"In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history will be the majority and will dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance."
A bit underwhelmed at an “auto-update” notice telling me the WP version here has gone through w/o any action from me. Last time I got one, I ended up locked out of my WP Admin pages for a while. Apparently not this time, though.
Livin’ la vida risky. . .
Asking me what I’m thinking about runs the risk of me actually answering with. . . what I am thinking about.
“Zombie elves from the North Pole” was one recent answer.
Just a passing shot. . .
Reading a bio of Lance Armstrong and ran across:
“. . .diagnosis of his symptoms, including coughing up blood and a swollen testicle.”
Coughing up a swollen testicle?!? THAT’S SERIOUS!
*heh*
OK, so Armstrong’s cancer was serious, but that lack of a comma was amusing.
Gun “banners” would prefer to have all guns “registered” and all gun owners “doxxed.” What an excellent idea, and one with such excellent precedent!
“I think this is a great idea. The enemies of the people and the state should not be allowed weapons. Only good comrades can carry weapons. And any good comrade should not need privacy, because they have nothing to hide from the state. Yes, a most beautiful idea.”
“Show me a man, and I will find you a crime.” – Lavrentiy Beria
How can one disagree with such an impeccable source?
After the last WP update I performed, which ended up locking me out of all admin functions, requiring some help from my hosting service (an install of an update beyond the one I had done, because not even FTP was working for me), getting a notice of another WP update available was. . . momentarily disconcerting, especially since my site’s still not 100% functional. Yet.
Still, performed a complete backup of the site and then bit the bullet.
OK, things seem to have worked.
*phew*
(*heh*)
Unlike Q/A fora that focus on one topic or are strictly information-seeking-and-sharing boards, Quora features just about any question anyone can come up with, which means it’s a site that has just about everything from serious questioners with folks making serious attempts to answer such questions to trolls baiting others and then “flinging monkey poo” at anyone who attempts a serious answer, to those like the dumbass who asked the following question:
“What’s one song that always gives you the feels?”
Anyone who uses the term “the feels” deserves no response other than raucous mocking. It’s a vague, stupid nonsense term that only self-made idiots would even contemplate (if contemplate they could) using. The Urban Dictionary (though that should be in “scare quotes” *heh*) tries to describe the term thusly:
“A word used to describe something that is intensely emotional on a level somewhere between you feeling empty and you on the floor in a ball weeping uncontrollably.”
In other words, it’s a term so broad and vague as to be meaningless, and yet this questioner wants to know,
“”What’s one song that always evokes vague, undefined, essentially meaningless emotions in you ranging from ennui to agony?”
#gagamaggot
OTOH, the stupidity of gargantuan proportions the question represents nevertheless did not prevent my mind from fleeing to a momentary wish that I could somehow know the tune Kipling had running through his head as he composed “The Last Chantey.”
I know, I know. . . it’s just me, but I had to mute the GHWB funeral when the truly awful choral music came on1. I mean, seriously, what director–fully knowing the choir will be performing in a setting that’s really not acoustically well suited to choral music–does not stress again and again that exceptionally clear, even exaggerated enunciation of the lyrics is a MUST? *sigh* Unmuted, and the serial eulogies weren’t all THAt bad, and scriptures, although poorly-read, were appropriate.
What was a wee tad amusing was the sprinkling of pretentious “Mid-Atlantic” pronunciations that a couple of speakers dropped willy-nilly into their Mid-American accents.
Apart from that, it was a good celebration of an American hero, so-so president2, and seemingly nice guy.
R.I.P., GHWB.
1Alan Simpson’s rendition of “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” was better.
2Coulda done a much better job as president, IMO, but I was at least satisfied with his character (and profoundly dissatisfied with the character of those running against him).
Quite apart from the Darwin Awards, possible evidence of at least one of the mechanisms whereby natural selection seems to work can be observed as roadkill. Obviously, it seems, the less fit of any species is likely to be what we see/drive by (or create) as roadkill: animals that weren’t smart enough, observant enough, or quick enough to get out of the way of oncoming traffic. (Strikes on scavenger birds/animals making a meal of roadkill are particularly ironic.)
But there are other data that can be intriguing apart from the easily-observed negative data of roadkill. Yesterday, just at dusk, I was on a two-lane rural highway at the posted 55mph speed, when I spotted movement ahead of me on the far side of the verge of the oncoming lane. It was a doe, stopping, her head turned to look straight at me. Her gaze followed me as I passed, and, in my rear view mirror I saw her head swivel, apparently checking for traffic, before she bounded across the road.
Deer learning “Stop, Look, and Listen”? Survival of the smartest?
😉
. . .or not.
I see articles occasionally about the death of passwords, creating effective passwords, blah-blah. Well, passwords and the insecurities created by stupid (or lazy. . . or more like both) people and their password habits aren’t going away any time soon, and most of the articles suggesting improvements are seriously lacking in effective counsel. Most now suggest pass phrases with common substitutions of symbols and numbers for letters, but really, how many folks will do that? Others suggest using password managers (I often suggest this, myself, but even users who have PAID me for consulting rarely make even the exceptionally minimal effort to effect this change in their behavior *sigh*).
So, what’s a solution? When it comes to ID10T errors like lazy or stupid (or both) password behavior, the only solutions seem to be either eliminating the users or letting them reap the effects of their bad behaviors.
*meh*
Now, I’ll admit that my own normative password policies would definitely not appeal to most users, although it baffles me why that case is, save for excessive laziness on their part. OK, so here’s a loose outline of a process that’s super simple and easier than most pass phrase processes. That it is similar to my own is purely coincidental. 😉
Select a song from childhood or early youth that can you reliably “sing” mentally. Or choose a memory shared only with people you have not seen for many years.
Extract an inner verse from the song or a visual from the selected memory.
Using the verse as a passphrase, extract ONLY the first letter of each word in the verse; using the visual of the memory, create a passphrase and do the same thing.
Now, with those passwords extracted from the passphrases, make your substitutions of symbols and numbers, as appropriate.
There. Relatively long, complex, fairly uncrackasble (in any reasonable amount ot time), easy to remember passwords. I have a couple passwords created by means similar to this that are 60-some-odd characters long, though most websites don’t allow passwords that are really all that long. No problem typing such passwords, because the pass phrases they are built on are extremely memorable, and I really don’t have problem typing long passwords.
Of course, for non-critical sites, I go ahead and use LastPass. *shrugs* I only allow it to autologon to sites that have no (genuine) PII for me and where I DGARA about some bad actor getting in, but I still use strong passwords, anyway. Oh, and a good VPN ALWAYS when online.
As for my devices, a good firewall (actually, firewalls on the devices that do not conflict with a hardware firewall for the network), strong passwords, encrypted PII, solid backups of data, and physical control of access will have to suffice.
Still, I cannot recall the number of calls (OK, I could go back on my records, but that’s where I will pead laziness *heh*) I have had from folks who “forgot” (or worse, “mislaid”–which means they had it written down somewhere) the passwords for their computers. *smh* Baffles me. It truly does.
While not an exhaustive list, these characteristics are generally considered typical of totalitarian rule:
• Rule by a single party
• Total control of the military (sometimes meaning control of the party by a military junta)
• Total control over means of communication (such as newspapers, propaganda, etc. . .)
• Police intimidation and control of subjects with even the use of terrorism as a control tactic common
• Control of the economy
Given these characteristics, it is easy to see why Mussolini’s Fascism (socialist1) and Hitler’s Nazism (also socialist2) are usually (and rightly, IMO) put forth as examples of totalitarian states, but almost any absolute monarchy and every historical example of communist and socialist states qualify as well.
“Ah!” but some say, “What about European socialist states like Norway, Sweden, The Netherlands, et al?” Yeh, no. Socialist states all exercise either de facto or de jure control of the economy, and none of those do. They depend upon government-muzzled and milked capitalism for the implementation of some socialist policies (bread and circuses), but lack the defining qualities of socialism that Ludwig von Mises correctly identified and applied to both Mussolini’s Fascism and Hitler’s Nazism in his trenchant analysis of both. Those who try to hand wave away the essentially totalitarian nature of socialism are either ignorant or disingenuous.
Socialist states are simply a sub-class of totalitarian states, just as Nazism and Fascism are sub-classes of socialist states. Proponents of socialism do not like these simple facts, and so lie about them at every opportunity.
Do note that I only pointed to a TownHall article offering “proof” that Mussolini’s Fascism was socialist, and the article offers weak proof but refers to Human Action (NOTE: pdf file), by von Mises, where in chapter XXV, et al. von Mises identifies all that’s needed to make the connection solid. *shrugs* The book’s a decent read, anyway, and well worth one’s time, IMO.