Mohammad Visits the DMV

 

Your love is like  extra math classes

Driverless cars could force other road users to drive more efficiently

also more carefully, because they don't want the driverless cars to hit them...

Today I identify as  25 year old classic dust

• Headbutts hurt the brain, even for a musk ox
• Who could have seen this coming? 
• NFL chooses to ignore, lawyers celebrate

New Zoom Flaws Could Let Attackers Hack Victims Just by Sending them a Message

Stop using Zoom - it's a piece of donkey dung. There are many alternatives, some secure. Try Wire.

Flying AIDS News 

Kids 5 to 11 get FDA OK for COVID-19 booster doses

Top Biden health officials sound warning on rising coronavirus infections

What the public wants in COVID news vs. what the press provides

Pfizer warns of “constant waves” of Covid as complacency grows

Pfizer says 3-dose COVID vaccine for under 5s produces strong immune response

trials begin in-the-womb 

Monkeypox cases investigated in Europe, US, Canada and Australia

Somebody wake Fauci - we need another PANIC!!!

Sixth child in US dies of unexplained hepatitis as global cases top 600

Don't worry - Pfizer's already on it 

The Biden administration announced it is sending $24 billion to Ukraine this week and more next week. When asked how it's going to pay for that, Biden brought up his new Bathroom Tax. Whenever you go to the bathroom, you pay a tax on it. To be fair to lower wage earners, the tax will be a flat fee of $5. So if you go four times a day, just mail $20 to Good Ole Joe, c/o White House, DC.

Little Feat's Waiting for Columbus, their 1978 live album, is being released, with a whole bunch of new shows added. With or without the extra material and tweaking, Waiting for Columbus is a great live album. The latest version of Little Feat is missing 3 (dead) numbers and I'm not too sure I want to listen to this version. But buy the album - if you aren't up and playing invisible percussion, you are probably deceased.

I notice it almost daily: all emails must be on one topic only. If you send an email like this:

1. I need your hours

2. I'm going to touch your wife inappropriately

Response:  40

People don't read or can't deal with more than one thing at a time. 

1. hey - nice shirt today!

2. the boss wants to see you before you leave. He's pissed.

Response: Thanks! I got it a long time ago.

Try it.

The Continuing Saga of Mowing 

It never stops. 

The rain.

And because the rain never stops, the grass weeds continue to grow.

And because the weeds continue to grow, I have to mow them.

And I have PTSD because a lawn mower did something to me when I was little. Or something. I hate mowing. And grass.

We have an electric mower that has done a great job for years. And now the battery is not taking a charge. No problem, go to the manufacturer's site and find it. Oops. Can't find.

Look elsewhere. Can't find. Because when you search for a battery, all you get is battery chargers. Even using the part number.

Back to the manufacturer and there it is: only $85. Out of stock and discontinued.

So to pile on the aggravation, we need a new mower. The similar ones start at $300 and ramp up rapidly. I paid less for cars than some of these mowers. It just has to cut the grass.. I'm not looking for Bluetooth, baggers, body-shredders, or DNA cleaning. The idea of self-mowers is good, but it would just try to mow then commit suicide (like the dehumidifiers).

When we visited Arizona, many of the 'lawns' were dirt and rocks. I fell in love. I wanted to concrete the rear, but was officially told no. Something about being harder to find the bodies, but I stopped listening after No. If you watch the grass and concentrate, you can see it fscking grow. The dead mower is sitting there and you can watch the grass growing past it and trying to eat the mower. The dog has to be watched because sometimes she disappears in the weeds.

Looking at goog maps and driving around the block, I notice there are a lot of houses. Therefore, a lot of homeowners. How do these people do it? Our house-buying experience was like falling down a recently-sharpened set of metal steps. Each one a deep wound and another problem. Our home ownership experience has been like the buying experience, with a couple more floors of steps added, just for fun. It would have been nice if one of the many homeowners on the planet would have told us something. Anything. Just a little tip. Stuff about mowing. Interest rates. Teaching the dog not to bark at the neighbors. Something.

My guitar fund is actually in negative numbers.

RIP Alan White, who played the drums on John Lennon's Imagine, as well as being a member of Yes, since 1972.

• If you want a fast, accurate market reading, ask a stripper
• it makes sense - read the article 

I don't know if it was a state thing or a federal thing or just plain old weather modification, but we only have two seasons; winter and summer.  We just went from the 50s to the 90s. Summer is upon us. It seems to be really late this year, like falling gas prices. $70 to fill the car. Given the choice, I'd take summer. I could deal with never wearing a coat.

We went out of state to a Mem

orial Day hamfest. As you no doubt remember, a hamfest is a flea market for radios, electronics, and Various Other Stuff<tm>.  We thought it would be mobbed, because people are springing forth from their state-mandated Flying AIDS lockdowns, but alas, it wasn't so great. The amount of crap being sold is always mesmerizing, as well as the sheer variety. Anything from ancient parts removed from ancient tube equipment to DVDs. Mrs. lefty loves DVDs like I love sleeping late. Really bad old movies. Really bad black and white old movies from before anyone was born. There was computer equipment too, but I gave up when the computer's sticker said WINDOWS XP (although linux would run fine).  It was more for the experience than the purchasing, although I've made some great purchases. We made our customary stop at Waffle House. You need to stop laughing when I say that. We don't have Waffle House anywhere near us. Their waffles are just like....  waffles. I think we go for the show. Which is definitely preferable to going for the coffee, which may be made using old, used  ashtrays. The internal children love it to death. I just want to warn you... if you have PTSD, you really shouldn't go in there. The screaming, plate smashing, and cooking noises are really too much and could trigger an episode in the most well-appearing veteran. It sent me right back to Nam, in a sweetened cereal paddy....

SO hamfest has no porcine relevance. Radio amateurs are 'hams'.

This is not to be confused with CBs, which are operated by loud inbreds, who feel the need to add echo to their radios. I don't want to paint with too broad a brush.. I'm only referring to 95% of them.

• According to Gene Simmons, Kiss are retiring out of pride and self-respect.
• Sorry Gene, that ship sailed over 20 years ago...

It was dark and the rain had been falling all day. Few were gathered at graveside to support the widow. After everyone got done lobbing stuff into the grave, they proceeded to the party. The main question on everybody's mind was what happened? 

Since it's not polite to ask this sort of thing of the widow, Mrs. lefty, people lined up to ask.

She looked at the small assemblage and said, "He walked into his office Monday, and everything just worked. He had a heart attack and died."

Lately it's been printers, although it's not limited to them. Since we only print once a month or less, issues aren't common. One would think you plug the printer's USB into the laptop and hit PRINT. But you silly mortals don't understand the finer points of operating computers, networks, and printers.

1. Turn on the printer: this is where it can all go wrong immediately.
2. Plug in the printer cable: it's hard for even my coworkers to mess this up
3. Hit PRINT
4. Wait for an error. There's always an error.

In order to keep printer prices low, manufacturers build in the Intermittent Invisible Fault option. When this activates, you can plug it in, reboot the pc, reboot the printer, and hang upside down from the ceiling, but it's not going to work. If you're a Level 11 Masochist, you may call Support, which cannot even begin to diagnose the problem because it's intermittent and won't act up for them.

If you've plugged in more than 3 printers, you tell the computer to print a test page. This will fail miserably. This morning the error was "Out of Paper."  Folks, even our president could tell there was paper in the printer, but I tried to look perfesshionel and reseated the paper. I even added more paper to confuse things. Of course the printer won: it had PRE-confused things.

Then you bring up the printer queue. This tells you what the printer has to print, if it hasn't already. So I printed a test page, watched it zip through the queue and completely failed to print. So as far as the computer was concerned, the printer printed. This means the printer is stupid. But how can the printer be stupid if it deliberately fails to print? The only one upset here is me.

It is at this point that you need to go back to #2: Plug in the printer cable. I can't tell you how many times this has saved me hours of work.

It's not like there's any particular brand of printer I have problems with, although I prefer HP because they play well with linux. Perhaps the printer is female and throws up errors because I don't pay enough attention to it. I don't care: there's a female wife and a female dog in the house... I don't need any additional agita.

The printer itself is located out of the way, so it doesn't produce more clutter, making it very difficult to launch across the room or the house. Perhaps I can get the dog to bark at it.

The only sensible action is to state "I ask too much" and go on to something else. Cuz you know the thing will start spitting out pages at 4 tomorrow morning.

The only acceptable for ThermionicEmissions Depp news: Johnny flew across the pond and appeared onstage with the one and only Jeff Beck, Thermionic's favorite guitar player and one of the world's best. But let's face it - Depp is not in Mr. Beck's league and doesn't really belong onstage with him. It's nice to have friends.

Hippos Wearing Tutus

The IRS has warned tax professionals to create data security plans.
This would have been a great thing for the cities that got hit with ransomware. Or just having good backups.

Which brings me to the same topic: You need a data security plan.

Let's simplify it a bit.. you at least need backups. Even if your phone stores your data In The Cloud, it's not enough - for the phone or anything else. There are many huge backup services In The Cloud that can back up your data automatically. I'm talking about your home computer/laptop(s), and phones. You want to have at least two backups, with at least one off premises. 

Create a scenario where there's a serious spike or brownout in your electricity, wreaking havoc on your home computer (s).  Even if your computers get blown up, you can buy new ones and reload your data from backups. If your data is In The Cloud, you can restore from there, but the data has been known to 'get lost', so your 2nd backup, perhaps burned to a CD at home, will restore.

If, heaven forbid, something happens to your house, a copy of your data In The Cloud or at a relative's house, or in a safety deposit box, will save your bacon. You can never be too careful with your data. You will instantly regret not doing this the first time your device dies.


Discovered on Reddit: malicious links leading to android ransomware. It's limited at this point, but could go wider. 

There is a new attack on driverless cars: a drone projects a stop sign or obstacle, so quickly you can't see it, but the car can. Because drones follow you.

Technically, Windows is an operating system, which means that it supplies your computer with the basic commands that it needs to suddenly, with no warming whatsoever, stop operating.  - Dave Barry

Dear lefty:

• I need more sex from my girlfriend of 2 months. Whenever I bring it up, she gets angry and we get nowhere. She used to be into it when we first met, but everything has gone to hell. I really love her and wonder what to do. What should I put on chocolate cake?
• Vanilla buttercream icing. To be authentic, just eat the icing. Cake is merely a delivery system for icing.

Hairy the Ginger Prince and Princess Megan announced they're only having two children, to help the planet.  Harry, Megan, do not fret. You're not that ugly or objectionable, so you won't be hurting the planet moreso.  Although influencing others not to breed might be worth it. On the other hand, if you're that worried about the planet, don't have any kids (you selfish royal, virtue-signalling bastards).

Meanwhile, Megan is reportedly looking at in-vitro fertilization.



I don't do sports, so the closest I get is the news:

• The ability to overlay ads on the field is appalling.
• How come female golfers don't look nearly as clownishly dressed as men?
• In the most recent election, the UK's Silly Party got 1% of the vote. This is usually an ugly sport, but it's so different from the US, where both parties are Silly.

Woodstock 50 will not happen. The celebration cash grab has had much trouble getting organized, with a financial backer pulling out early. With acts like Miley Cyrus and Jay Z, Jimi and Bill Graham were revolving in their graves.

• Watching the last few public appearances since the election, Boris "Cindy" Johnson's hair seems to have calmed down a bit. Rumor has it the Royal Lawnmower has gone tits up.

For some reason, known only to the Universe and Frank Zappa, I managed to get tickets to see ZZ Top. This was thwarted last time after trying 9 browsers and 3 operating systems. Customer service said to call the venue. The venue's hours make banks jealous. Using stripped down Chromium, I mostly succeeded. Except they told me the password was wrong. While resetting it, they told me I couldn't use an old password. Well if I couldn't use it, then it was correct in the first place, right? While waiting for the password reset, all the work I had done selecting the tickets was wiped out. When I got back in, those tickets were gone. I hate these companies with every fiber of my being. I hate the process. If every other site can be accessed by most browsers, why not Ticketmaster/Live Nation?

This is where it gets even more funner: there is a $17.50 'service fee', and a $5.00 'order processing fee' per ticket. Why do they do this? Because they can.

But wait - how would I like the tickets? Well, electronically on my phone would be fine. And halleleujah, free! Oh, too bad. They're not going to send me the actual emailed PDF files - it has to be viewed in their app. If they think I'm going to install their spyware on my phone, I suggest they hold their breath and wait for me. There are a number of other ridiculously-priced options. I finally had them mail the tickets to me, for $5.00. These people occupy the lowest rung of hell, just next to politicians and child molesters (redundant, I know).  By the time I'm done, there is the ticket price plus $20 per ticket in ridiculous fees.


Just for fun, I went to my state's drivers license site and found out one can renew a license online! Of course it took 3 browsers to find out one can't, because there's a certain time to do this and we're naturally outside of it. The 'solution' is to fill out a PDF. When the PDF comes up, one can check boxes, but not fill in text. This is about right for the state. So I have to download them, print them, fill them out, have them notarized, then mail them off. No problem, right?

Problem.

My $&#ing printer gave up the ghost a bit ago. My new printer. I don't have the time or desire to open it up and fix it, so I had to order a new one.  A certain huge electronics chain that I won't mention, but rhymes with Shmest Guy, has printers. Oops, the only ones in stock are the wrong kind, plus one that's twice what I want to spend. The site promises it can have the printer sent to the local store within a week, more or less (more). But they might consider shipping it to me, within a few days (depending on the weather and whether Mercury is in retrograde). So I have to get the printer, print forms, notarize, and send to the state. Then play America's Got No Talent til they get around to sending stuff back to me.

This is why I don't order online. Or leave the house. Or deal with the govt. Or consume diet anything.


UPDATE
After the successful ticket order, I made a successful printer order. They got it to me next day, I plugged it in and it worked perfectly. No drivers, nothing. We should play the lottery.  Notice that Best Buy's website allows me to order without Major Grief (he lives in my house). Not so much Ticketmaster/Live Nation.

• Bette Midler has declared herself a write-in candidate for president in 2020. Sorry, Bette, but your behavior mirrors the person you've been complaining about. We don't need more of that in the White House. Oh yeah, do you have a platform? Going to close the border to illegal aliens? Hollywood loves that. Uphold the Second Amendment? Change the national anthem to Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy?

SJW Stuff

In England, a woman was arrested after video surfaced of her shouting "Shame on you" at a Pride Parade. England is going down the toilet, starting with the Public Order Act, which means police can jail you for doing anything they don't like at the moment. Cursing will get you a ride, as will racial epithets.


CNN
Have you ever noticed the popularity of white robots? The reason for these shades of technological white may be racism, according to new research


The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the House Democrats’ powerful campaign arm, has just abruptly purged half a dozen staffers. Why? Because they are white.   That's racist.

Going on Tour with The Monkees, Playing Mike

Predictum, the University of California Berkeley's project, scrapes Faceyspaces, Twitter, and Instagram posts to assign a 'risk score' of a target (prospective hire). Noted:

We should all take for granted, then, that nowadays our social media posts are being scrutinized.

Apparently my nieces didn't get the bulletin, as they have posts all over the place of them completely drunk, tossing their cookies, and throwing gang signs (these are early 20-something white [bread] girls).

The software must be pretty accurate: Faceyspaces and Twitter are attempting to revoke all access. Here's the great part - don't read if you're drinking or eating:

Facebook revoked most of Predictim’s access to users, on the basis of violating the platform’s policies regarding use of personal data

Mozilla's guide to creepiness of holiday purchases.

• At work, I can't get into Helpdesk's ticketing system. Someone suggested I fill out a ticket to get it fixed.
• But seriously, when I could get to it, it had reversed time: the system told me it had fixed the problem before I told them there was a problem. Quantum Helpdesk.

University Yucks:

Two London student groups are replacing the word women with "womxn" in communications, to be more inclusive.

What about words for womxn who identify as telephone poles or fluffy bunnies?

• Who named the British dishwashing liquid 'Fairy'? The Marketing department must've gotten some really good stuff.
• Buy their other products: Pussy, Sperm, and the new soap, 'Faggot'

Bugcrowd University offers free courses on security:

Learn the basics of hacking and bug bounty hunting with videos, tutorials, labs, best practices and more on GitHub.

• Oopsie - Dell reset all user passwords. We can't be too upset about this - after all, they're a small company with few resources....

In Pennsylvania, our drivers licenses use facial recognition. I was furious when I found out. Know who else uses facial recognition? China. At least China doesn't pretend they're not draconian. The other day, one of their cameras saw a billboard on a bus, featuring a celebrity, and thought the bus was the celebrity.

My rants about driverless cars are legendary (here only). Now the software can be used for cars AND facial recognition - that's driving and spying. Do you feel comfortable with buying a driverless car now? After the Muskmobile killed one lady? After another driver went the same route and found the car trying to kill him too?

For some people, this is the future. I can't argue their point, but I'll repeat my objection: the technology is not ready for prime time.   As for spying, that's a different issue entirely. America would have to actually DO something to stop it, hence there will be more and more. On a personal note, I would be terrified to be in a driverless car. For my entire life, someone has been driving. If I don't see someone holding the wheel, I might scream loudly, thinking we're going to CRASH. It would take longer than it's worth to get used to, even though I don't like driving that much (not to mention the privacy issues).

• Five lightweight browsers for linux

Our good friends and fearless privacy advocates at Google are in trouble. Again.  Seven EU groups say Google's location tracking is against the law. I like the EU, at least today. You know you'll never see legislation like this in the US. In fact, it's probably exempted from laws. They're facing a class action suit in the US, though. The depth of Google's spying is astounding, per the article.  They use all sorts of Sneaky to trick users and steal their info for marketing. There is a program called 'close the loop' which proves that if they have more than one piece of information, they can link them up for a more complete and accurate profile. Just like Faceyspaces. It's not like we haven't been warned...

Google's response is that you can opt out, and that it's not fair that people can sue them.

Dear lefty

• Blue Ball, Pennsylvania's Don Somewhatconfused asks why people put laptops on desks.
• Because Mom drank while she was pregnant with you.

Things are going well here at Hell Central.
Every now and then, I wish I were a Normie. Just like everyone else.
It usually passes quickly.

Todays Project of Death was printing.
Normies can print with just a mouse click.
Not me.

No, when I need to print, it requires 2 printers, 4 laptops, a coupla cables, much screaming, and my Comfort Elephant for afterwards. He's called Stanley, because I call a lot of things Stanley.

With the printer on, I hit PRINT.  That should do it. I set the whole thing up and it has printed reliably ever since (all three times I used it). So there's no way in hell it's going to work today, especially as these are important papers. And if there's one thing I hate (there are literally thousands), it's doing anything at all with a printer, except printing. Troubleshooting, changing toner/carts, trying to determine whether it thinks it's online or not, and calling Stanley to demolish it (CLYDE - SCRAP THE MERC!).

So naturally it didn't print.
I told you so.

The printer was on, connected, and there were jobs in the queue. So I released them and just like my sex life, nothing happened. Since that didn't work, I tried it again, like my sex life, with the same result, like my sex life.

Printer told me it was ready to download.
Download WHAT? It doesn't download pages....
It was still definitely connected.
This is when the screaming came in handy. Or that's what I told most of the neighbors and the police. Although it still wouldn't print, I think I intimidated it just a little.

What do you do when it doesn't work?
Have you tried turning it off and turning it on again?
The guys who program printers have a wicked, sadistic sense of humor. Never watch the display as a printer comes up... they make the boot sequence run through about 12 different red light indicated errors before things settle down. And when it settled down, it made a noise. I swear the little f-er is mocking me, ever so slightly.

Releasing the jobs again, the 2 whole pages printed.
And then 2 more printed.
And then a whole buttload more printed.
Mind you, I printed TWO friggin pages of an email.
Something in the line thought I said two COPIES of the entire 134 page email.
Or the little f-er is still mocking me.
So I called Stanley.
And we won't have that problem ever again.
Until the next printer.

• Suspected criminal to police: these pants aren't mine - they belong to a pregnant girl. Same suspect: can you take these handcuffs off so I can put my hair up?

Hey, have you stayed at a Marriott/Starwood hotel? Ever?
I ask because Bad Guys spent four years inside their network. They were only discovered when they tried to remove their malware. In addition, Starwood purchased Marriott while the criminals already had access to the system. The odds are in your favor, though, because only 500 million accounts were accessible.   It sure is convenient to use credit cards and bank cards for transactions, but it seems it's better to pay cash for everything. You won't lose your card or any information in the inevitable break in. Remember: it's not just the vendor...  it's everybody else in the chain.... processors, employees, third parties.. If you used your Starwood password for anything else, change it now.

Unrelated: Now would be a very good time to send job applications to Starwood. My Spider Sense tells me the higher levels of IT will be hiring soon.

Also Unrelated: The Dunkin Donuts Perks program got hacked. Just Perks.
P.S. You don't need an app to buy coffee. Really. It accesses your location and tells you you're near a Dunkin, then stores the information, plus whatever else you give it permissions to. Same for any app from any retail outlet.




Dear lefty

• reader Sandy Vajyma asks what happened with the last girlfriend before you got married? 
• Dear Twat: she had one more penis than I require.

Police in West Virginia fired on a black man carrying a gun that wasn't loaded.
A policeman was fired.. the one who didn't shoot the man with the gun. Interesting story.

• the Google Play store said there was an update to the Duckduckgo browser. What are the chances.....

A.J. Nipplepunisher

I now wish to be addressed as AJ Nipplepunisher.
It's spelled AJ Nipplepunisher but pronounced "You Sweet Thing".


So I'm on a late conference call, listening intently.
As this was planned, everybody knew not to bother me.
Well, almost everybody.

Five seconds before the first word was spoken, the air conditioner turned on.
The wife announced, loudly, she was going to lay down because her head hurt.
As the conference starts, The Loud Family begins entertaining the neighborhood with its rendition of Power Saw Samba #9, dedicated to my wife's headache.
Then the Russian guy starts talking. His English is flawless (until he tries to speak). I can feel the sound of 50 participants' eyeballs rolling.
But wait... the sound of screeching. Of someone horribly mistreating an animal.
Oh. The dog is outside and wants to come in. It's a shame nobody told me he was outside.
If my coworkers had any idea of the things I do while on conferences, they'd all quit. After sterilizing the phones.
Back to sitting quietly and listening.
The Loud Family, having just finished their rendition of Moby Dick for Explosives and 12 Gauge Shotgun, wasted no time on going into their next song: Blue Danube for Two Lawnmowers. The interplay was spectacular, but we missed out on the stereo separation because we weren't out in the street.

Someone yelled ENCORE and they've been out there tuning their circular saws for 30 minutes.

• CORRECTION: I'm a big man and not afraid to admit my mistake. Last issue featured my wife telling me to heat Marshall's chicken breast before giving it to him. I asked which spices he preferred and should I offer him a nice cabernet with it. I have since been corrected, by my entire family, that one does not drink cabernet with chicken: it would be proper to offer something called Rose-A. Lest you think I ain't got no cultchur.
• UPDATE: the WhatsApp caution that a specially formatted message could destroy your phone was incorrect. The worst it can do is cause you to have to reboot the phone. All reports of the phone exploding and burning down your house were grossly exaggerated.

Good Day: your boss tells you his dad worked for the CIA
Not So Good Day: you say, "Your dad was a spook?" to the black man
Better Day: your boss says yes.

Since I have more traffic from Russia these days, I'll try to translate this for former citizens of the USSR:

Good Day: your boss tells you his dad worked for evil capitalist spy agency, bent on spreading warped ideology to other countries by destabilizing people's government
Not So Good Day: you say, "Your dad was filthy spy?" to the criminally oppressed minority in country where everybody isn't equal
Better Day: your boss says da, silently pointing to the mic in the flowers on his desk

• Part of the ThermionicEmissions Quality Control program is spell-checking my rantings before they go out. This is a little difficult because Google's spellcheck (Blogspot is Google) doesn't have certain unimportant words, like internet, blowjob, tv, McDonalds, or gauge.

I see a lot of press being given to people who insist Artificial Intelligence is going to kill us all. I used to laugh it off, like everyone laughs off most of what I say, but if you think about it, it has already started. I'm talking about that poor lady mowed down in Arizona, while walking her bike across the street. It was a self-driven Uber, with a test driver who happened to be looking down.

Police say the car didn't try to avoid hitting the woman.

See, I told you so.

The official explanation from Uber is that they discovered a bug in their software that separates Stuff floating across the road from Stuff you shouldn't hit. Apparently the car failed to see the woman as something that should not be mowed down. I'll go along with this premise, but this is not a 'bug' - it's programming. They built the sensors to 'see' her but had to program them to figure out if it was ok to mow her down. As it turns out, even I don't mow people down with my car, no matter how much they deserve it. Thus the beginning of Artificial Intelligence killing us all. Our first martyr.

Apparently there's a tradeoff between a car that's jerky because it keeps hitting the brakes and a smooth car, which just might mow down an object it considers harmless. Do you see where this is going? Harmless? Random human?

As a result, a number of states and car companies have stopped testing their software on pedestrians... I mean stopped testing their cars on public streets.

Fast fact: the codename for the car's software is Manson.

Regardless of whether it was horrible programming or the vehicle's decision to reduce the population by one, we come back to the same result: I told you so.

I told you these things were Not Ready for Prime Time. To test them on public streets is to test them on the public. In this case, it's tantamount to murder. There's absolutely nothing wrong with testing them out for years and years. This is a product you don't want running around mowing people down. I guess the lawyers sent opinions and the bean counters counted their liability beans, deciding it was time to set the murdering machines loose upon the public.

I'm not particularly proud of it (I told you so) but I wanted to make the point that maybe I have a point and deserve a little consideration. Usually I told you so is reserved for computer security matters and conspiracy theories that turn out to be quite true. So next time I warn you about something and you ignore it; when it comes true, at least say he told us so.

• There's a critical bug in 7zip, the archiver. Download the latest version. Now.
• There is a bug in PGP, Pretty Good Privacy. A Big Deal was made but it turns out the world will not end. The recommendation was to turn off HTML email (IF you use PGP). Fortunately most, if not all, of my readers won't have to worry about it. Because if they did, they'd lose all of those wonderful backgrounds and emojis (HORROR of HORRORS).

I don't have the heart to summarize this, but this entry has some very important information about credit freezes. It's depressing, demoralizing, and disheartening. And it shows you whose hand is in what, as credit goes.

• I read an opinion in the New York Times, so it must be vetted first, that Trump's choice for CIA head ran a black detention site in Thailand, where people were tortured at the behest of the CIA. Most of the previous words are abhorrent to me.
• Yes, one could argue that she has experience at all levels and toes the company line, but....

Donald Trump's Twitter Account Hacked!

Well, we're not entirely sure, but this morning's tweet was relatively short, full of facts, and contained no Trump-isms. So we think the account was hijacked. When asked what they were doing to protect the president, the Secret Service asked, "What's a tweet?"

• a police car pulls over a vehicle that has just turned into McDonalds...
• UK police would see the car into a spot and confiscate any plastic knives.
• Australian police would allow the car to place an order first, then see it in the parking lot.
• US police would pull the guy out of his car and beat the shit out of him. "Rubber hoses leave no marks"

Weather Modification

As humans, we are only beginning to discover things we can do. For instance, did you know we can control the weather?

We can cause it to rain by washing the car. 

We can also cause a 30 degree drop in temperature by installing window screens.

Who knows what else we'll find as time goes on...

• So we're heading out shortly and I'm checking the weather forecast. WXnation says 57 with an 80% chance of showers. Weather.com says 73 with a 20% chance of rain. Obviously they're both correct because 80% plus 20% equals 100%, right? Right? The forecast on my computer is for showers every day. Normal people would find this suspicious. People around here know you can't go wrong predicting rain and clouds every day.

Word of advice: when your mom asks you to shoot her if she's acting like her mom, don't.





Lowes Blows

My wife needed hardware. Not that kind, smartass.

She has a love/love relationship with Lowes. Or so I think, because she spends a lot of time there. Normally it's the man who visits Valhalla, but I'm weird.

We have this thing she calls a lopper. Women don't always know the names of things, so I helped by referring to it as 'that long red thing for cutting branches you can't reach'.

None of this would be an issue if it weren't for my dad. He's gotten a little 'itchy' since he retired, and insists on coming over to help me. We suspect he's gotten a little tired of Mom, so he insists on coming over to help me. As it turns out, we may be wrong, because he brings her along too. Mom has also gotten a little 'itchy' since Dad retired, and insists on coming over to help the dog. No, really. She does some sort of energy work on him, which seems to help. She can tell where he's hurting. Mom was always tuned into different frequencies... when I was a teen and my friends came over, if one of them did so much as pulled a cigarette out of a pack, Mom would yell, from two floors up, "Is anybody smoking?" She could also tell when someone was pregnant, long before they announced it or looked pregnant. Boy was I shocked when a girlfriend turned out to be preggers (I had no part in it, so to speak).

One of Dad's projects was my tree. The tree sits out there, mocking me and annoying much of the neighborhood. Do I look like I care?  It stays there because in the fall, it drops leaves by the ton on the Crazy Lady's lawn. That's a blessing to me. Anything I can do to 'inadvertently' make her life (more) miserable, I'm doing it. She turns 440 this year and doesn't look a day over 125.

In any case, the tree has been a bit of a problem recently. It started throwing limbs at the ground. I don't mind limb throwing, but only at the Crazy Lady.. it's a waste of a perfectly good projectile. If it didn't grow leaves, I'd think it was dead. One particular branch was getting cozy with a power line, so we called the Tree Guy.  Tree Guy quoted us $600, because anything he does starts at $600 and rises rapidly. The following year it looked like another branch was loose, so we called Tree Guy, who charged us...... wait for it.... $600 to remove it. We're not all that quick, so it took a few years to figure out the guy was taking down the entire tree, but doing it one branch at a time, at $600 per branch. At those rates, you'd think he was a plumber.

Dad decided this was going to be his job. He picked up the lopper and started sawing. He got so busy that it wasn't safe to walk near my house, lest you get pierced by falling bits of tree. He too was taking the tree down by attrition, but he wasn't charging. Two hours later, he asked where the blade was, because it wasn't there, like me. Wife had no idea. Apparently the hardware loosened, jettisoning the blade and itself. Speaking of hardware, my wife is juggling chainsaws, and Dad calls at two hour intervals, wanting to know if she got the hardware yet. Dad's tenacious, if not short.

After telling Dad that she got the hardware, to make him stop calling (it didn't work), she decided it would be a good idea to actually get the hardware, so he wouldn't be without his hobby when he arrived. This is where it gets weird, as if it wasn't weird enough already...

Lowes is Lowes. A huge home-improvement warehouse. Wife asked where she could find the replacement blade: "Over there."  Ok, then... over there she went. Through some managerial mistake, she found the blade. You know what's coming next, right? It didn't have the hardware. So she wandered around, looking for a Helpful Employee. Due to corporate budget cuts, they no longer hire Helpful Employees. Instead, she looked for a Very Busy Helpful-looking Employee.

Did you know it's not against the law to dance naked in any aisle at Lowes? All you do is stand there and look for help. You are now guaranteed that nobody who works there will come down the aisle, and can start the striptease.  After she got done dancing, she found someone, purely by mistake, as he was just about to go on Hiding Duty. He said to go to the hardware aisle and he'd send someone over. This is a phrase they teach employees and sounds extremely helpful and hopeful. In reality, it means "I'm not allowed to say GO AWAY so I'm sending you to an aisle where no one will ever find you".

She waited fifteen minutes at the aisle, when a different employee approached, looking all hardware-like. Three feet down the aisle, he acquired fourteen people, with fifteen questions, preventing him from helping her any time in the next millennium. Wife gave up, nearly decapitating several hangers-on with one throw of the blade.

Off to the register with blade, but without hardware. This cashier came directly from McDonalds. Or maybe a shoe store on a strange planet, here on a student visa, to study how much bad customer service you can throw at customers before they simply leave the store. His name was Taniesha and his short fro featured two very yellow stripes and sparkles simply everywhere. Before Wife could even get out a greeting, Taniesha started regaling her with tales of his day, how nobody would let him get his work done. Does this mean coworkers stopped him from pushing keys on the register or did somebody hide his stockings? He continued the monologue by mentioning he was there at 5am and hadn't even gotten a break and nobody appreciates him.

Now this is where it gets weird:

He says, "Oh, snap." 

Complete with hand gesture.

And that, Your Honor, is when his head just came off and rolled down the aisle.

So now we have a replacement blade, but no one has the heart to tell Dad there's no hardware to secure it. I can hear the phone ringing already.....

I'm not moralizing - make your own decisions