For the “No duh” files:
All car makers are likely cheating on their emissions testing. Sadly, the VW fiasco was not a one off, now that Fiat-Chrysler has been caught cheating via software on the diesel emissions test.
Truth is, the engineers are clever, and the regulations have C5-A sized loopholes for them to leverage. Perhaps this will lead to an improved testing regimen, one that is much more difficult to game. (more…)
A well written analysis as to why the congressional Republicans prefer to ignore the ramifications of Russian interference in our election last year. That seems like a catastrophically bad idea to me.
The CIA’s assessment that the Russian government probably had a hand in the hacking the Democratic National Committee servers and the subsequent release of leaked emails written by members of the party sent shockwaves across Washington Dc. To Democrats, the alleged Russian cyberattack was a deliberate campaign against their presidential nominee; an unprecedented act of…
via The GOP would rather live in dangerous ignorance than get the truth about Russian hacking — Quartz
A dream sequence of waking up in a Libertarian USA
Joe Conservative wakes up in the morning and goes to the bathroom. He flushes his toilet and brushes his teeth, mindful that each flush & brush costs him about 43 cents to his privatized water provider. His wacky, liberal neighbor keeps badgering the company to disclose how clean and safe their water is, but no one ever finds out. Just to be safe, Joe Conservative boils his drinking water.
Joe steps outside and coughs–the pollution is especially bad today, but the smokiest cars are the cheapest ones, so everyone buys ‘em. Joe Conservative checks to make sure he has enough toll money for the 3 different private roads he must drive to work. There is no public transportation, so traffic is backed up and his 10 mile commute takes an hour.
On the way, he drops his 12 year old daughter off at the clothing factory she works at. Paying for kids to go to private school until they’re 18 is a luxury, and Joe needs the extra income coming in. Times are hard and there’re no social safety nets.
He gets to work 5 minutes late and misses the call for Christian prayer, and is immediately docked by his employer. He is not feeling well today, but has no health insurance, since neither his employer nor his government provide it, and paying for it himself is really expensive, since he has a precondition. He just hopes for the best.
Joe’s workday is 12 hours long, because there is no regulation over working hours, and Joe will lose his job if he complains or unionizes. Today is an especially bad day. Joe’s manager demands that he work until midnight, a 16 hour day. Joe does, knowing that he’ll lose his job if he does not.
Finally, after midnight, Joe gets to pick up his daughter and go home. His daughter shows him the deep cut she got on the industrial sewing machine today. Joe is outraged and asks why she doesn’t have metal mesh gloves or other protection. She says the company will not provide it and she’ll have to pay for it out of her own pocket. Joe looks at the wound and decides they’ll use an over the counter disinfectant and bandages until it heals. She’ll have a scar, but getting stitches at the emergency room is expensive.
His daughter also complains that the manager made suggestive overtures towards her. Joe counsels her to be a “good girl” and not rock the boat, or she’ll get fired and they’ll be out the income.
His daughter says she can’t wait until she’s 18 so she can vote for change or go to the Iraq War.
They get home and there’s a message from his elderly father who can’t afford to pay his medical or heating bills. Joe can hear him coughing and shivering.
Joe turns on the radio and the top story is a proposal in Congress to raise the voting age to 25. A rare liberal opinionator states that it’s an attempt to keep power out of the hands of working class Americans. The conservative host immediately quashes him, calling him “a utopian idealist,” and agreeing that people aren’t mature enough to make good choices until they’re at least 25.
Joe chuckles at the wine-swilling, cheese eating liberal egghead and thinks, “Thank God I live in America where I have freedom!”
Yep, sounds like a dream. A feverish nightmare.
Yesterday1, a cryptic message came across my phone. The NY Times flashed a headline that last week both Donald Trump and President Obama were briefed on an unsubstantiated, but deemed credible report that Russian officials had a dossier on President-Elect Trump that was potentially damaging.
Reading the article, it was quite clear that it was un verified, and possibly unverifiable, but that it contained information that would be embarrassing to the incoming administration.
Then Buzzfeed (not linked, because they are clickbait) posted an image that highlighted that Trump was party to orgies in Moscow and St. Petersberg with prostitutes, and that waterplay (a.k.a. “Golden Showers“) was involved. Also that Trump purposely did this in the same hotel that the Obamas stayed at during their state visit, and even the same bed. (more…)
Circa 2005 – Oliver dreams when his Daddy is not home
While I have been successful at my career, I live in a perpetual belief that I am not good enough. I constantly feel like I am a fraud, and at any time someone will come along and unmask me.
Of course, all evidence points at the opposite, that I am quite competent, and capable, often exceeding expectations, and gaining the trust of my managers/executives and peers. (more…)
Over the Thanksgiving weekend, we visited with my dad, who is increasingly slipping into the maw of Alzheimers. One of the exercises was to sort through his pictures of us as children, in the late 60’s and early 70’s.
My parents divorced in 1970 or so (my memory is hazy), but shared joint custody. So every other weekend, it was off to the father’s house, and since he was a bit of a shutterbug, we were constantly being photographed.
Most of these pictures were from this time. Apart from my awful hair, I was an ordinary adolescent, active, and skinny. Alas, that didn’t last, and I have done battle with my weight throughout my life. (more…)
There are a few things in my computing life that have been constantly chaotic. Top of the list: my contacts.
Looking at how my life has bounced around like a pinball, I have 3 active Google mail accounts, I have my Mac Address book, where all my added contacts from my iPhone dribble in to, and an old application and card scanner that wasn’t really compatible.
In short, it was a mess. Then I noticed that one of my twitter contacts is working for this company called “Full Contact” that promises to process all your various sources of contacts, to merge them, de-duplicate them, and then scour the various social media sites to fill in the gaps. (more…)
Having started with my web hosting at Media Temple, and their managed offering, their “Grid” platform. Circa 2010, it was state of the art, and worked very well. Apart from some shared MySQL database that had a couple of hogs who affected performance early, it was flawless.
Then in late 2014, I got the notice that Media Temple had been sold to the pirates at GoDaddy. Having dealt with them running the website for Southern Arizona Greyhound Adoption, I had little love or respect of them, and their sleazy business practices. So, upon receiving the notification that Media Temple had been sold to GoDaddy, I decided it was time to take the VPS plunge. (more…)
Ah, the year clicks over from 2016 to 2017, and suddenly everybody weighs in with their predictions for the new year. I guess I should do some similar weighing in.
So, Swami Anderson places his clenched fist upon his turban, and predicts …
President Elect Trump has selected some truly awful, unqualified, and potentially corrupt cabinet members. From Jeff “The KKK is ok except for their drug usage” Sessions for Attorney General, to Betsy “wouldn’t know a public school from a dumpster fire” DeVos, to Ben “I once lived in public housing, so I know best” Carson for HUD, it is a truly awful set of advisors. Of course they will all sail through confirmation. (more…)