National Breast Awareness Month

Penny got her first(?) whipped cream, which she enjoyed immensely. Marshall inaugurated this, by being in the car when ice drinks were bought for home consumption. He'd put his nose right through the hole in the top and consume the whipped cream (and drink if he could get to it). Penny also went nose-down and managed to get some of the drink too. Thus far, the only thing she doesn't like is actual lemon, which seems universal for pets. She has also discovered that it's best to sit under Mommy, who tends to drop stuff. She now guards the floor from dropped food. She also guards the bed from me getting comfortable.

Hours after typing the above, I got a call from Mrs leftystrat, who's visiting and took her new child with her. As you see in the commercials and real life, she loves to put her head out the window, flaps flying in the breeze. Mrs noted it getting windy, looked over, and saw Penny lowering the window. Twice. She had discovered the button, then discovered it doesn't work when it gets locked. So she flew across the floor to get a view from a different window. Another smart one. Several of us are apparently going to dog training class soon.

• I love this stuff... an employee at the US Geological Service (USQLK) managed to infect a government network with Russian malware, via visiting porn sites. An investigation turned up 9,000 visits. 
• 'Legit porn sites' are businesses. They can't afford to have malware.
• 9,000 visits, not broken down by site. How can a person do their job and visit 9,000 sites? Your tax dollars at work.
• You'd think government networks would be heavily protected, especially with a block on porn sites. Network security devices can protect against this, regardless of whether it's porn or anything else.
• Even if the network didn't protect itself, they could probably tell there was an issue by the guy having one arm much larger than the other.
• 9,000 visits. What kind of rocks require 9,000 visits?

I'll be honest.. I haven't spent much time on cryptocurrency, other than the basics and news. Yes, it's done wonders for some early adopters. Yes, the government hasn't gotten its paws on cryptocurrency yet. But there are downsides, as mentioned in this article. A number of exchanges have been hacked, leaking millions of dollars, if not more. There have also been complete scams, where a hack is claimed, then the owner(s) closes up shop and leaves town. This is why I don't spend much time or money there.

You might be shocked to hear me type this, but if the government DID get its paws on cryptocurrency, as they did with banks, things would have ended very differently.. the exchange owners would cry poverty, prompting the government to bail the poor billionaires out with taxpayer money.

• After all these years, I finally made it. I have a remote control for my fan. 
• Sometimes you don't know what you've got til you look back on it.

The very funny, crossdressing comic, Eddie Izzard, just did a commercial for some charity for either starving children or democrats who believe in gun ownership. I get the appeal of a celebrity, but how seriously are you going to take a comic, no less one wearing lipstick?

Speaking of Halloween (and charity), we're in the season. Or at least we were when I typed this. I find the best way to survive Halloween involves candy, booze, and something that fires projectiles. I eat the candy, of course.

Speaking of charity, I saw an appeal from UNICEF, one of the best known groups. Speaking of Halloween (don't you love how I tie this shit together?), a long time ago, there was an effort to collect money for UNICEF, via children going out on Halloween collecting coins instead of candy. Now tell me what children you know who would forego candy for anything at all, no less charity? And even if they did (children are basically good... well.. most of them), then give the money over to charity? This is the fruit of their labor. Actually this is training for growing up and getting a job.

And here we are, in 2018, with UNICEF still in full action, collecting money, except now on tv.  I have had enough jobs to know that if I was still trying to accomplish my single goal after 40 years, I'd not only be fired, but I'd be fired long before 40 years (even in government service). Think about this for a minute.... same charity, same starving children, same parts of the world. Is there possibly some inefficiency? Have they failed to make a dent in the problem? Does their upper manglement receive $2 billion Halloween bonuses? Are they running the countries they're shilling for? Has the IRS checked for vacation homes in sunny climates? Child running? Solid gold utensils and toilets? Lighting spliffs with $100 bills?

Let's give them the benefit of doubt... say they're totally above board, but the countries with the starving children are run by tyrants who intercept aid and distribute it to their friends and paying for concerts by Bono.

Q. How many Bonos does it take to change a light bulb?

A. One. He stands there with the bulb and the world revolves around him.

Again, after over 40 years, they still haven't fixed the problem, not to mention the starving children having to sit through a Bono concert.

The only other way to deal with this would be the US invading. Unfortunately this won't happen because they have no native drugs (like..say... Afghanistan) or fossil fuels (like.. say.. the Middle East). They don't even have enough weapons to make it worth an extended stay and $4 billion in new bases. How will we feed Halliburton? And BOOM - we're back to UNICEF.

• Parsnips? They should be illegal. There's no reason any law abiding citizen needs parsnips.

You're probably wondering what the ticket agency has recommended for me this week. If you are, you have great psychic abilities (or are in the mood for a little self abuse). Let's start with KISS. Better yet, let's not.  Ariana Grande, perhaps? No, perhaps. Dan + Shay? Who is Dan + Shay? Gordon Lightfoot! Isn't he dead? No, the Canuckian decided to do a solo tour for the first time in 78 years. If you could read my mind, love... you wouldn't want to. On the positive side, it's at the Hershey Theatre. You can go, avoid the concert, and gorge on chocolate! Hanson String Theory. I know there's a Hanson and a String Theory. There's no way they joined together. It would have caused major disturbances in the time-space continuum. Edie Brickell & New Bohemians. No one has heard from Mrs Paul Simon in decades. You can tell she's serious because there's no 'the' before New Bohemians. New Kids on the Block? This is everything about childhood we hated, coming back to bite us in the groin. Again.

Out of the 15 shows promoted, they managed to get one right, overcoming great odds. Generation Axe, featuring Steve Vai (Zappa, David Lee Roth, Whitesnake, solo), Zakk Wylde (Ozzy, Black Label, solo), Yngwie Malmsteen (God himself), Nuno Bettencourt (Extreme), and Tosin Abasi (Animals as Leaders). I saw them last time and it was Christmas for guitar players. I have a great picture of Zakk playing about 15 feet from me. How many readers divided by how many play guitar.. I will be sending (bear with me a minute) ...approximately zero people to the concert.

• I just got a new, expensive vintage left handed guitar. I'm stunned.
• No, wait, what's that other word.... I really want a new, expensive vintage left handed guitar. Sorry.

The Fifth Amendment protects against self-incrimination ("I'll take the Fifth"). Sometimes this merges with the Fourth Amendment (search and seizure). In a recent court case, the owner of an iPhone was ordered to give up the passcode, so the prosecutor could get at the evidence in his phone. This issue has been banging around the courts for a while: giving up your PIN is a violation of the Fifth Amendment. The legal wrangling and technicalities are very interesting (to me) and it might be a good idea to take a look. It never hurts to be up on individual rights.

• This shouldn't come as too big a surprise, but 90% of free apps on Google Play Store share data with Google parent Alphabet.
• Nearly 43% share data with Facebook  - this is interesting, given my direct observation that nearly every android app calls FB the moment it comes up.

In the five months since GDPR came into effect, I finally figured out what's going on. Europe, or some of the people living in Europe (I'm easily confused) got mad about sites not being transparent about stealing your information, so they put up the draconian law stating that sites had to let you know what was going on. This met with incredible resistance, with some companies pulling the European versions of their web pages. They claimed it was to comply with the GDPR, but in reality they were pissed. No one had ever demanded they be honest before and there was no internal procedure to deal with it.

A compromise was reached, resulting in those horribly annoying popups about accepting cookies before looking at the page. So they can continue to screw you, but they have to announce it first.

• So about Faceyspaces getting rid of those foreign fake political ads.... Lord Zuckerburg said measures were being put in place to stop additional accounts. OOPS, it seems the alleged measures have failed. Vice News and Business Insider applied to buy ads, with all sorts of funny business, like 'paid for by 100 senators' and using the same text as ads that were banned. Each ad was approved.
• One can safely assume Lord Vader Zuckerburg is not amused. I would not want to be the employee blamed for this. The beatings are going to be particularly harsh, compared to the regular beatings.

I just saw an alert that a local high school has been locked down by the police. But there are no known threats. Obviously the police are just doing surprise visits to check for no known threats (and to cause parents to lose bowel control).

POLICE: knock knock

SCHOOL: yes?

POLICE: Police!

SCHOOL: what do you want?

POLICE: We've come to inspect the place.

SCHOOL: why? have there been threats?

POLICE: No, not at all. We're just here to really upset people. No threats, though.

SCHOOL: are you sure? Last week, the bomb squad came by to make sure there were still no bombs here. We caught them 'monitoring' the girls' showers.

POLICE: Oh no, no, no, nothing like that. Not at all. We're just doing random drills to cause panic, so we can practice saying "DON'T PANIC!" And to announce that there are no known threats.

SCHOOL: Ok. Well, come in then.

Moments later I heard the subject they were not looking for because there were no known threats had been detained and had 'it'. 'It' turned out to be a gun.

After briefly monitoring the situation for six hours or so, I think I have the factual sequence of events... I'm like some sort of unwell private dick... errr... reporter.

Hello, Police Tip Line..

Is this the police tip line?

Isn't that what I just said?

Did you say something?

I did.

No you didn't.

I most certainly did.

I have a tip.

Thank you for calling with a tip. I DID say that earlier.

You're lying.

We're the police - we NEVER lie!

You did. Just then.

Did you say you had a tip?

I don't want to talk about a tip now. You lied to me.

-- ten minutes later --

So I have a tip for you.

Good thing. This IS the tip line.

There's some kid.

Ok.

He's going to school.

Yes, that's rather serious.

No, he's going to school with a weapon.

WEAPON? Why didn't you SAY weapon?

I just did.

What kind of weapon.

A rocket launcher.

Rocket launcher?

Yes, a rocket launcher. Why do you repeat everything I say?

Are you saying I repeat everything you say?

You just did. Right there.

No I didn't.

Are you going to do anything about this rocket launcher the kid is bringing to school?

Yes sir, we're going to call every student in, plus their parents and the weekend staff (and their mothers). 

Why?

Higher body count. Works great in the news the next day. We get more funding.

-- ten minutes later, Lieutenant's office --

Sir, we have a creditable threat.

No you don't.

Yes sir, we do. I just got a tip... a student is bringing a rocket launcher to school.

This is horrible. Rocket launchers can be folded up and carried in pants, or up butts. Something must be done.

Yes sir, that's why I came to you.

Oh, is that MY job?

I believe so, sir.

Right... send SWAT, the dog team, the bomb squad, the drug lab, and the guys who wash the Special Neighborhood Police Tanks, wouldja? I want a detailed search of everyone in that building for a rocket launcher. Check a lot of pants. And make sure to get a good look at the girls' showers: SWAT didn't finish their last reconnaissance. Something might have changed. And put out a statement to the press.

Yes, sir.

Members of the press: SWAT and the bomb squad are doing random checks at a high school today - nothing to worry about. No credible evidence that there is a threat. 

What are you looking for?

Oh, nothing in particular.

Who made the threat?

No, there is no credible threat.

How do you know then?

It came over the tip line.

So there IS a credible threat.

No, we're just doing a surprise inspection to make sure there continues to be no credible threat. You can't be too careful, can you.

So in brief, an entire department is going to lock down an entire school to make sure there's no credible threat.

Exactly.

 --  Press Conference, 6 hours later  --

Members of the press: thank you for coming. We'd like to announce that SWAT, the bomb squad, the drug lab, and the guys who wash the Special Neighborhood Police Tanks visited a high school today and put it on lockdown. 

Why is this?

No particular reason.

Was there any credible threat?

None at all.

What did you find?

Nothing at all. Just a small, foldable rocket launcher. Nothing to be concerned about.

How long was the lockdown?

Not long - about six hours.

Where was the rocket launcher?

Uhhhh... in two people.

IN two people?

Yes. 

Are you aware there are midterm tests today?

No more questions, please.

The Case of the Materializing Hair

I found a hair.

Woody Allen starts his hysterical routine about a moose this way: 
"I shot a moose."


I carried my laptop from the office to the living room. A few minutes later, there was a hair on it. Normally this wouldn't be an issue, as the people and the (former) pets had lots of it. There are no more pets but there is obviously still hair. Also, I cannot rule out that an elephant has been through the place, dropping off one small hair on my laptop, just because I didn't see it.

Upon examination, the hair was not human in origin. How do I know this? Technically I don't, but I've seen enough hair (usually in the vacuum) to tell the difference. As yet, I haven't been called to testify in court as an Expert Hair Witness. This is a shame, as they get the Big Bucks.

How does one describe a hair? I might as well sing an aria about avoiding super glue as a lubricant to a deaf person.

Ok, maybe not that bad....
Human hair is round, more or less. This was flat. Very flat. Calista Flockhart flat. It also had a pointed tip, like a sword, in case its owner needed to defend himself with a pointed hair. Down at the bottom, it had a lot of little 'spikes' or feathering. It was stiff. On this basis, I assume it isn't human. As it is not currently attached to its former owner, I'm at a bit of a loss. I'm also at a bit of a loss as to how it got there. It doesn't look particularly aerodynamic and seems like it wouldn't be blown around like a human hair. I've never seen one before, and hair doesn't usually materialize on my laptop unless it comes directly from me. If this came from me, it wasn't there when I moved the laptop.

Since this is a completely minor and bizarre matter, I needed to follow it up post haste, using all of my attention (such as it is) and whatever resources I could bring to bear on the matter. I got my top people on it, with emails going right out to The President's Committee on Hair Identification, as well as England's Ministry of Hair That Feathers a Bit Near the Bottom. While I waited for inspiration and emails, I did what most humans on the planet do: no, not nap.. I went to the internet.

What kind of query do you put into a search engine for hair? The results are not going to be pretty regardless. I used "hair identification," which provided 1,237 links to finding out what type of hair you have on your head, so you can style and care for it properly. Later today, I'll start seeing ads for hair care products while I surf, and wonder why.

One interesting link was how to figure out whether it's human or animal.
This turned out to be a scholarly discussion on putting the found hair next to a known people or animal hair and seeing if it looks the same. If I say I already thought about this, will I be eligible for a Nobel Prize?

The next link had some real promise: it was from the FBI's Forensic Science Communications, entitled Microscopy of Hair Part II: A Practical Guide and Manual for Animal Hairs. You can tell this is reliable information because it has a lot of words in the title, even though the largest word only has four syllables. They start by examining hairs under a microscope, noting cells, and comparing. Nowhere does it mention shape or deal with the hair outside the cells. This is Real Science<tm> and I'm excited that I'll find an answer, even if the Ministry of Hair That Feathers a Bit Near the Bottom fails to get back to me.

Astute observers will astutely observe that I do not have a microscope. I have a telescope, which is close, right? Same basic principle... it makes things bigger... Since the telescope will require the assistance of a Telescope Detector and a dump truck to find, I continued on. There's a small bit on what could be feathering, but naturally is called coronal scales or spinous scales. I think this is a dead end, as the picture of the Free-Tailed Bat hair didn't bear any resemblance.  Nor did mink, ginger, or ovoid bodies in cattle/human/canine hair. Fortunately the next section, "Animal Versus Human Hairs" held promise.

Animal hairs are grouped into three different types (guard, wool, tactile, and nose) but all any pet owner knows is the type that fouls the vacuum, requiring small scissors and an intricate surgery that run 37 minutes.

I'm going to seriously foul up Real Science<tm> here and assume that it did not belong to the groups covered, those being Deer Family and Antelope, White Tailed and Mule deer, Caribou, and Woody Allen's Moose. Also out were rabbit, seal, mink, muskrat, chinchilla, raccoon, and red fox (although I loved him in Sanford and Son). To be honest, the closest I saw was beaver. There are no beaver in the area because Beaver College had to change its name. When you went to look it up online, 'beaver' produced all kinds of interesting results. Ruling out these results contaminates the science. Who says a giraffe didn't walk past the laptop and deposit the hair in question? It's a possibility, as the living room ceiling is higher than the office.

The article concludes with three items, which I will paraphrase:

1. if the questionable hair looks like a known hair, you can conclude that it looks like your known hair
2. If the questionable hair doesn't look like a known hair, you can't say it's the same species as the known hair (unless it came from a Kardashian).
3. if the questionable hair looks like a known hair in some places but doesn't in other places, it can possibly be from Kanye, which is as close to a Kardashian as you'd ever care to be.

To no one's surprise, the FBI was of no help at all.

I did learn that it's best not to blow dry my type of hair and that you can wholesale human hair from China. Body parts too, as I hear it.

An article called Alopecia: Types of Hair Loss and How to Identify Them was also of no assistance. Just change the name to MY FUCKING HAIR'S FALLING OUT!!!  

Not sure How to tell if Brazilian hair is real is helpful either, but I'll check with my Portuguese friend (Brazil speaks Portuguese, so their hair is related).

What have we learned?

1. Nothing
2. some investigations should not be performed at work
3. when Mom drops off some fresh chocolate buttercream icing, it's best to wait until it gets close to room temperature before shoveling the entire vat into my mouth
4. I shouldn't display such enthusiasm for bizarre events
5. for the sake of my readers, I shouldn't write about my enthusiasm.
6. Whether it's animal hair or those little bugs you found on your mattress, do the same thing: put it in a sealed container for the professionals to identify. You don't have time in your life for this shit.

• Rushing to take control, under pretext of censorship, the British banned internet porn for children. Yeah, right.. it turns out that millions of porn videos are exempt via their own regulations. But let's face it - this isn't just about porn. They're keeping the UK safe. From what, we're not sure... why not terrorism? If people see porn, the terrorists win.

The amount of cell phone tracking is draconian - we can all agree. Google and Apple, bless them, will let you know what they know about you. For Google, log into your account. For Apple, go to their 'privacy portal'. They got their naming conventions from DC (Patriot Act anyone?).

• This week's best headline: "What if Hitler had Access to my Facebook Data"

A recent Supreme Court case may have serious implications for Google, Twitter, YouTube, and other social media.  The case will decide if a private operator of a public access network can be government-regulated.

I'm no Constitutional scholar, but that never stopped me before...

Although the case is more intricate, this could get ugly. For example, the First Amendment states that the government may not regulate speech or establish religion.... it does not apply to private businesses. As it stands, Faceyspaces, Google, etc, are not government businesses - they're private, hence are not subject to this amendment. That's how it is, according to #1A. The case wants to allow regulation by declaring these companies 'state actors'. In other words, they want to add (these) private companies to their loophole. Tricky.

Speaking not as a libertarian, I'd love to see these companies forced to eat their own crap. Let's face it: if I say things these companies don't agree with, I'm out the door too, although not as fast as the right. To be clear, censorship shouldn't travel in any direction. But according to the Constitution, they can't be controlled right now, so that's the way we have to go. Using the courts to decide is also the way to go (provided they agree with my interpretation).

• Need to make some quick cash?  Tell Justin Bieber you'll give $1,000 to his favorite charity every time he says "I dig chicks with green hair." Then bet the National Star Enquirer five million that you can turn tens of thousands of kids' hair green overnight, without saying or doing a single thing (plus a signed Bieber 8x10 to their favorite charity).

New Yorkers: you're famous for your rulers (NYPD) obtaining serious technology to use on you. proposed is the POST Act, which will force transparency. Keep in mind that right now, shotgun microphones, video surveillance, face recognition and automatic license plate readers are in place (and that's the stuff we know about). Do you feel protected now? Do you feel surveilled everywhere but your shower? Get with your reps and urge them to support POST. Naturally the act has no teeth, but it's a start.