Somebody Please Tell the Car to Stop Talking to Me

Your love is like  shaved ice in the winter

 So I had to go into work today, for the first time in almost a year.

This meant I had to put on pants. I hate that.

The car DINGS to alert me there's a possibility of snow on the roads.

How does my CAR know this?

Apparently the car doesn't know snow is forecast for tomorrow. Maybe my car is special. Maybe my car should shut up. Jeez- I'll bet it's telling me all sorts of things and I'm just not looking.

• Asshole Ahead
• Asshole Behind
• That was a pretty good tune, who was it by?
• You should really hit your wife up tonight - she's in the mood

I have my music over BlueTooth, plenty of gas, and I'm off.  Speaking of Bluetooth, I need to find a really interesting Bluetooth name. The name of the car is too obvious. NSA Spy Van might work. Or Undercover Police. That way when anybody needs to connect, Undercover Police will show up. Better yet, IRS Collections.

Having gotten to work, I remembered how stressing it was on my body: all the standing, kneeling, walking, and standing and walking again made me really sore. Then the driving... mein Gott.

We made the server room Super Secret Access - it's incredibly safe. It's incredibly safe because we made it Super Secret Access and didn't bother to tell anyone, specifically me. The people who lovingly put everything in the racks did a wonderful job, as always, but they have a new way of doing things that involves hiding things in the rack. Even if you find them, you need a stool, 2' more height, and a nice suite of floodlights to figure out what's going on. Sometimes a seeing eye dog. If you put your phone in flashlight mode, it laughs at you, like that's going to help you see anything.

Then I made the ridiculously optimistic move of calling Mrs. lefty, to see if I could pick anything up for her on the way home. I say optimistic because she'll never hear the phone ring, whether it's the house line or her phone. Twice today I watched her walk out of the room and immediately, the phone rang. It makes me feel better that she's not ignoring me. She has her voicemail set up to tell everyone who calls that it's full and they can't leave a message. She shut voicemail down on the house line, so the only way to get her is if the phone is in her hand. Since she never knows where her phone is, you simply can't get in touch with her. She also doesn't receive texts from certain persons, #1 being me. I've tested this, so don't go telling me she's ignoring me. I've mentioned stapling the phone to her forehead, but if she answers it, she'll forget to re-staple it when she's done.

• Now I know two people with the Flying AIDS. A coworker had a bad headache, went to the ER, and tested positive. Since he was otherwise asymptomatic, they sent him home and told him to take ibuprofen if necessary.

Today I identify as   Bridget Jones

Flying AIDS News 

Omicron is not mild and is crushing health care systems worldwide, WHO warns

Florida’s COVID cases and hospitalizations are surging, but the state has the second-lowest death rate in the nation.

but they can't agree on why

CDC updates are straining already-pressed public health departments

Supreme Court appears poised to block Biden's vaccine and testing rules for businesses

Teacher put 13-year-old son in her trunk while driving to testing site for fear of COVID-19 exposure       Gawd bless America! 

CDC Pushes Flawed Study on Kids, COVID-19, and Diabetes

Covid-19: Common cold may give some protection, study suggests

• Pope Francis says choosing pets over kids is selfish
• So is molesting little boys and covering it up, pedophile 

Sinead O'Connor's 17 year old son committed suicide after he simply 'went missing' from suicide watch at a hospital. They both suffer from bipolar disorder.

I can't speak for Ireland, but if you're on suicide watch in the US, you either have someone sitting next to you or you are visited every xx minutes. The place is locked down pretty well, too. And the US has a pretty poor system.

Our most sincere regrets go to Sinead. 

We still don't like her music.

• Did you know there's a book called "Breasts - A Natural and Unnatural History"?  I'm shocked the author didn't send me an advance copy.

Just saw a commercial for athletic socks.

I can see I'm going to need them, to help me get out of bed, down the steps, and to the couch. Athletically. Because the regular old socks just aren't helping me athletically. 

Next up:

• athletic shoelaces
• athletic condoms
• athletic supporters

Facebook Launches 'Privacy Center' to Educate Users on Data Collection and Privacy Options

IRS launches Tax Center to educate taxpayers on paying a fair amount of taxes.

• If you use Norton or Avira antivirus, they just installed a cryptominer. It takes serious CPU cycles and Avira gets 15% (not sure about Norton). Avira was just purchased by Norton. Advice: go into settings and turn it off.
• if you have a QNAP device, get it off the internet NOW, per article. These things shouldn't be touched with 10' poles (opinion based upon constant issues)

RIP Bob Saget (65) unknown causes

I really thought that one of the Olsen twins was going to become famous in a bad way. Drugs or something. I never watched the show, but from the pictures, I thought the slutter-looking one was cuter (of course).

Well, it's winter, it snowed, and it's time for CLEANING! 

(don't tell anybody, but we've been cleaning for about 20 years and it has only made things worse) 

Dear?

Yes?

On the stove is a bunch of stuff I found in the prep area that might not be needed.

Cool. What? 

A set of wrenches, several packets you pour into water to flavor it, hubcaps from a 1974 Datsun, half-empty medicine bottles, some xmas presents, and $1.74 in change in the sink.

Ok, thanks.

Do ya think you could do something with all that stuff? The hubcaps are worth a lot, plus we could use the prep space.

Wait, wait, I'm doing something.

You probably don't remember, but we agreed not to leave non-kitchen-related things in the kitchen.

Nope, but I'll leave them there get them tomorrow.

Thanks. I don't want to go as far as to say we're getting organized, I just want to maximize the square foot of prep space so we don't have to move the elephant every time we want to cook.

Who's this lady?

What lady?

On tv.

I'm in the kitchen.

Well come in and see.

That's Jennifer Lawrence. I believe she's the highest paid female actress at the moment. I would like to have her babysit when you go away.

I've never seen her before.

To the best of my knowledge, they don't need to check with you before they decide on pay. Besides, your movies rarely have color in them, so it's understandable you might have missed her. So, about her babysitting....

When I was younger, I bought books on organizing and clutter.

And now they're piled up so high, we can't get into the kitchen.

Part of my problem was we were poor when I was little, so I'm overcompensating by buying lots of stuff.

No wonder Every Shopping Network<tm> calls to check on you weekly. We're putting their kids through school. Is it possible that money could have gone to better places?

It did. To cigarettes.

Small wonder we're broke. So, about cleaning....

The doctors told me to work on one spot til it's finished. 

And?

That's not the way I work.

So there are 17 half-finished projects in every room.

I'm working on it.

And how's that working out for you?

Maybe the doctors were right....

The kitchen and attic both need work, but it's probably not productive to remove only half the nuclear reactor parts from the kitchen, then spend quality time half-wiring the attic.

Look, I have to do it my way.

We both have a problem with clean, flat spaces. We simply cannot leave them alone. Every unoccupied space must be filled as soon as possible.

Why do you say that? 

That spot on the coffee table where my laptop sits? The moment I pick it up, there are 3 remote controls, strawberry Quik, and some batteries popular during the Truman administration sitting there.

It's a compulsion, like keeping all labels toward us.

No, that's obsessive compulsion.

NO IT ISN'T. Everybody goes through gallons of hand cleaner a week and keeps the tv volume only on even numbers.

So if the doctors were right about one task at a time, how do you think you're going to change?

I'm still thinking about it. STOP BULLYING ME.

I stopped discussing any of this with you after last time.

What happened last time? 

I cleaned up entire flat surfaces in the living room. 

I don't remember that. 

No matter, they were re-cluttered within hours. 

What about your contribution to the mess? 

I will cop to the guitar stuff, anything elephant-related, and the vertically-oriented Camaro in the dining room. The rest is mostly clothes. You have more shoes than some small countries. And you hang up clean clothes in places the elephant goes, so they're always on the floor. Or on the elephant, and trust me, he doesn't look good in some of your dresses. They're too small and he can't figure out how to put them on. It was only a matter of time til we had the world's first cross-dressing service elephant. I have to keep the LGBTQ+ people away - they want to celebrate his uniqueness and he just wants to be a service elephant. He says he really can't be a cross-dresser because he doesn't wear clothes in the first place. He insists he'd be more of a costume dresser and the other elephants would laugh at him. So he's in a good place now.

Did you say something? I was spackling the oven.

I felt I hadn't had enough grief and aggravation, so I went food shopping with Wife. She's feeling a bit sore, so I had to carry the heavy stuff. Naturally it's raining. In fact, the rain got heavier as we parked the car. Oddly, the only thing we've had approaching sun lately was after it snowed. I hate it here.

It was, as expected, a course in Supply Chain Issues.

Oddly, it was more a course in lefty Supply Chain issues. If I wanted it, they didn't have it. At one point, I didn't get too close to shelves so maybe there would be something I wanted.

Can I have some cherry yogurt?

Sure, out of the empty spaces for 100 different kinds, there are exactly two, so long as you want strawberry.

I see. How about some vanilla ice cream?

There's Philadelphia Vanilla.

WTF is Philadelphia Vanilla? Is it more highly taxed? Does it have pieces of cheesesteak in it? How about some frozen pizza?

Not a single one we eat. Some look decent, though. Look at this.. stuffed cheese and bacon.

What is it you say? Yeah, no.

But it rises in the oven.

Oh, the Exploding Crust Pizza! By all means.

I can't find the tomato soup.

You're right - I can't find a single can of it either. Imagine... tomato soup... wait - here's one. 

That's Healthy soup.

Oh. Here's one.

That's no salt.

Perhaps they stopped making good old regular tomato soup. Maybe there's no demand for it... heh heh.

Ok, pick out a few.

I want bean with bacon. It's right up there, in the empty spot.

Look on the bright side - there's cream of mushroom, cream of broccoli, cream of cream, and cream of onion. They're not the healthy or low salt varieties either.

Of course they're not. Those cans have been here since WWII. If anybody bought cream of celery, the registers would ring, sirens would go off, and the customer would win a million dollars.

Really?

No, I'm making it up, but it's not far from the truth. Geebus - my M&Ms caramel are fourteen dollars a bag! Maybe I'm higher maintenance than I thought.

Look, they have bologna.

Cool, I love buh-low-me.    {do not use this pronunciation around kids}

Look - soda is buy two, get two.

Oof, that's still expensive. Almost as expensive as water. Dammit, no matter which side of the soda box I pick up, the handle is on the other side.

Law of physics.

Have you noticed only a few people are wearing their breathing arrestors?

Yup, there was no sign. And they took out the 6' spacing signs.

Maybe they know something.

Or they just gave up.

Or that stupid robot-thing running around sucks up the virus.

Is that what that thing does?

I'm not sure, but there are definitely a lot of missing children around here.

Why does that magazine say Betty White turns 100?

Because some editor is about to be fired. Can I have some of that seasoning I like?

No.

Why not?

Because they have eleven varieties, but not yours.

Would it be easier if I stayed in the car?

No, you're not good when left alone, and I don't want to bail you out like last time. Remember: it's ok to watch those movies on your phone, but it's not ok to show your appreciation without pants.

You're as stuck up as the rest of them.

No, I'm the one who bails you out. Again and again.

We also went to the place that rhymes with Home Repo.

They required breathing arrestors. This caused me to not smell that woody smell the store has piped into the air. Because of this, their Competent Ray didn't get to me, and I didn't feel that if I bought tools, I could build stuff. That's how they get you: you come in for a screw and walk out with a complete $600 battery-powered drill and auger set. You had never seen an auger before in your life. It's a good thing you missed the plumbing aisle... heaven knows what you would have done to the toilets.

The thing that really got me was that the extremely friendly, helpful staff asked if they could helpful us with anything. She said no thanks, stood there, then walked right to the shelves she needed. She had never been in that store before. This has me worried. Out of all the superpowers....

Our last task was to get keys made. This sure has changed. There's an entire wall full of silly character keys you can buy. Hint: do NOT buy them. They're made out of a super dust polymer that breaks on its 25th use. It only looks like metal. There are regular key blanks available. They're proudly displayed by the second key machine, in the locked drawer, beneath the bags for the finished keys. Again, the employees were friendly and helpful. Especially Bob. Bob was hired to prove to the world how progressive and woke Home Repo is, by hiring an old man who is the only one who doesn't know he needs hearing aids. I suspect Bob has never seen wood either. The customer in front of us asked questions, Bob looked confused, and said things like 'Uhhhhh' and 'Green' a lot. By the time everything was over and the fire was put out, the time-saving, customer-operated key machine required three employees (and the firemen) to operate. That there is some time-saving hardware. If the employees can't operate it, the customers are better off trying to build their own houses. Even with the adorable little display that gave you instructions, that the third employee called over told the second employee to ignore because sometimes they're wrong. I was pleasantly surprised the key worked. At least I think the key worked. There was no screaming when she used it, so things must be ok. So far we've been through two Eeyore keys and one of those things that looks like a Twinkie but has 13 movies out...Minions? I suggested real metal keys, so she got Twinkies. We'll be back for another key in a month. The only thing that confused me is that there were six Customer Service ladies at registers and one cashier. She was all sorts of bright and happy, telling us, in detail, about her cats. The way she described one, I think he was a dog, but I didn't want to ruin her day by telling her. When you go to adopt a cat, hearing a BARK is a pretty definite indicator. Although having a cat that barks would be pretty cool.

When we got home, she wanted dinner. She suggested the cheese-infused pizza. I wanted the Philadelphia Vanilla ice cream. We combined them.

And still no trip to Guitar Center.

I am very high maintenance and highly demanding.

I always thought I was cheap and easy.

• Good: You bought a Mercedes
• Bad: The hood is locked. No user serviceable parts, etc
• Question: when was the last time you saw a Mercedes owner under the hood?
• the way some of these people drive, the doors should come locked too 

I should probably have Tesla send me their press releases... I couldn't write this stuff every week....

Tesla’s ‘Full Self-Driving’ beta has an ‘assertive’ driving mode that ‘may perform rolling stops’.  Also...

• gives the finger to other drivers
• blows the horn at other drivers
• aggressively passes if drivers in front aren't going fast enough
• stops using its turn signals entirely

The 2020 Prolapse Awards Are Here!

There are way too many videos online.
Most of them are ill-advised.
You can talk at them and tell them and advise them, but POOF - up they go.
Learn from these misguided ballfaces.
Ask yourself one question: "Will I be proud of this when I'm somebody's grandparent?"

So, kids, take your penis out of that woman (or man), put it back in your pants, and sing or something. That will be a lot less difficult to explain to the grandkids than sodomy. If you don't care, wait 5 years and ask yourself again.


Bob: Bill! Howya doin?
Bill: Oh great, man. How are you?
Bob: Couldn't be better. How's the family?
Bill: Well, Susan's fine. You remember my daughter, Wendy?
Bob: Sure - how's she?
Bill: Great. She's an escort.
Bob: You must be very proud.

And they say *I* have no filters....



It took the better part of a year to figure out the dog's smarter than me.
Penny - wanna go outside?  POOF - to the door.
Penny - let's go nite nite.  POOF - up the steps, into bed.
Penny - wanna go for a ride in the car?  POOF - to the door.
Penny - take out the trash, please - [dumb look]



Oldest material on Earth discovered
Unrelated: Nancy Pelosi strongly objects to her baby rattle on display.

• Cut undersea cable plunges Yemen into days-long internet outage
• Last time there were 2 cut, a letter agency's ships were in the area

The military is building long-range facial recognition that works in the dark.
Of course they are.



Google plans to drop tracking cookie support by 2022.
Since this amounts to shooting themself in the foot, wait for the other shoe to drop.

Verizon offers no-tracking search engine - promises to protect your privacy.
Kick the ball, Charlie Brown.


Want to try linux? Check out Linux Lite  
Should you use linux?

Microsoft's new Edge browser released - what you need to know
Don't use it.



US may subsidize Huawei alternatives with $1.25 billion fund
Oh look - reps and dems came together and it's going to cost you. Every time they come together it's going to cost you. Like the recent budget bill....



European lawmakers want all phones to have same charger
Apple wet its pants laughing.


Bose is closing all of its retail stores in North America, Europe, Japan, and Australia
Requires closing 8 countries and a special adapter for full fidelity




I'm at work, on a conference call. The audio is LOUD, and the volume control won't turn it down. *$(#ing Windows 10, I say to myself. After some examination, I figure it out: Bluetooth managed to connect one machine's audio to another machine's speakers. By itself.



Today I identify as   large crud cottage cheese with anchovies



Alex Winter (Bill and Ted's Great Adventure) has finally finished his documentary on Frank Zappa. Alex had unprecedented access to all the music, interviews, and family documents. This was a labor of love and backed by fans (I contributed to the Kickstarter). It will premiere at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas. I won't exactly be able to fly there, but can't wait for it to go national.

Speaking of the great Frank Zappa, he often cited Edgar Varese as an influence. I listened to some Varese recently, and there's absolutely no doubt about his influence. This is not the influence that made it to Catholic Girls or Titties and Beer; it's the one that led to what I've heard called 'cartoon music'. Orchestral music plus binging and bonging and percussion. Give him a listen if you like the Zappa stuff.

• Google researchers used neural networks to make weather forecasts
• They had to be more accurate than the guys on tv

The president wants Apple to unlock the phone of a shooter.
Meh- it's only the Constitution.

Dating and fertility apps among those snitching to 'out of control' ad tech

• Text alerts: Time to Fuck!
• Text alerts: Call her, dammit
• ads from diaper companies
• ads for pregnancy tests
• ads for maternity bras
• ads for lacy bras

DING: text message
Welcome to Bob's Health System appointment reminders.

DING: reality
Why yes, I have an appointment, but my welcome did not remind me of it.

• A Komodo dragon destroyed a BBC camera by trying to have sex with it
• You know you're doing it right when your partner can no longer move!

How digital sleuths unravelled the mystery of Iran's plane crash.
Iran had to admit they shot it down. "In error".

• Parasite that makes mice unafraid of cats may quash other fears. 
• Dentist?

Heroes of the Stupid

"Nasal Ranger" nasal smell-amplifier to crack down on marijuana
I keep looking for the April Fools date.  
The war on drugs is a dismal failure. The only people who benefit are the people hired for it, plus the contracts, like above.




SJW Snottiness

Associate dean at University of Illinois came out in defense of mandatory diversity statements in university hiring practices... because "traditional markers of mathematical excellence" get in the way of diversity."

In other words, smart people are disrupting the cause of diversity.

A Three Hour Tor

TOR, otherwise known as The Onion Router, is a reasonably secure internet platform. When I say reasonably secure, I mean it's safe to route all of your traffic through it, but if you have incredibly sensitive information, you run a risk of being discovered. That aside, Snowden and Assange use it and the NSA is having trouble spying on it (but still manages). The safest way is to boot from and use the Tails operating system. The link has some good basic information on TOR. You can try it out with the TOR browser. Download the browser here. It's Firefox, so you already know how to use it. Give it a shot. Try not to install any extensions/addons because some of them leak information, rendering the browser unsafe.

• Over 460 models of HP laptops come complete with a keylogger. This means that every letter you type could be logged. Fortunately, this 'feature' is disabled by default. It exists in the touchpad driver. If anybody gets access to the computer, they can turn the keylogger on.

The FDA has approved a pill with an embedded sensor that can report when it is swallowed.  This is very interesting and, as I understand it, only one pill. Let's put on our Thermionic Tin Foil Hats.  Any invasive technology tends to come disguised as a benefit: 

• "Oh - we'll know if Gramma took her medicine!"
• "Stupid drug addict brother didn't take his methadone today."
• "Yes, as you know, Doctor, I took my meds, but I'm still hearing the voices. They do not like you."

The pill sends a signal to a patch, which sends the information to an app on your phone. You can send the results to a number of people if you like. How is this wrong? Let me count the ways...

• Bluetooth: hackable in the vicinity
• Sensor: is it really safe n your body? Do you really need it? 
• App: fitness apps and most others transmit information up the line to the software's author, advertising, and Google or Apple.
• No one really needs your information.

British television seems to consist largely of a bunch of overstuffed people sitting on an overstuffed couch, talking about nothing but using a lot of words to get there. No wonder they like some of our shows (Seinfeld).

• Over thirty email clients, including webmail, have a pretty serious flaw that will allow a Bad Guy to spoof the FROM address convincingly. Read this to see if yours is affected. Several were fixed before the flaw was announced.

In the 1980s, AT&T asked a consultant to estimate how many cell phones would be in use in the world by 2000. They concluded the total market would be 900,000 units. This persuaded AT&T to pull out of the market. By 2000, there were 738 million people with cellphone subscriptions. So close....

• a thirteenth human foot was found washed up on Canada's west coast. No one is sure why this happens but no foul play is suspected. No foul play? How many appendages, organs, and severed heads have to wash up before foul play is suspected? And what happened to the fourteenth foot? Isn't Canada supposed to be friendly? Does this sort of thing go on all the time in British Columbia?

Time grows near for the FCC's decision on whether to keep or jettison the Net Neutrality rules. While they haven't explicitly stated it, the FCC really doesn't care what you think and has no problem clinking drinks with Big Business. After having found millions of fake comments on the topic, the FCC is blocking any investigation into the comments, which, incredibly, were from dead people and were against neutrality. Nothing at all is suggested by this wild coincidence.

• A bunch of years ago I went to a guitar show with a Gibson Custom Shop display. I asked the guy if they had ever built any lefty doublenecks. He said he was aware of four, and at that date, they would cost about $5,000. Right handed, of course, was less. Today I finally located a Custom Shop lefty Doubleneck on Ebay, for the bargain price of $8,000. Ok, everything this shop sells is pretty damn expensive, plus shipping from Asia. I'm sure I can get it cheaper by ordering locally.
• I know, I know, you don't care. But Jimmy Page plays one.
• We got what we wanted most for the holidays: Marshall, alive. Because of this, we've had to cancel Christmas.
• But a new guitar (or three) sure would be nice. 

Gibson Custom Shop lefty EDS-1275

In Road Wars, a British COPS-like show, they pulled a car over, checked the trunk, and found 'herbal cannabis'. Herbal, pronouncing the 'H'. When I was young, I did my share of substances, but I am not aware of any variety other than herbal. Did they invent some sort of Imitation Cannabis? Why in the universe do they call it cannabis when 'Pot' is one syllable?

One day on COPS, an officer found "some sort of green, leafy substance; possibly cannabis." Do police recruit from just one pool? Has someone been peeing in it again?

• A Harvard student recently made a bold public declaration, admitting that, while at a bar with friends one time, he talked about the attractiveness of the women in his class. What a brave man. If anybody overheard him, he'd be publicly lynched.

Researchers, which is a term for anyone having more than one account on a website, have estimated that up to one percent of sites on the web have been hacked. For those of us who like math (and I know no one who meets this description) that's about 10 in 1,000 of the most visited websites. This statistic proves nobody is above or immune to hacking, and you will probably visit one of these sites, if not the entire one percent.

• I have seen into the future. Come next June, a newspaper headline will read "America Saves Millions as Half of Congress Arrested for Pedophilia"

Harvey Irma Jose

Feeling under the weather, I decided rest was indicated. Anyone with all but the most acute powers of observation will not be able to tell the difference between Rest Mode and Non-Rest Mode. My neighbor felt sorry for me and decided to begin a large, noisy, external home improvement project. The banging was quite accomplished, but the loud machinery really drove the point home. Somehow they even managed to produce a loud noise that sounded like they were hammering chains into my walls, for what seemed like weeks, but in reality was just every hour I was awake.

Next day was much better. They waited til I was awake to start (7am). At certain points I felt my house literally shake, as if they were performing surgery on my house instead of next door. One day I'm likely to look out the window and find out what they're doing.  I have cataloged many separate and delightful noises emanating from this project: the Mowing Noise, the Pick on Concrete Noise, the Sledge into Bricks Noise, the Entire House Shaking Noise, and the Repeated BOOM Noise, which only surfaced when I used the phone.

Just for fun, there's a lot of noise coming from the other next door.  Both of my neighbors are elderly: the one who Marshall trained to feed him treats, and the one Satan crosses the street to avoid.

• Once again, a hurricane brought out the best and worst of humanity. Irma hit Florida with a vengeance and long before it hit, the volunteers were out, manning the help lines and trying to get help from more volunteers in the field.
• While the flood of volunteers manned the lines, an army of trolls did their best to interrupt communications. I have never heard anything like this before- with every request for help was one of these young miscreants, yelling obscenities and racist comments. This was completely unlike Hurricane Harvey communications. Maybe the Troll Alarm was sounded, and all the poisonous examples of subhumanity left their caves.
• All through the communications, there were less toxic examples of humanity, who wanted information on the weather, gas, and store openings in their personal neighborhood. These people were genetically incapable of using a search engine to check the information for themselves.
• Comcast and another local provider opened up their wifi hotspots and brought in mobile hot spots, allowing everyone unlimited access.
• People were posing as the electric company and robbing houses.
• While the storm was in its early stages, the looting started. One must note the can-do American spirit of the looters, who got out there, without consideration for life and limb, in the wind and rain, to steal things from other people. To feed their hungry families by stealing sneakers. To protect large screen tv's by taking them home.

Wife comes down the steps, says, "You're going to think I'm crazy" and disappears into the bathroom.  Ok, I'll play...

• Billions of Bluetooth-enabled devices are vulnerable to attacks across all operating systems. Google and Microsoft have released patches. I got a linux patch already. iOS before 10 is affected. Samsung smart watches, Smart TVs, and refrigerators also... This is Serious Stuff<tm>, people. Best practice is to keep Bluetooth turned off except when you must have it. Antivirus systems are unlikely to catch it. The beauty of this is that it shows us how unprotected we are and how manufacturers are unprepared to patch all their devices. The only positive here is that Bluetooth has a limited range, so it's more difficult to exploit.  Bother your vendors for a patch now.

Over in Afghanistan, three people died as a result of a suicide bomb blast in a cricket stadium. I told you sports are dangerous.

• The entitled are out again, this time demanding statues of people they don't like be taken down. And localities are acquiescing.
• My Demands:
• Being left-handed, I demand all statues of right-handed people be taken down. And that we get proper desk chairs in schools.
• I am also entitled to have statues taken down because I never got a statue taken down and others have.
• I want the Rocky Statue taken down because it's stupid and it's Philly's idea of culture.

Whither Kaprinsky: Kaspersky Antivirus (Kaprinsky or Kasper Sky, according to the Great Minds at my former employer) is up against the wall these days. The government has been ordered to replace it within ninety days because of alleged connections between Kaspersky and the FSB (formerly KGB). While no definitive connection has been established, the fear is that the FSB can request/compel them to provide data on systems 'protected' by it. Kaspersky has been given the opportunity to address the issues.

My natural inclination is to hold the phone until a connection is proven, but in the interests of safety, maybe this is a wise decision. Antivirus has privileged access to your files and operating system, so it would be a good way to obtain (or leave) data or programs. On the other hand, hackers are no doubt already in government (and other) systems. Having worked with quite a number of antivirii on a corporate level, I can safely say the all suck, in terms of deployment and operation. Best Buy will not be carrying it either.

• The new iDevice includes facial recognition, although I'm told it didn't work during the Big Announcement. While The Authorities may have trouble guessing your PIN, holding the phone up to your face is certainly convenient. Rest assured the law will be convoluted to make this work. It requires eyes to be open, so it will be more difficult to use on a dead body (make with that what you will). There is also a panic disable, which requires pressing a switch five times, that will disallow facial recognition unlock. There are other legal complexities around being compelled to give your fingerprint but not your PIN.
• This latest exercise in Apple Excess can be yours for the low low price of $1,000. Start lining up around the block, drooling, wide-eyed, wallet extended, to get yours now! We used to think $150 sneakers were ridiculously expensive.
• One of the latest flagship android phones is expected to hit $1,000 also, bringing up some questions... What the hell do you get for a grand that you didn't get for half that price (or less) on your current phone? 
• You'll certainly get a better camera, but I have not a qualm about my two year old phone's camera - the pictures are wonderful. One device has two cameras with different focuses.
• A faster processor: this would certainly be an incentive, although mine is pretty snappy.
• Better battery life: I hope. This is a huge one for most of us. Removable is a good feature too, so you can keep one charged as a spare. It's a shame you have to.
• Bigger and/or Prettier screen: some people aren't happy with the size of their screen (or much else)... larger or smaller. New layouts, for people who don't use their own launchers (Nova Launcher recommended-free).
• Facial recognition: if I didn't use eyeball tracking, imagine my thrill with facial recognition. Hint: it's probably in use on your driver's license.
• Sleek new case: please.
• Is it worth that price tag for the Latest and Greatest? I say no. In fact, if you wait a few months, there will be bigger and better, or you can purchase a gently used version at a considerable discount.

The most recent episode of South Park set off Google Home and Alexa devices. Go Matt and Trey!




As usual, I was minding my own business online, when things ground to a total halt. No amount of rebooting and troubleshooting turned up a cause. My cable modem indicated everything was fine. In situations like this, I love nothing more than interacting with Comcast (or most anyone else).

The automated service told me that my issue had nothing to do with any outages and actually sent me to a human, after a commercial for the NFL. Let's forget for a moment that I can't stand sports and concentrate on the obvious importance of an NFL commercial that you cannot bypass, while waiting to repair your internet service. The attempt to reset my modem had failed, then tried again and succeded. This was not particularly effective, as the modem did not indicate it was doing anything other than failing to go online, but they told me to wait ten minutes.

Ten minutes later, with no progress at all, I called again. This time the automated voice told me there was an outage in my area and expected restore time was four hours. So messing around with the modem earlier was a total waste of time.

Do you know the sheer hell visited upon you by being without internet for four hours? I'd rather go to the dentist than be sans internet for four hours. Fortunately my cell phone had lots of data, so I could tether my computer to it. Unfortunately, no matter what I tried, I could not get the computer hooked up to the phone. Connecting with a cable failed miserably, as did every single option I tried inside the phone. There is an actual button for wifi hotspot, that failed immediately, as did everything else.

Ever try using all your apps from a huge display on a cell phone? It worked, but not in a particularly useful way. Good thing I had many other things to do (that had absolutely nothing to do with porn).

Upon calling Comcast again, I was shocked beyond belief to speak to an Indian service representative (no I wasn't), but at least this lady spoke really good English and wasn't reading off a script. After re-rebooting the modem, it clearly showed there was an error. Mrs Service helpfully suggested that someone return the modem to Comcast and get a new one.

Because I'm that kind of guy, I had an upgraded modem, which seemed to surprise my rep, as she kept trying to get me to bring the defective modem back. After a bit of reiterating, I finally got her to accept my solution. I had to give her the new modem's MAC address.

At about this point, I discovered that I had a modem but not a manual, power supply, and whatever else came with the device. Mind you, I had the box it came in. This modem has been sitting around for a few weeks, migrating from this spot to the other, but always together. Not now, of course. Stuff just happens in my house. This was followed immediately by screaming. Unfortunately, screaming had to be modified, as I was doing it right into the phone.

One thing I note as I get older is that I cannot read small print. I used to be able to read things written on a grain of rice. Now I need Serious Magnification to read six point type. It's even more difficult after 12am, with very little light in the house.

Having solved the MAC issue, the rep told me to plug the device in, then started asking me questions about my router. Lady, if I had router issues, that would be my problem, not yours. If you get my modem set up and get signal to it, I'll handle any issues post-modem.

Apparently simply hooking a modem up and repeating a MAC address four times is not sufficient to restore internet service. There are things called hooks, put in somewhere to allow the original modem to work, and these need to be removed. Hooks.... somewhere at Comcast, there are a number of fish hanging on a line, each with a hook. They had to remove the fish and the hook so they could hang different kinds of fish, corresponding with my new modem. This is all because the old modem was brown and the new modem white.

Twenty minutes later, the helpful service rep sent what's technically known as The Magic Bullet to my modem, making the lights go all blinky and restoring service. Halleleujah! Only five hours to a solution.

Flibberjibbit

Are you checking your store of explosives and coming up short? Need to refresh the stock?  Oil company Allied-Horizontal Wireline Services kinda screwed up the setup on one of their storage devices, exposing locations where it keeps its explosives.

• If you have just the right model Epson printer, you probably can't print at this moment. Epson shipped some new firmware (instructions that reside in the device permanently) and it requires an internet connection to Google. Oddly enough, if you turn off internet, it works. They are working on the problem. I'm sure they have their Best People on it. Different people than the ones who didn't test the firmware before it got sent out.

I have some equipment that sends me an alert when something happens that it doesn't like. So I go to the equipment to see what it's telling me and it refuses to tell me anything. There is no entry for the item that the equipment alerted me of. The equipment makes me wait 20-30 minutes before it will tell me what it didn't like. I have concluded that the machine is female.

• Do you have an I-Que Intelligent Robot or My Friend Cayla doll? It sends your child's personal information to the manufacturer and a company that contracts with military and intelligence agencies. Privacy groups have filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission. Unfortunately, the FTC shares all its information with with non-intelligence agencies. All information is stored on the contractor's services and possibly Google's.  It's probably a good idea not to give these dolls to your kids or leave them on the table when the FBI calls to goad you into performing some terrorist act or other so they can 'catch' you at it.

A perennial favorite of mine and candidate for vice-wife, Sofia Vergara, is being sued by her frozen embryos, Emma and Isabella. Ex-fiancee Nick Leob has already sued in California because they are being deprived of their inheritance (already in a trust fund) by not being born. But wait - it gets better (I am waaaay too amused by this): the new suit was filed in Louisiana, which offers special protections to frozen embryos (really? California only offers special protections to easily-triggered snowflakes). The legal paperwork stated that both parties had to agree not to use the embryos without the other's consent. The paperwork, however, did not stipulate what to do if the partners split.  Hey - leggo my embryo! This shit is hysterical and could not simply be made up by uber-amused  bloggers or headline-happy gossip rags.  

"Hey Honey - let's make some embryos, name them, freeze them, provide for them, then file suit over them. Let's think about the legal ramifications for a moment, shall we? Since the embryos have legal standing and are being deprived of inheritance, we can say that they are also being abused horribly by being frozen, thus the parents are dually liable (don't you love playing lawyer?). Where it gets murky is not having language in the contract for the marriage dissolving. Let's throw the case out without bias (meaning it can be brought again with proper information) or perhaps without prejudice or llamas. Or have the legal system remind these overprivileged whiners to just have the damn child or children just like the rest of the world does: by swapping underwear and squatting in the fields. Why DID they freeze embryos? Because Sofia didn't want to ruin her figure. I volunteered to ruin her figure a long time ago but her legal representatives contacted me and mentioned that it would not be a good idea to come within 500 feet of her or communicate with her ever again.

Or we could just take the lefty Approach and encourage them not to reproduce. Do we really want another generation of these people on the planet? I expected this from Mariah Carey - in fact, I don't think we're done with her for a good long time.

• Somewhere the butts of the fellows from Monty Python are twitching horribly. A man from England opened up a British Shop, featuring all British goods. Complaints were swift, accusing him of going against the 'international nature' of England. Threatened were boycotts and protests. The complaints are not coming from foreigners, who love the shop. They are coming from neighbors. One stated that calling the shop Really British somehow implied that the other stores weren't. The shop's owner referred to the fracas as being like banning pizzas in Italy. While these people will eventually eat themselves, it is not happening quickly enough.
• Speaking of Limeys, the producers of a nature show called Planet Earth II are defending themselves against criticism that the scenes are too brutal. And we thought politics was ugly...
• Not to be outdone by the sheer stupidity of American universities, 32 British schools have banned tabloid newspapers. Read it again... banned.. newspapers. In every disaster area, there is at least one pocket of resistance, this being a school which just voted to ban orange juice with 'bits' in it because it's "hateful" and students cannot be trusted to consume it. Also banned: Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" and Mexican hats.

During Career Day at school, they probably neglected to include the noble profession of Bluetooth antenna design for adult toys. Apparently this is not only a job, but a very difficult one. Where the hell do you put the antenna? Another job they overlooked is the testing lab for adult toys.

• No matter what I really love, and there are two or three things in this category,  I will never be a fanboy of it. Fanboy reeks of a cape and/or high heels, neither of which I pull off well.

Trumpie is coming under scrutiny again (really?), this time over his insistence on using his android phone, instead of a specially-built Blackberry, like Obama was forced to use. Making Android Great Again. But seriously, Donald, you have to be as secure as possible - take my word for it. I'm surprised that the team hasn't reached out to me for the CIO position. Can you imagine?

• Keira Knightly (UK) revealed that her daughter said "F..." when Trump won the election. This is yet another reason I don't have children, yet this time it's pure stupidity on the part of the parent. How many of us are politically aware at 19 months? She didn't just invent that word - she had to hear it somewhere.  From the stories my parents told me, there was not a single one involving my expletives when (Margaret Thatcher?) won in the UK.

Greg Lake, 69, of Emerson Lake & Palmer and King Crimson, has passed from cancer. 2016 has not been kind to us.

• Sir Michael (Mick) Jagger has become a father for the eighth time. We all strive to be like Mick, only with the potential, not the realization.

Heart disease and dementia deaths contribute to the first drop in US life expectancy for 20 years. Somehow this will be Trump's fault.

• The US Surgeon General has stated that e-cigarettes are a public threat to young people. Not to old people? One in six high school students stated they used an e-cig in the past month. Is that not an important statistic? I was all for punishing the tobacco companies for lying but it's no longer a secret that tobacco is bad for you. Why do children pick this up?

Review: Mpow Wireless Bluetooth Radio Adapter

I have a car that is exactly one model year from having an AUX input on the radio, master of timing that I am. I have tried enough FM transmitter boxes to fill the back seat of said car; all have been barely functional at best, largely garbage.

As the result of some web page or other, I went to Amazon and checked out a few, selecting several with great reviews from people who also had back seats full of crappy adapters.

The Mpow seemed to be the Real Deal<tm> so I went with it. In spite of the 3-5 day delivery promise, it arrived the next day. Being tinfoil hat, I never use Bluetooth. Ok, I used it once indoors, with extremely disappointing results on file transfers. Since I desperately wanted some Real Music in my car, I resigned myself to enabling Bluetooth in the car only.

The adapter is different than the other white-box units I tried. It plugs into the lighter socket and has a very handy USB port on the other end. A gooseneck leads to the control portion, complete with digital display of the transmit frequency. Can I be more descriptive? Probably. Will I? No.

Operating the device is pretty simple: you pair it with your phone via Bluetooth. Instructions are included. The PITA part, no fault of the device, is finding a clear spot on the FM band. Look for one with no signals on adjacent frequencies, if at all possible. This will make your experience a lot less frustrating. Tune the adapter via the thumbwheel, fire up your favorite android music player (ok iDevice too) and you're off. Failure to find a decent hole in the FM band may doom you to intermittent hissing and random fart noises (especially if you're listening to Howard Stern).

The unit surprisingly includes two buttons for Next and Previous track. To my surprise, Bluetooth has some neato functions, including muting the music for incoming alerts, allowing next and previous track and not locking the screen (so you can take your eyes off the road for shorter periods of time before you crash the car).

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On a side note, my favorite android music player is Dead Beef (free, available in Play Store). I love this player because it's completely unintrusive (I use VLC for everything else on Win/lin/android). It does not insist on searching your entire device for any piece of media it can play. I just point it to my music directory and go. Players that index all of your multimedia files can lead to very embarrassing situations if you don't want everybody hearing or seeing every file on your device (know what I mean, nudge nudge?).

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How is it?  Pretty damn cool.

WHAT I LIKE:

• I can play my songs over the radio! This is technically referred to as the Wow Factor.
• By nature, it also works with phone calls, assuming your phone's mic is in decent proximity or sensitive enough. Of course, you need to consider whether or not you want your Significant Other's voice emanating from all of your car's speakers. Entirely your call (so to speak).
• Gee Whiz blue glow indicator of Bluetooth pairing
• handy USB adapter

CONS:

• the gooseneck is a bit short
• the volume isn't as loud as the radio
• the buttons stopped then started working for some reason - looking into it

Updates as I have them.

Samsung Galaxy 10 - Initial Impressions

I started my tablet life a while back, when my work carrier gave me a Xoom to evaluate.  It was large enough but heavy and not particularly ready for prime time, or at very least, not ready to be put into the hands of the public.

The next unit was a Samsung 7 tablet.  I have had the 7 for many months and it follows me everywhere.  It is supercharged with a 32g card, rooted, tweaked and forced to do my bidding [insert evil laughter].  I had a feeling what my main complaint was going to be right off the bat: it was too small.  Actually it was too small and just a little too old.

In spite of these shortcomings, the 7 served me well.  It started to accompany me to meetings, where the bottom fell out, kinda.  It was simply too small to be effective.  Taking notes was a PITA.  Aside from that, there's nothing really wrong with the unit.

So I decided it was time to check into ten inch tablets.  Much to my dismay, the field had not changed at all from before.  I told my friendly T-Mobile rep that, like all men, size was important, so I wanted to upgrade to a ten inch tablet.  She gave me the choice of the Samsung Galaxy 10 or nothing so I wisely chose the 10.

As any reader of the blog knows, I hate iDevices, so that was out even if it was a choice.  It astounds me that with the success of the iPad, there aren't tons of worthy competitors, even with T-Mobile.

T-Mobile got the 10 to me with blazing speed, as in the next day.

OPENER UP!


The Galaxy 10 is one sleek, slim device.  There were all sorts of OOHs and AAHs as I unboxed it and my coworkers checked it out.  The Galaxy 7 is a rather bulky affair.  The Galaxy 10 is just a shade heavier but the weight is better distributed.

First up is inserting the SIM card and charging the beast.  The included USB to Galaxy cable appears to be the same as the Galaxy 7 but colored differently.  There was a charger in the box also, plus a few small meaningless booklets.  It was a pretty short learning curve and the getting started booklet handled things well.

LAYOUT

When held in landscape mode, the speakers are on the sides.  The main connector is on the bottom. The power switch and volume rocker are on top, as is the SIM slot.  There is no place for an additional SD card, which is disappointing, but there is an adapter available that allows an SD card and USB access.  I don't believe we should have to pay an additional thirty dollars to use SD and USB but I'm funny that way.

Onscreen keyboards are an acquired taste.  They're fairly useless on a cell phone.  On a Galaxy 7 only the landscape keyboard is usable.  On the 10, both keyboards are good, as one would expect with more screen real estate.  And the screen real estate is nice.  The display is bright and sharp.  There is a ton of room to put shortcuts or widgets (or not).

ARE THERE CAMERAS?


You betcha there are cameras.  There are two: one facing you (lower resolution for video chatting) and one facing away (higher resolution for pictures and video).  I didn't bother checking the specs but they're not a secret.  I seem to remember 5 megapixels 720 video for the picture-taking side.

As things seem to go these days, there is no case.  In scouting the available cases I noticed some variety, including cases with built-in bluetooth keyboards.  The case is not optional: you need one to protect the device.  A side benefit to some is a stand that adjusts.  You don't want to type on a flat tablet, external keyboard or not.  Be aware that you will need a special case if you want to keep the device plugged in.  Look for an opening on the bottom, through which you will put the cord.

MORE FEATURES

A pleasant surprise was the available volume.  There was plenty of it, unlike my Sensation phone.

The onscreen layout is a little different from the 7.  There are no dedicated buttons on the bottom.  Instead the app button is up top (why?) and there are soft buttons at the bottom for the main functions.  There is even a screenshot button (complete with annoying shutter noise).  In fact, one of my first duties was to kill all the noises and blinkies.  I'm a big boy and don't need a noise every time I hit a button or a program comes up.  Nor do I need the haptic (vibrating) feedback with every key press.

There are five screens by default.  You should never run out of space or screens.   Like most android devices, you can populate the screen with shortcuts, widgets, wallpaper, live wallpaper, and presumably dead wallpaper.

There are the usual rotating effects but also a new tilt function, which can control screen size or brightness.  I haven't had a chance to mess with this yet; I have brightness on AUTO for now.  There is a button to allow apps designed for smaller screens to fill the available space or pan in.

APPS

The Galaxy 10 comes with Alarm, Asphalt 6, Blio, Books, browser, calculator, calendar, contacts, Dropbox, ebook, email, files, gallery, Gmail, Google Search, Latitude, maps, Market, media hub, memo, messaging, MobileLife, Google Music, music player, navigation, pen memo, photo editor, places, Pulse, Qello, Quickoffice, security, Slacker, social hub, talk, TegraZone, video chat, video player, voice search, world clock, YouTube, and Zinio.  Your mileage will vary by provider.

Quite frankly, I'd love to be able to remove most of the included apps but I can't.  I suspect this will require rooting, which I haven't considered or checked on yet.  You cannot remove Slacker, Zinio, or any of the social apps.  While I like Slacker, I stopped installing it because it seems to turn itself on all of the time, regardless of whether I'm listening to it or not.  And I have as much need for social apps as I do for female plumbing.

As android people know, installing your own favorites is a matter of going to the Market, finding the programs and pressing INSTALL.   Here are some of the apps that make my life easier:

• gStrings - guitar tuner
• Premier Guitar, TabApp Pro, Guitar Squid - guitar goodies
• Drudgereport, World Newspapers, Sparse RSS - news
• ES File Explorer
• WiFi and Airplane Mode widgets
• QuickPic - superior to included Gallery
• Opera Mini - browser
• ConnectBot, AndFTP, Remote VNC - remote access tools
• Wolfgang's Vault, XiaaLive Lite - streaming radio
• Scanner Radio - listen to police and fire scanners worldwide
• and 3 versions of Angry Birds for my nephews

Your mileage will vary.


SECURITY

As with all phones and tablets, there is a plethora of features that might look nice but ultimately will suck the small amount of privacy you have left from your device faster than you can say Illegal Wiretapping.  Do yourself a favor and turn off the location tracking features.  There is no significant reason for anyone to know exactly where you are, either via satellite tracking or wifi/cellular tracking.  If you absolutely must let the entire universe know what you're doing and where, this is what Faceyspaces is for.  Or Twitter.  Log in and let everyone know that it's 5:15 and you've just had a terrific potty experience at Barnes&Noble.

Don't forget to go into the camera app and turn off geotagging.

OVERALL

I've only had the device for a few hours but I can tell I'm going to seriously enjoy it.  The larger screen will make all the difference for viewing anything and note-taking.   The nephews will love the look of Angry Birds and the wife will love some of the games I loaded for her.

More as it comes to me....