Operation Dirty Navel

Philly denizens are in a bad place (besides Philly).
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.

It's the Thing. The THINGY Thing. Over by the Thing!

I hear that a lot at home. Also heard elsewhere.
The bizarre part is that two women know what the other is referring to.

• We've decided to eat healthy. Just the other morning, I noticed a bowl of cut up vegetables. It was right on top of the chocolate cheesecake.

United, America's most bizarre, assaultive, and death-bringing airline, has done it again. After killing a dog by insisting it go in the overhead bin, today's rage-inducer is flying a dog from Kansas to Japan. While United has no comment thus far, we understand they will charge the owner for the return flight from Japan.

SIRI ALERT

I have not verified this but you'll want to read the article, just in case.
How Siri leaks your private iPhone messages, and how to stop her

Slippery Slope Strikes Similarly

YouTube 'conspiracy' videos will get links to Wikipedia and other sources to 'fact check.'  At first, only videos with 'significant debate' will get the text box links. A YouTube spokesman says they're always exploring new ways to battle misinformation. In other words, do not question the established narrative. Google, YouTube's parent, admits to pushing down the 'craziest' content. This has failed, because people like to watch it (if it bleeds, it leads). This is happening with Google search results, as well as YouTube. As one would expect, I have questions:

• Who decides what's crazy?
• Lawmakers and media advocacy groups are pushing this. If I understand things correctly, this directly contravenes the First Amendment.
• Wikipedia's information is crowdsourced - meaning it comes from people. Just like conspiracy theories and fake news and misinformation.
• You will notice that no outlet questions the fake news and legislation proposed by Congress or Mainstream Media. The CIA planted people at the major news organizations - this is fact.
• Conspiracy theories quite often turn out to be true. The term was invented by the CIA to make people look crazy and decrease their credibility. Even if we choose to believe that the government just started looking into UFOs, they were a conspiracy theory.

Faceyspaces and Google have actively pushed down potentially fake content. This failed.

Let's call this what it is: an active effort to start the censorship and suppression of content somebody doesn't like. Irony: people will call this a conspiracy theory but it's right here in the links. The content being affected leans mostly to the right. We've already seen this with Reddit, YouTube, and Twitter.

Again, I'm not right, alt-right, or left; I'm free speech. It starts with the right. Then who is left to protest when they come for the left? Some useful idiots on the left will actually push for this. Some useful idiots on the right too, although it's mostly their content at risk.

And it's happening right here, under our noses, dressed up as combating misinformation and fake news.

Do you disagree? Let me know and I'll give you space.

• Tired of the infuriating popups while browsing? If you have the new Firefox 59, go to Tools > Options > Permissions and check "Block new requests asking to allow notifications” (Windows) or Edit > Preferences > Privacy & Security (linux). It will be similar on Macs. Probably in android too.

Hey, how about that humongous Equifax breach that disappeared from the news, as if it had an anchor tied to it... a former executive has been charged with stock dumping before the breach was disclosed.

• Speaking of Mac malware, it has risen 270 percent. If you're really comfortable with your Mac's security, you might want to think again. I'm not taking a swipe at Macs, like I usually do. I'm warning you not to be complacent in thinking you're immune. Bad People wait til your operating system or software is popular enough to make it worth their while.

Actual Work Conversation. Names changed to protect the guilty...


ME: Why did they schedule Meeting B the same time as Meeting A?
HIM: Yeah, I see 2. Which one are you talking about.
ME: the two that are at the same time: Meeting A and Meeting B. We have Meeting A every week at the same time.
HIM: At 1:00?
ME: yes
HIM: I had Meeting C earlier. Then Meeting D at 3:00. You're not on the invite for Meeting D.
ME: [suppressing rage and violent urges] We have Meeting A every week at 1:00. Today I got an invite for Meeting B.
HIM: Well.... I got the usual one for Meeting A and one for Meeting Q, but that's it.
ME: [I have to put me out of my misery] Ok.
HIM: I do have one at 3:30 for Meeting H.
ME: GOOD GOD, DUDE - DON'T YOU HAVE ANY PROZAC OR HEAVY MUSCLE RELAXERS AT YOUR DESK?

• Darwin Winner Pedro Ruiz III planned a YouTube stunt, wherein his girlfriend, Monalisa Perez, would shoot a .50 cal bullet through an encyclopedia he was holding in front of his chest to see if it would pass through.
• Perhaps Pedro didn't fully consider the implications. As it turned out, the bullet did, in fact, pierce the encyclopedia. Then his heart. Pedro is no more. Perhaps Pedro was suicidal but scared to perform the act himself. Perhaps Pedro did the science and discovered that a .50 would go through an encyclopedia like a fat person through a box of chocolates. Perhaps he was much more intelligent than he appeared. Alas, we will never know.
• Monalisa, the mother of his two children, will serve a modified jail term. She had better come up with an interesting story to tell the kids.

Let's face it... most productions for St Patty's Day involve alcohol and pretending you're Irish. If it were St Hendrix's Day, everybody would pretend to be black. I just saw the best promotion for SPD ever: 20% off green guitars at Eastwood. Finally, a holiday promotion relevant to me.

• Why? 
• Why, Dog the Bounty Hunter?
• Is the same hair stripper right for both of them? His hair is yellow, while hers is more stripped blond.
• Will they change the name to Dog the Fatty Hunter?
• He's about four feet tall. How does he climb over her ample chest?
• Their minions... what kind of self-esteem issues does one need to follow him blindly, unarmed?

Congratulations are not necessary, but China shipped my new laptop keyboard early and I installed it in short order. This is a process that would've caused Major Panic<tm> two years ago. Have you ever operated on a laptop? Even putting memory in the things is a process. Desktops are pretty easy: open the case (if you ever put it back last time - putting cases back on is the major cause of computer issues) and do what you need. The cases are (were?) pretty roomy and you had many slots to install Things. The worst that could happen was ripping your hand open trying to get around some sharp metal structure.

Laptops are a certain kind of Black Magic, requiring a certain temperament. A temperament with which I was not born. Fortunately I am ridiculously brave (stupid). Although any computer repair involves copious amounts of cursing and airborne objects, laptops are their own special hell. Because they're so friggin tiny, everything must be sandwiched into an alloted space and every manufacturer does it differently. Sometimes 15 screws are involved in adding memory. If you've never had to replace the display, God is on your side.

Fortunately for me, this particular keyboard required about 4 screws and sliding this and removing that. The results are spectacular. I can now see every letter on every key. Unfortunately the cursor still wanders a bit on its own, like my wife in a shoe store.  And unfortunately, there were a few parts left over, but in my defense, there was no place to put them. Now most of the errors are operator-induced, or PEBKAC - problem exists between keyboard and chair.

• You may or may not be happy to hear that a judge has taken the death penalty off the table for Mitt Romney and former Gov Christie Todd Whitman. A suit was brought by a New Jersey woman, claiming Romney, Whitman, and four others conspired to blow up downtown Newark (this is another one of the 'you may or may not feel this is a good thing').
• The suit also mentions a county executive and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, with the death penalty specified for all but Farrakhan. No word on what Islamic punishment was mentioned to the plaintiff to cancel the death request. Perhaps they gave her a free bow tie.
• The judge referred to the suit as "frivolous and malicious." Frivolous and malicious? Isn't blowing up downtown Newark malicious, Your Honor? They have committed the perfect crime. Now they can blow it up without fear of legal ramifications. Double jeopardy: you can't try someone twice for the same crime. I am not a lawyer, but I watched a lot of Night Court.

In case you're still playing along at home, the national debt has hit $21 trillion. With a 'T'. Our presidents and congresses keep blindly adding to it. like they did very recently. As an incredibly large group of See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Watch Tv, we don't really want to be bothered with it. The congresscritters know that they'll be retired or dead so they won't have to deal with the consequences of their actions. And the debt rises. It's great that Trump is giving us a break on income taxes, but the debt still grows. In a bid to appeal to our lack of thought, they're referring to the tax cut as 'costing billions'. Well, no, it doesn't cost anything. It's just less money appropriated from the fruits of our labor.

Sometimes republicans sound vaguely libertarian. They claim to be for small government and less spending. Look around you... is government getting smaller? Are we spending less? Are we revving up for more war? (no, no, yes). What would be wrong with pulling our troops out of most, if not all countries? Cutting the size and cost of government (starting with Dept of Homeland Security). Seriously reducing the debt. Not subsidizing Big Pharma. No more billions in foreign aid.

Don't get me started on the Federal Reserve (oops, too late. I've already gotten myself started). The Federal Reserve is not Federal, nor a Reserve. It is a bunch of private banks that lend money to the US with interest. Somebody's making an unbelievable amount of money on interest and it's not the country. Again, don't take my word for it- do the research. None of this is a secret.

• I have an idea (uh-oh).  For some reason, I wanted to run it by you before letting it loose. I had the moral obligation to go to a birthday party for a child the other night. I know that nothing I do, including chewing my own limbs off (trust me, I tried), will get me out of this duty. It's not so much the children themselves or their appearance... it's their NOISE. If they could come over and not be heard, I'd be better with it (better, but still won't want to go). 
• So as the kids arrive, we explain to them that there's a noise limit. As we're explaining that there will be NO SHOUTING, we're affixing a collar to them. As soon as they go over the limit, the shock collar will let them know. Then they can go back to being the quiet little angels you knew they had inside them.  They say it's safe for dogs with the electric fence system - why not kids? Then the adults will always show up and stay to help clean, amazed that the children are so well-behaved. And quiet.
• Will this one take the market by storm, or shall I budget for legal expenses first?

Let Us Not Keep Up With the Joneses

Bob got married... it happens to the best of us.
He and his bride moved into a really nice place, north of San Francisco.
Being the gregarious sort, he met the Joneses, an older married couple who lived across the street. They became fast friends, despite their difference in age.

Marriage took its natural course and Bob got divorced. As with all divorces, he had to forsake his nice place and find somewhere else to live. I visited Bob, and they'd have to pry me loose from that house. It wasn't particularly large, it wasn't a particularly wonderful or bad neighborhood, but it was a great place.
Being California (or the southwest), people had garages and used them for parking cars, due to damage from direct sunlight. I don't have that worry.

Bob moved closer to work, but kept in touch with the Joneses on a frequent basis.  One cloudy day, Mrs. Jones left, on what one would call a permanent basis. Bob worried for his friend, and how he'd get along. He needn't have worried - Mr. Jones picked right up and continued living, for himself, as there was no family to insist upon it.  Bob drove to see Mr. Jones frequently, roughly an hour in each direction. In California, an hour means you're trying to drive to the next exit on the freeway.

Mr Jones became well known to Bob's family. Even Bob's mother would call out there to chat. They all knew each other. Somehow. Jones did what most people his age do; he kept getting older. He passed ninety, full of health and even some energy.

In casual conversation with Bob, he mentioned coming into into some money recently.  That's nice, if you can do it. Good on him. Because I don't talk to Bob as often as I should, I hadn't heard about his windfall.

"Didn't I tell you?" Bob asked. "It's my inheritance from Jones' will."

Note to British Porn Watchers

This is for our British readers (we don't have any - I just like saying it): the Queen has rubberstamped legislation requiring sites to age-verify. If this is not done, and payment providers and third parties will be required to intervene. If this fails, the site can be cut off, even though it's perfectly legal to view it. And speaking of perfectly legal, there will be censorship of 'extreme sex acts'.

Of course there are a whole bunch of improvements listed (it's for the children). Short story: watch your porn through a VPN. Less short story: more intrusive government, in the name of improvement and safety, can watch you watching porn. This is an early volley into controlling what you can see. England should be up in arms, although it's probably wrapped up in something the royals are wearing or the Department of Silly Hats, measuring one of the more fashionable chapeaus, which can range from six to sixty feet tall. You can tell this is a serious item, because the British are my favorite people. I may well be a Brit in the body of an American (trans-continental?).

Oh yeah, there will be social media fines for Terror Content also.

• Something is up again, as in more of the Shadow Broker releases of NSA weapons. Microsoft is releasing a second set of updates for Windows XP, an incredibly long-dead version, as well as Server 2003, a somewhat less-dead version. Regardless, if you run any version of Windows (or anything else), keep up to date. This is not a suggestion.

Someone brought to my attention that this blog has no cat gifs or blinky graphics. That is all.

• Why are lunatics shooting government officials? There has been a lot of noise made about the violent rhetoric of the left, and some of it is disgraceful, but we cannot blame words, as the right claims. This is the result of action by an unstable human, unable to tell right from wrong and clearly a danger to others. This alone is grounds for involuntary commitment (a topic close to my heart).
• After his name was released, the Internet Detectives went into action and located his Faceyspaces page, complete with all sorts of organizations and 'radical' comments. He was a Bernie supporter. It's amazing that, with all this information in the open, he still went right ahead and shot. FB is the front page of the NSA, fer chrissake. Yes, omnipresent government surveillance will keep us all safe.
• The representative's ten year old son was present at the game.
• The local news is running a segment on how to apply a tourniquet. Local news viewers are always so well-prepared.

in China, Kentucky Fried Chicken is using facial recognition software to predict what the customer will order. It is doing so with the Baidu search engine, the Chinese Google. It's faulty, it's privacy invasive, and it's being rolled out to 5,000 restaurants now. They should post pictures and shame everyone who eats there.. maybe a little blackmail as a new earnings strategy.

• We were behind someone in a BMW the other day. While cutting off another driver, he used his turn signal. No, really! Then out of the blue, he used it again to make a turn. He must've been going to the Happy Place. If the police caught him, it would be a beating for sure.

Another van-related incident in London, this time an anti-Muslim attack. A reportedly drunk man ran down some Muslims, on the way out of mosque. This is unacceptable. Common sense laws must be enacted to battle this sort of thing. Did you know anyone can walk into a dealership and leave with a van? In addition, there will obviously be calls for censorship of the internet, banning encryption, and more cameras, perhaps in everyone's houses.

• Happy Fathers Day to all who fit the profile. Marshall looked up at me and wished me one. I also get a lot of points for not reproducing. It fills my heart with joy when I realize what I haven't unleashed on the world.

Apparently some of us were wrong all along: it was not the Russians hacking the election, it was the Moroccans! They attempted to hijack the election via phishing emails at a school and although they were able to deface a website, they failed Hijacking 101. So the next time someone says Russia did it, you can tell them with authority that it was the Moroccans. Mo Rocca not available for comment.

• This is week two of my brand new auto glass, courtesy of Safelite. A bird pooped on it so I had him shot, but Safelite gets an A and a hearty recommendation.

If you use Firefox, make sure the new speed feature is enabled. If you don't use Firefox, pretend you never read this.

• On social media, you have these 'experts' popping up and referring to themselves as Social Media Influencers. Or Social Media Thought Leaders. What a ridiculous set of titles. Because of the way they want to be my friend and follower, my new title is Social Media Influencer Attractor. But wait - we also have the foodies and travel bloggers. Yes, you can now spend your valuable time (stick with me on this) watching others eat and vacation! We live in great times.

Marshall further enhanced my Fathers Day by 'processing' some paperwork for me. Apparently in Pet World, anything on the floor is fair game, so that stack of neatly-arranged paper to file of shred becomes a former pile of widely-spread papers, sometimes shredded, for good measure. This week's special modification involves water.  The neat pile will sit there, minding its own business, when Marshall appears, soaked from head to tail from a dip in his pool. He positions himself right over the pile and plops right down on top of it. At some point in the future, I will wonder why all my paperwork is brown and/or was waterlogged in the past.

Since the weather has been ridiculously bad lately, Marshall's pool hasn't seen a lot of action. Not to be outdone, he will walk to his water bowl, drink a bit, then proceed to take a paw and paw at the water until most of it is on the floor outside of his bowl. Everybody's a critic. Then he comes over to the paperwork and continues the important task of wetting every piece of paper I own.

Normal people, who don't have blogs, might simply decide not to leave paper on the floor. In this house, we have the organizational skills of a room full of five year olds, so this is not even a remote possibility.

Where's That #**#@ Phone???

Marshall the Wonder Cocker is on way too much medicine. One of them evolved nicely to something that looks like a Rolo, which is beef-flavored so the dog will eat it. Except my dog, who won't have anything to do with it. Perhaps if it were cat food flavored.  The medicine issue was quickly solved with cold cuts, specifically turkey. He ate it right up. Right up until the point when he stopped. We switched to ham, which he really loved. This worked for damn near two weeks; a record. Then he stopped liking the ham. This week it's cheese. He loves him some cheese.  In fact, when he follows me into the kitchen and the refrigerator door opens, he gets all excited. He snarfed up his meds, wrapped in cheese, for damn near a week. Damn near. Evolving, his new trick is to take the cheese/pill bundle, chew to see if there's anything that doesn't belong, and spits it on the floor. If there's something he'd rather not eat, it stays on the floor, while the cheese gets consumed. To make matters more interesting, he has ear drops. He now recognizes the bottle and goes running the moment he sees it. It's a bitch when your pet is smarter than you.

UPDATE: not sure if I should feel better about this, but my very smart child is now laying outside, in the rain, on the steps, sleeping.

--------------------------------------------------

Encrypted messaging app WhatsApp has at least one very serious security flaw. that will let a third party listen to your FB voice messages. I mention this because I don't use it, but someone who reads this might. The flaw will allow WhatsApp, or more likely, the government, to eavesdrop on your messages. Your secure messages. Security Guru Bruce Schneier says it's not technically a flaw so much as a design decision. Regardless of which you consider this, I'd drop the app and move to Signal. And drop FB, of course.

• Censorship of media, in the Old Days, came from the right, frequently the religious right. These days censorship comes from the left, frequently from the Social Justice Warriors, demanding things be thrown out because someone is or might be offended. This is unacceptable in either case. I may disagree with what you have to say, but I will fight for your right to say it. Please watch for it and keep the above words in mind. No one likes when the KKK marches but to not allow them to march is to not allow your child's sports team to march.

So hey, how about the Ukraine power grid problem? What problem? It got hacked. Then it got hacked again, both times cutting power to the area (the Pivichna substation). Officials believe the hacks were performed by the same entity. Most, if not all of us, do not live in Ukraine, but utility hacking is getting more prevalent and more successful. This is partially due to the utilities being hooked to the net in the first place. This is a no-no. It is also due to ancient technology hooking it up. There have been all sorts of hacks and alerts across the US. Recently, there were a number of tests across California. I can't tell you what's happening to combat hacking, but it had better be fast and it had better be effective.  You know what will happen, though....

• A US judge just ruled that because Sony 'monitors' you on the PS3, you have a reduced expectation of privacy on info stored on the PS3. Not only do some of these devices monitor you via mic and/or camera, the data they store is open to the court system (or anyone else who can get at it, of course).  It's a fine time to own a gaming console (that's hooked up to your smart tv, which also watches you, then transmits the data up the line). 1984 all over again.

A United Airlines passenger has been arrested for a bomb threat. The budding Einstein tells the flight crew he found a note in the bathroom, saying not to land or the plane will blow up. When the crew asked him to write an account, they noticed that his handwriting looked awfully similar to the bomb note. The plane did land and failed to explode. The passenger will upgrade his living facilities for ten years to the federal pen and pay a fine of up to $250,000. That's some expensive practical joke there. Maybe he can send a note to the warden that the prison will explode if it doesn't let the inmates out. In his own handwriting, of course.

• The NYPD has said that if Trump enacts any legislation targeting Muslims, they will ignore it. Furthermore, the NYPD has a chaplain. Read that again. Why does a police department require a chaplain? Next thing you know they'll be in DMV offices and churches.

Talentless donut-licker and BDSM sexpot who complains about being objectified, Ariana Grande, has done it again: she has proclaimed herself the hardest working 23 year old girl in the world. Factory slaves in third-world countries, working for 25 cents a day disagree, for some unknown reason. I have never been interested in Ms. Grande, but it looks like she has some real comedic potential.

• Musicians with iDevices - update Garage Band. There has been an update that includes a security fix. Not that any of us here use iDevices...

I've mentioned my problem with my wife's phone before. In truth, it's my problem, as my wife has absolutely no problem with it.  The phone rings at a volume roughly equivalent to a Who concert, which is the loudest concert on record; slightly above the roar of an airplane's jet engine. One of the reasons this is not my wife's problem is that the phone is always near me when it goes off, resulting in me finding myself hanging upside down from the ceiling, like a cat who just got spooked. This would be hilarious to anyone present, but my wife is never present when the phone erupts like Mt Vesuvius.

Phone Eruptions are almost as amusing when someone is sleeping and doesn't hear it because it's on a different floor. So the phone rings, I wind up on the ceiling, and Wife sleeps right through it. Because why interrupt your snoozing when you can have your phone remotely annoy (and terrify) your spouse? Much as I've complained about it, and I have complained about it much, the ringer volume and location do not change, almost as if on purpose. This may or may not have something to do with Marital Dynamics.

In a nod to compromise, she sometimes takes the phone with her but puts it in Airplane Mode, which essentially shuts the phone off. Now she won't be disturbed and I won't leave claw marks in the ceiling, as it should be. Of course this strategy fails 100% of the time when I'm out of the house and need to get in touch with her. Fortunately I barely leave the couch. Currently I'm going for my Agorophobic Certificate. So I tell Wife to just shut off the ringer and allow certain numbers through.

Because she has very little continuity, my wife puts stuff down and immediately forgets where it is. This is usually a Guy Thing, but not in this case. Putting things down invariably will involve searching for things later. Frequently it's the phone. This used to involve tearing up areas in which we think the phone may be located. Getting smart, we used the landline. It is said that house phones are only used to locate cell phones these days. It is correct.

The other day I notice that Wife has the house phone in hand, calling her cell phone to locate it. I ask where she thinks it is because we don't hear it ringing. It turns out my wife outsmarted herself by turning off the ringer so it wouldn't disturb her, just like I said. It also will not ring when she calls it with the house phone. Why? Because I said to turn the ringer off and because she didn't hear me say to allow some numbers through (like the house phone).

It's not that I don't love my small, special little family - I do. But....

Johnny, what do you make of this?

Celebrate American Censorship Day

Americancensorship.org is the go-to destination today.  Help celebrate(?) the day.

Congress is working on creating the Great Firewall of America.  Pretty soon clicking on a link will make you a criminal.



Contact your congresscritter today.