… because of your commitment to privacy? Or because you reject mainstream tech-enabled culture to follow your own path? I’ve never feared technology and was for a long time an “early adopter.” I knew the moment I laid eyes on a PC that I had to have one. I was online years before the WWW was a thing. I met my former Significant Sweetie on a Fidonet bulletin board (gun-rights site) when meeting a partner online was unheard of. These days, however, I shun most new tech. Even some of my granny-aged friends tote their smartphones everywhere they go, but…
Category: Computers & Technology
As soon as I post this, I’m going to make Thursday’s “bad” post public again. If clever people and hobby-horse riders want to make the comment section All About Them, that’s on their heads, not mine. Your encouragement, good cheer, and wisdom delivered via email and via comments on yesterday’s apology post helped me get over myself. (The irony was not lost on me that I squealed like a little girl over comments on a post titled “Live Boldly.” It was amazingly nice of y’all not to mention that. 🙂 ) I’m still going to take a week off. I…
“Eh … they’re just people.” Drug warriors and cancer patients. (H/T Anon.) Not a big threat at this point, but a new virus targets “the Internet of things.” Which also means it’s targeting Linux. (H/T H) Quick! Somebody appoint Jim Rogers to head the Fed! (H/T JB) Wealth and inequality. No matter what your politics (or lack thereof), these charts are alarming. This is not what a healthy country looks like. The comparisons of perception-ideal-reality are fascinating, though. Protecting us against depressed paraplegic Canadians. And doing it in the creepiest possible way. “The congregation was besides themselves.” Ungrammatical but quite…
The warm, fuzzy (literally!) face of the police state. (H/T Jim Bovard) China finally going to stop stockpiling US dollars? You already know this, don’t you? Nevertheless, it never hurts to be reminded of the four magic statements to make to the police when you’re stopped and they want to poke around and see what they might be able to pin on you. Mostly for the nerds hereabouts: Rethinking cloud storage (and in particular, rethinking SpiderOak). “Security and privacy: Experts connect the dots as debate rages.” (Tip o’ hat to MJR) Via the Infamous Oregon Law Hobbit: The Skunk Party…
This has been making its way around the gunblogs. I wasn’t going to link it because I’ve never had reason to care what the head of Interpol thinks about anything. But reader L.A. tipped the balance. And really, it’s quite something when the honcho of a global police agency comes out in favor of a well-armed citizenry — and recognizes that the only alternative is making us all “safe” via a lock-down security state. 2016: Looking back on Obamacare. Seattle is using eminent domain to seize a valuable property from a 103-year-old lady. It’s currently a privately owned parking lot.…
You’ve heard of Bridezilla. And the Wedding Guest from Hell. Now meet The Mad Bomber Groom. Guess you gotta give him points for creativity. Not brains. Definitely not brains. But creativity. Experian, the worst and most pervasive of the big three credit bureaus sold data to an identity-theft “service”. Nooooo, really? And you say both parties are doing it?? Impossible! Quite impossible! Well, that’s one way to ensure that politicians actually get your message. Good idea. But I’d trust it a lot more if it didn’t come from Google. Death panels. Not a good thing. But yes, they’re real (Hellllooo,…
You may have heard that John McAfee (of both anti-virus fame and possibly-shooting-his-neighbor-in-Belize infamy) claims to have plans for an inexpensive, portable device to foil NSA snooping. Says he just needs to get backers & such — that the device itself is already feasible. It’s called “Decentral” or “Dcentral,” depending on which article you read. When I expressed doubt that the half-mad McAfee could pull this off, an acquaintance we shall call “Boris Badenov” for his background, replied: Well, I guarantee it will be a flawed individual who comes up with a “peaceful” solution to the Stasi… and shooting a…
Ever since Pamela Jones shut down Groklaw and announced she was not only abandoning the site but quitting the Internet entirely in light of the Edward Snowden revelations, I’ve been thinking about this. At the time, though I found her reasons poignant and pertinent, I thought she was overreacting. Now, I don’t know. Personally, I’m not on the verge of quitting. A big part of my life is here. And all of my career (such as it is) is here. That’s been true since 1986 when a client bought me my first 300-baud modem and set it up so I…
Edited The non-surprising, horrendously shocking, news about the National “Security” Agency’s perfidy gets worse. Again, we’re dealing with something that’s been speculated about for years but whose real bogeyman shape has only now materialized thanks to Edward Snowden. Wired has one take on it — and some doubts. A friend whose profession is data center security has a more apocalyptic take (the second half of what he says is what we all need to be aware and beware of): RSA has now admitted that they pushed a known flawed random number generator in most if not of all of their…