Antique Snot

Your love is like   tincture of anthrax

Why privacy matters (even if you have nothing to hide)?

Use it or lose it, people.

Today I identify as   a guy who woke up in the wrong body. No, I don't feel like I'm female - I feel like I was meant to be in the body of a minor Rock Star<tm>.

SPECIAL TITAN EDITION  [it's been a while since I got timely black humor out]

Asked about future trips underwater, the NTSB said, "We would not recommend it."

Asked about the cause of the disaster, the NTSB said, "Putting the thing in the water."

Asked about finding bodies, the NTSB said, "They'd be so skinny, you'd never see them. And that's BEFORE sharks."

Asked about the size of the debris field, the NTSB said, "As big as a football field - or - just slightly larger then a Titan underwater vehicle."

The FBI as advanced persistent threat – and what to do about it
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you

The FBI got caught, again, abusing its powers to spy on Americans. Because if they don't spy on Americans, the terrorists won. Way back when the farcical FISA court was thrown up as an excuse to not reveal they were spying on us, I said there was no doubt they'd use it to spy on us. And hey.. they got caught! Remember: if it's there, they will use it, no matter how much they promise they won't. And we haven't even started on the NSA yet.

The FBI is the Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight. These cowboys pick some stupid dupe, give him explosives, then arrest him when he tries to blow up a building. There are many cases of this.

The article looks at the problem from a security-centric point of view.

Amazon TikTok Praises Driver for Confronting Bear in Order to Deliver Package

In case you don't remember Amazon, they're those wild and crazy guys who put such time constraints on their employees that the truck drivers urinated into plastic bottles so they didn't have to stop. Back at the plant, they were timing bathroom breaks. And the Grand Poobah sent William Shatner into space.

Now that you know who you're reading about (sure, you never heard any of that), let's think on this story. Banks, convenience stores and many others have been very specific about the well-being of their employees: they are told to hand over the money and remain safe. It's only money, but your life can't be replaced. But America's HUGEST shopping mall encourages its delivery people to fight with bears and is proud of their good work. This is right out of the Chinese manual for employee relations. Third world crap. I can't be the only one who notices it. 

The poor driver was terrified (of his employer), so the bear didn't stand a chance. Drivers also have to pay for their own guns, which their brand new union is pissed about. The union won't say much, because they keep finding fish and horses in bed with them. Alive/dead, who knows?

Because of this, Amazon added a chapter to the employee manual on how to deal with daily events likely to happen to a driver, like snake bite, Black Widow infestation, customers with bats, customers with automatic weapons, customers with Ring doorbells, union reps, and cougar attacks. The quadruped and biped cougar are both very dangerous, but the quadruped will attack, kill, and leave your body there. The bipedal cougar is not as nice.

Since everything eventually points to Monty Python, check out "How to defend yourself against an assailant armed with fresh fruit." Or pointed sticks.

 So I'm minding my own business at work, which happens roughly all day, every day, when Boss says we're getting training. Oh, ok, neato. And it's expensive training. Oh, ok, neato.  Finance calls and catches me halfway through the signup procedure, to put in payment details. All done. Sort of. 30 minutes later, Finance calls back... 

THEY TOOK TAXES OUT! 

Oh, ok, neato.

WE DON'T PAY TAX.

Oh, ok, neato.

IF YOU HAD LET ME FILL IT OUT FROM THE BEGINNING, THIS WOULDN'T HAVE HAPPENED.

If you had asked me to let you do this, we wouldn't have this problem, would we?

WE DON'T PAY TAX.

Look, I'm a pretty reasonable guy (except under my blogging name). How bout I email them and have them fix it?

OK. THERE'S NO PHONE CONTACT.

You just sit back and let old lefty get through to them.

OK.

[Boss]: I just heard from Finance.

How is this going to help their case? I have a ticket number and they're working on it.

[Boss] Yeah, I know. Keep me in the loop. The Finance people are especially loopy and keyed up.

They need to be more like us. We get the job done, but we don't care.

[Boss] You're telling ME.

Dear Finance: they want our tax cert. They'll get back to us.

OK.

For those of you following along at home, none of this is my fault, I volunteered to do their job for them, and they're calling Boss on me.

[Training] We checked your tax certificate and will be making the refund today. We're contacting you because we spoke to Finance and don't want to speak to Finance ever again. They're really loopy and keyed up. 

Dear Finance: they're refunding tax today. Here is a copy of their message.

THANK YOU. Can you take care of these other 285 for us?

They don't like you. Is it your breath? Body odor (odour in Canadian)? Or are you just that big of an asshole?

WE'RE FINANCE. WE DON'T HAVE TO ANSWER YOUR STUPID QUESTIONS.

Funny, though.... you couldn't find a phone number but I got a ticket put in and a refund in 4 hours, all without a phone or puerile-smelling body parts.

FINANCE IS CLOSED FOR THE DAY. PLEASE CALL TOMORROW DURING BUSINESS HOURS 

As pleasant as that whole process was, nothing could have prepared me for the actual course. 

It got difficult right away, when I got an email telling me the course started an hour ago. 

That's nice, I thought to myself.. it was supposed to start tomorrow. Guess I better wrangle Boss and get us in there. OOPS, we missed all the beginning, upon which the rest of the course was built. We quickly noticed that everybody in class was familiar with the program we were learning. Everybody except us, of course... we've never seen it. They were asking all sorts of intelligent questions, when all I wanted to do was keep the instructions from flapping up to the beginning whenever I clicked elsewhere. Boss and I were on chat, using our new program term (HUH?). We were getting pretty good at it. We averaged one HUH? every few paragraphs.

Open your lab book to page 37.2 - and open the START menu.

There IS no start menu.

Oh, that's right... they moved it in the next 12 versions.

Will the rest of the class be this..... interesting? 

We're running version 7.4.22.3-0.12.

Well, asked and answered, thank you.

Have I mentioned there will be a test on Friday? 

Have I mentioned we're cancelling your payment?

The instructor let it slip that the course hadn't been updated in forever, and by the way, we were using a newer version of the program, but still not the version we purchased. We're feeling really good about all this and our prospects for operating the software, if either of us were still alive when training was over.  

If you could see the 2 of us, our eyeballs would be spinning like a one-armed bandit. They would stop on ???? 

When the voices stopped their running commentary, they decided to let me continue with the course. But they were still fscking with me. Ever read a paragraph or 3 and realize you were sleep-reading? You have to go back and read the paragraphs again, only it didn't help that time either. By the time you've gone through it 17 times, you finally manage to read all of the actual words in the actual paragraphs, without thinking of ice cream or the pleasures of manual strangulation. You see, I read differently than everybody else. I read the first few words of the paragraph, then mentally go somewhere else. I tend not to bother with the full actual paragraph because it takes too much time, and there's usually too much fluff in the paragraph to warrant what little attention I can spare. Unfortunately this doesn't always work out for the best... I tend to miss certain words. Important words. Words like DON'T, NOT, STOP, and hippopotamus. This creates funny situations, especially after the experiment fails and I have to go read the paragraph 17 more times to find the DON'T, NOT, STOP, or hippopotamus. I start to yell at the instructions (louder) because they're wrong and inaccurate, but then I have to check if *I* am wrong and inaccurate first.  At this point, it's about 50-50. 

I don't want to say it's frustrating, but I'm pulling out all my hair, individually. I decided to start with my toes, then proceed all the way to my head. Fortunately there's less work to do on my head, due to the omnipresent male pattern baldness. It's almost like my hair was saving me the trouble of pulling it out, one by one. Or my genes just hate me. It's ok, I hate them too.  The neighbors will eventually ask Mrs. lefty who I was yelling at all day and why was he trying to kill me. Or was that Satan screaming- we sound so much alike.

So my regular work is piling up, like the number of reality shows I haven't watched. The screaming happens after every paragraph, when I have to figure out if the directions are on pills, or I should be. We determine that there will be no test on Friday, because something will come up. Maybe we can get notes from dead relatives, stating we will be unable to take the test, but please mail us our certificates, drawn in crayon, so we can put them up in our (home) offices to make our kids jealous of their official art. Or maybe the dog will shred them.

I remember the wise words of a wise boss, a long, wise time ago: "Son, there's drinking and pills. Drinking takes too long to get good at, so you should take pills." But I don't have any pills, except the ones to calm the voices. If I take them, it gets way too quiet and I get my best ideas from the voices. So I'll have to struggle through and learn drinking. I hope we get a better online trainer for drinking.

• This was my first time taking the trash out while drunk. My old boss was right... it takes too much time to get good at drinking.

Google Photos AI still can't label gorillas after racist errors

This is NOT good. Nothing positive will come out of it. By now, anyone having anything to do with AI is hiding under a desk or other large furniture until the coast is clear. But because they're in hiding, there will be no one to tell them the coast is clear. We will find the first wave of AI inventor bodies starting in a few weeks.

AI is obviously racist. Yes, even technology hates black people. But we still don't have left handed history and appreciation month. We haven't gotten reparations or even an apology for those school desks and rulers. For dirty left hands from writing. YOU OWE US. But until we, the devil's children, figure out how to make people feel guilty, we're getting what we always got: SHIT ON.

I do not hate black people. I make a point of promoting peace and not favoring one group above otherts. I hate everybody equally, regardless of race, the shape of their ears, people who don't recognize the Flying Spaghetti Monster as divine... everybody deserves the same enmity from everybody.  If I hated black people more than Pacific Islanders, I would be a racist. This way I spread my contempt for humanity equally over humanity.  The single exception is the Stupid. Yes, I am a stupidist. Fortunately it's still ok to hate the Stupid. I'm sure a rep for the Stupid (maybe speaker of the house) will soon pop up with charges and allegations. Stupidist doesn't have the ring or cache that Racist does. In the end, no one will care that you hate the Stupid. You'll fight your friends over who is the Stupidest Stupidist. Meanwhile, the aliens are still shaking their heads and adding another 100 years before they make an official appearance. They were supposed to be here last century, but our idiocy keeps putting off the date. I know a secret, but you must promise to keep it between us: the aliens refer to US as stupid and themselves as Stupidists. The rest of the universe agrees with them, and Stupidist is not considered an offensive term. It simply means Earthling.

Tasteless old joke:

Q. What's yellow and lives off dead beetles?

A. Yoko Ono.

Up to date tasteless joke:

Q. What's black and lives off dead musicians?

A. Janie Hendrix - Jimi's half-sister.

I'm obviously not related to either of them, but Jimi and I are related through his music, as are millions of others (and through both of us being lefty guitarists, one of them extremely talented, the other... not). Jimi's entire brush with fame lasted about 3 years. After he died, all sorts of crap was released. Some of it took existing recordings, stripped off the original musicians, and added studio guys to finish things up. Things got really bad after that, when Janie formed Experience Hendrix. Like Gene Simmons, Janie never met a product she wouldn't put Jimi's name or likeness on. Hey - let's buy a Jimi Hendrix bar stool, so we can always feel like we're sitting on his face! The re-releases, rehashes, and endless supply of 'found' recordings are nauseating. Meanwhile, Janie knows she's sitting on a gold mine. To the best of my knowledge, she wasn't really close to Jimi in his life, so she no doubt feels qualified to 'guard' his image (by putting it on everything but toilet paper). The only reason she hasn't put it on toilet paper is that the right offer has not yet been made by the Toilet Paper Lobby.

I'm not the only one who feels this way, but it's my blog, so my feelings are the important ones here.

There are other fans who argue that we should hear everything Jimi put on tape, even if it's recorded as an idea while he was sitting on the toilet, the guitar was out of tune, and the vocals kept stopping because he farted. To Janie, this is pure gold. I feel that if he didn't release it, there was a pretty good reason for it, and I respect that. Others don't, and because of that, Janie had Jimi Hendrix - The Toilet Sessions brought back, made into stereo, remastered and digitized, along with a reproduced picture of the actual bathroom where he recorded the songs. The sound is so good that you feel like you're in the bathroom with him. For an additional $250, they will reproduce the smell too, but it's a limited-time offer. It's all very intimate, in a way Jimi would have liked. The next record will bring us Jimi Live near Madison Square Garden. Jimi did the MSG show, but the recording was from down the block, sounding like thuds and shrieking, interspersed with random street crime and shootings. If you listen closely, you can hear the amplifiers shutting off as he stops playing and the street thugs start lighting tourists on fire.

I was not fortunate enough to see or meet Jimi, but I feel pretty certain this is not what he had in mind.

I don't know what happened after Jimi died, but if he knew what she was up to, he'd have come back and paid her a little visit. Maybe 'educate' her a little. Give her a new job, like collecting cockroaches or something in sewage; it would be quite the irony. She really has to go. Somewhere that isn't Experience Hendrix. Gravy train's over, lady - get off, do not pass Go, do not collect a single cent.

Fortunately I do not feel strongly about this.