which instruments are able to send text messages, but we recommend you do not play with your instrument with voice recognition on. The message looked like this:

(1/5) Woo woo woo woo hoo hoo woo who wu woo woop woop etc etc etc.

• Uber announced this week that they suffered a breach of 57 million user accounts in 2016. Why did it take over a uear to report? Uber paid the hackers $100,000 to keep the hack a secret and delete the data. Stolen was names, email addresses and phone numbers of 57 million Uber customers and names and driver's license numbers of about 600,000 US drivers.
• The CSO and an employee were fired. The founder and former CEO was made aware of the breach a month after it happened. Two months later. the new CEO may or may not have had knowledge of the breach, which happened before she took the position.
• The data was hacked from Amazon Web Services (THE CLOUD).
• Last year Uber was fined $20,000 by the New York attorney general for failing to report a different breach in 2014. (wow - 20k! I'll bet they felt punished)
• Uber recently agreed to twenty years of privacy audits by the Federal Trade Commission for failing to provide reasonable security for consumer data.

Uber Related Continuing Rant:

Why have I been poking at THE CLOUD forever? Because once you can no longer touch your data, it is no longer your data.

Why don't I give out my data? Because companies will misuse it for marketing, sharing, selling, and it might get stolen.

Why might it get stolen? Because companies don't know and/or don't care about protecting the data, whether it's them or a third party. Something will be configured wrong or passwords will be leaked and the data will get stolen.

Why turn your phone's location service off? Do you seriously want anyone to know where you've been or where you are? It's not that you're important or unimportant; it's the fact that your data is yours and should remain so. Your location data, also kept by Uber, can be used to figure out what you were up to, which is nobody's business but yours. 

Rest assured that if someone can get your data, they will, and it will be used for their purposes, whether you know or approve or not.

ThermionicEmissions is beyond excited to announce our early Christmas present: Marshall's final chemo treatment was canceled, because he's doing so well. It's just blood work now.

The vet is pleasantly surprised and we're thrilled.

We get our baby for longer, and the doc's Mercedes is now paid off.

Look at that face...

From the bottom of my heart, thank YOU for stopping by.

The Great Trash Conundrum

I don't know what it is about trash, but I hate it.
Not the idea of trash... taking it out and putting it at the curb.
Come to think of it, I have always hated trash, just not as much as mowing. Now that we have hired a child (damn near) entrepreneur to do the mowing, I can concentrate my hatred more efficiently and totally on trash. This simplifies the entire operation.

It starts a few days before actual trash day. I see the trash in the house and can start to hear it mocking me. It is not pleasant. It starts to grow over the top of the can. A day later it is actively mocking me. I do my best to ignore it because it's still not trash day and to actively see the trash would mean I had to carry it outside and I'm having no part of that. This Active Ignore process is usually ruined by The Commandant, who gently 'reminds' me to take the inside trash outside. This just creates another problem, in that I have to put the wife on Active Ignore. Some people spend most of their marriage with the wife on Active Ignore, justifiably or not.

Due to the expanded load of items on Active Ignore, it becomes too much to bear and I can again hear the trash mocking me, this time even louder, with derisive laughter (Bruce). If I'm very lucky, this process has eaten up enough time that it's the night before trash and I can put everything out anyway.

My city has weird trash laws. No, really... apparently they've got nothing better to do that legislate what time you can put out your trash (the afternoon before) and when the cans have to be off the curb (next morning, latest). Worse than the regulations are the people who follow them to the letter. This would consist of exactly one person, and I use the term 'person' lightly. It's the Crazy Lady, who uses her age (438 this year) to get people to do stuff for her. Some dude pops by at precisely the first moment you can put the bins at the curb and does so. He's obviously a nice guy to do this every week, but it also could be that if he doesn't, she'd talk to him. She has snakes coming out of her head, and most of her body parts have been replaced three or four times, so I wouldn't be in the vicinity either if she spoke. The entire neighborhood is composed of really nice people who do stuff for her. One guy was replacing the roof of her patio. I pleasantly suggested he place an anvil in the roof, ala Wile E. Coyote, and rig it to the door, so when she opens it, BOOM. He looked at me like I was nuts. This is a look that no longer bothers me, as I see it all the time. In fact, I have come to expect and cherish it. They don't know this monster, who has a red phone that goes directly to the city inspectors for when she thinks something is out of spec with my house. This is the lady who reported standing water in my back yard. Standing water was Marshall's pool. It is a rather large, purple-ish thing that leaves no doubt as to its function. I'm sure they had kiddie pools wherever she came from - even the depths of hell, where she might have ruled for a period of time.

Where was I? Oh yeah, trash.
So it's nine or ten pm, the night before trash day. All of the sudden, I remember that trash has to go out. While I still have the same complete lack of enthusiasm for the task, I have no choice. But wait!!! The cans are so incredibly LOUD that I don't want to disturb the entire block. But then again, it would disturb the Crazy Lady. No it won't, she's bloody deaf. Or at least she says she is. Having no choice, I get the trash out. This actually happens without too much grief and aggravation, except for noise. I keep telling myself that wasn't so bad, but by the following week, I'm back to Active Ignore and the process starts anew. 

You think I'm done, don't you?
Nope.
There's the small matter of paper/cardboard recycling. We haven't quite gotten the hang of this yet. Obviously we know paper and cardboard when we see it.. it's just the process. Wife puts the collection basket in a different spot than the trash. And we always generate a lot of paper, overwhelming the poor basket. So every time I go to take this stuff to its can, it all leaps out of the basket, all over me, then into the can, except for the seventeen small bits of paper that lands on the ground. This is only a small issue, as it's completely dark and I can't see the ground. At this point, I receive help from an unlikely source: another neighbor. This fellow is a paranoid schizophrenic and has motion detecting lights, to detect when someone is vandalizing his car. He's a very nice guy and there were people vandalizing his car - the embodiment of "just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you." His light guides the way to the bits of paper on the ground.  Every week, when this nonsense is done, I swear to the wife that we need a better system for this. And every week she agrees. And every week (for over ten years), I take the same basket out, with the same result.

And this is why we had to hire someone to mow; because if trash seems like an endless house of horrors, it's nothing compared to mowing.

Just don't get me started on cleaning the house.

• Another of the World's Smallest Books: Hot Policewomen on COPS

This week's Marshall news:  This was a between week, so it was blood work. He's been turning his head quickly, beating himself to death with his own flaps. This is indicative of ear problems. At the oncologist, we asked if they could look at his ears. The nurse said.. "uhhh..... no. That's a doctor visit - you'll have to call your vet."

WTF?

So Marshall stopped to visit the vet, with steaming parents. The vet takes a look, plays with her Vet Chemistry Set, and delivers the happy news: Marshall has not one, but three separate ear infections. He has single-pawedly generated three separate bills in one day. Not only is he incredibly smart, he's incredibly talented too.  Now, if he could only use these talents to make some money...

• I  have seen some weird stuff on tv, but the winner of the name contest has to be Peaky Blinders. I don't even want to watch it with that stupid a title. I did make the mistake of watching it with the wife, which was, as I said, a mistake. Good old fashioned (very old) fistfights with Irish accents. No thanks; I can see that at work every day.
• Speaking of television, this weeks award for Best Spoken Phrase goes to one of those pregnant teen shows for the line, "Nobody told me it was so easy to get pregnant." This was closely followed by one of the mothers of the teens, who said, "Quite honestly, I wasn't surprised."

Have you ever met a person named Ignatius?
Neither have I.

• Please look carefully at your email. Phishing is out of control this holiday season. A great rule of thumb, used by me personally, is NO. Just don't. Don't open it, don't read it, and don't click on it. Since I'm one of four people on the planet who do this, I'll make a few recommendations for the rest of you:
• if some huge retail outlet sends you an email offering free this or sale that, hover your mouse over the link to see if it really goes to where it says. Better yet, go directly to their website - do not click on the link. Anything they're trying to sell you will be on their page.
• if an email asks you for money or personal/credit card details, DON'T. Period. Whether it's a Nigerian prince or Sears, don't.
• be suspicious of bad spelling or wording. No legitimate concern is going to send you anything with bad grammar or spelling.
• if there is a file attachment, don't open it.
• if the email is from a friend and looks weird or has an unknown attachment, get in touch with them to make sure they sent it, instead of being spoofed or hacked.
• if the email is from anyone under 25, delete it. People under 25 don't recognize the validity of email, instead preferring Faceyspaces. They'll send you their dopey pictures and pithy ramblings online.

Don't forget: there are only 400 days til next Christmas. Shop early.

• Researchers have discovered an unprotected database containing 1.8 billion posts collected by a Department of Defense contractor, who didn't secure the Amazon Cloud Storage correctly. This is why we do not ask the government to protect us. In fact, we need protection from the government.

There's a new method to lock your phone that uses your face. No, it's not the new one... it works like this: the phone takes one look at my face and locks itself out of fear and sheer terror. Unfortunately it also locks if you have ugly friends or relatives, or a particularly unsightly child.

• Here's a chilling headline: "Senators introduce USA Liberty Act." No good can come from this. The trick to deciphering any legislation is to read it. If you can't or won't, look at the title. The bill's effect will be the opposite of the title, hence Liberty Act is designed to take away your liberty, just like the Patriot Act. 

This week we said goodbye to that nice Charlie Manson. Unfortunately I haven't had time to put together a musical tribute, but he did present songs to the Beach Boys and others, plus he believed the Beatles were speaking to him (Helter Skelter).

The man was raised by wolves. Actually that's not fair to wolves. His (single) mom was a prostitute and not really present or a good parent. He was in California and happened to be close to a known CIA mind control facility. Considering his hypnotic influence on followers and famous people, along with the unbelievable horror of his crimes, you might consider that there could be more than a coincidence in his location. I do not know if any mental health worker ever spoke to him during his incarceration, as they did Sirhan "please call me Sirhan" Sirhan.

Who'd have thought that permanently scrawling a swastika in your forehead would get you denied parole every time?

• Speaking of goodbye, we bid a fine farewell to Malcolm Young, founder of AC/DC. Malcolm left the band recently because he was diagnosed with dementia and could no longer play. He was 67. For my money, he was the best rhythm guitar player in the business. The band is still touring. I believe his brother, Angus, of the schoolboy uniform, is the only original member.

would you eat a burger from this mascot?

Mornings: A Pox on Humanity

The Army has lifted their ban on recruits with mental health issues, like self-harm, bipolar disorder, depression, drug and alcohol abuse. If they're serious about mental health issues, they should recruit paranoid schizophrenics, manics, sociopaths, and psychopaths. They can get the job done.

• While joking with my lesbian friend, I told her I'm so good, she'll wish I was female. She was most amused, but started asking me about my wife. Perhaps she isn't a latent heterosexual after all.

A week after the iPhone X was released, a Vietnamese security company has cracked the face recognition, allowing access to the phone. It involves a mask printed with a 3D printer, some silicone, makeup and two-dimensional images, costing about $150. There still may be a passcode requirement in certain cases, but they got there. Yeah, fingerprint, facial recognition, very secure.

Just for fun, a British supermarket is experimenting with facial recognition at checkout, using a smartphone app. What could possibly go wrong?

• If you're not ready to delete your Faceyspaces account, you can deactivate it. Of course, none of us have a Faceyspaces account, and even if we did, it would already be deleted.

A Russian developer snuck cryptocurrency mining into certain android apps. Although this is not technically illegal, it should have been disclosed. Mining benefits the developer and slow the app down appreciably. While there's no sure way to avoid this, I urge the same cautions you should use for any android app: read the reviews for obvious shills and weird foreign spellings of words and grammar. Don't download foreign apps, even if there are a million downloads already. Stick to known apps. Also, don't install anything by "Oxothuk", who claims he disclosed mining via Terms and Conditions, which should come with a five dollar reward for reading. Install Malwarebytes. Be careful out there.

• Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the air, you might want to avoid the 757 and 737, which are the majority of planes. DHS hired hackers, who managed to get into the planes' control systems. The results are classified. The hacks are not out for anybody to use. They don't affect the 787 or Airbus A350, which have 'cybersecurity built in.'

A passenger was asked to deplane after her emotional support pig became disruptive.  She complied and took a later flight, with her emotional support elephant.

• Another of the Smallest Books Known to Man: Heterosexual Males in the Audience at the Wendy Show.
• Speaking of which, don't forget to avoid any tv show that uses the phrase "baby mama" or has "Dog the Fatty Hunter" in the name.

Don Ritchie saved between 160 and 500 people from suicide in Australia, maintaining a post by a popular spot to leap. "Why don't you come and have a cup of tea?" he'd ask people who were ready to jump off the cliff. An everyday hero.

• As his health is almost puppy-like, Marshall's behavior has gone straight to hell. He has throughly trained his mom to show up when he gives a cue. The cue is either whining, whine/growling, or a sharp bark. It sometimes gets worse when we're eating, which is intolerable. Lately we've taken to ignoring the little loon because when he realizes he's not getting anything, he leaps on the couch or the bed and snoozes. His need for whatever he needs keeps his mom up most of the night. If she makes the mistake of sleeping, he leaps up, whines, and waits for her to make eye contact. This can go on a number of times. I think he knows his dad will not wake up for much of anything.

Yeah, we know I'm a bit behind in my popular culture.
There are many claims of Illuminati involvement in the music industry. If nothing else, it's a shockingly salacious claim for the public, which will suck up whatever it's told. Most of the public is unaware of it but it's gaining popularity and has no shortage of YouTube and other 'proof'. I checked with an industry person, who flatly refused to discuss it with me, backing off like mad.

If you're even newer to the game than me, these huge stars go through mind control to push a large, nefarious agenda. The Manchurian Candidate is not a work of fiction, period. If you have any doubts, look up the MK-ULTRA program, run by our friends in the CIA, with our tax dollars. This morning I read that the Canadian government quietly paid on a claim for a MK-ULTRA survivor (part of the experiments were done in Canada, at the behest of the CIA). The US also paid, after MK-ULTRA was discussed in Congress (with the required missing/destroyed documents).

How does the mind control work? The subject is subject to torture to create alternate personalities (alters) for whatever reason. In Manchurian Candidate, it was for a political purpose. When I say torture, I'm not kidding. You can do the research on YouTube and the net.

Mind control is Multiple Personality Disorder (now Dissociative Identity Disorder). It is 'usually' achieved in childhood, from repeated traumatic sexual abuse, whether sick child molesters or cults. The personality is not really set til about age nine, so it's easier to create in children.

I recently came across this Britney Spears clip.
It's an interview with Diane Sawyer, where Britney behaves strangely, popping out laughing and talking like a child. This is allegedly proof of what's called Monarch programming. I asked my in-house expert, who was wide-eyed, and said there were three alters there.

There are a host of other clips of entertainers and politicians. A lot of what's out there is pure BS, but this deserves further investigation. A clip of Serena Williams comes right out and mentions the names of certain alters, saying she was unaware of one being out, but was told she was at one tournament. Sometimes the host personality (the original) is unaware of the presence of others. Sometimes they are aware. Sometimes they achieve co-consciousness (two are aware at the same time), which I'm guessing is rare in these cases.

You'll also note that sometimes celebrities wig out (Britney's famous hair removal, Katy Perry's breakdown). My guess is that they go back for a tune-up. This is just a guess, but based upon my knowledge of generic DID, a system can crash.

I joke about being a tin foil hat kinda guy, but the evidence is there. Your job is to take a look and come to your own conclusions. Will you wear the Hat or just refer to me as a kook?

a person (and his dog) needs to be comfortable

Don't Forget to Change Your... never mind

I can't figure this time change out.
Arizona is a great place for a number of reasons, one of them being no time change.

One of the many reasons I love my mom is that she always reminds me to change the clock.
I remembered on my own this time (you'd think I'd have it down after all these years) and that's where things got weird(er)....
I set my alarm clock back.
Phones set themselves back automatically, but I had to set a new alarm. I typed in 7:30am and it changed to 8:30am. If I start an hour late, that wouldn't be good. No amount of fiddling would set the correct time.
So this morning, the phone went off an hour early. When the alarm clock went off, at the correct time, the display ran an hour late.
It's a wonder I get anything done at all.

• The governor of Texas says he thinks the recent church shooting was not random: the shooter had a connection to the church. He declined to elaborate further. When I have a problem with my family or church, I let them know. Usually without an automatic weapon.
• His mother-in-law worshipped there. He sent her threatening texts. Who among us hasn't sent their mother-in-law threatening texts?

I'm trying to tune into bias in news. It's not difficult to find, especially MSM - mainstream media. We know who CNN/NBC/CBS are playing for. We know who Fox is playing for. We know that, like politicians, none of them is playing for US.

Today I was listening to NPR interview the attorney general of Texas, who recommended concealed carrying to church. The interviewer sounded like the top of his head was going to come off and his heart was leaping out of his body. I hope they got those professional crime scene cleaners in afterwards.

• A woman in New York is blaming her car's GPS for leading her straight into a river. It's a shame it didn't tell her to shoot herself.

ME: I'm looking for the Q file. Is that in the 2017 set?
COWORKER: We should be able to find them all.
COWORKER: But we don't see a lot of Q.
ME: answer the ($&#ing question! My wife could kill you and no one would ever find your body.

• The latest game from our friends at the CIA is "What's on Osama bin Laden's Hard Drive?"  
• I'll take porn for $500, Bob.  You're right - everybody has porn!
• Copyrighted material: Cars, Chicken Little
• National Geographic and CNN documentaries on himself - no selfies?
• Many of the documents contained malware, proving 'criminal masterminds' are every bit as security conscious as 'plain schmucks'.
• The irony is that the CIA gave us bin Laden

Ever wonder how Faceyspaces figures out everyone you've ever met?
No.

• So that Equifax leak... security expert Bruce Schneier testified in front of Congress on the topic. Very interesting read.

If you purchased a Mantistek gaming keyboard, don't worry; it is not sending your keystrokes to China. It is sending the number of keystrokes to China. That's much better, isn't it?

• A Qatar Airways flight from Doha to Bali made an unscheduled stop in India. A lady used her sleeping husband's finger to unlock his phone and discovered evidence of infidelity. She very calmly started beating him, forcing the plane to land. 

A man in Germany went out for a beer. While out, Alexa (the Amazon spy device personal assistant) decided to have a party on its own. Alexa, for some reason, decided to play very loud music after 1am. The police had a locksmith break in and install new locks. They turned off the music. When the man returned home, he had to go to the police station, where there was a nice sized bill and keys waiting for him. Amazon has not commented on the incident. It turns out Alexa was partying with all the other Alexas on the block. Amazon told it where they were, their mean income, members of the household, and their sexual histories.

• Faceyspaces has a program to stop revenge porn. This means the lawyers have spoken. Get this: they want you to upload your personal porn, so they can keep a record of it in case someone tries to upload it later. They were instructed to CC me also. If you too want to be on the CC line, contact me with your email address and a small contribution for the Marshall Vet Bill Fund.

Only eleven percent of cyber workers are women. Kaspersky conducted a survey, which found out 52% did not have any interest in cyber, and 45% didn't have any idea what it was. 57% did not have any experience in coding. Kaspersky said 'This suggests a need for young girls to have access to advice and information about the industry at a younger age so they don't rule it out in favor of more traditional occupations.' We must siphon them off before they become lawyers or Victoria's Secret salespeople.

What is the mad rush to get women in the field? If you think about it, this is sexist. What other groups are being pushed to be hired? Homosexuals? Asians? Seventh Day Adventists? The homeless?

If I were an interviewer or staff (I have been both), I'd want the best and brightest- the most competent for the job. I don't care about gender, hobbies, skin color, or niche sexual practices (well, a little). There is no oversight, although People of Color and Hispanics are keeping track, at very least. One boss told me specifically that left-handedness was not to be a criterion (bastard).

As is painfully evident, I love women. I've worked with quite a number of them; all of whom answered ads and were interviewed and vetted. They got no special treatment - they were the best person for the job. As a result, they became team members.




Let's hit the Wayback Machine [woooo music]....
I'm in sixth grade or so. I sit next to a pretty cool girl and we talk. I ask pointy questions and she's very difficult to make turn red, so she's a challenge. Apparently she's not the only challenge.

I'm a bit thick. And when I say a bit thick, I'm bloody clueless about women. Most people are, but I have an extra layer of oblivious, that makes me even more special. If a woman were to sit next to me and put her hand on my genitals, while keeping her gaze locked on me and licking her lips, I'd wonder what her hand was doing there - is it possible she doesn't know she put it there? I would then proceed to let her know, very gently, that her hand was there, in case she didn't know. To this day, my wife laughs and repeatedly notes how out in space I am when women are attracted to me. At shows, she'd watch and comment later on the blondes who were chatting me up. Huh? What blondes? The ones you were ignoring while trying to pack up and get out of there. What blondes? Huh? So I'm a bit thick.

One day my little friend and I are sitting in home room, talking away. It occurs to me that she's wearing a shirt that.... her top was fashioned in such a way.... the shirt had prominent..... HOLES in it. Well, not holes exactly... kinda like a sweater, but knitted in a very loose way so there were 1/4" empty squares all over it. There were more intentional holes than yarn.

I thought about this for 1/4 of a second, wondering the purpose of this, and noting that there was no support garment underneath it. Ever the pussy gentleman, I asked her if she knew there were holes in her shirt.

It would be fair to say that even if the poor girl had a baseball bat and took it to my head while explaining why she wore the shirt, I still wouldn't have understood.

Regardless of how incredibly oblivious I was, I could not stop examining those bits of shirt where there was no material.

We Need Commonsense Truck Laws

It was a fine morning.
The wife had taken off at some unearthly time to take the parents to the airport. They were flying to somewhere (allegedly) warm.* It was so early, she had to scrape ice off the windows.
Back home, I had to get the trash out before the trucks did their parade down the block. Fortunately they didn't have their marching music blasting from the trucks this morning. The Crazy Lady was peering out her spyhole front window, shaking her head disapprovingly, as her trash goes out three seconds after the Minimum Allowable Time strikes the previous day.

Running late, I looked down at Marshall, who looked up, expectantly.
Ah yes, The Dance of the Medicines.
As you know, he isn't very good with taking his pills, depending on your definition of good. He has figured out all manner of not taking his pills, worse than a psych patient in a locked ward. We have tried all sorts of hiding places, like peanut butter, cheesecake, lunchmeat, tuna loaf, Tastykakes, and whatever else is around. This week we're back to turkey. I carefully roll the pill in turkey and present it to His Highness. He quickly sniffs it and gobbles it (sorry). I notice the chewing isn't at his usual rate, which signals Shenanigans. Not hearing the pill drop on the floor (he spits them out while eating the lunchmeat), I turned to give him another pill and there he sat, pill attached to the side of his mouth. Now if you're a black dog, you should probably not hide your white pills on the side of your face. Yes, he's smarter than we are, but according to science, he sees black and white.. perhaps some color.

Running later, it was time for breakfast. No, not mine - his.
Marshall gave up dog food a while ago. As he is doing his best to train his parents, he hasn't had to touch the stuff since. I guess it's not so bad - the stuff costs more than our food, plus we know what he's getting. Unfortunately there was none of it about, so I went with the No Fail Option: tuna. Or as he prefers, "Smells Like Cat Food." Never a problem with tuna. It comes in its own juices too, which drives him nuts (further).

Then it was time for my pills. There's the one to prevent diving under the desk and sitting there for the rest of the day. The other one to counteract the side effects of the one that prevents diving under the desk. The most disgusting pill known to man: vitamin B. I've seen people willingly choose the stuff they give to prisoners with a death sentence over vitamin B.  Then there's the pill that keeps me off the mail lady. The postmaster was very clear about this, so I try not to miss any.

It's not that my wife takes a lot of pills, but the pharmacy truck pulls up after the mail lady leaves.

• All we hear about these days is the opioid crisis. I mention this because the dog takes a non-opioid, very mild pain reliever. Recently we discovered that the Mother In Law also takes this pill. Mother In Law was very unhappy to discover that the dog's dosage is higher than hers and is on the phone to the doctor now.
• As for the Great Opioid Crisis of 2017, a presidential order will result in further chasing of our tails and, importantly, genuinely sick people not being able to get their pain medication. Remember the signs on the pharmacies that said "We do not carry Oxycontin"?

We cannot go a few days without Internet of Things news, and today's is a real winner. LG has a Smart Vacuum. Yes, you read that right. For the bargain price of $549, you get a vacuum that streams video to a smart app on your phone.  The problem is that an attacker can intercept the video, hack the account, and 'gain control of the device'. While it might sound like someone else doing the vacuuming, it could allow access to the home network. So someone can look around your house. 

There are patches to secure the device, but these depend on the vacuum owner having the latest version of the app. What are the odds.....? By the way, over 400,000 of these vacuums have been sold. We're just asking for it. 

Back in my days of customer service, I was taught that when I say NO, I should offer an alternate solution. Well, I left customer service because I hate people, but I want to help. What I'm going to do is keep my house just like its owner: dumb. Dumb dumb dumb. I managed to use vacuums all my life that didn't have a video system that streamed to my phone. You did too. My vacuum is not required to see, as that's a function I can handily perform. My tv does not need to listen to me or send details of what I watch to the manufacturer. My toaster does not need to communicate with anything, other than to tell me when my toast is done (DING). I can survive without my fridge showing me what's in it and telling me what I need to buy at the store.

It's not that I can't see the value of certain smart appliances. A friend has his tv set up through his network and can control it with his voice. Another talks to his Google box, which gives him handy answers to questions and reminds him of things. That's pretty cool... this is the future we read about. What we didn't read about was the technology spying on us and hackers taking over our home network. It's your choice.

• Because of all the ship incidents recently, the Navy has made sweeping changes, including improved training for sailors. 
• Do. Not. Hit. Other. Ship.

China and the US signed an agreement not to hack each others private sector companies for commercial gain in 2015. After the signing, hacking dropped ninety percent. This is really an accomplishment, except that the intrusions haven't entirely stopped; the Crap Cleaner malware left signs that China was involved. 

Taken on its own, an agreement not to hack private sector companies kinda willingly pushes aside the small matter of hacking government systems. 

Mom... Russia is looking at all our files.
Yes, Dear, but they've agreed to ignore files on regular people's computers.

• Tenth graders in California (where else?) are being taught that their sex partner must say 'yes' every ten minutes or it's rape.
• Omitted from this all-encompassing piece of knowledge is what to do when you have multiple partners at the same time.
• Also missing is whether 'oh my God' is an affirmation.
• Who reports the 'rape' if the partner waited til eleven minutes to say 'yes'?
• Do both partners have to do the Rape Dance afterwards, if any laws were broken?
• Can't the president just build The Wall around California?

Parents: you're doing a great job by monitoring your kids' internet use, on their phone, computer, and tv. Unfortunately, the Circle with Disney program you're using has been found to have twenty two vulnerabilities. You're still practicing good parenting, though... instead of monitoring, you're teaching your children to hack. This is a very valuable skill in the 2010s.

• Because you're an aspiring linux guru, here's 3 tools to help you remember linux commands.

Apple will share face-mapping data from the iPhoneX with third-party app developers. Although not as alarming as the headline sounds, this is bad news.

• There's a lawsuit. Yes, there's always a lawsuit, but this one's a winner: a woman is suing Sephora (it's a makeup store, guys) because one of their lipstick samplers gave her herpes. No word on whether the sampler was called Ron and if it was applied in the back room.

Hold onto your hats, kids.... an independent Special Committee has cleared four Equifax executives, including the CFO, of insider trading, after they sold shares just before a major data breach was revealed. Yes, there may be more facts in evidence of which we are not aware, but please... the selloff occurred over a few days, right after they discovered the breach (a month before it was made public). Let me phrase it differently: if you or I had done this, we wouldn't have internet access in jail.

• Offshore law firm Appleby got hacked recently and the hacker dumped an awful lot of information for everyone to see. Yeah, yeah, another breach, it's Monday. Wanna hear a few bits of information?
• secret financial dealings between commerce secretary Ross and a Russian firm part-run by Putin's son-in-law
• millions of dollars of investment in Facebook and Twitter from Russian state companies
• Yes, I like to watch things burn sometimes.. especially when information like this comes to light. They're dirty all the way up to the top.