"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."
Been following the onslaught of Mac users infecting themselves with the Mac Defender/Mac Security scareware/trojan? The weaker members of the Mac herd (which probably comprises only about 90% of the herd *heh*) are the only ones susceptible to the social engineering ploy leading them to self-infect. *sheesh* OSX even uses the same sort of “superuser” or administrator password authentication that almost all ‘nix OSes do, which means users who infect themselves have to intervene to allow the scareware/trojan to install itself. (Windows users have griped about this sort of security nagging only since Vista… but careless Windows users still circumvent it as well.)
Read it and weep. Apple, the paragon of user friendliness and service, says to its users essentially, “Screw you.” Oh, the memo points to a “helpful” page on malware in the Apple docs archive:
The sad thing is that the article at the link is a case of closing the barn door after the horse has fled, as it offers absolutely no help to someone who’s already infected themselves. Bupkis, zip, nada, a big zero with the rim kicked off. Oh, well. That’s Apple, eh?
If you do run into any of the 5% of computer users who use OSX who are among the subset that has infected themselves, just be kind to these weaker members of the herd, OK? 😉 I’ve had to practice being nice to self-infectors for years with Windows users, so I know full well what it’s like to bite my tongue when someone insists–contrafactually–that they did nothing to infect themselves. *heh*
The screencap shows only part of a fairly detailed article with more than a few FREE options for removal of malware. Apple, paragon of virtue: “Screw you,” to users. Evil Microsoft: “Here are some helpful, FREE avenues to take.”
There’s probably a doctoral thesis in an exploration of the “Reality-Based” Fantasy community of wandering leftards, the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind, Academia Nut Fruitcakes and assorted fellow travelers to discover the points–if any–where its world view has some (accidental?) connection to real reality…
A recent article on ebook sales led me to look up the 99¢ Amazon-priced “Donovan Creed” books self-published by John Locke. Compared to the $8-10 pricing for ebook editions with similar themes by “name” authors, the one I am now reading is probably priced appropriately. *heh* But then there are the absolutely hilarious things the author gets away with, like this:
I spent the next two hours running the perimeter of the Sensory Resources complex, which is far and away the most beautiful running course I’ve ever seen. I’d describe it in detail if I had the time, but I don’t.
I’m still laughing at that one. Most authors, having made the fist statement (“…most beautiful running course…”) would have felt compelled to actually describe the course. Not this guy. “Hey! I’m only charging 99¢ for the book. I’m not going to go to all the trouble to actually describe the thing! If readers want that kind of thing, let ’em read a book written by someone who gives a damn.”
The book’s just filled with that kind of backhanded, implied snark. Hilarious.
cockroaches and the average congresscritter, Mass MEdia Podperson or Academia Nut Fruitcake is that cockroach behavior is more rational and demonstrates much, much higher moral standards.
So, rebooted after some Win7 updates on this Win7 compy. Didn’t really have to, but although I’ve not had the problems with Win7 requiring regular reboots that I’ve had with other Windows versions, I’ve generally made it a practice to reboot after updates whether it was required or not. Besides, it’d been quite a while since this computer had been booted and I wanted the lil script that automagically defrags my swap file and Registry Hives to run.
But, “non-system disk error” on reboot gave me a moment’s pause. Checked the optical drive. Nope. No unbootable optical disk there. “Hmmm, am I going to have to check the cables, run a rescue CD, what?”
Nah. I’d plugged a USB floppy drive in a couple of weeks ago to check some old floppies for usable data. Left one in. BIOS was looking there for a boot disk. Ejected the floppy and CTRL+ALT+DELed the thing. All’s well. Just another example of what can happen when I’m short a few cupsa coffee.
Update: OK, is this guy just jerking us around or what? Despite my attempts to take the “birth certificate” issued today by the White House as authentic, the thing just screams “Put up!” I finally downloaded the actual WH PDF and looked at it instead of the widely-disseminated cropped version in jpeg format. Here it is screen-capped and with one lil annotation by me:
Go ahead. Download the “official” White House pdf file. Look at the area I noted in the red ellipse. The info presented is apparently supposed to be reproduced as a photocopy (?) from a bound version of a document and then printed out on some security paper? Except… that lil area inside the ellipse doesn’t work too well in that regard, now does it?
And I’m still a bit concerned about the lack of some kind of embossed/imprinted seal as seems to have been the practice, at least at one time, for Hawaiian birth certificates.
And, what’s this business from the WH about having to get a special exemption to get a copy of the birth certificate? The official State of Hawaii site handling such things says,
“Vital records (birth, death, marriage, and divorce certificates) for events that occurred in Hawaii are received and preserved by the Office of Health Status Monitoring, a unit of the Department of Health (DOH). In Hawaii, access to vital records is restricted by statute (HRS §338-18).
“Certified copies of these records may be issued to authorized individuals and used for such diverse purposes as school entry, passports, Social Security participation, driver’s licenses, employment, sports participation, survivor’s benefits, proof of property rights, and other needs.
“This is only an ordering system for certified copies of vital records. The certified copies being ordered WILL NOT be issued online as a part of your transaction. You will receive the ordered certified copies via first-class postal mail within 4-6 weeks…
“…You may order certified copies only of your own birth and marriage certificates or of an immediate family member (e.g., a parent of his/her child’s birth or marriage certificate) on this web site…”
No “special exemptions” required. No waiting three years. CERTIFIED copies available through the mail in 4-6 weeks. And the cost is only $11.50 ($10.00 for the first copy of a document and $1.50 “electronic processing”), not a couple of million dollars (as The Zero and his minions have made it by fighting to delay producing a birth certificate).
Why the lie about needing a “special exemption”? What’s with the weird look? And why do all this so clumsily and “reluctantly”?
Misdirection? Distraction? What is it The Zero and his handlers do not want folks thinking about?
Now, the red herring is in the open. After nearly three years and a couple of million dollars in legal maneuvering to avoid producing a long form B.C., The Zero has finally released an apparently legitimate document showing he was born in Hawaii… as a British citizen, under the laws in effect at the time. *heh*
Now, let’s see the passport Barry Soetoro used to travel to Pakistan in 1981 and the documentation of his time at Occidental College.
Do go ahead and read the post, if you will, but first, here’s yet another update:
ignorantia elenchi, loosely “irrelevant conclusion”. It’s irrelevant that The Zero was born in the U.S. to an 18-year-old American woman since his father was a British citizen and British law at the time conferred citizenship on ANYONE born of a British father, no matter where born or under what circumstances, making Barry’s “native born (American) citizenship” null and void. Dual citizenship does not seem to meet the “native born” qualification. And then there’s the “Barry Soetoro” issue, where he was listed as an Indonesian by his adoptive father in school records and possibly attended Occidental as a foreign student. Let’s get those records out too, Barry, ‘K?
Not that they really matter, as we now know he was born a British citizen anyway, now that we have an apparently legitimate document verifying his father as Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a British citizen.
*heh*
Of course, all the usual suspects will look at the document purporting to be a full and complete record and ignore what it really shows or argue that it doesn’t really matter that he was born with dual citizenship, instead of the kind of citizenship that “native born” has meant in the past and meant when he was born.
But, it is a moderate “win” that he and his minions wasted so many millions to delay producing an apparently legitimate document (that still doesn’t have the quality or quantity of information my lil ole B.C. has… or even The Donald’s hospital B.C., let alone the photostat of his official B.C., though that could just be an artifact of crappy record keeping in Hawaii) to prove… that he is apparently not a “native born” citizen. *heh*
Of course, if The Zero were to start actinglike an American–showing appreciation for and an emulation of distinctly American values instead of showing such contempt for the US and acting in all ways to undermine the country–then the matter wouldn’t matter so very much at all.
I said, above, “apparently legitimate” indicating I had some small doubts. If I had a better graphic to work from those might be assuaged somewhat. Here’s what I mean:
Here’s the problem. If you “embiggen” the photo of the 1963 vintage Hawaiian long form (the closest I’ve been able to find so far), and look in the upper right hand quadrant, you’ll see something I’ve seen on every other B.C. I’ve viewed from various states, in one form or another: an impressed/embossed seal. It’s faint, but quite easily seen. Now, study the graphic released of The Zero’s apparently authentic B.C. Can you find the seal I’ve missed? Yeh, yeh, the released graphic has a rubber-stamped “signature” but that’s it. Where’s the embossed seal?
Again, I am NOT saying the released graphic is somehow faked up. I would wonder about the standards of record keeping in Hawaii if this is an example.
My Wonder Woman has the day off today (and maybe tomorrow, given the flooding here in America’s Third World County) and has spent it mostly on getting ahead in a grad class. Still, she took a break a bit ago, and flipped through channels to see if there was anything worth watching on daytime TV. No luck, but while she was flipping through, she paused briefly on an infomercial about some flootzy brand of hair care products. All I heard was the B-rank celeb proclaiming that the “creator”/marketer of the stuff is,
“[P]assionate about giving everyone beautiful hair…”
So, my wife’s family are all from Norway–grandparents were LEGAL immigrants in early 20th Century. OK, nothing weird there. After all, they weren’t Swedish or anything. *heh*
But… Windows Update had an optional update suggested for this lil toy computer that I use sitting here beside her: the Norwegian Language Pack.
Kinda creeps me out. How does M$ know these things?
