We're coming up on three days in a row without rain. This tends to confuse the hell out of the people, who run outside, sometimes frolicking, without jackets. To add to the confusion, it's 20 degrees outside, causing frostbite on unfortunate body parts and setting off a mass flu epidemic.
Pennsylvania: the state bird is a cloud
- Faceyspaces fined $11m in Italy for misleading users about how their data will be used. They're unhappy that the account defaults are set at the most invasive, and that features are opt-out, not opt-in.
- Heh heh heh, Faceyspaces. You know they're feeling that $11m hit. That's a lunch bill.
A second major bug in Google+ is hastening its demise.
Google: It's ok, we have your data.
- Bravo to the city of North Bend, OR. They managed to get infected with ransomware demanding $50k and did not pay because they had everything backed up and could restore it.
If you're unfortunate enough to use Twitter, you get promoted tweets. This is another phrase for advertisement. Why does a jeweler advertise to technical people (professional geeks)? This is all part of my Mess with the Metrics campaign.
Dear lefty
- Rita Aaaaaah of Lincoln, Lincolnshire, asks why is your heater so small?
- Dear Small: you should have your dreams analyzed.
We are headed up to The Holidays, as one would expect in December.
A long time ago, I moved into my house. It was a time to make my own traditions, starting with decorations. I bought one of those Charley Brown Christmas trees, about 2' tall and fake as they came. It took a while and some interesting hook techniques, but I eventually had the only tree in the neighborhood, possibly the state, with floppy disks, CDs, and vacuum tubes hanging from it. Wish I had the pics. Now that I'm married we have either a large fake tree with dog ornaments or nothing, because we can't quite get it together to put one up. Aren't you lucky that I still get the blog updated?
- For some reason I don't even want to know, Wife watches Wendy. She says she can't believe Wendy has been on for ten years. I say I can't believe Wendy has been on for ten minutes.
College Hijinks
A small group of male students are attempting to remove porn from their colleges: this started in Notre Dame, and migrated to Georgetown, Harvard Princeton, and the University of Pennsylvania. When they say 'get rid of porn', they mean install a porn filter on the school's WIFI. I think they should start urine testing.
The Great Porn Panic of 2018.
This is sick.
Does it sound familiar? It should...
The Great Alcohol Panic.
The Great Marijuana Panic.
The War on Drugs.
Baron von Frankenstein - pitchforks and torches
Society has an annoying tendency to cycle. This isn't seriously different from other panics, past or present. What they all have in common is one loud group attempting to control the behavior of others. If you have a problem with porn, don't go to porn sites. Stop trying to tell everyone where they can and can't go.
You're going to be shocked by this, but most of the people and groups pushing for a ban are religious. This is in spite of studies' inability to link porn with the bugaboos the religious claim. These throwback zealots give religion a bad name. Perhaps their time would be better spent doing good in their communities.
This would be an incredible teaching moment for the schools. "We are not going to censor what you can access and here's why...." Of course if they did this, there would be SJW Rioting, the likes of which we haven't seen since conservative speakers attempted to speak on campus. Oh yeah, a loud group attempting to control what students have access to.
- But it IS Christmas, when the fancy of all young men turns to sex and guitars. 'Turns to' is a little misleading, as young men think about sex and guitars ALL the time. Or is it just me?
- Not that it matters - my toys are way too expensive.
- Although I found a great deal the other day: only $15,000 for a lefty 1958 Stratocaster. It's really cheap because someone refinished it. I told Wife I will gladly live with the refinish because this is such a great deal, and I saved her tens of thousands of dollars. Fortunately she learned a long time ago to humor me.
Emergency Update:
Three students at the University of Pennsylvania have attempted to get horseradish mustard banned from campus.
Are they allergic?
No, they just don't like it and think no one else should be able to eat it either.
Dear lefty
- Long time reader (2 weeks) Rita Ummmmm, of Bristol, PA, and Bristol, UK, asks why this blog is so ugly.
- Your opinion is very valuable to us: hold your breath while we fix the ugly.
Hollywood has stuck again: this time with the fourth version of A Star is Born. Add ten more and they'll be in competition with Rocky. They will.
The original featured Boris Karloff (because everything during those years featured Boris Karloff), and one of those black and white actresses. The second featured Barbara Streisand and Jimmy Stewart, as Rollo. The third featured Barbara Streisand and Kris 'Kris' Kristofferson, as Kris.
The latest fiasco features Barbara Streisand and Lady Gaga, as Steve. It has already won several "You're F-ing Kidding Me" awards, plus some other award with a statue.
Little known fact: The latest fiasco was supposed to be called A Star is Porn, but the University of Pennsylvania protested and mailed a white powdery substance to Harvey Weinstein (who wasn't involved with the picture).
In other Hollywood non-news, Transformers is back for the 43rd time, rivaling Rocky. They have cleverly left 'Transformers' out of the name, hoping people won't think a huge yellow thing that turns into a small yellow Volkswagen has anything at all to do with Transformers. Harvey Weinstein's only question was were there any little boys in it.
- Definition: fireplace - a hole in the bricks that sucks all heat out of your house.
The always on the ball ticket agency wants to know if I'd like to become a member of the Slayer fan club. Dammit... if I weren't busy chewing razorblades, I'd jump on that sweet deal.
- I saw some kid with a mullet the other day. It's just as funny now as it was ten years ago. Now, back to man buns.
While you're out gift shopping, make sure you pick up a pair of Purple brand headphones. They feature unlimited playback time, due to their battery-free design.
This is brilliant. This is also a real commercial.
- The new Chevy Econo features unlimited heat, due to its air conditioner-less design.
- Google's new Mega 3.57 phone features incredible savings on airtime, due to its tendency to completely fall apart in the user's hand.
- Not to be outdone, Samsung's S33.47q features almost unlimited battery time, due to the fact that you can't turn it on.
Say - what do the blog stats look like, lefty?
They look like a real f-ing nightmare in comparison with every other blog on the planet. This is actually a good thing.... Firefox is the biggest browser (62%), linux is the biggest operating system (67%), and there are 98 people who visit from somewhere that even Google can't identify. Oh yeah, I generate 34% of the traffic myself.
- It's holiday time and sadly, the singing Amazon boxes are back. Mental health advocates worldwide are lodging complaints. The commercials cause two reactions: murder and medicine (raise the dosage).
At some point in the year we have National Mental Health Day.
Christmas has to be one of the saddest days of the year for people suffering from loss, loneliness, depression, and too many people trying to talk to them, rather than emailing. Please do a true good deed this season and check in on people who could use it.
Also make sure to shoot any of those bell-ringers outside stores. Do it for the children.
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