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!

With A Melon?

Snowmageddon 2017 is underway!
True to forecast, the snow started at 8-10pm, then at 9-11pm, as forecast. We were to see 2-4" by the morning, which appears to be optimistic, but there's so much sleet, it looks like an ice skating rink. There aren't even tracks in the street, so I'm hoping the smart people (and everyone else) stayed in. Schools in PA and NY were closed as of yesterday, long before it started. The majority of damage is supposed to occur today, so we'll check in later with our team of intrepid people who occasionally look out the window.

UPDATE from the People Who Occasionally Look Out the Window:
The Great Blizzard turned into The Fizzling Blizzard. Our 6-10" then 8-12" rapidly died at 2-4" of snow, with a nice sheen of sleet on top. I still wouldn't drive* but this was a bit of a break. You have to give credit to a high number of meteorologists, who completely screwed up the forecast, in a rather serious way.  The governor of Maryland declared a state of emergency yesterday, before the snow started. This happened last year too.. no amount of egg on their faces will improve their accuracy (although I understand it's not easy).

Further update: the responsible entities have done a pretty good job of clearing the streets. Except perhaps our street, which still has a snowy/icy coating. My street does not look significantly different from surrounding streets, which are clear, hence my confusion.

But when I say clear, I'm referring to the snow on roads. The roads themselves are clogged by trucks going to stores to refill supplies of bread and milk.

• Headline of the week: IT Workers Expect Industrial Internet of Things Attacks to Rise.  Also expect taxes to rise and weather to be unpredictable.

Our buddies in the House GOP have been busy behind our backs, as is normal. This time it's a little heard of bill that would allow employers to require employees to undergo genetic testing or risk paying a penalty of thousands of dollars and would let employers see the genetic and other health information. Although this is prohibited by prior legislation, the new law allows it as part of a "workplace wellness" program.

We're from the government and we're here to help you.

Hey, didn't they just announce a replacement for Obamacare? Any doubt you'll still get screwed? The cardinal rule for figuring out why things happen is Who Benefits?  It sure as hell isn't We the People. This is somewhat confusing as the president promised a repeal of Obamacare and a better replacement. From what I can tell, neither occurred. 

• Rescue workers in Napa, California, had to remove part of a wall to pull a naked man out of a sandwich shop, where he spent the night inside a narrow passageway. Oh c'mon - who among us hasn't spend a night naked, trapped in a sandwich shop?

A buttload [technical term] of Twitter accounts were hijacked yesterday to send nasty Nazi slogans, primarily to Turkey. Twitter was not hacked - it was a third party service that people attached to their Twitter accounts. The next time you give a program access to one of your accounts or sign in with Faceyspaces or LinkedIn, remember this. Use only the login for that page-do not link to a different service.

• An obviously well-meaning father forced his daughter to have sex with men at a truck stop. You can tell he was well-meaning because this was her punishment for having sex. She'll obviously never do one of those things again...

A while back, videos started to appear featuring cats having wild reactions to cucumbers. No, really. Watch this video, preferably with the sound down, and be prepared to howl with laughter. Experts claim the response is due to their fear of snakes. This kills me, even as an animal lover and owner of two former cats.

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*When I say I still wouldn't drive, I mean because the streets are really slick and not cleared well. There's another reason....

My wife was looking at the aftermath and started to scream. Somebody was shoveling snow onto our car.  She started vibrating while screaming, then bouncing up and down between the floor and ceiling. 

I'm conflict-averse so I generally don't get involved but I stood at the window and watched this debacle. All of my conflict avoidance went out the (closed) window and I wandered up the street. 'Neighbors' were taking snow out of their private driveway and piling it in front of and in back of my car. I politely asked who was going to plow my car out. She didn't know. I suggested, politely, that she do it, as she boxed it in. She impolitely said I should do it myself - they needed to clear their drive. And if I didn't want my car snowed in, I should park in a local lot. My car, on a public street. My fault because I parked it there. Unbelievable. This occurs in bad areas of the city, not here. I told them I'd put the snow back in their driveway for them, which they encouraged.

I fully understand that one cannot kill one's neighbors, even if there's no real chance of getting caught. I do not want to call the police, as this is really petty (but will affect my back when I have to fix it). If I give them their snow back, the police will arrive. If I give them yellow snow, with little brown doggie dots, the police will eventually arrive. If their house developed smoke, the firemen will arrive, with the police a bit behind them. This is new. This is rude. And it will go on, as these people seem to believe that public accommodations exist purely for them. You'd think they owned a BMW.