Rich Inner Lives

Come to think of it, all of us here at ThermionicEmissions, including Penny the Wonder Barker, have rich inner lives.

Mrs. lefty has multiple personalities, so it's never quiet upstairs. It's described as a playground where everybody's playing Whisper Down the Lane at once.
Penny jumps around and barks in her sleep, so that must be interesting too.
From descriptions, I have the best and most animated inner life.

There was the time Marshall came into bed, walked around on my chest til he found a comfortable spot, then went to sleep on my chest. I have absolutely no knowledge of this. It makes me wonder what other kinds of things happen in my sleep that I don't know about. It might also explain the pains that I get in my.. never mind.

Not comfortable with being a part-time dog bed, I apparently provide no end of audio entertainment. I laugh, cry, fight, and sing in my sleep. This is somewhat confusing, as I can't sing in real life. Can you imagine having to tell the club owner that we have to postpone the show - til I'm asleep?

I'm further informed that one does not want to be in the bed with me.
Actually, this is not news - I've been told for years that women don't want to be in bed with me. The specific here is that I reach out, grab, and occasionally punch the air. Mrs lefty tries not to be the air that gets punched. It may also explain the brick wall down the middle of the bed, and the bloodstains on my knuckles.

This is fairly fascinating to the wife, who monitors me closely while I sleep, perhaps waiting anxiously for my last breath. I thought it was funny at first, but it continues and gets worse: the exorcist was not worth what he was paid.

So that's my exciting inner life.
It's a shame that my real life is nowhere near as exciting. I was thinking of switching places, but considering some of the dreams I've had, I'll keep things as they are for now. No one wants to go Up There and see what's going on.

• Fender sent an email about a Telecaster promotion. Noting the link, I went to check it out. Fender has 36 righty Teles and 3 lefty Teles.  yawn.

Dear lefty:

• Did you know Border Collies are among the smartest dogs?
• Did you know that if you have sex with someone who has a cold and get the cold, it's considered a sexually transmitted disease?

I had to quit therapy - if I got my issues fixed, I wouldn't be funny anymore.

Some would argue that train left the station a long time ago.

• The other day, one of my work systems identified a connection to Microsoft as malware. The computers are finally starting to agree with me!

Jack and Jill went up the hill.

Hills are a tool of white privilege.

• We're going to look back on this period and laugh. 
• But not in a good way.

It's been a long time since I recommended any music.

Let's keep it that way.

Speaking of which, ZZ Top is touring again/still. Talk about some hard workin' men. You should see them - always entertaining. Wave to us - I'll be the one with the hat. Also pick up Billy Gibbons' solo albums.

Seriously, folks, get out there and support your favorite acts. They're getting up there and you never know what will happen. My heroes are all in their 70s. I see them every chance I can, whenever I can get someone to help steer the rocket-propelled Chevrolet.

Braiding Nose Hair

I had a few blogs in the can for emergencies. I guess this qualifies.



An employee of spyware maker NSO Group 'allegedly' stole government spyware and hid it under his bed.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have entered a new era in spyware and security: Mattress Net. No matter how benign or destructive the software is, it is perfectly safe, stored under the mattress. Unless you flipped your lid and installed an Internet of Things Connected Bed, the mattress has no connection to the Internet, thus cannot be hacked by traditional means. It's so simple and brilliant, no government or spyware company could come up with it.

We all know no system is infallible or 100% hack-proof. Mattress Net is vulnerable to an old hack called Sneaker Net, whereby the software is moved from here to there by someone wearing sneakers. Possibly loafers, but that is beyond the scope of this missive. Also possible is Putin Net, where a very attractive female spy sleeps with you because she just wants to get under your mattress. Lastly there's Parent Net, a very crude hack, wherein your parents clean your room and check under the mattress.

"Simon... I found this USB under your mattress. Are you looking at code porn again? I told you that will make you go blind AND give you Repetitive Stress Injuries! You zero out that drive RIGHT NOW, young man."

• Hey - do you have a Sony, Sharp, TCL, or Phillips smart tv? A feature called Samba TV is probably tracking you, for the purposes of serving more targeted ads. The claim is that you have to opt-in. Samba can identify other devices in the home.
• Don't hook your friggin' tv to the internet. Or your fridge. Or mattress.

Today's question: What's something that seems obvious within your profession, but the general public seems to misunderstand?  (twitter, question via @Mantia)

1. Facebook is foul, evil, and ever-invasive
2. Google's new motto is Do An Awful Lot of Evil
3. Privacy is not possible. You only have as much as you work to claw back
4. People are stupid
5. If you're looking to date hot chicks, IT is not the field for you
6. If you're looking to date hot guys, IT is not the field for you

One way to retain some privacy is to use a safer provider; perhaps one that doesn't read your emails (like Google/Gmail does). You might want to have a look at Protonmail. Protonmail is encrypted. Protonmail doesn't care about the content of your email, provided it's not illegal. You can encrypt your emails directly to your intended recipient, even if they don't use encryption. There are two levels: Free and Not Free. Free gives you what you'd expect: an account and some storage. Not Free gives you a lot more, including IMAP, so your Thunderbird or Outlook can fetch your email. Free accounts must use the web interface or android/iOS apps. Your email cannot be read while encrypted.

I highly recommend Protonmail, especially if you have a gmail account. I know one reader of ThermionicEmissions looked into it and moved all their gmail over, closing that account. Very smart move. Go on over and have a look.

• For some reason, I am not frequently called upon to speak for the gay community. 

Just saw a commercial for a Citroen. After 30 seconds, all I got was that it's available in 32 colors. Not that American car commercials are any better.. look at the stereo...and the usb plugs!

MISSING FASHION

Anybody who has shopped for bathing suits or lingerie knows the Inverse Law of Material: the less fabric, the more it costs. Make yourself a Big Dude or Dudette at parties by telling everyone you know Victoria's Secret: how to get so many to pay so much for so little.

This year, the Inverse Law of Material seems to be showing up in women's fashion like never before. Women can (some say have to) buy shirts that are missing the shoulders. There's a big old hole where the shoulder material used to be. You might be used to it from seeing it everywhere, but for a person seeing it for the first time, it looks like it came back from one of the Mars expeditions. Let me get this straight: you have a perfectly good shirt. Yes. But some Fashion Expert cut out the shoulders. Yes. What happens when it gets cold outside? 

Funny you should ask... my wife, who all of the sudden knows everything about jewelry and clothing, probably from watching HSN until she becomes indistinguishable from the couch, refers to this as Cold Shoulder.

Taking great advantage of this concept, the women's shoe industry has this thing called Cold Ankle, where the material around the ankle is cut out, sometimes with the toe area. This is called Ankle Toe and isn't what you think it is.

Thinking it would save even more money, women's shoes are now required to look like they've been through a shredder. Take what looks like a pretty decent walkable shoe and put it through a shredder, so you have bits and pieces hanging about and can see many areas of the foot, depending on what angle it was put through the shredder. The joke was on the shoe manufacturers, as this  did not save money: it cost a lot of money because they had to purchase industrial shredders, through which to run the shoes. This came with industrial shredder consultants to oversee the operation, and eventually, shredder repair technicians, because they were built in America, in union shops. American unions insist on 10 minutes of break per hour. They also insist on 7 hours per day breaks.

The fashion industry has gone berserk, trying to keep up with the shredding pace. DKNY is selling designer shredded t-shirts, where everything is shredded (except the logo). JeanesCo, the jeans company so fashionable, you've never heard of them, will offer shredded jeans, right next to their pre-holed jeans (neither of which you'll see because you're not important enough and don't know any Kardashians).

Hoping to cash in on the shredding craze, Hanes will soon offer shredded underwear. This will fail miserably, based upon the Holey Principle of Underwear. In their rush to sell millions of Y-fronts, they forgot to beta test the shredded shorts, resulting in all kinds of embarrassing moments, most captured on hilarious and very stupid Hey Look At This video shows.

Shredded bras, meanwhile, stuck out (so to speak) for their incredible popularity with men. They were heartily endorsed by the Free the Nipple and Burn Your Bra crowd. They were also popular with the I'm Liberated But I Still Have to Work career women.

• I sit here, destroyed. Down to my soul. I fear there is no escaping this level of hell.  The kid who mowed our lawn last year can't do it this year. I'm not supposed to tell you this, but I'm on suicide watch.

Silicon Valley: located just north of Silicone Valley

Because this is a multi-service blog, and because this is another sign I have too much time on my hands, here's a recipe. Recipe, you say? Yes, recipe. Now that we're done with the confirmations, let's get into it. We'll call it 

lefty's Real Imitation Mexican-like Food Substance

On nights I'm too tired to stand, I can make this in no time.

Refried beans. One can or more of any size.

Packets of Garlic or Spanish Quinoa you get at CostCo

Salsa. Any kind.

Onion.

beef, chicken, pork - fresh or leftovers.

spice - whatever works for you. garlic at minimum.

Dice a few slices of onion. Dump into pot.

Dump refried beans into pot.

Dump meat into pot.

Dump garlic and whatever other spices into pot. I love chipotle powder for its medium heat and smoky flavor.

Heat. Be careful - it heats quickly and boils and blurps - use low heat and stir frequently.

Make the quinoa in the microwave (it takes 90 seconds). Let it sit for a minute and dump into pot.

If your salsa is cold, dump some into pot, to taste. Otherwise put in after.

Dump the glop onto plates. Eat.

It's surprisingly good. 

If you're one of those vegetable people, omit the meat (duh) and don't tell me you're one of those vegetable people. I don't care. No one does, unless they're cooking for you.

The staff of ThermionicEmissions is proud to announce they procured good seats for Jeff Beck/Paul Rogers/Ann Wilson. Further, the staff wants you to know that if they EVER get hold of the evil entity that put together the websites and payment methods, they will not be responsible for their actions. Two operating systems and four browsers later....

The Witch It All Lime Man

RIP Glen Campbell (81) from Alzheimers.
Glen has a long history in music, from early days in the Wrecking Crew, to being one of the Beach Boys, to solo fame (Wichita Lineman, Rhinestone Cowboy, etc). He didn't get credit for being a really good guitar player. When he was diagnosed with Alzheimers, he decided on a final tour. His daughter was in the band and would gently help him along if he stumbled. There is video of a concert in which he introduces a song and his daughter had to let him know they just did it. Check out Glen in the studio with Stone Temple Pilots, doing Wichita Lineman.

• Marshall returned from his operation a little sleepy and a lot cranky, possibly from pain. Mind you, he's on a lot of pain meds. At 5am he went outside and hid in a far corner of his yard, where he's never gone before. His biopsy results take a week.
• Speaking of Dog Meds, we continue the struggle to get them into him. The latest was the squishy pill pocket treat, where you put the pill in the center, close both ends, and the dog eats it. Well, other dogs eat it. He fell for this twice, then stopped taking them. We wrapped this treat in turkey, which he went for immediately. This lasted two times also. The third time, he somehow managed to flip the turkey off and eat it only. This happened twice. Who runs the house? The smartest person in the house, who just happens to have four muppety paws. Next up: liverwurst.

The British police are investigating five year olds for calling each other names. I kid you not. After investigation, it was referred to as a non-crime. Orwell continues to spin.

• Wikileaks has released another CIA doozie: dubbed CouchPotato, this tool will remotely collect video without leaving a trace.  Rest easy - it must be on your pc to work. So unless the CIA has already hacked your pc, you're ok. They haven't already hacked your pc, have they?

Know what would be really cool? If some major artists started talking about depression. To make them feel better about it, they could wear trendy bracelets or ribbons... maybe a ribbon strangling a brain.

• The other day I put on the Led Zeppelin at Knebworth (1979) video. It's nice to enjoy some live Led for once. Robert Plant is one of my favorite singers but heaven help me, I don't understand most of what he says between songs. It sounds like a bunch of one line inside jokes. Maybe because I'm not a Brit, maybe because I'm not a Zep. They played my favorite song, "Ten Years Gone." Since I always feel better when playing, I played along. There was excitement. It made me happy.
• She did too. But she's seven years gone.

When I was a child, I wasn't having a good time of it - I wanted to be an adult. Now that I'm (allegedly) an adult, it would have been nice to have a childhood.

• As a blogger for quite a few years, people ask me questions. The answer to the most asked question is "Yes, I'm like this without drugs or alcohol." 

So how about those self-driving cars?  I'm always amazed that there are any at all that have made it out of testing, as the technology is relatively new. If you think about it, the future is here now.. George Jetson be damned. As someone who's not particularly fond of driving, it seems like a gee-whiz neato cool idea. As a tin foil mad hatter, it's a flipping nightmare: your location, after your phone gives it away, can be narrowed down to a five foot area. Your destinations all logged. Then there's the OH MY GOD, NO ONE'S DRIVING THE CAR fear that rears its ugly head until you get used to it.

It might be a little while longer. Security researchers discovered that you can fool the car's road sign detection algorithms by putting a sticker on the sign or otherwise altering it. Uh-oh. Do you want the stop sign to be read by the car as a 45mph speed limit sign?  When you're done contemplating the horrors of mis-reading, think about what kids are going to do... like throwing things in front of the car to see what happens.  There are benefits to being a tin foil mad hatter.

• Just when you thought it was safe to have a blood test, security researchers have come up with a way to insert malware into synthetic DNA. When you put the blood into the machine for analysis, it will corrupt and own the machine. Talk about your blood-borne infections....

Speaking of professions, I was thinking about going into serial killing. It turns out you can't start until you have a manifesto.

Our Next Long-Term National Nightmare...

Let me start off with some bright news: healthcare breaches hit an all time high in 2016. At five months into 2017, would you care to guess which way that trend is heading? From my memories of working in healthcare, we're pretty much screwed.

• As I type, there is a noise like a 100 pound bee coming from another floor. It has depth like no other. A quick search of archival memory brings back last year, when the wife told me this noise was spooking her and the dog (back when the dog could hear). A window is open, apparently creating currents of air so strong that it's playing songs with the miniblinds, like some sort of gargantuan kazoo. In addition to normal human laziness, I'm typing and don't want to be bothered with the alleged musical instrument, but it's so loud even the mostly deaf Marshall can hear it.
• I've mentioned trash before too. It's less immense for me than mowing but still annoying. I'm a big boy, though... I don't have to be reminded constantly. The Crazy Lady next door found out that cans can't be put out til 7:30 the previous evening, so she stands out there with her atomic time standard and her clipboard, waiting to POUNCE on getting those babies to the curb by 7:31. And after they're collected, they're put back precisely where they came from and ready for next week's assault before the truck is two houses down.
• Speaking of trucks, I've worked out that there are three very loud trucks that come to collect cans, every trash day. I know this because when I'm off work, each one of them wakes all the dead at the cemetary a few blocks down. After further thought, and further leaping out of bed, screaming, I realized there are not three, but six trucks in the morning, as they take care of the other side of the street.
• Just to make matters more amusing, someone is having yardwork or something done, necessitating very loud construction gear. Very loud construction gear. It might be tree-related, which means it's only a matter of time until the Industrial Tree Chipper comes into play, like a mighty present buzzsaw, with loud spikes.  A coworker often tells me about her h fantasy of putting her ex into one of these, so I know it can be done.
• Oh wait - correction... the loud noises also have something to do with stones. A humongous pile of them got dropped in the drive, and the time since has been spent shoveling them. Ever hear Repeated Stone Shoveling? It's American Water Torture.
• This might come as a surprise to you, but I'm off work today. As I type, I can hear the kazoos, with their swan song. As God is my witness, I will stop this minor annoyance!

If you're an IBM or Lenovo Storwize customer, IBM wants you to locate that flash drive they sent you and feed it to the cat. Apparently it has malware on it. Oopsie.

• A pair of Pennsylvania medical clinics have reported a 'privacy incident'. They determined that in March, a person "could potentially have accessed" data on their systems. There is no evidence that they did.   Let's dance, shall we?

If you feel your android phone needs optimizing, do not install Full Optimizer or Full Optimizer Lite from Google Play - they're full of malware and only show ads. Your phone really doesn't need optimizing. Install Android Assistant to clean it up weekly (among its other talents) and Malwarebytes to run scans for junk.

• In the latest set of public excuses as to why she lost, Hillary Clinton blames the FBI letter and "Russian WikiLeaks".  Somebody should explain to her that the election was over in November and she lost.  Even after the George W Bush Hanging Chad Miami Fiasco, the crying didn't go on this long. You'd think simply having Chelsea omnipresent in the news would be enough for her. Someone has to take over...

Some poor fella was just struck by lightning. He's alive, in the hospital, and has a rather ugly red mark from neck to below his waist. He also has another lasting trophy: a permanent erection.  In unrelated news, there is a line of nurses outside his door, stretching back to the front of the hospital. An anonymous female charity group has paid off his hospital bill, and doctors have advised him that if his erection lasts longer than 4 days, to call a dating service and have them show up at hourly intervals.

• At a fast food expo in the Netherlands, two Dutch pranksters served McDonald's food, cut into pieces and skewered with toothpicks, and then told attendees that that they were eating an organic product. Participants described the taste of the samples as being very rich, and very pure. the link goes to a YouTube video in Dutch, but subtitled. One day, I want to pull off something on this level.

On this day in 1991, Texas governor Ann Richards declared ZZ Top day.

• Remember in the last post I reported that the NSA is suspending collection of US data because it referenced a foreign target?  Check out this article on how they collected data on 151m Americans.

Yes, I could've written this, but no, I didn't. A female UCLA student and member of MENSA has developed an IQ of 220 after drinking sperm for a year. Her original IQ was 154 and she was already a MENSA member.

The article details her decision to go with this method. Her new IQ makes her smarter than Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, and Leonardo DiVinci. Also listed are some benefits of sperm ingestion.

You have to know I didn't let this news go to waste, alerting Mrs. lefty, who promptly told me to "get chugging." Witty as this was, I was forced to remind her that my IQ is several points ahead of hers.

You can tell neither of us belongs to MENSA because there is a regulation that you tell people you're in MENSA within five minutes of meeting them (similar to the Vegan Rule).

Judging by the story on Yoko Ono admitting to a lesbian affair with Hillary Clinton, this 'newspaper' is probably more of an entertainment source than pure news. The story above on the lightning strike came from the same source.

• One of our charities is Oldies But Goodies. It's a Virginia-based non-profit that finds homes for old cockers.  We're on their mailing list, having donated and because we're stupid enough to keep reading their emails (which would make Sarah McLachlin shoot herself). The latest is about Snoopy, who's 12. His owner died and family members took him to a vet to be put down. The vet refused, saying Snoopy had much life left in him. So the relatives dumped him at a shelter.
• Not. Human.

======================================




I don't like to mow the lawn.
You might remember this from paragraphs to entire blog posts, ranting on this topic. In fact, there are an awful lot of activities I prefer to mowing:

• chewing razorblades
• dating dead people
• eating stinky cheese in a pit of fire
• a quiet weekend with my cannibal in-laws

My wife, dear smart woman that she is, figured out I don't like mowing (after ten years of forcing me to do it at gunpoint) and went in search of a solution. We can't afford a service and don't really have a lot of grass.

My nemesis in life, the mower, is seriously a great piece of hardware. And when I say great, I mean the engine still runs after ten years. Almost out of the box, the throttle cable broke. I purchased a replacement, which of course did not work at all, even after I did a remarkable job of attaching the cable to the handle. So I had to devise a custom rig that would keep the throttle open enough to run the bastard. This involved a pair of locking pliers and a foot of wire. Also about 30 minutes of screaming per effort. Suffice it to say the neighbors, even the very old ones, learned some interesting new vocabulary words.

Don't let my technical words and inventive solution fool you - I should not be allowed near a mower (or under the hood of a car). My solution was somewhat less than optimal, in that it lasted for less time than I needed to complete the mowing, resulting in a second case of interesting verbal output.

I am mortally terrified of going to the dentist. Even though I can generally allow him to work on my mouth, the other 2/3 of my body keeps trying to escape. I would gladly spend some quality time in his chair than mow. It's ridiculous and illogical but it's reality.

Alas, the seasons took their effect on the mower: the engine started every year, but the body got cancer and I'm afraid it won't support the engine much longer.

Just the other day I was advised that a box would be appearing. Boxes appear at my house all the time.  I gave up on asking years ago, as the answer would only frustrate me. Just the other day an outdoor gazebo/tent thingie appeared. No one knows why but I thought I caught a glimpse of the dog with a sly grin on his face.

The box arrived shortly thereafter. It was a new mower. I didn't know whether to laugh, cry, or give it back to the poor driver. I was 'urged' to put it together, as that's generally the safest task, as opposed to me actually using the device. It was battery-operated, with a cute battery that looked like a car battery that was left in a dryer and shrunk to 1/3 normal size. It was also considerable more narrow than any mower I have ever seen, generating complaints because I'd have to mow more rows. After getting halfway done, I realized the instructions, which made Ikea instructions look like fine literature, failed to mention that the handle needed to be attached in only one direction. And look at me - I was cursing before even running the little bastard for the first time.

Once again the wife outsmarted me. She hired a neighbor's kid to use the new Infernal Device. He was thrilled to get paid for what he has to do at home for free and eagerly took the job. In fact, he just got done.

I have never been happier in my life.

I guess it's time to start using my dental insurance now.

Happy Monday is an Oxymoron

Why is our president and some of his staff still using a private email server? Or are they? Trump and some of his staff still have accounts on a RNC server that may or may not have been hacked, depending on what day of the week this is. Oddly enough, this is the same server used by the Bush administration to communicate during the Iraq war (let us pray... that it has been upgraded since then). Professional liar and former and present CIA head James Comey claims there was limited access to a non-used server.

Security experts are also worried about the president's use of an Android phone. The reason given is that he could be a target on insecure wifi. Yes, any of us can be a target - that's why no one should use any old wifi at any old coffee shop or at the airport. Use a VPN if you absolutely must access these services. Trump's own staff would like him to turn in the phone, especially as concerns Twitter.

Speaking as an alleged Security Dude, these people have a point. Virtually no one bothers to secure their phone, including alleged Security Professionals. Even the previous president had a custom-secured cell phone. Is the device encrypted so no one can get into it? Is there a password or PIN code that automatically locks the device? Is it accessing a secure system? Is there any actual secure information on the phone in the first place?  I'd prefer, as you would expect, the device be locked down to hell and back.. you know.... like mine. Even if there's nothing interesting there, less to attack is always better.

• Over in Iraq, the Islamic State's chief executioner, who has beheaded more than 100 people, has been knifed to death. I believe this is what they call irony. Or just desserts.

Google found and quarantined some brand new malware on a customer's android phone. Yay, they caught the malware!  Now stop for a second and think about this.... Google remotely accessed the phone to quarantine the malware. While this capability isn't news to some of us, it should be news to everybody. iDevice users, don't get all smug - your phone can be remote-accessed by Apple too. In fact at one point, programs 'disappeared'. E-books have also gone bye-bye. It's a PITA, but possible to disconnect from Google (it's beyond the scope of this paragraph). The other message here is to be very careful what you download from Google Play. Since there's very little to tell you whether the program is clean, avoid programs with few reviews, few downloads, non-English or broken English text or reviews, and authors you don't know. Stick with the majors. Also stay away from cleaners/memory boosters/speed boosters; they're not needed on android anymore.

• Ransomware knocked seventy percent of the Washington, DC, spy surveillance cameras ahead of the inauguration. Some cameras had more than one piece of malware. The ransomware was introduced via a spam email that some high-functioning, security-minded government worker opened. This affected a server with all sorts of documents. The fix to ransomware is to have good, frequent backups, of which it appears there are none. Perhaps we will be spared some aspects of the Security State by its own incompetence.

Cocker Spaniels are notorious for separation anxiety, or at least the three rescue cockers we adopted have been. Marshall prefers his people around the house at all times. I had to go somewhere today and he saw me put on my coat. He sat down and gave me this look. They have big, expressive eyes to begin with, and when they're upset, you know it. Marshall was upset. Small wonder I don't like to leave the house... poor little guy. When I got home, he was anchored to me.

Speaking of Marshall, the little darling continued his weekly visit with the vet for his ear infection, which has been going on forever. Healthy all his life, he has had problems since his cat died (grief-related illnesses?). Cockers are prone to ear problems due to their flaps and closed ear canals. The current diagnosis is antibiotic-resistant bacteria. They referred us to a Doggie Dermatologist. This little diversion cost $200, plus the new consultation. Even his parents have never seen a dermatologist.

guess who...

• How do you know when the driver in front of you is going to make a turn? His turn signal is not on.

Pasta: Yes, there's an app for that! I can't make the pasta until I charge my phone!

• Netgear routers have yet another flaw that would allow hackers to get into it remotely. Check to see if yours is listed. Disable remote administration regardless.

A popular new joke is that the Statue of Liberty is going to be deported. I suggest whoever gets it has to take the UN too.

• Yesterday we had sun, gloom, snow, and sun in the span of about an hour. This is not normal, even for here.

John Wetton, bassist and vocalist for King Crimson and Asia, lost his battle with cancer. He was 67.

• As if you didn't think I was totally tin foil hat, this should do it for you. You can be ultrasonically tracked while using cell phones, to build up a profile of you across devices. There is an android and a Chrome patch to disable it. My feeling is that if people can't hear the sound, the speaker in the phone can't put that high a frequency out. Apparently my feeling is incorrect. Further, I believe one can avoid this via turning off javascript, but time will tell.

Hey, I think I need some Magnums.

Magnum ice cream bars or Magnum large condoms?

I'm buying both to make it an extra special weekend.

• The People's Republic of Berkeley had to cancel a talk by a gay Jew who likes black guys the other night, due to rioting on campus. Yes, the tolerant students for free speech (only when it agrees with them), demanded the event be canceled. One of the ringleaders was ok with the violence and said it was 'self-defense'. So the people calling the speaker a nazi are themselves behaving like nazis. Students need to be protected from words. Remember when students protested war? Non-violently?
• Make no mistake, the students had every right to protest. Violence, however, is illegal and not the way to make one's point.
• The Associated Press and USA Today's coverage consisted of peaceful people marching with signs. There were fires, assaults with pipes, two groups protesting, an ATM smashing, cars damaged, and a live band.
• These Students of Public Relations who are essentially protesting Trump are doing a wonderful job of keeping him in office.
• The Berkeley Police ordered the students to disperse several times. They were extremely helpful in keeping order. Other police departments move in to restore order and stop further crimes. Why didn't this department?

A recent small study has revealed that black humor a sign of high intelligence. Finally-vindication!

Is There an Antivirus That Doesn't Suck?

Ok, let me qualify my question...  an enterprise antivirus that's easy to administer from a central point, doesn't require ridiculous amounts of rebooting or research, accurately detects machines across the enterprise, can push the install reliably, and doesn't take up every last resource being the end-all of multitasking be-all antivirus/antimalware apps?

My experience would suggest there is not.

When I arrived in the Twilight Zone, no one had any idea about antivirus.  There were a few rogue installs, probably not legitimate.  I got to work making sure every desktop had antivirus.  Back then, you had to update it yourself weekly (this was McAfee).  As usual, the human element screwed everything up and in spite of weekly reminders, people didn't update their clients.

Then we switched to Norton.  Symantec is the biggest nightmare I have ever experienced.  Whether it's antivirus, backup, or whatever else, Symantec will screw it up.  When the client became so bloated it would no longer perform efficiently, we switched.  Or rather, we tried.  Uninstalling NAV/SAV was so convoluted a process that sometimes we could have saved time re-imaging the machine.  Symantec had instructions to accomplish this task, and when I say instructions, I mean twelve different sets of instructions on twelve different web pages, none the same set.  I'll hazard a guess that even Symantec can't uninstall their own products.

We messed around with other products until we found Kaspersky.  The price was right, the client wasn't bloated, and the admin console was full-featured.  Ironically, when you called tech support for Symantec, you got India.  When you called Kaspersky, the Russian company, you got a Boston accent.  At its worst, a Boston accent still trumps an India accent (to our American ears, anyway).

Kaspersky has this great concept by which you can deploy an entire installation to a pc remotely.  Furthermore, it could remove other antiviruses.  Reality, on the other hand, was something entirely different.  It could not remove lint from a desktop.  And the install package blue screened almost every pc to which we deployed it.

Aside from that, it was ok.

Regardless of Bostonian accents, we were unable to get the install package working correctly.  We discovered that you had to deploy the Network Agent first (reboot), then the client (reboot).   After doubling our work, it only blue screened a few pc's, which was livable.

After somehow managing to get Kaspersky deployed across the enterprise, the admin console became unresponsive.  We had to develop tricks to keep it moving, eventually requiring a rebuild (HINT: use external SQL instance).

Mind you, this entire post deals exclusively with administration... I don't have a thing to say about the desktop clients.

Another reason I like Kaspersky is for the mispronunciations.  We've heard `Kaprinsky' and `Kasper Sky'.

Unfortunately the recent price increase started to put Kaspersky out of our reach.   I have been using Trend on our servers in order to have something additional but that also went through the roof.  After shopping around some more, we shook our heads sadly and decided we had no choice but to continue with Kaspersky.

After paying up, I started our wide-installation/update process.  And discovered that the `new' Kaspersky console sucked just as badly as the old one.  It only looked a little different.  The pc discovery function wasn't entirely useful, in that it kept pulling up old entries and failing for various reasons on install.  I also had to locate the new versions of installs, which don't seem to match the consumer varieties.

I've had it.  This is barely one step above going to every desk in the company and installing/upgrading manually.

If you've had positive experiences in the enterprise (and you haven't), please let me know.


As far as viruses, I haven't had one; either on the Windows machine or the linux machines.  I am completely protected on Windows but I surf very safely.

Android Crapware

If you get nothing else from this post, I hope you understand to be careful with your Android device.

If you have been paying attention lately, there has been a lot of press about Androids, very little of it positive.  There have been quite a few applications listed through the Android Marketplace that have contained viruses and trojans, not to mention good old malware.  Much as I truly don't like iDevices, they typically don't distribute a lot of crapware through their marketplace.

The obvious solution is to scan the bloody downloads before making them available to everyone, but perhaps the Droid folks haven't gotten there yet.

Next up is a particularly annoying bit of crapware called xapush.  Certain apps make use of this little item, which pushes ads to your device's taskbar, with a note that you can opt-out at xapush.com.

I object most strongly to this violation of privacy and trust, both on the part of the authors and xapush, not to mention the Marketplace.  At very least there should be a warning about this crapware in the Marketplace.  While I understand the point of it, there should still be a warning, to give you the chance to avoid or opt-out up front.  Auto opt-ins should be illegal (talk to your local Congresscritter about that).

Some (but not all) of the apps that use this piece of... ummm...  malware... are 3D OpenGL, MP3 musicdownload, Best Buy Product Guide and EasyFilter.

Fortunately the Droid community has responded, in the guise of Air Push Detector, also available for free in the Marketplace.

WHAT CAN I DO?

In the meantime, please be careful with your Android device.   Watch permissions requested by all apps.  Make note of permissions that change with app updates.

Don't think for a second that your privacy is protected.  Between Google and its partners, you're toast. 

Don't even get me started on location-based tracking.. err....  services...