You Ate my Table

Your love is like  improperly prepared rat

Scientists Have Solved a Mystery About the Most Powerful Object in the Universe

Guilt.

Today I identify as  Michaelangelo's penis

Ban all gambling adverts, say more than half of Britons

For the benefit of American and other readers, I will translate British to English:

"We are a nation of people who do what the television tells us, especially the ads. We abandoned all personal responsibility years ago. Please take the bad stuff away so we can get back to overfeeding our pets and life insurance commercials."

Freddie Mercury: Queen star's friend Mary Austin to auction his personal treasures

She's 72 and wants to put her affairs in order. Some of the proceeds will go to charities.

It's been 30 years since Freddie left. 30 years. The movie, although somewhat sanitized, gave an interesting look into the private and professional sides of Freddie. By the end, you almost knew him, as well as his relationship with Mary.

Asking the Big Questions: Freddie influenced and entertained millions. He left behind his music and all of his worldly possessions. Was it a good life? If you were Freddie, would you say you had it all and when you left, you were happy? What were you most happy about? Your legacy? Your fulfilled life? An effect you had on one person?

In the end, a person you didn't know will own your house. Another will own your stage costumes. Is there a lesson here? The problem, as I see it, is that we don't hear from enough dead people to help us put things in perspective.

Nothing really matters. Anyone can see. Nothing really matters. Nothing really matters to me.

I am proud to announce the new Cisco Internet of Things Firewall. I was privileged to work with Cisco on the project, and brought my love for my technology with me. Here is a draft of the instructions

1. plug in the Cisco and get the updates
2. plug your IoT network into the jack labeled IoT
3. plug the network you want to protect from IoT into the jack labeled LAN
4. pull the power plug from the Cisco

You are now protected from all issues the IoT will bring to your network.

Cisco recommends the No Wire option, where the IoT jack isn't attached to anything, in case some ass plugs the Cisco back in.

Cisco and I are collaborating on the CLOUD Firewall. It works the same as the IoT Firewall, but says THE CLOUD on it. This will satisfy the CEO and his buddies because his network uses THE CLOUD.

In the pipeline is the AI Firewall, because THE CLOUD is last week's buzzword. The current buzzword is AI - Artificial Intelligence. All C-level executives must use the buzzword at least once in every sentence. lest they be though of as out of touch. Even the janitorial staff asks the CEO how the AI project is coming along, when the CEO goes to the men's room.

Magna’s new rearview mirror cleverly integrates a driver-monitoring system

You need to check the mirror sometimes, but this mirror's always watching you. Ugh.

As sea levels rise, the East Coast is also sinking

Meh... I never liked New Jersey anyway

 

• I'm enjoying my new phone from werk: the iDevice. No wait. I didn't say that. I'm enjoying that I only have to charge it weekly. I'm still not sure how to operate it, but that doesn't matter. I just have to answer it when it rings, which I can definitely manage. It's a piece of werk equipment, therefore I don't play with it. I use it for werk.
• After not being able to get the last one to ring for a long time, someone made me aware of the mute switch, so I'm ahead on that one thing.
• Unfortunately I'm not so lucky with Teams, which I have to use. It's like they put it together to purposely annoy the users. It has a special feature: the further up the chain the messenger, the less likely Teams will notify me of their message or text. So I get DING DING all day when my coworkers post something stupid about their nose piercings, but nothing when my boss asks me to do something. I've often thought Microsoft hates me almost as much as I hate it.

Speaking of Microsoft, in yet another bid to piss everyone off, they're discontinuing accessories and making them only for Surface. So if you like the $59.99 ergonomic keyboard, you can have it for $129. Don't forget the cameras and everything else. The ergo keyboards and mice are the only thing I like from Microsoft. Wankers.

IMGUR breaks the internet:

As of May 15, 'pornographic' or sexually explicit images are not allowed, with the existing images deleted.  In their stated effort to be diverse, they will be diverse to everyone except those with adult content. No 'hate speech' either. The Right must've whined again. Meanwhile, content from the beginning of Imgur will be deleted. This will delete content from Reddit and all the other social media sites.

I read a lot of Robert Heinlein growing up. Even science fiction dealt with the circular nature of societies. We don't want to go there. Personal responsibility has gone out the window. If there is something we don't like, we're free to ignore it. Delete or turn the page. Stop forcing your issues on the rest of us.

The body being 'dirty' came directly from religion, to keep us in line.

I often say we are a nation of morons. Unfortunately it turns out we are a planet of morons...

Russian forces suffer radiation sickness after digging trenches and fishing in Chernobyl

Who saw that coming? 

 Maurizio Cattelan: Banana artwork eaten by Seoul museum visitor

 He was hungry 

Principal forced to resign over Michelangelo's David visits sculpture

Fired because the historic artwork had a penis. Parents were outraged, probably because they don't have a penis.

Man's viral worm dance at charity event wows Rita Ora

You laugh, but this Viral Worm Dance will usher in world peace!

The USPS Delivered All the Packages. Somewhere.

 Your love is like  shoving a Buick up my ass

The USPS tried to throw me a curve ball today, when notification of a long-missing package popped up. Like the last one, they inform me it's going to be late. They can't tell me how late, or even where the package is, but they sent me a notice, so now I apparently feel much better and won't write about it in my widely-read blog and get them in trouble.

The one package has spent literally a month wandering around New York, from where it was mailed. They keep assuring me it has hit Philly, but I'm suspicious, for some reason. Perhaps it will go back to New York for a while, because it prefers the weather. Or the accent. Strangely enough, the package from Michigan wandered around Michigan for 30 days, but they assure me it's out of Michigan now (and winging its way east to Panama).

You realize if these deliveries hit 40 days, I'll have to come up with something about Jews wandering around the desert, probably with USPS packages to deliver.

• I don't have any of their products, but I'm in awe of the FU-Tone name.

President elect Biden was advised to make a speech about the Washington riot. He was quite upset. Not about the riot...about being taken away from his Barbie Playhouse.

We have Barbies in the lefty Mansion. Too many. Of course, some would say 1 Barbie is too many. We have the Barbie Bus, Barbie Plane, and Barbie's Philly Crack House. It came with tiny replica needles and everything! There are Barbie clothes, which cost more than people clothes. There are Bob Mackie-designed outfits. We have a Barbie steering wheel cover, but I'm not mentioning it, lest someone try to install it. The internal kids think no moving vehicle is complete without a Barbie flag, especially construction equipment. When they get their earthmover, it will be Barbie pink, with a Barbie flag on the back. And then, as so many things go, the city will enact a no earthmover on the lawn law. I'll have to park mine on the street, with the rest of them.

Today I identify as  marmite

Dear lefty 

• I have a bandana hanging out of my right back pocket. My friends tell me that the right side is gay and the left side is straight. Have I committed a preferential faux pas? (I'm straight)
• take the bandana out of your pocket til high school ends and stay out of certain parts of the city if you don't

Mainstream or Pr0n?: Easy Vegetarian, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of My Basement 

• Apple is working with Hyundai on an electric car for 2027.
• Phew. Good thing I got my Hyundai early - all my friends would point and laugh (in a different way than they already do).

Conservative-friendly social network Parler is in a world of trouble. After getting thrown out of Google and Apple stores, they discovered that if Google and Apple don't like you, not many others do. This includes Amazon, which runs their servers (The Cloud)  They're looking for a way to get back online.

This points out the aforementioned agenda, but it starts to get hairy, because of some violent posts, like talking about killing the head of BLM. The thing Gab has over Parler is that Gab polices for illegal speech, although neither is in the Apple or Play stores.

And while we're at it, Stripe will no longer process payments for Trump's campaign site. No agenda here either.

Bright fellow Cory Doctorow says you must align yourself with a digital feudal warlord (Google, Amazon, FB, Apple, MS, etc) and if that warlord turns on you, heaven help you. 

Amazon and Walmart are telling some customers to skip returns of unwanted items. Turns out it's too expensive to ship them back. 

Hello, Walmart? I want to return this sweater. I only wore it once and It's quite ugly, really, like an Ugly Sweater Competition. 

We share your sadness. Please keep the sweater - it's probably full of the Flying AIDS anyway, and we'll credit your account. Looking at your account, you seem to return a lot of stuff.

I'm very picky. That's why I shop Walmart.  [sound of choking]

Hello, Amazon? I need to return this box of random Chinese sex toys.

Ma'am, the joke is on you, because you can't reach a human at Amazon. Think about this... do you want to rip the $1,000 bills from Jeff Bezos' hands as he wipes his bottom with them? Do you? 

Hello Target? I want to return this dress. It's an 8 and it turns out I need a 22. Plus it has red bullseyes all over it.

Hello, CostCo? I want to return this Chevrolet truck. It's the wrong color.

Sorry about that. Just filling the tank is prohibitively expensive, so keep it and we'll send you a new one.

--> although the CostCo customers are batshit crazy, you can return anything for any reason, even without packaging.

--> I really like saying batshit crazy. Or just batshit. Repeat after me: batshit crazy.

Hello Sears? I want to return this house. Whoever built it from a Sears kit back in the 60s did an unbelievably bad job.

Sir, we are bankrupt. They can barely afford to pay me to answer this stupid phone.

But they told me the guy who bought it that it was returnable if not fully satisfied. Plus anybody who would buy KMart is morally bankrupt.

Ok, Sir, we'll credit your account.

I don't have an account. They went bankrupt.

I'll stop by with a large sack full of bills, ok? 

Can't you send me a better house?

Sir, not only are we bankrupt, the houses haven't been produced since the 60s.

Oh, I see.. bait and switch. Bad faith. Pull the sweater right over my eyes, and other cliches.

Sir, how about if I bring a huge bag of cash and personally build you a house? 

How do I know you'll do any better than the last builder? It's a valid question.

Sir, do you live in Northeast Philadelphia or did you forget to take your meds today? 

Both.

We'll credit your imaginary account. You have a nice day now. 

• My incredibly heavy vacuum tube shortwave receiver isn't making a sound. I think I blew a tube. And boy did that hurt.

Don't forget - per the Flying AIDS relief bill, the president gave the intelligence agencies 180 days to produce an unclassified report on UFOs. This is almost a dream come true for researchers, and more than 60 years overdue for America and the world. The only question remaining is how the agencies are going to worm out of this. They have a long, storied history of lying, so that's a start. I predict one of the following:

• Lie and say they don't deal with UFOs, like they always have
• Produce a very light paper, short on facts
• Claim it's a national security matter and remain clammed up

It's not that I don't trust the intel agencies, but I don't trust the intel agencies, and those above them. I guess we'll see soon.

Ain't The Cloud great?

Whenever anyone says The Cloud, you are required to repeat it and genuflect. Or at least your CEOs and that level guys.

What happens is you have your Corporate Buzzwords, which must be spoken frequently, or the Corporate folks aren't doing their jobs. So a while back, the buzzword was The Cloud. Because of this, businesses began adopting things that were in The Cloud. They got rid of their mail servers and used horrible services like Microsoft 365, which was, you guessed it, in The Cloud.

Let's get to brass tacks. I don't know why brass tacks... they sound painful, like some sort of World War II torture. Let's get to the truth. In reality, The Cloud just means Someone Else's Computer.

So your mail is processed and hosted on Somebody Else's Computer; in this case, Microsoft's. Microsoft now has responsibility (sort of) for and control of your mail, and unfortunately, possession of it. Their service claims some ridiculous amount of uptime, like 99% or more, but you've read about the outages. Your mail is not under your control, so you can't make any changes. You've taken a security risk by letting it out of the building. Lastly, you've introduced a delay in receiving the mail.  This is not the way for a company to operate their email services, but it's the way companies are going. After all it's The Cloud, and they save money by farming out their email. And their IT services. And whatever else they can send. If the staff is particularly unattractive, their work goes out too. Your security goes into The Cloud sometimes, even if you have security devices in-house.

So down the line, when there's an outage, all you'll have is your work laptop or desktop, with no email, Faceyspaces, service, or security, because they're all in The Cloud.

Newer Corporate Buzzwords are Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). If you haven't heard them, you will. Artificial Intelligence is when some software will be put in place to do something humans can't or can't easily. It will perform functions like facial recognition, where it has trouble with black people. The Internet of Things is a very slow motion train wreck, wherein you wire up your house with 'smart' devices that fail when your internet connection is down, because they have to check in with their server before they work. This is a bit inconvenient when it's an oven or fridge. Security is bad or non-existent, so it will be a matter of time til your entire house is hacked, like people did with baby monitors. Do ya really want people from all over the world monitoring your baby, and telling it stuff you'd rather they didn't hear yet? Or ever? Do you want your car doing whatever the hacker wants it to do, while you're in the driver's seat?

There is a right way and a wrong way to do these things. Guess which way they're done currently?

• Ugandans have been warned not to eat dead fish that wash ashore.
• also warned not to drink bleach, stab themselves in the eyes with forks, and piss off people larger and stronger.

An app developer in Milton Keynes, England, used a delivery robot to deliver an engagement ring to his girlfriend, also a technology enthusiast (geek). After they wed, they will have virtual sex, with and without the robot. They will also have virtual fights and will ultimately get a virtual divorce. Presumably the robot will pick up the ring.

The US Space Force joined the US Intelligence Community, to defend the national security of the US. 

From what?

We have satellites to spy on every area of the planet. WTF is going on in space that we need defending from? Are they hip to Ziblat and his pals, performing all the mischief to confuse us? Putting up Roadrunner cutouts in front of the Mars Explorer? Taking it for the occasional joyride? Knocking on the Space Station doors? They're not harmful. Is it the others they're worried about? Are we able to do anything about them other than HEY FRANK - INCOMING! 

Some of the literature describes one alien race as 6' tall and beautiful.

SHIT. Can you imagine if models were aliens?

"This cosmetic is infused with hyaluronic acid and micellar water. They both mess with your DNA to produce beings better suited for our home planet."

Do you want to live on a world where people are beautiful but dumb as a box of rocks? Cindy Crawford has an engineering degree, but who knows about the rest of them. Master class in lip pursing? Books about how to do stuff to keep you in the papers? Winking at the non-gay guy on TMZ? Disavowing any relationship with the Kardashians?

But let me try for the positive in all this: maybe they need to reproduce frequently.

The line forms to the left, guys.

Tyre Spanner Care and Feeding

Your love is like a string of Mondays



Vladimir Putin, part time signpost and all around good guy, has proposed a no-hack pact with the US. This should work out as well as gun control: ask the criminals not to break the law.



Dear lefty

• Are you going to watch the debates?
• Oh is that on tv? Shoot - I made an appointment to chew razorblades that night 

President Trump paid $750 of federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017, according to the NY Times. Who does the man think he is - Amazon?  Whether he did or didn't, doesn't this expose flaws in the tax system? It's long past time to fix this. Rest assured reps and dems won't bother to do anything but raise taxes.

• In case you didn't know, too much glycyrrhizic acid can kill you. Glycyrrhizic acid, unfortunately, is contained in black licorice.
• The second case in 30 years occurred at a restaurant in Massachusetts the other day. The number of fatalities could be worse: fortunately no one likes back licorice.

Data News

LA Police Department has run almost 30k facial algorithms, in spite of promising it wouldn't. Shocking.

Exercise tracking app Strava, which previously revealed the location of military bases, is now giving your data to 'help urban planners'. Do not use tracking apps. Of any variety. Your Fitbit app is sucking up all your data and sending it up the line. Is this ok with you?

Wanna know what kind of privacy invasion is on a website? Visit Blacklight.
Wanna know how secure your browser is? Visit Panopticlick.

You're not going to like the results. My suggestion is to run Firefox with a number of security settings and addins. While many addins are available for Chrome and Chrome-based browsers, they're leaky to begin with.


The CLOUD

Microsoft Office365 went down the other day, taking down email and Teams.
It also took down 911 systems all over the country.
This is a perfect demonstration of my objection to The CLOUD. Email's pretty important to most people and all businesses, but 911 services being down.... unconscionable and possibly deadly.

Everybody went nuts over The CLOUD, mostly upper manglement, who saw only savings. The hardcore security and availability nazis, like yours truly, rolled their eyes and took more aspirin. This is only a tiny demonstration of what could happen.

• We did well this summer, in terms of sunlight. Unfortunately we're in Gray Season. Plus there's winter coming up, so the Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) sufferers are on full alert, if not already there. 
• Add in the Flying AIDS and semi-quarantines, and you have a less than ideal picture of health, both physical and mental. Now's the time to get on top of it, before it hits. We're not bears and shouldn't be hibernating (unless the doctor tells you to). Check with your doctor or specialist and find out what you can do. I am not a specialist, and this does not constitute medical advice, but I'd avoid dancing naked in restaurants or malls (unless you have a large mask).

WARNING: Pumpkin Spice is here.
Proceed as necessary.
It starts out with pumpkin spice coffee at Dunkin, then spreads like wildfire to thousands of products in thousands of stores. Before long there's pumpkin spice furniture, pumpkin spice pajamas, and pumpkin spice tires (tyres for our spelling-impaired cousins in the UK).

A friend went for an interview for a very important position (VIP) and was served a pumpkin spice muffin. He naturally declined the position, figuring that if they are careless enough to serve pumpkin spice, what other due diligence have they not done?

• Man killed in a dispute over line at Michigan haunted house
• Oh c'mon... how many of us never wanted to....
• "Clearly that argument escalated" Sheriff Mike Bouchard said. 

Sheriff Mike Bouchard wins this week's Captain Obvious award, for the most idiotic sentence that didn't require saying. The award is a golden trophy, with a man falling off a cliff. It's inscribed "That's not good".



Sex after heart attack may boost survival, study claims.

Let's further the science by seeing if it helps decrease heart attacks.
Ready.... set.... boink!

Another study, closely related to the other study, says it's a myth that women don't want sex as they age.       (unless they're married)


Sociology

Parrots removed from UK wildlife park after they started swearing at customers. The five African grey parrots were adopted in the same week and while in isolation taught each other to swear. I think things are starting to surface that people don't want to face: 'swearing' is a natural form of expression that has been suppressed over the years. Look at the AI bot let loose on Twitter, that became alt-right and started cursing at people. Just the other day, a woman went nuts on a plane, screaming curses and jumping on armrests.

We will not progress as humans (or birds) until we acknowledge our true nature. Uncle Fucker.



Astronomers discover possible 60s era moon rocket booster heading back to Earth.
Small wonder the aliens are pissed: not only do we nuclear weaponize every frontier we discover, we trash up the place. Also returning are the onboard coffee machine, waste processing unit (hopefully will burn up on re-entry), and the comfort zebras of each astronaut. NASA went all out on these missions.



Happys

Jerry Lee Lewis - The Killer!
Jean-Luc Ponty - jazz fusion violinist, played with Zappa, among others

from the man Himself

Captivity - Day 93 Wanna See My 8 track Collection, Baby?

I like to shake things up by releasing these in odd numerical order. That's about all I've got these days.


Happy F Day, to whom it applies.
It's Sunday - why the F are people mowing at 11am?


I looked up my local mall to see if they were open. They seem to have forgotten to update their page. I know this because it said March 3rd. They were kind enough to let us know Sears was open just fine, and Kay Jewelers had curbside service. "Oh, K? I'd like an engagement ring. Could you bring one to the curb?"

Guitar Center emailed to say it's not too late to get Dad a gift card. I should probably forward this to Wife. I feel privileged: she has an email filter specifically for me. I asked if it brought all my emails to the top and she said close; it brings all  my emails to the trash. Perhaps if I print out the email and leave it on top of the shoe store sale flyer....


Mrs lefty said all men want a threesome.
I looked at her incredulously and said, "What - and disappoint 2 women at the same time?"


I always found myself drawn to technology. If I were doing a play, I'd wind up wanting to do sound instead. Nothing has changed... I want to be the guy who wires up the wireless mics to celebrities. "Ms Vergara? I have to snake this small black wire up your shirt and clamp it to your collar for your microphone. Oops."



Mrs lefty asked me to carry a whole lotta stuff out of the back room. I said, "Excuse me? I don't carry boxes - I am a knowledge worker."

So I carried everything.




Joe Rogan is undergoing SJW canceling (whine, never watch again, expect everyone else to not watch again, contact his boss, contact his advertisers) for making a joke about female comics not being allowed onstage until they orally satisfy him.

It's a joke, you socially correct fun-vacuums. They've been around forever.
I used to be a musical comic. At a college (of course), some SJW boy came up and said we were really bashing Jews. We explained to Cindy that many of the group were Jewish and we bashed everyone equally. Keep in mind that all we did  was song parodies. Then he said we were really hard on women.

I did my level best to remain calm and listen to what he had to say. Susie looked at me and told the group I looked like I was ready to kill him. I've never been good at hiding my emotions. This was over 20 years ago and still gets my snot boiling. It was a sign of things to come. We had to stop doing colleges ($$) because the SJWs were infiltrating campuses. And just the other day, students apologized for letting the police use their bathrooms at one of their informal riots.

Where was I?  Oh, jokes.
Back in the Olde Days<tm>, we'd  listen to a comedian and find him funny or not. If funny, we'd watch. If not funny, we wouldn't watch. I hated Pauly Shore, Carrot Top, Elaine Boosler, Jerry Seinfeld, and all the other whiny, neurotic alleged comedians. Did I call the venues, agents, sponsors, bus companies, parents, and keep it mentally stored in case there was ever social media? Apparently I had a life (or something) and this idea would take way too much time. In addition, I wasn't interested in taking away anybody else's enjoyment of the things I didn't like. Are you seeing any similarities to today?

Joe Rogan: after you read this, know that even though I don't watch or listen to you, I'm squarely behind you. In spirit. Because I can't do shit for you. And because you don't read this blog (although you should). And maybe if famous people read this blog, they'd steal my stuff. As if it were worth stealing. I know you're a psyop, but I promise not to tell anyone.


Make sure you read carefully, unlike me, who likes to look at the pitchers.
I saw something called a Cloud Microphone. Whenever I hear 'cloud,' I cringe. Now I'm wondering if the microphone goes to the cloud and comes back down. That would be a hell of a trick, not to mention the delay.


My BFF is a lesbian.
That makes two women I'm not sleeping with.


In fact, I know a lot of ladies, none of whom have expressed the slightest desire to sleep with me.

My wife is amused. And cruel.
One day at work, a very pretty lady walked up to me and kissed me on the cheek, in full view of a few people. She turned around and walked away. I told my wife, who said she probably lost a bet.  I told you she was cruel. Coincidentally, my BFF, the lesbian, was standing right there with me. We'd sit in the office and rate breasts going by.  Speaking of coincidences, Mrs lefty's BFF was a gay guy. THEY would sit there and rate asses. This dipshit had AIDS, pretty much cured, then took too much whatever, and died falling on his face. He was a great dude and we miss him.

The Vagaries of Elephant Sexing. And Sexting.

After our great success with the battery-powered Worx mower, we purchased a Worx... thing... it's a small chainsaw attached to a long pole. Wife says it's for getting rid of high branches. I say it's for long distance torturing of certain neighbors.

I guess it depends on who handles it.  Meanwhile, it's waiting in the kitchen.


ThermionicEmissions is saddened to hear Beth Chapman, Dog the Bounty Hunter's wife, passed away, most likely from cancer (1967-2019). Although an occasional target of the blog, we send our best to Dog and family.

• Japan is set to resume whale hunting. They say it's essential.
• Reached for comment, the whales say it's not essential.
• Funny mishap on the first day: someone harpooned Rob Reiner.

At the Glastonbury Festival (England's answer to Woodstock III), people observed...

Unfortunate songstress Neneh Cherry was warbling through her set when the veteran OS finally gave up the ghost. Alas, XP was dealing with the stage back projection, meaning that the audience lurched from being vaguely surprised to learn that Cherry was still around to the horrifying realisation that so was XP.

Yes, Windows XP, the long out of support, dead OS. Perfect example. The only safe, past term OS, is one that runs by itself and doesn't connect to any network. When Microsoft tells you to upgrade, they're not kidding. And you know how I feel about Microsoft.

•  Mauritania (election controversy), Ethiopia (coup), Syria (2x, exams), have had large internet 'interruptions' with the past few hours. This shows you how important the net is, and how control of it is so important for tyranny. Remember this the next time you demand internet censorship and control.

Confused by all the news about Huawei?

Just discovered were 3 accounts on a big business router; all 3 were hard-coded (built in and not removable), one was root (access to everything) and 2 were system accounts. The passwords are the same, so if you know one, you know them all. I suspect the ability to 'phone home' will also be discovered.

So if you don't understand why many are calling for dumping their products, you're starting to. As a glance at the news will tell you, our government is not all that good at securing things. Nobody on the planet wants to fire up their networking gear and find out it's available to anyone with the password and it's sending data to China (where companies work even closer with their government).

This is why it's disheartening to see the president and others backtracking on the ban. [never hope politicians finally 'got it']

Along those lines, large cloud services provider PCM was hacked, as discovered in mid-May. Why do I say that if you can no longer touch your data, it's no longer yours? The moment you let things loose past your home or business, you are at the mercy of bright as well as bungling people/corporations. You've widened your attack surface (made yourself easier to hit with a foul ball).  The hack was accomplished via phishing, as most are lately.

In reality, you're not going to avoid The Cloud, whether you know it or not. Just don't choose to. Sync your browser passwords? Get your info from anywhere there's a connection? Get login and password from anywhere you are? It's in The Cloud.  Just don't put anything out that you don't have to, especially for the sake of convenience. 

Dear lefty:

• Where can I get a tin foil hat like you? What's your size?
• Just pretend you have one and act accordingly. It will eventually materialize; faster if you're referred to as one by friends or online. 
• My size varies, depending on how smug I feel that day. It's always large, though.

A lot of you are probably asking yourselves about the incidence of human feces incidents in San Francisco. Anticipating your question, I found the following...

I don't know which surprises me more: that there are so many or that there are stats. A San Francisco friend's comment was 'notice the color'.

• Several days after once again brandishing swords with the US, Iran said it's over the limit of plutonium it's supposed to have.
• They also announced they have very small penises.

There are people who have read ThermionicEmissions via online translation!

Nice to know I can frighten people in other countries.  World domination is imminent. 

• Sony is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Walkman (1979). Where were you when it came out? A twinkle in your parents' eye? The back seat of a brand new Oldsmobile Cutlass station wagon? Still post-traumatic over the conversion to unleaded gas?

Karl Rove (R-Hell) was bemoaning the shit show that was the Democratic debates. His main objection was federal abortion funding, which he said 'violates morals and people don't want their tax dollars funding abortion.' Hey Karl - I'm morally opposed to war. I don't want my tax dollars funding the military industrial complex. You're a smart fella - you know it doesn't work this way... it's just convenient for your religious agenda.

Say what you will about Kellyanne Conway, but that New Jersey accent makes you want to gouge your own eardrums out. The sad thing is that her accent isn't all that bad for New Jersey.

This week's best overheard:

When police dug up the yard, they found the body. But unless it had 3 legs, there was another body down there somewhere.

COWORKER Follies

Ring ring...
Me: Yes?
Him: Hi, it's me. I wanted to get your idea on this project. I don't want to send the email first, then do the rest.
Me: I'm thinking we should wait on the email.
Him: Yes, but if we wait on the email, the boss will be upset.
Me: Why do you always call me to argue with yourself? Is your wife often upset with you and you can't figure out why?

• A baseball player died in a hotel at a young age. There is no cause of death but police don't believe foul play or suicide was involved. 
• When a musician dies, the cause of death is announced immediately, without autopsy.
• When there is a particularly nasty explosion, it is automatically not terrorism, before any investigation.
• How do they know this stuff?
• our condolences to the pitcher's wife of 7 months.

SJW News

Nike co-opted the Betsy Ross flag as a sneaker decoration.
There was incredible howling from Colin Kaepernik, because 'it takes us back to slavery'.
Nike will not sell them in the US.
Demands to destroy the Betsy Ross House and Betsy Ross Bridge are pending.

Men have named women's body parts, which is sexist.

Oreo is giving away special Pronoun Packs and encouraging everyone to share their pronouns with pride today and every day.

I Watch LivePD - I'm Almost a Cop

I'm missing out on family outings because of my loose bladder.
I typed that as it just spewed from the tv. How many times have you heard that phrase?

• due to the order in which I put things together, this was written on February 30th.

What has the dog humped today?
Glad you asked. Her original boyfriend was a large sofa pillow. When her mommy made it CLEAR that he was no good for her, she switched her affections to a huge purple stuffed elephant. This is the same stolen elephant she tore holes in the first week she arrived. Now she can't figure out whether to shred it or hump it. I think we have an abuser in the house.

Hey - aren't male dogs supposed to do the humping?




Dear lefty

• Reader Stepphan Keys, of Cross Keys Avenue, in the Florida Keys, asks why men put stuff up their butts.
• Go fuck yourself, Stepphanie.

What's in a name?
Siobhan (shuh-VAWN) is an Irish name.  You can tell because the spelling has absolutely nothing to do with the pronunciation. Yet it is also spelled Shavaun, Chavon, Chevron, Shavonne, and Rhinoplasty, all pronounced the same way.

In related news,
James is Jim.
Margaret is Peggy.
Jeffrey is Geoffrey or Jeff (where did they come up with that?)
Richard is Dick. Most people named Richard had rough childhoods.
Sometimes John is Jack, except for when he's Julie.
We can never remember which Quade is the 'funny' one - Dennis or Randy.
By any standards of language, one cannot pronounce Phoebe, yet Phoenix makes sense. Sort of.
Karen is close to Kieran, yet not close enough for anyone to care.
Ian can be pronounced E-an or I-an, depending on what hand they throw with.
Not wanting to be left out, the Irish spelling is Ioin. I know one.
All children are Jesus Christ I Said Get Over Here.
My friend Michael is known to all as Michael. We have no idea where he came up with that.
Both Leslie and lefty are Leh.
Wife says the short form of lefty is Asshole. But it has the same number of syllables.  Oh...

• I'm ok playing fetch with the dog but after a while I get tired of fetching and the toys get soggy.

There is a great tale of the late Jackie Gleason, wherein he got picked up in a limousine driven by the late Richard Nixon (late president and part time sign post), who had escaped his protection detail. He drove Gleason to a military base and showed him some... people... who weren't from the region. Or hemisphere. Or globe. It is a tale without any factual backup. As far as we know.

• The key to making life interesting is never self-censor. If you've got something to say, say it! Speak the first thing that comes to mind. Blurt out stuff randomly, for no reason. Not only will this amuse you, you won't get invited to any of those annoying parties and social events.

I always suggest using a password manager/locker to hold all your passwords. The great majority of these use The Cloud. I recommend Keepass, which doesn't use The Cloud. Why? Because the moment you can't touch your data, it's no longer yours. The Blur password manager was just discovered to have a ridiculous amount of their data open to everyone. This is precisely what I warned about. This was a configuration error, discovered in December, with no idea when it started. Since it was a configuration error, one would think the problem started as soon as it went online. Regardless of which you use, your data is elsewhere; susceptible to hackers and config errors. You might as well put your password on a sticky note on your monitor. There's s reason I wear a tin foil hat, and it's not because I like being laughed at. Ok, a little.

• After an airplane crash, an autopsy is always done on the cockpit crew, to look for alcohol or drugs, whether they survived or not.

Iphone users: if you have any of the listed games, they're communicating and sending data to Bad Places. This is odd, as Apple prides itself on vetting its apps.

Commando Metal: Classic Contra
Super Pentron Adventure: Super Hard
Classic Tank vs Super Bomber
Super Adventure of Maritron
Roy Adventure Troll Game
Trap Dungeons: Super Adventure
Bounce Classic Legend
Block Game
Classic Bomber: Super Legend
Brain It On: Stickman Physics
Bomber Game: Classic Bomberman
Classic Brick – Retro Block
The Climber Brick
Chicken Shoot Galaxy Invaders

• If you're a linux user, aliases are great things. You can take a long command and shorten it to a few letters. This applies to the command line only. 

A lawsuit was filed against the Weather Channel because their app misled its users about how it would use their personal information. 

Tin foil advice: most, if not all apps, are excuses to mine your personal information. When you install (android) apps, they frequently ask for way more permissions than needed. I have a word find app that asked for mic, location, camera, and several others. We all know these are not needed. When they are, it's purely for your data. Pay attention to what the apps request. You can also take permissions back inside android or uninstall the app. As a rule, I don't install apps that replace logging into a website, for this very reason. Faceyspaces is the worst offender by far: demanding access to things like your contacts, so it can mine them for information. If you must use Faceyspaces, use a browser - not the app. This is good advice for all apps.

• I don't know about you, but I'm going to forget all my own advice against Internet of Things devices and buy this Kohler smart toilet, which promises an immersive experience. Although I thought the idea of a toilet was to avoid an immersive experience...

Dear lefty:

• A cornucopia of cunning linguists asks why there's so much information tech and security stuff here.
• You are what you eat.

Bowling for Benefits

Whoever had the brilliant idea that putting things online would save paper and streamline operations was very clearly under the age of five, or on drugs that are not covered by their employer's health plan.

I have a long, bitter history with doing things online. This is hilarious irony, as I've been working with computers for a lot of years. Ok, be fair; the ability to work with computers really doesn't reflect the ability to go online and attempt to navigate the gauntlet of a purchasing transaction, be it concert tickets, a t-shirt, or doing Work Stuff.

Inner Security Guy

Way back in the days when the web was new, the idea of online transactions started to surface. Without even checking out the plans, my Inner Security Guy said, "No. You will not put your personal and credit card information online." Inner Security Guy only talks to me because if anybody else hears him, they laugh and call him Tinfoil Hat Guy. He wouldn't even let me or the wife order things over the cordless phone because anyone with a receiver could hear it. He also said NO to wireless for computers because once the signal left the wire, it was no longer mine alone. He was not kidding.. one day he drove me around a bit with a police scanner in the car. We got to hear quite a few people talking on their cordless phones, from outside their houses and down the block. Later on, he drove me down an interstate with a laptop and a 'sniffer'. This allowed me to see wireless system names and whether or not they were locked down, all the way down the road. Go ahead - make fun of Tinfoil Hat Guy, just like the rest of them did.

Not only was Inner Security Guy correct, but one doesn't even have to use web transactions to have their information stolen: thieves around the world just break in through the site or otherwise, and POOF - your information is on the Dark Web for purchase. Inner Security Guy was years ahead of his time.

So it's the 2010s and we discovered that although wireless connections are quite hackable, they're reasonably untouched. It's a tradeoff. Online transactions are actually reasonably safe, except from the NSA, but they are not interested in your financial information. Again, this information will become available when the site gets hacked or some idiot leaves their Cloud account's front door wide open, like the recent Equifax breach.

Doing Stuff Online

One day it came to pass that I had to set up my work benefits online. Although I can't prove it, I suspect my employer is a dude in an office somewhere, with a secretary. Dude in an Office is shocked to discover he has to run payroll and benefits for thousands of people. Neither he nor his uber-competent secretary (the brains of the outfit) can manage payroll and benefits for themselves, no less thousands of others, so they do what every employer does these days: outsourced it. To The Cloud.

The end effect of this exercise is that I cannot call my employer (or his potentially very attractive secretary) for any questions on payroll or benefits. They simply refer me to the Online Folks.

So I fired up my browser and went to the site.

Sidebar, Your Honor: my operating system is linux. I have seven web browsers, all in different states of lockdown. The thing I don't have is Internet Explorer, because it does not run on linux, is a pain in the ass, and is so full of holes, they should call it Swiss Cheese Browser. Technically I can run Windows, but it takes time and I don't want to have to fire it up every time I need to perform an online transaction.  None of this really matters, because the web is built on standards; where any browser on any operating system on any device should display everything the same way. I will now ask people familiar with this concept to stop laughing, as it's drowning out my ability to think.

To recap, I should have no trouble surfing or performing any transactions online - we're all equal on the web. They say the good thing about standards is that there are so many of them.

Right off the bat, the site comes up with huge holes in it, where pictures and other stuff will not display. Why? Because I'm using my number one browser, Firefox, and it's completely locked down for safety reasons. Javascript is disabled by default. This 'breaks' websites because they 'have to' use javascript to perform their magic tricks. Some pages will not display pictures without it. Pictures.  Ok, I own this issue, because I choose to surf safely. Javascript can perform many evil tricks and I won't use it unless I'm familiar with a site. After grudgingly enabling javascript, the next error will be cookies. I also turn off cookies, which gives sites fits. Cookies are used to track you online. The only positive use for them is to remember information between pages when you're ordering. A site's shopping cart will not work without cookies (it will not 'remember' items you put in there).

Since the web runs on standards, Firefox should display the site just fine, once I've completely disabled all the things I use to keep myself safe online. Of course this is pure bullshit theory.. the site now shows pictures but looks like it was done in crayon, with huge parts of it missing and messed up. The irony here is that the site recommends Firefox, as they know about Internet Explorer and are sick of it too.

So I give up on Firefox and bring up a less safely-set browser. After making sure javascript and cookies are enabled, I head to the benefits site. Yessir, I'm gonna set up my benefits. And that fast, the site still won't display correctly.

So I'm now at Browser Number Three, which finally displays the site correctly and lets me browse without grief. I go to check out benefits options, put in all my information, fill out the benefits information, then hit SUBMIT. And the site stares at me. No motion at all. Hmmmm hmmmmm hmmmm I go, waiting and attempting to be patient. This is a struggle I cannot accurately describe, except with the stock television footage of a volcano, complete with lava moving around, getting ready to erupt. My wife and a whole legion of doctors and therapists have tried for years to help keep the volcano at bay, with only minor success. And I distinctly feel the lava.

So I close down the transaction and start again. And wind up exactly where I was before, with the SUBMIT button pushed and the website openly mocking me. Yes, this 'should' work the same in any browser.

Finally I bring out the Big Gun: the completely naked browser, with no security whatsoever, open to the world, with all protections turned off, waiting for a bad site or Evil Hacker to get me. A browser so unsafe, it could almost be Internet Explorer. And did I get my benefits going? NFW - it couldn't even make it to the description page. A totally stripped down browser, right out of the box.

Having forgotten or unlearned everything the doctors (and wife) told me, I am now audibly cursing and banging on things, well on my way to Raving Lunatic. Any fairly sane person watching this would say my reaction to a bad website was unreasonable, given that this is a stupid website, not a rental car stranding me in KKK, Maryland. I counter by stating that this is a completely reasonable reaction, given that it happens every time I try to order something online.

So I give in and fire up Windows; heavy breathing, cursing, and with blood starting to leak from one eye. I'm yelling that these online idiots obviously have something against linux (or me personally - it's hard to tell). Internet Explorer brings up the site just fine, like most of the other browsers. When I hit SUBMIT, it too stares at me. HA-it's not linux and it's not even Windows and Internet Exploder - it's a horribly coded site! Even Firefox under Windows won't complete the transaction.

Now I sound like the Tasmanian Devil from the cartoons. Everything is a growl, modulated to resemble words, but completely unintelligible. Every now and then a nasty word will pop out in English, surrounded by growling, louder growling, and the occasional flying keyboard or broken vase. Did you know that a laptop keyboard will fail catastrophically if you bang on it repeatedly during a Tasmanian Devil fit? I didn't, but eventually I figgered it out.

You know I'm defeated when two operating systems and ten browsers will not allow me to complete a transaction. But wait - the humiliation was not complete: I had to pick up a phone and talk to an actual PERSON. This was both terrifying and embarrassing. Who talks to people these days? Fortunately (or unfortunately) for me, this occurred during the two hour period in which the phone operators were available, so I reluctantly made the call. The automated operator said that the call may be recorded for training purposes. I figured that by the end of this call they wouldn't be able to use the recording, as the system that records spontaneously burst into flames.

After hearing twenty seven choruses of Happy Christmas Music, an alleged human got on the line. She was cheerful, like the rest of them. This is not a good strategy for a customer service person because people hate a cheerful representative. No one is that cheerful, even from Canada or one of those countries further north, like North Dakota. This has little effect on me, as I can imitate a person of sane behavior, who does not abuse customer service personnel. I give her my brief story and she soothingly tells me that other people have been complaining about this.

Has it ever occurred to anybody to actually fix it?

We walk through the process together, hand in hand, which is supposed to make me feel reassured. All the while I'm figuring out how to hurt the company by finding out where its children live.

Did I mention logging in? Oh, I didn't?
After I logged into the site, it threw up a box, telling me it sent a verification code to my email. I was to check my email and put the verification code into the website if I wanted to actually do anything other than look at the box asking for verification. This makes me feel every bit as safe as an airport body cavity grope by our friends from the TSA. Why does verification happen? Because I didn't bother to retain the cookie from last time I logged in (a year ago). This is how you're tracked, as I mentioned earlier. The site asks me if I want to avoid this next time by checking this box. This laughingly insane process is for naught because if I say yes, the site will drop a cookie in my browser, which will be cleaned out when I close the browser, causing me to have to go through the whole process again.

Are we havin' fun yet? I sure as shootin' am.

Mrs. Cheerful Customer Service slowly and methodically walks me through the process. This makes me prickly, as most things do, because she's moving slowly and methodically. This tends to make the top of my head want to explode, but I continue to impersonate a reasonable person, as this criminal website coding is not her fault. As we get to the point where I want to fill in the order form, she tells me to stop and hit the button up top, that says ALT. Ok, I'll play along.. I hit ALT and the system took me to a different page, allowing me to complete the purchase. She apologized. I politely suggested they PUT A GODDAMN BLINKY RED LIGHT THERE, TELLING PEOPLE TO JUST USE THE ALT BUTTON. I warmly opine that if this many people are going to have to use this site, they should probably make it less user-hostile.  She agrees, in the way that attempts  to assure the customer that she's Very Concerned, but in reality, will do nothing and continue to answer customer service calls made by people even less pleasant than me, who cannot do a credible impersonation of a sane person.

This was a year ago, during which time I was advised to open a FSA (Family Savings Account), which pays for $2500 of medical stuff before taxes. They told me that I need to make sure to spend all the money or I'd lose it. We laughed hysterically, as $2500 is two months' prescriptions.

So we went to the pharmacy, where the transaction was immediately denied.
So I immediately gave up and called a completely different Cheerful Customer Service lady.  She cheerfully and helpfully let me know that she was aware of the pharmacy and we should try again. The next day we tried, with the same denial. Following the general theme here, I gave up. After a while, I officially notated the events and sent them an email. The response was that the pharmacy was not covered.

WHY COULDN'T THE FIRST CUSTOMER SERVICE LADY HAVE TOLD ME THIS? Why can't two different employees of a service dedicated to benefits agree on policy?

I was advised to list all our purchases and put them in for refund. Because the whole thing is my fault and I have to clean up after them. I got a printout from the pharmacy, which was better than last year, at only the size of one phone book. We're all getting healthier, you know.

I experienced what can only be described as Great Internal Resistance to going online and performing this task. It took a few hours to actually open a browser. It's like my body knew something the rest of me didn't.

To be fair, I got right into the site with only one operating system and one browser. I felt blessed.  I smiled when the site had to send me the authorization email. I found the correct part of the site after only twenty minutes of looking. I felt like the Favorite Son.  With the phone book sized pharmacy printout, I proceeded to get to work. I hit the START button and it took me right to the error page - no delay at all. The little box said that the transaction failed for No Particular Reason and I should try again. If it keeps failing,I should get in touch with my administrator.  Wait - I thought they were my administrator....

So it failed again. Then it failed again with a different browser. Then I took a screenshot and sent it to them, outside of the two hour window in which they read email, so it'll take a week for an answer. They'll probably tell me that all benefits must be signed off on in person, but they forgot to notate that on the site. Furthermore, they're a division of Microsoft, so they enjoy causing pain.

This happens every time I try to order something online. Tickets, t-shirts, even requests to dispose of bodies all fail miserably. My wife leaves the house and takes the dog if she even suspects I have to do something online that day.

Emphasize the Positive

It is possible that this procedure could be taken as a medical cure for low energy or depression. If you're having trouble getting out of your chair, try to purchase something online. You not only won't be able to purchase the item; you'll be so ungodly frustrated, possibly homicidal, that you have to get out of your chair and do something you hate (like cleaning), or you will surely hurt someone very badly. This is the reason you have to email the company with any issues instead of calling: fear of you reaching through the phone and pulling their liver out through their nostrils.

I once went to my doctor after attempting an online transaction. My blood pressure was up so far, my heart was in danger of bursting though my ribcage and attacking him. When I explained, he wrote me a note, saying that I was not allowed to perform online transactions; I could only use a phone or do it in person. This works to everybody's benefit, in that my heart stays in place, as does my blood pressure. If it didn't, they'd have to pay out a hospital claim and possibly life insurance. Depending on how she's feeling about me that day, my wife either urges me to do things in person or 'just try it online'.

We Need More Diversity in the Blogosphere

Like that? I generally don't get to say hip things like blogosphere.
And I generally don't want to say things like diversity.

I just came across a disturbing article, describing how a diversity research group wants to bring greater diversity to the entertainment industry. Of course this is a college professor, because a really large number of really bad ideas come from college professors.  The original name of the group was Media, Diversity, & Social Change Initiative. The new name is the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative and it includes people from UMG, Disney, Sony, and others.

I hope that readers of ThermionicEmissions know by now that I have no problem with anybody except the Stupid. There are no problems with diversity, unless it's forced. And sure enough, this organization wants to force diversity upon the music industry. Not the artists - we can all agree that there are few fields as organically diverse as music. No, they want to make everybody from label owners down to recording engineers and coffee getters more diverse.

Most of the people I know are old-school, like me. They believe you should hire the best qualified person for the job, regardless of gender, race, origin, handicap, dominant hand, etc. The new breed of PC social engineers feels it more important to have diversity than the best person for the job. I find this infuriating, as it's gaining traction and being accepted, even if grudgingly.

Philadelphia had an issue in the past few years that perfectly exemplifies the issues with social engineering diversity.  Someone decided the Philly Police did not have enough black people on the force. I have no idea who or how they made the decision. So they did whatever was necessary to hire more black people. The problem showed up during testing, when some of the black people did not score well in the tests. Rather than hiring people who could pass the test, the police department lowered the standards for the test and for hiring.

I don't know about you, but I want the best and brightest protecting me. If you prefer a more diverse force over a good force, I suggest there's something wrong with you.

I want to emphasize that I'm speaking about people getting the job solely because of diversity. If they can do the job as well as anyone else, there is no issue.

If I'm recording, I want a great engineer and producer. I don't want a new hire who got in because she has internal plumbing, plus less skill than the other candidate.

A relative took a test for a government job. She did well. Unfortunately the minority lady who didn't test as well got the job, because they needed to hire minority people. This is called discrimination.

After the professor gets done making the entire entertainment industry inclusive and diverse, I have some more work for her to do...

• women need to start or get caught harassing men. There are no reports of this at the present time - all harassers are men. This is not inclusive or diverse. Something needs to be done.
• take a good look at professional hockey. See any Asians? Women? Jews? Get on the ice and get some diversity happening!
• Basketball and football have a black male majority. Is this tolerable in 2017? What about transgenders? Women who identify as Caterpillar backhoes? When was the last time you saw a vertically-challenged person (midget) on the court?
• My body is genetically male. I identify as male. This is not diverse at all. What can we do about this situation? Do I qualify as diverse when I have sex because I'm connected to a woman (customarily my wife)?
• NASCAR: men. Old and young white men. With silly hats outside the oval. Why not throw a few women in there, who have never operated a manual transmission? Some math geeks, who have never gone over 25mph? A few anarchists, who don't believe in seat belts or helmets?
• WHERE ARE THE FAT PEOPLE in olympic gymnastics? Sorry - people of size.
• when was the last time you saw a baseball game with a left-handed catcher? Or a donkey?
• Why are there no clowns in Congress?  Wait - let me rephrase that. Why are there no people with big red noses and thick makeup.. no, that won't work either. People with caked on white makeup, floppy shoes, and noses that light up. I give up. You get the idea.

In case you're amused or you just want some less than pleasant news, there's an android bug that can potentially affect up to 75% of phones, excluding the latest version of android (Oreo). The long and short of it is you need to be looking for a popup, asking permission for the MediaProjection service to access something. Unfortunately, a potential attacker can detect when this comes up and put another popup on top of it (tap-jacking). The immediate solution, as most of solutions go, is to Just Say No. This service is typically used in taking screenshots. IF you can locate the service, you can turn it off and/or disable it. Be aware with all popups.

• Linux users: here's a quickie on using the mlocate or locate commands, from the command line. Not to worry, there's a 'find' program in the graphical interface, so you don't have to use the command line. Wuss.

Germany has banned the sale, distribution, and possession of kids' smartwatches. Dropping my libertarian objection to government getting involved in business, this is a very interesting phenomena. Germany's problem with these is that they are spy devices, as I said when I discovered them. This is a case of government actually doing something helpful. In the US, we're more concerned about forcing a bakery to bake a cake for a gay wedding.

• Duckduckgo, the search engine that doesn't track you, has some stats and suggestions on privacy. I use it and highly recommend it. You can set it as the default search engine on most browsers.

Best phrase of the week: I looked down and there was a baby in my sweatpants.

• While people are busy dying, we must unfortunately add another name: David Cassidy, late of The Partridge Family. I don't think anyone makes it out alive, pardon the pun, from childhood stardom.
• David's cause of death was listed as complications from dementia. Two days ago, he went into the hospital with what was described as needing an organ transplant, other organs failing, and doctors induced a coma. Once again we have two completely different diagnoses. This happens a lot.

If you're gonna sext, which I don't recommend, here are Motherboard's basic steps to protect yourself. Good reading, regardless of information sent. I don't recommend sexting not for moral reasons - I just don't send anything out that could cause grief if read by anyone else. Email can't be unsent, texts are kept, and pictures are saved. Do not send or text anything you don't want people to know or see. This is also the reason not to store data 'in the cloud.' Look at the celebrities whose accounts got hacked and their very private pictures got posted all over the internet.

• There are certainly any number of reasons to hate Google. The most recent one is that since January, android phones have been sending your location information to Google. Google, of course, says they're not using the data and just throwing it away. This happened whether your location setting is on or off.  Naturally Google is horrified and has no idea how this happened. The practice will end by the end of November. Do. Not. Use. Google. For. Anything.

Net Neutrality is all we're hearing about, as the vote looms. The FCC, like useless corporate puppets they are, are about to drop network neutrality, which will potentially allow cable and other companies to give certain traffic or users priority or low priority. While most would encourage Net Neutrality, this is a red herring. The real issue is whether government should be involved in the internet. The answer, as it is with everything else, is no.

• Texas Rangers have sent Apple a search warrant to get data from the Texas church shooter's phone. The last time data was requested, Apple refused and the FBI paid a hacker to retrieve the information. I hope that Apple will refuse again.

A trombonist was practicing and somehow managed to send his wife a text message, via voice recognition on his phone. Google and Apple keep your voice commands - this is fact. Now they'll have recordings of you practicing your instrument. No data is available on which instruments are able to send text messages, but we recommend you do not play with your instrument with voice recognition on. The message looked like this:

(1/5) Woo woo woo woo hoo hoo woo who wu woo woop woop etc etc etc.

• Uber announced this week that they suffered a breach of 57 million user accounts in 2016. Why did it take over a uear to report? Uber paid the hackers $100,000 to keep the hack a secret and delete the data. Stolen was names, email addresses and phone numbers of 57 million Uber customers and names and driver's license numbers of about 600,000 US drivers.
• The CSO and an employee were fired. The founder and former CEO was made aware of the breach a month after it happened. Two months later. the new CEO may or may not have had knowledge of the breach, which happened before she took the position.
• The data was hacked from Amazon Web Services (THE CLOUD).
• Last year Uber was fined $20,000 by the New York attorney general for failing to report a different breach in 2014. (wow - 20k! I'll bet they felt punished)
• Uber recently agreed to twenty years of privacy audits by the Federal Trade Commission for failing to provide reasonable security for consumer data.

Uber Related Continuing Rant:

Why have I been poking at THE CLOUD forever? Because once you can no longer touch your data, it is no longer your data.

Why don't I give out my data? Because companies will misuse it for marketing, sharing, selling, and it might get stolen.

Why might it get stolen? Because companies don't know and/or don't care about protecting the data, whether it's them or a third party. Something will be configured wrong or passwords will be leaked and the data will get stolen.

Why turn your phone's location service off? Do you seriously want anyone to know where you've been or where you are? It's not that you're important or unimportant; it's the fact that your data is yours and should remain so. Your location data, also kept by Uber, can be used to figure out what you were up to, which is nobody's business but yours. 

Rest assured that if someone can get your data, they will, and it will be used for their purposes, whether you know or approve or not.

ThermionicEmissions is beyond excited to announce our early Christmas present: Marshall's final chemo treatment was canceled, because he's doing so well. It's just blood work now.

The vet is pleasantly surprised and we're thrilled.

We get our baby for longer, and the doc's Mercedes is now paid off.

Look at that face...

From the bottom of my heart, thank YOU for stopping by.

The Day After the Day After

Our friends over at Volvo have stated that hackers are the real problem for self-driving cars. Really? Not crappy code that doesn't take security seriously?

• Trans-species Transvestite Dog: Marshall has recently trained us to respond to his every whim via loud, urgent whining, whether it's needing water or something serious. At roughly 3am, the Marshall Alarm went off again. He was in the corner of the bedroom, with a dress wrapped around his neck. Kinky? Autococker Asphyxiation?

My buddy has had cancer two times. He's now working on number three. He has no sense of taste. While getting chemotherapy, he walks to and from a full time heavy job. He does not utter a syllable of doubt, regret, or upset.. he just goes on.  I need to remember this next time I have a backache...

• Celebgate 3.0: Yes, once again there's been a breach, resulting in photos from the phones of celebrities being leaked. This time it's Miley Cyrus, Stella Maxwell, Kristen Stewart, Tiger Woods, Lindsey Vonn, and Katharine McPhee. This attack starts with phishing. Don't click on stuff, celebrities and real people. Ramp up your security settings. Don't use THE CLOUD. Don't use iDEVICES - this hack was 100% iHACK.
• In the interests of science, we shall attempt to locate the site that published the pictures, so you know what kind of material to avoid putting in THE CLOUD from your iDEVICES.

Are you currently a college student? Did you attend college? I got a queasy feeling while reading this article on your information being available from the college itself. There doesn't seem to be any good reason for the information to be out there but of course there's legislation behind it: The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. As we know from reading ThermionicEmissions, every piece of legislation works the opposite of its name. Since it says privacy, you have none. There is an opt-out and it's up to you to find it. But wait - it gets better... if medical records are requested, they lose HIPAA protection!

• One hundred percent of government IT workers said employees are the biggest threat to cybersecurity. PEBKAC: Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair.

Charles Barkley has been labeled a white supremacist for telling black people to stop killing each other. He sure is going to look funny at the white supremacist rallies.

This will backfire when almost everyone is labeled a white supremacist and white supremacists start getting praised for their inclusiveness.

• It was inevitable.... Starbucks has introduced the Chicken Sushi Burrito.
• Speaking of which, there are now calls for boycotting Starbucks, ESPN, and the NFL. Always ahead of trends, I have been boycotting them for a long time, just because I don't like their products.

Best wishes to affected parts of Texas during the flood. I hope your lives are property are ok.

• US Government Cybersecurity ranks 16th out of 18 industry sectors. This is an improvement over last year, when it ranked 18. Let this be a lesson to you people who say the US is capable of nothing.

Happy birthday to linux Linus Torvalds' baby. Here's an appropriate quote from Mikko Hypponen, of F-Secure: Linux distributions are really lacking in their support for some of the most common Windows software. For example, most malware won't work.

• In the continuing struggle of man's inhumanity to man, I find this most appropriate.

The majority of breaches are caused by unpatched software. I cannot emphasize this strongly enough. My friend's office got hit so badly, it took out the entire system, including years of data. Patch it. And stop clicking on every goddamn link you see.

• Hollywood has rushed to help Houston and it's heartwarming:
• Beyonce: Texas, you are in my prayers
• Kelly Rowland: Houston changed my life- everybody send out prayers for H-town
• Lady Antebellum: thoughts and prayers
• Ellen DeGeneres: the whole country is thinking of you
• Sheryl Crow: you are in my prayers
• Country music singer Chris Young donated $100,000
• let words and actions stand by themselves

Pushing (and Licking) the Envelope

I don't know if you were affected by this, but a huge Amazon outage this week rendered large chunks of the internet inaccessible. Without getting ridiculously technical (and because I have no idea what I'm talking about), this Amazon service is The Cloud, or cloud storage. Engineers went to take a small number of billing servers offline and managed to enter an incorrect item, taking down 'a larger set of servers.' In non-technical terms, they screwed up royally and took a shitload of servers down. The downed servers controlled a lot of other servers and pretty soon, there were huge holes all over the internet. To make things that much more interesting, the servers hadn't been rebooted in quite a while, so bringing them up took longer because they had more work to do because there was much more data to count.

Ok, everyone goofs. Sometimes the goof is spectacular in a very public way, like this one. I had a coworker who discovered he could remotely reboot people's computers, largely by remotely rebooting people's computers. We had to take his toy away when people started complaining. That aside, this incident underscores  the fact that a lot of required planning and safety checks were flushed down the old British loo.

People get all excited about The Cloud. The salespeople from Amazon come in and promise you the Moon, stars, and the internet. Life on this very planet will benefit greatly from their cloud services. The uptime of their systems is guaranteed to be in the ridiculously high 99th percentile. And now someone makes a mistake and wipes large amounts of vital and silly services from the internet. Mistake aside, this is a huge failure of Amazon services, which should have all this stuff backed up and paralleled so well that the switchover would be imperceptible.  The fact that it didn't work illustrates what we call Single Point of Failure - where one item failing can take down the entire house of cards. You do not design any important system with a SPOF. This is also a failure of the customers because not only don't they have a Plan B, they trusted Amazon.

• I read the news today, oh boy... about the governor of Maryland declaring a state of emergency. I don't remember flooding or rioting, so I read further. The mayor has declared a state of emergency over heroin and opioid deaths. At least he wasn't grandstanding.

I read one of those Heartwarming Stories the other day. Some lady jogger in Bumfukt was lady jogging when she got all hot and thirsty, having drank the water she brought. A guy pulling into his driveway saw her and offered her some water. She was stunned and gratefully accepted. Every day thereafter, there was a cold water bottle waiting for her outside his house. This went on over a year, during which time they got to chat and meet her husband, both of whom were really surprised and forever grateful. The good samaritan, discovering she was married, killed the husband and kept the jogger in his basement dungeon, eventually killing and eating her. The friendship kept up and the jogger left him presents on holidays. It continues to this day. Don't you just hate this kind of thing?

• The Breach of the Day is brought to you by Coachella. Coachella, the huge (alleged) music festival in southern California, announced that its website had been breached, potentially compromising 950,000 accounts containing the personal details of ticket purchasers and people who registered for online forums. So you can not only be tres trendy at the show, your details can be all over the net and for sale in black market forums. No word on how the breach occurred. Do not reuse passwords. Do not give any personal details - make them up if necessary. Sign up for forums anonymously.

My 7yo nephew asked me for some advice the other day. It seems he's having problems with girls.. they won't leave him alone. Ever the helpful uncle, I asked him what it was like.

• A notorious spam company misconfigured their backups, revealing all sorts of information about how they operate. If you're curious about spam, read the article.

Want a beautiful place to crash in New York City? Bring up Airbnb and for $300-$450 per day, you can get a magnificent apartment in Trump Tower. A woman who has owned the apartment since 1998 is renting it out. The apartment was available since before the election and has garnered five stars on the service, but Airbnb just pulled the listing. Well, this is a bit of an issue, wouldn't you say? Yes, the renter would pass through Secret Service, but...

• Internet of Things fans: that Amazon outage? For three hours, all sorts of websites and services went down, meaning, among other things, that you couldn't control your internet-connected lightbulbs and other devices.

I was watching one of those border patrol shows the other day and they were demonstrating these boffo new infrared cameras. I swear they were using a gaming controller to manipulate it. Video games: the gateway to border patrol and drone-piloting.

• Barbara Streisand says Trump is making her gain weight. This would be less of a problem if she moved to Canada, like she promised, if Trump won the election. Hypocrite.

STATS: In case you care, here's a little information on visits to this blog...

Browsers: Firefox leads the pack, with 55%. Chrome follows, with 31%

Operating Systems: Overwhelmingly Windows, at 73%, followed by Macintosh, at 10%. Linux makes up all of 6%. I should further shoot myself in the foot by disabling access for Mac and Windows users (I cannot do this).

Total Traffic: I am so embarrassed that I don't want to reveal this number. Let's say totals of about 20 visits daily. Please tell your friends. Do not send money.

ThermionicEmissions would especially like to thank the French, who are the second highest viewers, right after the US. I have no idea why but am grateful.

Finally, I'd like to thank the people who come here after visiting porn sites. Not only am I happy they choose to read this blog, they provide new and interesting places to visit when I'm bored.