Posts from — January 2018

Shouldn’t be left on the top of desks. Consider the possibility of someone butt-dialing World War III …

For media people: I know you don’t want to say “Shithole” aloud, but consider what “s-hole” sounds like. It sounds like “asshole” to people who don’t know what you are avoiding saying. A good replacement would be “a vulgar form of outhouse or anus” depending on your definition of “shithole”.

As for his “dream” that Scandinavians would leave their universal health care, well financed school systems, public transportation networks, and cradle-to-grave social services for the American crapshoot, it is delusional and available only in his “alternate universe”.

All of these people want to talk about Trump’s ‘mental state’ and try to diagnose and treat him. I think people need to back up and look at the entire situation.

First you need to find Trump’s mental universe. It obviously isn’t the universe that Einstein and Hawking describe, so we have to locate Trump’s so we can find his mental galaxy. In this personal galaxy we need to pinpoint the relevant star system that includes Trump’s planet. Once you have identified the planet you can drill down through the continent to the country that contains his state.

At this point the state is probably similar to a Mississippi/Kansas hybrid with traces of Idaho. We could just accept that he hasn’t been playing a role for his base, that he really is a whacko. There is never going to be a “pivot” and he is never going actually be “Presidential”, no matter how many talking heads proclaim the metamorphosis has begun.

You are.

NSA Denies Prior Knowledge Of Meltdown, Spectre Exploits; Claims It Would ‘Never’ Harm Companies By Withholding Vulns.

Except, of course, when it it is damn useful for spying on ex-girlfriends or political opponents, or no one has noticed, or it really is too useful to let people shut down a resource like this that will guarantee a high paying job in the private sector, etc ad nauseam.

We use to respect the Fourth Amendment in NSA.

The Reg again It gets worse: Microsoft’s Spectre-fixer bricks some AMD PCs

A lengthy thread on answers.microsoft.com records numerous instances in which Security Update for Windows KB4056892, Redmond’s Meltdown/Spectre patch, leaves some AMD-powered PCs with the Windows startup logo and not much more.

Users report Athlon-powered machines in perfect working order before the patch just don’t work after it. The patch doesn’t create a recovery point, so rollback is little use and the machines emerge from a patch in a state from which rollback is sometimes not accessible. Some say that even re-installing Windows 10 doesn’t help matters. Others have been able to do so, only to have their machines quickly download and install the problematic patch all over again …

Maybe if they actually tested some of these things before releasing them they wouldn’t brick people’s computers. I had to muck about for more than a month with my Toshiba laptop after multiple attempts by Microsoft to make it migrate to Windows 10 from Windows 7.

This is why some people won’t update their systems. If you have been burned by a faulty update, you don’t want to take the chance of another disaster.

Crooks & Liars noted that on the January 5, 2017 Fox & Friends show David Bossie said: “This president is unbelievably qualified.”

I was about to drop a Vizzini Award, but then I stopped. What do you think – is the fact that a majority of Americans don’t believe that Trump is qualified to be President the same as his being “unbelievably qualified?”

On a related note, Trump tweets he’s ‘a very stable genius’.

Some hard & fast rules: If you have to say “I’m not a racist”, you’re a racist. If you have to say you’re “stable”, you’re a flake. If you say you’re a “genius”, you probably have trouble with Dick, Jane, and Spot.

С Рождеством Христовым to my Orthodox friends who are still waiting to see how the calendar reform works out.

Today marks the Feast of the Epiphany, end of the twelve days of Christmas, and Día de los Reyes in Spanish-speaking countries.

This is the customary day for gift exchanges in many Christian cultures because it is the day that the Magi finally arrived in Bethlehem with their totally inappropriate gifts after putzing around for a week and a half because they didn’t want to ask for directions.

[Give me a break! They bring soft metal, smelly tree sap, and bitter medicine associated with embalming to people who could use a hot meal, baby clothes, and diapers.]

One of the unique features of freezes that reach South Florida is the risk of being brained by a comatose iguana falling out of a tree. As both Mustang Bobby and the BBC note, the cold-blooded lizards react to freezing temperatures by slowing all of their life processes to a point where they seem to have died. Losing their grip on the trees they live in they fall to the ground. If they warm up in time, they will climb back up their tree leaving the concussed tourists lying on the ground.

The Reg introduces a note of caution about the Microsoft patch for the Meltdown problem. You need to determine if your antivirus software is compatible with the patch. If it isnt and you are comfortable with Regedit, you need to make the following change:

Key=”HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE”Subkey=”SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\QualityCompat”
Value Name=”cadca5fe-87d3-4b96-b7fb-a231484277cc”
Type=”REG_DWORD”
Data=”0x00000000”

If the register isn’t changed and the patch is made, be prepared for the BSoD [Blue Screen of Death].

It is hard to type in mittens. While on my winter header graphic I’m wearing brown, in reality my my fuzzy earflap ‘trooper’ hat is black, as is my puffy ski jacket.

I don’t get the uproar over the pending publication of a book that reveals, yet again, that Trump is crackers and panicked about the pending revelations concerning his financial dealings. All of this information has been out there for a long time. Trump’s father had Alzheimer’s, so it is hardly news that he has it. He supposed to have a physical this month, but you can be sure that the results won’t be made public until after he releases his tax returns.

All our computers, pads, and smartphones, even Macs, are going to be affected by flaws in the design of the CPU chips. While the Meltdown problem affects primarily Intel processors, the Spectre defect ‘haunts’ everybody. The patches are coming out, but the real fix is redesigning the chips, which is not going to be easy, cheap, or fast. First you have to visualize the solution, then you create the design to implement your solution in a new chip. The manufacturers have been working on the problem for half a year and no one has indicated they know what to do. In Comments Kryten provides a not absurdly technical link on the problems.

The CBC has the theme song for the freeze. [You could change the lyrics from ‘Canada’ to ‘Florida’ and they would apply this week.]

С Новым годом
Prosit Neujahr
Feliz Año Nuevo
Bonne Année
Felice Anno Nuovo
Gelukkig Nieuwjaar
Gott Nytt År
새해 복 많이 받으세요
Blwyddyn Newydd Dda
Onnellista Uutta Vuotta

May you be safe from the idiots who think gravity is just a theory and fire off guns, failing to understand that what goes up will come down.

Given the prevalence of accurate timekeeping devices, it is amazing that the explosions that are supposed to signal the new year extend for hours beginning four hours before and extending well after the actual event. Anyone who thinks alcohol and gunpowder is a recipe for a long life should be avoided by insurance agents.

The new year brings new opportunities, so here’s hoping that the good wins out and the world is made a little better. It hasn’t happened yet, but there’s always a chance.