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{ Category Archives } Rant

lawd amighty, I feel my temperature risin’

More bad IT policies from the place where I work

Once again, changing passwords frequently is a bad idea. Another lousy IT policy enshrined in policy. They might tell you that we do science, but there’s just as much belief in magic spirits there as anywhere else.

Flyover territory

How is it possible to have a West Coast tour that goes to San Diego and SF, but doesn’t stop in LA? I mean, LA went from having basically no gyms [1] to having about 15 [2], including one listed as one of the best in the US in a recent climbing rag [3]. If […]

Day pass

One of the gyms I go to… wait, all the gyms I go to, on a couple of continents, will only sell you a “day pass”, even if it’s 8pm and they’re going to close in two hours. But several of them will give you a discount on the so-called day pass if you’re in […]

Correcthorsebatterystaple

ObXKCD:     A thought occurs to me: my place of work (heretofore POW) puts all sorts of requirements on passwords, and also requires that they be changed every 90 days (against best practices), so having worked there for a while, I am long past the point of being able to actually remember a password, […]

Boring

Teju Cole thinks that Steve McCurry is too boring. I won’t even address the other controversy about photoshopping images, whether it’s to change the color or add or remove elements, or whether the photos are staged. A different post. [1] No, I want to address the stupidity of going back thirty years, and saying that […]

Linux and/or Windows

Man, I can’t believe it’s 2016 and Windows and Linux have still not figured out a laptop touchpad. As much as OS X annoys me sometimes, every time I go from the MBP touchpad to a Windows or Linux machine, I just want to shoot myself. I go from being a 60 wpm typist, having […]

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Another brick in the wall

Is there any point in even kidding yourself that there’s any such thing as the 4th Amendment anymore? Your communications, your metadata, your location, your finances [1], your car, and now there’s not even the pretense of fruit of the poisoned tree.       [1] due to the increasingly irrelevant “third party doctrine“.

The thing about “self-driving” cars

This is rarely mentioned, but… you get a SDC. It starts driving you around. Until it runs into something it can’t handle, and hands the wheel back over to you. But you don’t actually practice driving anymore. And you were playing games on your iPhone. Because SDC, amirite? No one can context-switch like that in […]

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The bells! The bells!

0700, and they’re going to go off for at least five minutes. Thanks and fuck you anyone who has jet lag and just got to sleep, or works a night shift.

Legal

How are these things even legal? 95-100 dB noise levels. Like standing next to a jet. They are painful, and I say this as someone who spent years playing in a band on stage next to stacks of amps, working construction, and grew up shooting guns thinking ear plugs were for wusses [1]. There’s one […]

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Onion. On belt. On fleek.

I was at this place. Never mind where. Someplace where I might be, but is unfortunately lots more hip than it would have been when I had any chance of being hip. Timing is everything. Lots of tattoos, interesting hair, clothes, hats. Listening to this fellow, 24 by his own account, talking to someone who […]

Bells

The US might be more religious whacky than Europe, passing stupid and embarrassing laws about porn and bathrooms, but at least we put a stop to that nonsense about the church bells. Really, five minutes on the hour beginning at 7 and going til 11? Then it settles down to only ringing the hour all […]

File under “shaking fist at clouds”

When I am god-emperor, tree trimmers will only be allowed to work from 8-5 M-F. Yes, I know that such things are necessary evils if you want to have trees in the ‘burbclaves, and we do. But under my regime, chainsaws and chippers will only be allowed during the hours when the majority of folks […]

Burner

Called it. Almost two years ago. No more anonymity for anyone.

OPM Hack

tl;dr: OPM database was tied to 007 database, but also to State Dept. Passport database, DOD service records, and pass-through access to a complete set of other extraordinarily sensitive National Security data, including detailed information on every US defense contractor facility, data about which defense facilities both USG and contractors may have visited, and any […]

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