I'm So Happy to See You, I Could Leave

Know what I hate?
Most everything.

But there's some really low rings at the place with the fire and the guy dressed in red, that belong to Microsoft.

Recently I lost my Windows virtual machine... the only copy of Windows I run, and only for emergencies. As I'm rebuilding from backups, Microsoft decided to send me 7 updates. Updates which I expressly said DO NOT DOWNLOAD. Bill Gates will roast. Win 10 does this too, whether you want it to or not. Linux respects your choice. I have no idea about Apple.

• The mayor of Port Richey, Florida, is in jail for shooting at SWAT, which was there to serve a warrant for unlicensed medicine.
• What do they put in the air in Florida?

Dear lefty:

• Marvin Mangler, of Minnetonka, Mongolia, asks if I really like my readers.
• Dear Maude: I wouldn't French kiss them, but I'll respect them in the morning.

It was 4 degrees the other weekend. It was 50 yesterday. Later this week, the Polar Vortex arrives, and we'll see highs of 5. That's -47 with the Freeze Index.  What record-setting sadist came up with this? Four degrees... your facial hair freezes (even women).  But that's not horrible enough... no, we need a Freeze Index or a Heat Index or a Pineapple index (for when it would be less painful to stick a pineapple....). People near me can tell I'm awake when they hear me say, "I hate it here."

There's no such thing as Polar Vortex.... they make up all sorts of meteorological mess terms with no meanings, other than "It's Gonna Be COOOOOLD out there today." Or Canada. Sneaky Canada. Really Nice People Canada. They smile at us because we don't know they're sending cold air. Once this gets to the public, it'll be War on Canada.

• Every now and then I set the tv to Discovery Science in Hindi, just to see if I'm awake. I had to stop because the dog would wake me at 3am to tell me to take her to the Happy Place. She's not used to Hindi. Nor am I.

I think I know how Dog the Bounty Hunter did its casting.... by carefully deploying the Mr Potato Head Method: randomly putting odd parts together, no matter how odd, to make a cast member. Let's put a shaved head here, maybe some watermelons under a shirt, bleached hair, and one short person with shiny objects and glitter.

• In a recent study, hard drives suck less than they did a couple years ago. That's nice.  139 of 10,000 high performance drives. No mention of solid state drives.

Speaking of casting, there's a new reality show called Dr Toe, or something equally stupid. This guy makes feet look good. Just when you thought you couldn't be stunned...  the show will end shortly, when Dr Toe is caught giving toe jobs to a favorite client or two.

Next up: crew of reality shows in their own reality shows. Family of crew of reality shows. Shoes of reality show crews. Salesmen of shoes of reality crews. Guilt-inducing mothers of reality show stars. And finally, a reality show where killing your opponents is the idea. Then naturally the 12 copycat kill your opponents shows. 

• Yesterday the president abolished the use of nerve gas. In an unprecedented show of unity, 50% of the country demanded nerve gas, saying Trump lied about its effects.

Data Safety and Privacy

Many of us will get hacked, whether it's email, phishing, data leaks, or hacking into your pc. 

I hate to ask you this, and you'll hate hearing it, but what could someone getting into your pc find?

Ack... that's scary. Whether you have no or easy passwords or someone hacks in, even more of your information has been accessed (let's not discuss Faceyspaces, Google, etc).  What do you keep in your computer? That's absolutely frightening..,..

Well, if you have any financial information on there at all, it will be exposed. If the information is stolen, it'll be for sale, perhaps on the Dark Web [ominous music]. If you get hacked, CHANGE YOUR PASSWORDS IMMEDIATELY. Assume everything has been stolen. Reformat and reset your pc back to factory condition. There is no telling if your system has some remote access left in it.

Highly recommended: a password locker. All your passwords and information can go there, so if you get hacked, it's encrypted and locked. Spend some time thinking about what kind of information is on your computer and what would happen if someone got access to it.

TIPS

Reminder to keep yer damn system updated/patched.

Keep your antivirus current and set it to run automatically, daily, when you're not using it.

Be incredibly safe while surfing: don't use javascript and cookies: keep them turned off by default. Yes, some sites won't work. If you know the site and know for a fact it isn't hijacked, use javascript. By the way - how do you know it's not hijacked? Even huge corporate sites have been victims. Keep your browsers up to date, set them to auto-update the extensions. DO NOT USE odd browsers or extensions that look shaky. Look for bad grammar in descriptions, obviously fake/numerous reviews, small user numbers. Stick with the very popular extensions, if you use them. Use a number of browsers, one set open, the rest highly protected. Use incognito mode. KNOW that incognito or private mode does not make you invisible; it just cleans all traces when you're done. This helps with privacy by getting rid of cookies and any other junk left over from surfing... this way it does so automatically and you don't have to by yourself. Or install a cleaner that you use before closing the browser. If you have no tracking cookies, it's harder to track you (but not too hard). 

There are browsers that come with anti-tracking features... Brave for one. Brave, Bromite, Privacy Browser and Duckduckgo Browser on android. There are safety extensions too - I like Firefox and its extensions. It's my most locked-down browser.

To make you feel better (or worse), hackers can get in using known weaknesses in systems... it's not always the fault of the computer operator (but frequently is).  We do not learn from our mistakes, which is why I post this stuff. Be safe out there.

Dear lefty:

• When will you write about current music?
• When anything approaching music is produced.

I somewhat less than fondly remember when our car used to get hit many times per year.
Hey, that actually stopped years back!
Of course the tree proved it too couldn't fly, the dog proved she wasn't any of the things described (she stays, though), the dirty dishes have turned into zombies and return the day after I wash them, I only read some words in sentences (leaving out unimportant words like not and stop), the poltergeists now do impersonations of the neighbor I can't stand, and the aliens keep trying to sell me encyclopedias.

• Why do schools and businesses have a diversity officer?

Speaking of helpful technology and smart users, dozens have died because they don't turn off their cars with keyless ignitions. The car runs, producing carbon monoxide, killing people. If you don't find this a good thing, you should probably remember to turn the car off.

On the other hand, I've done some pretty stupid stuff by mistake, but leaving the car running ain't one of them. You can kinda hear it when you get out of the car. Especially in an enclosed space, like the garage. An electric car makes little to no noise, but won't poison you. It will kill you to replace the batteries, though, but only financially.

• The BBC reports that a spider has bitten an Australian man on the penis. Again.
• This fella must have some interesting hobbies. G'day, mate.

I flunked out of evil villain school: I never wrote a manifesto.

I can't tell you how many times this happened to me...