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.