Anal Recognition in Stores

 Your love is like  warts

Facial recognition is bad, wrong, racist, privacy-invasive, and makes your nose itch. Stores like Walmart, Target, Lowes, Albertsons, Macys, and others are currently using it. Sign the petition to ban facial recognition.

Another intrusive technology involves your phone. Turn off BlueTooth and wifi at very least. Turning off the phone is better.

• crab ice cream?

Demolishing another world problem, Biden talked to Putin, who agreed to do something about Russian ransomware. Putin kept a straight face, as did I, while typing this. Even the interpreter snorted into his borscht.

In case anybody's keeping score, SolarWinds, who got hit in a major storm this year, just got hit in another. I'm not sure why companies choose to continuing to use this disaster, but then I think of Windows...

Salmon Going Nuts at a Fish Farm Possibly High on Cocaine, Officials Say
last issue was worms on meth.... 

“The salmon panicked and attempted to jump out of the water,” Daniel Fey, head of the Ecology and Aquaculture department

The drug was not found in samples taken of the tank itself, but the researchers think this was likely because the tank is highly diluted. 

So the salmon have been snorting coke, but there's none in the water. That's what they told the cops anyway....

So what's up with the car?

Funny you should ask. Got a call from the collision center; they just got the car.

Just got the car.

The car that was being taken there last week.

For their part, they called within a few hours. That's a hell of an estimate. Damn. Should be done early next month. Need to get rental days extended again. I don't get a lot of headaches, but I think one is brewing.

 To keep you entertained, How's Mrs. lefty's phone?

Funny you should ask. For those of you playing along at home, it developed a crack, two days after the warranty ran out. Like most things that sit on the couch, the crack got bigger and the phone refused to work, like a city worker. Two days after the warranty expired....

After much research, she went to CostCo. My nephew says you go for a box of cereal and come out with $350 car tires. If it were that simple... as she got to the phone counter, they were closing (at 5:30). Their hours were cut back due to the Flying AIDS.

We have a lot of trouble, but it's all in the service of this blog and my readers. Our misery is your entertainment.

We'll just hold our collective breath to see what today brings at CostCo. I'm not discounting "spontaneous combustion at phone kiosk at local CostCo."

The other gross inconvenience is that I give her my phone when she's out, for safety reasons. I had to do some quick thinking.... what if one of my many girlfriends call? [cough]. Or my alternate sources of income? [cough cough] She said not to get anything for her birthday, but she got cards from three shoe stores. Meanwhile I had to find some locking programs to lock up certain.... sensitive.. files on my android. I think of it this way: she already has a set of boobies - why would she need to look at more?

I still can't remove my user picture in Windows. There are 237 answers to this question at Duckduckgo.com, and none of them work. This is, I would think, a relatively simple operation. What have we learned? As of last week, you could hack Windows via an insecure print service, but you cannot delete your picture. One of the answers said deleting and changing are two different operations, requiring two different solutions.

People pay for this crap?

 

  

I tried telling Wife that it's 92 degrees celsokevin outside, so I can't bring in the trash cans. She was not amused.

Mind you, the Crazy Lady next door, who just turned 489, has neighbors all over the place taking her trash out and mowing her lawn. 

I want in on this. The problem, as I see it, is that I'm not in the 450+ age range, and I don't present as particularly old. So when I don't want to mow, it's just because I'm lazy. Nobody knows the trauma I suffer... I get the bends thinking of mowing... I begged the doctors to help me with the repressed memories of getting attacked by a mower when I was little or something, but they can't hypnotize me. To make matters worse, one of the docs is really attractive, so I can't concentrate on the birdie. I asked her to concentrate on the birdie and she slapped me. This is going to nuke the doctor-patient therapeutic relationship. And shit.

Pronouns? 

How's work? Lemme tell you... there's talk of pronouns.

You know, the current pc he/him/his  she/her/hers

I guess after Pride Month and all the other months, we shoulda known this was coming.

I think I just discovered we have a Chief Silly Officer (CSO) he/her/yous.

Flummoxing aside, I can't leave this unparodied. Aside from male, female, and neutral, there are other groups...

• they/them/theirs  multiple personalities
• he/she/it  fluid
• yo antny/antny/antny's  South Philly Anthonys
• it/it/its  Cousin Itt or any Addams Family character
• no/thank/you   me
• no/fscking/way  most of the company 

Tokyo Olympics: 'Plague of oysters' threatens key venue

Massive numbers of them had attached themselves to floats intended to stop waves bouncing back across the water and on to the athletes. 

The history of the Olympics is a long and storied one

• in 1954, massive goldfish attacked swimmers
• in 1978, crabs infested the playing field (and the athletes)
• in 2003, China hacked the games, only to realize there were no games in 2003
• The Flying AIDS was expected to ruin this year, but there's only been one case

Hubble space telescope's function is restored

They had to remotely clean out the cat hair 

Prospective emojis include a pregnant man

ThermionicEmissions remains 100% emoji-free, largely because it can't stand the stupid 

Lots of apps use your personal contacts. Few will tell you what they do with them

enlightening 

• Huge data leak shatters the lie that the innocent need not fear surveillance
• It's for the children. It will only be used to spy on foreigners. We'd never spy on Americans...

The Philadelphia Curse - It's Personal

As we know, I have company in from out of town this week.   As we also know, Philthydelphia's weather is highly variable, to be polite.  In fact, Philly and the surrounding suburbs are going to shut things down for a day and have a huge celebrity concert for the purpose of getting the funds to purchase a real climate.

The weather and I go way back.  I have ancient memories of going on vacation when I was tiny and having it rained out.  Ever since then, I've felt it has been personal.  Douglas Adams [The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy] has a great bit about a person who gets rained on wherever he goes.  He doesn't realize he is actually a Rain God.  Read the Dirk Gently novels.  Everyone should read Douglas Adams regardless.

Validation is a particularly sweet thing for me, especially with the high number of odd things that tend to happen around me.  So it was welcome when the folks at work started noticing that it wasn't, in fact, totally in my head.  Over a period of years people noticed that we could count on rain when I took off work to visit the zoo.  We could have a heat wave the likes of which would make Arizona jealous and if I took off Wednesday, it would rain.  Rain wouldn't appear in the forecast in any way, but it would rain.  One year for my birthday, my coworkers got me zoo tickets and rain ponchos [Note: not Sears ponchos].

I would like to ask Douglas Adams if I might be a Rain God too, but he had the temerity to die a number of years back, making contact all but impossible.  Lacking any other subject matter experts, I am left to wonder alone.

So I have company in from out of town this week.  After brief consultation, it was decided that I would take off work Friday so we could go to the zoo.

You see where this is going, right?

On the work calendar, I noted that I would be out Friday and to BANK ON RAIN.  

I have to tell you that the Universe is not stupid.  When I took off work and promised not to go to the zoo, it did not rain. When I took off and said I wasn't going to the zoo but intended to go anyway, it rained.

My poor friends from out of town manage to get the absolute worst of weather every time they arrive.  Usually it's the ridiculously high temperatures of summer combined with the ridiculously high humidity of summer.  In actual fact, spring and fall have been declared null in Pennsylvania, due to budget cuts.  This time my guests have been treated to our second record heatwave of the summer.  Yesterday it hit one hundred.  If you sit outside without moving, you will dissolve into whatever you're sitting upon.

But this time, the Universe had another trick up its sleeve.  Normally the forecast would be for high temperatures and sunshine, yet it would rain.  This time the Universe one-upped me....  as soon as I took Friday off, the forecast changed to rain and thunderstorms all day.   Yes, Victoria, it is personal.

Did you ever feel Universally f-d?

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If I were really smart, I'd charge people to make it rain.  For several hundred dollars per acre, I would take off work for the day to go to the zoo, hence rain.  Unfortunately I can't concentrate my powers anywhere but where I live.  Perhaps I could get paid to relocate for the day and make it rain there.

Then I truly would be a Rain God.