Playing Hopscotch on the Telephone Pole

There is an issue with Chrome-based browsers (Chrome, Opera, Vivaldi, Brave and most that aren't Firefox). If you're especially concerned about your privacy and rely on blocker add-ons like uBlock, Chrome screws the way they work and your info could get past them and/or you'll get ads. This does not happen in Firefox, so I'll continue to recommend it as a safer browser, even though it needs some de-googling.



OnePlus' smartphone has a 'disappearing' camera.
Let's take it one step further and have a disappearing phone, for when people talk too loudly in public.

MIT scientists made a shape-shifting material that morphs into a human face.

• ALIEN TECHNOLOGY! Aliens! Maybe Reptilians. Or maybe MIT scientists. They're a pretty smart bunch, those aliens scientists. But I kid.

A father took his son to Mongolia just to get him off his phone.
Child went through detox so bad, he had to be airlifted out of the country.

• Mariah Carey's Twitter account was hacked.
• Nobody noticed until she started making sense.

60 Minutes is investigating the death of Jeffrey Epstein. That's funny.
Since you're a ThermionicEmissions reader (even if by force), you know that he was murdered. You knew this before any photos came out. Having seen a photo, it's obvious he didn't hang himself with bedsheets, at the same time the security camera failed and the guards forgot to look in on him.

I believe Epstein was sacrificed to send a warning: this is what will happen if you tell. Dat's a nize neck you got theyah. It would be a shame for anyting t' happen to it, capeesh?

• Remember the Cambridge Analytics disaster, where it misappropriated 87 million Faceyspaces profiles? It's worse than you thought. The manipulation was obscene.

Troubleshooting follows a logical path: check one element at a time until you locate the bad one. The other day, my laptop went POOF and powered off: this is not normal. Laptop batteries can fail and prevent the machine from powering up. So I pulled the battery and ran off the power supply. And the machine failed to power up. Soooo, the battery AND power are bad?  After a bit more testing, the battery WAS bad, plus Penny had turned off a power strip that controlled the laptop. Troubleshooting should not include the results of dog.

Sooooo.... I needed a laptop battery - off to Ebay.

For obvious reasons, sellers of laptop batteries and memory are plentiful and really easy to find. You don't even have to know what battery or memory your machine takes: just search for "[machine brand and model] battery" and you have 400 listings. 

Unfortunately, to purchase a battery on Ebay, you have to log into Ebay. This, naturally, was an issue. As you've read, online purchases are one of my most reliable triggers. Simply buying a battery, which anyone can do almost instantly and without a fuss, is like negotiating world peace for me; only I get much angrier.  Typically the process involves discovering that the site doesn't like locked-down browsers or linux browsers. This time it was more insidious...

It wanted my phone number.

It already has my phone number.

But it wanted it again.

I tried clicking, making up phone numbers, and hitting escape - no luck.

If I don't want to give you my phone number, why are you bothering me?

Finally I found a set of numbers that worked.

Joyous at my login, the next screen wanted me to get through a CAPTCHA. 

I hate CAPTCHAs. My browsers hate CAPTCHAs. The industry hates CAPTCHAs. This one was particularly evil, involving putting a puzzle piece in place. Normally this would've been easy, but I couldn't see the puzzle piece.

NEXT BROWSER, please.

Ok, now I can see the puzzle piece and move it to the slot. Such joy in accomplishment.

But Wait!!!!  Now it wants me to pick security questions!

Wife knew I was making an online purchase because the house was shaking, there was high level screaming, and the dog was in panic mode.

Listen, Pig Fuckers.... I've been on Ebay for lots of years. Never hacked, never a fraud. LEAVE ME ALONE. Plus you already have my security questions - I document this stuff.

Total time: 20 minutes to log in, 2 minutes to purchase.

If Ebay gave a care in the world about their customers, I'd drop them a line to tell them about my feelings. 

• Blinded by the Light was a huge cover hit for Manfred Mann's Earth Band. Don't let that be your only impression of them - they have some pretty cool music. Check them out.

If you're looking for some interesting online radio, I found 2:

http://www.radiorockuk.com/

Radio Rock is a British station that plays what can be described as 70s progressive, with bands like Yes, Camel, Cream, and the occasional Jeff Beck or Peter Frampton. It's pretty interesting listening, even for background music. I can guarantee you've never heard radio like this, for better or worse.

https://kgraradio.com/
KGRA is a really interesting conspiracy-ish station. It features shows all day and night dealing with all the typical topics: ufo, paranormal, news, etc. It's a good place to pick up some knowledge, handed down by good people in their fields. Use your discretion as to whether it's good information or not.

They can be listened to in your browser, your audio player, and your cell phone, via browser, player, or one of the net radio players, like Online Radio Box (android, not sure about iDevices). There are bunches of free net radio players available on all platforms. All of them go to Faceyspaces and other ad networks first.

• A startup called Byton is producing a small electric SUV. They got tongues wagging because the 'infotainment system' will feature a 48" screen. From pictures, it doesn't look like it could transport a 48" screen home from the electronics store. When phones and displays started making it into cars, the worry was that drivers would get distracted. How could anyone possibly be distracted by an infotainment system that is literally the dashboard, stretching across the windshield...  We won't even discuss the voice recognition and privacy implications.

22 young women were tricked into doing porn by GirlsDoPorn, and were awarded $13 million by a judge. In legalese, this means the girls will get to split $3 million, and the lawyers the rest. I am not a lawyer, but I have seen commercials for lawyers, so I feel qualified to comment. The girls answered ads for clothed modeling. When they showed up, it was porn. But they were assured it wouldn't wind up on the net; only recorded to DVD, for collectors in Australia and New Zealand.

So naturally it wound up on the net, and lawyers are claiming "severe harassment, emotional and psychological trauma, and reputational harm." I am not unsympathetic to their plight, and believe GirlsDoPorn is on the hook for damages, but I think this went too far. Yes, this clear misrepresentation, but at no point were the ladies held against their will and prevented from leaving the building. In fact, they were lured with the promise of making $5,000 per day shooting. At that point, the women agreed to the shooting. The naked shooting. Their own greed assisted the shooter (a con man). Since the trial, the con man disappeared from the country and shifted assets overseas. This doesn't sound shady at all, does it? Good luck collecting the award.

The defense used my argument, which was rejected due to the coercion tactics of the con man and company. I think seeing lawyers in commercials really helped me in this instance. Unfortunately I won't be entitled to any of the proceeds.

• A man's cleverly-hidden 5.5" horn delayed his cancer diagnosis for years. Yeah, that huge horn growing out of his back must've hidden from him and his doctors.

Whoever you are, whatever your values, recognize the historic importance of this: it is second time the US government's retaliation against *the same whistleblower* has been found equivalent to torture. Telling the truth has become the greatest of crimes.  - Edward Snowden

• the sex toy banned from CES last year is unlike anything ever seen....
• it won an award from CES, then they banned it. Good group, those folks.

More sad news: RIP Neil Innes. Neil did the music for a lot of Monty Python bits and starred in Holy Grail as one of the minstrels. He was also in the aforementioned Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. He died of natural causes at 75.

The man was just plain FUNNY. He wrote funny songs, very well, so he was dear to me. If you haven't seen The Rutles - All You Need is Cash, you should get your posterior to wherever you can find it and see it now. The whole thing is a sendup of the Beatles, including the band members, Barry, Stig, Nasty, and Ron. Aside from being funny, the creation was pure genius. Listen to the songs and if you ignore the words, they could damn well be Beatles songs. That takes some doing (I know).


Today I identify as  the slightly worn "A" key from my keyboard.

All I Want for Christmas is Headache Relief

Mariah Carey is turning her song "All I Want for Christmas is You" into an animated movie with herself narrating. Because the world is crying out for it.  I know this because the local Fox morning show brought in yet another Yak Show Special Guest to tell us all about it.

Speaking of Hard Hitting News, Fox just aired their third segment on Flashy Nails with Sparkly Bits. This segment features a teaser, followed by two experts from a local nail salon applying these scandalous fake nails to the reporter's short and mangled nails. This is a breaking story that no doubt will involve international Special Reports every thirty minutes, with other networks gearing up their own coverage. When the story is beaten to death, which some will argue has already transpired, Mariah Carey will reportedly do a movie about it, with herself narrating.

• are you ready for the latest Big Controversy? A white man has been accused of Cultural Appropriation for painting a picture of a black man. I never studied sociology but this means something (aside from reaching Peak Stupidity).

A great feature of cell phones is the ability to install software and change things. For example, the standard Android keyboard and I do not get along. I installed a different one (after wading through hundreds of them, primarily concerned with emojis), with which I got on a little better. Here is where I start to blaspheme: I have a really good relationship with the keyboard on my work iDevice. While the thunder dies away, I have no idea why this is. It has tiny little keys, while I keep going larger with the Android keyboards.

Just for fun, I searched for an iDevice keyboard for Android. I installed the most popular one, which immediately started phoning home to China (I use No-Root Firewall, which tells me these things). This is what will happen to you if you install crappy software. Clue#1: subtle to hilarious English mistakes in the description. Check the privacy policy and whatever else is listed at the bottom of the software description. Also check reviews, making sure to look for English mistakes or obvious shills. Stick with popular software companies.

• In news guaranteed to amuse, The Turkish Hacking Family group claims to have access to over 300 million iCloud accounts and is threatening to remotely wipe this data unless Apple pays a ransom ($75,000 in crypto currency or $200,000 in iTunes gift cards). The deadline is April 7. Whether or not this threat is real, Apple is advising everyone to change their iCloud password and enable two-step authentication. This may or may not be the same group that is involved in The Fappening 2.0, exposing pictures of celebrities.

A Utah man was killed and his wife injured in the London Islamist terror attack. This won't go over well with the Brits but maybe it's time to arm... the police and other authorities aren't providing much cover here and ultimately it's up to a person to defend himself and his family. Something to think about..

I owe a heartfelt apology to the Swiss, who I accused of the London attack. Turns out it was a Muslim.

• I am a big fan of Android Forums. Lots of information and assistance for any android device. They just got hacked and a very small percentage of accounts lost a few bits of information - one report said it was forty. Guess who's one of the forty? Yup.

On the Stupid News File, after the obnoxious outside host kissed a camel, they ran a promo for a wedding dress show. One look at the lady in the dress said man. Yup, she's a transexual. Marrying another transexual. Hey, do what makes you happy, but the math here is staggering.  He has a full beard, meanwhile I can't grow hair on the top of my head.

• Just the other day, the Senate voted 50(R) to 48(D) to allow ISPs to sell your personal data. This is the headline but it's caught up in a different topic, namely letting regulations apply to all entities equally. Regardless, it's just your privacy. Early word is that the best way to prevent this is to use a VPN. Here's some info on how your information is collected.

If you're traveling from certain Muslim countries to the US/UK, you'll need to stow your laptop. In Serious Anti-Terrorism News, the US/UK have decided that you cannot use or carry your laptop to the US from certain countries. Authorities claim that this measure is not based on any intelligence. Well, it sure seems like a stupid measure to implement otherwise. And let's face it - it's going to be a problem regardless of where it goes boom. Security Theater.

• Two weeks after Failed Snowmageddon 2017, nobody has piled additional snow on my car. For this I am grateful. No local authorities have been involved but we have called in Cthulu to make a small statement to the (allegedly) adult miscreant neighbors.

Someone discovered a dishwasher with a web server. A web server. When it breaks or gets hacked (which it will), you have to get web server updates from a dishwasher company. What could possibly go wrong?  To be fair, this is an industrial machine for hospitals, which are fast becoming a rich target for hackers. This will not end well.

Antivirus company F-Secure released this list of most-used login/password combinations used to hack their honeypot (decoy for the purposes of collecting information) machines. Please don't use these.

• Good article on hack-proofing your smart phone. If you're lazy, you won't like this.

I'm in the middle of intensive training for this event!