Month: November 2010

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Top Ten People I’d Like to Meet and Have a Sit-Down With

I’ve got a little list… No, not that kind–really! No, this is a list of people now living that I’d like to meet and visit with, some to just have an enjoyable conversation and some to figuratively box their ears.

So, in no particular order of importance, today’s Top Ten People I’d Like to Meet and Have a Sit-Down With:

Jerry Pournelle: a very, very interesting guy. Smart, too. Well-informed and a decent conversationalist, from what I’ve seen of him on old Tom Snyder clips, etc.

Freeman Dyson: Gives “smart” a new level of meaning, beggars the word “genius”. A sit down with him would just be me asking questions and listening to whatever he might want to impart.

Here’s one I could actually manage: my Uncle Milton. Smart guy, very smart. Not a “Dyson”, but easily a “Pournelle-class” smart guy. Engaging conversationalist and all around Good Guy. OK, so I’ve already “met” him. He’s worth more than one meeting.

Barry Hussein Obama-Soetoro: a sitdown with this guy would entail me asking, “WTF? Who the HELL do you think you are, dumbass?” in various ways until I’d reduced him to vacuously (and disingenuously) whining about my racism or whatever. I’d spend most of the time figuratively beating him about the head and shoulders with the words and deeds of the Founders. What a maroon.

Sarah Palin: I’d really like to set her straight on a few things while encouraging her in other areas. In particular, I’d encourage her to become much more familiar with the Founders, because her conservatism seems to be mostly a social construct that’s mushy on fundamentals. Needs seasoning.

Nancy Pelosi: She’s not a particularly interesting person, but she definitely Needs A Spanking. Badly. Verbally or physically (no, wait, she might enjoy the latter, as she appears to be kinda kinky).

Paul Krugman: Well, not really. Now that Milton Friedman’s no longer around (d. 2006) to (verbally) take him to task for his vacuous economist pronouncements, it’d be hard to get him in a round-robin conversation with Friedman and enjoy watching him be demolished. Fatuous ass. Maybe just taking him out behind the woodshed would do…

Placido Domingo: It’s not just that I love his instrument and the way he uses it (much more than any other contemporary tenor) but that I truly enjoy watching him perform. I get the feeling I’d enjoy just visiting with him and, if he’d allow me, singing a simple duet just for fun.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau: Simply, IMO, one of the two most magnificent voices of the 20th Century–number 1 in my book on some days, barely edged to number 2 on others. A visit with him would include–in my dreams–at least a brief session of vocal coaching.

Fred Thompson: I’d like to box his ears for raising my hopes in 2008 and then dashing them so precipitously.

There, that’s my Top Ten People I’d Like to Meet and Have a Sit-Down With (again, in no particular order). There are others I might include on different days for different reasons (including one that’s “above” this mundane list), but those will do for now.

No, I’m not linking to all of these folks. You can google (almost) any of them you’re unfamiliar wit yourself easily enough. 🙂

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Cutting Users a Slight Bit of Slack

It’s been my firm view that malware doesn’t infect folks’ computers. Folks infect their computers with malware as a result of laziness or carelessness.

Well, I still hold that view. Properly patched computers with up-to-date anti-malware from a well-respected anti-malware software vendor, operated by users who practice safe surfing and generally safe computing practices are… safe.

But folks get careless or lazy and don’t keep their OSes and applications up-to-date, don’t run regular full scans with their anti-malware, do visit “risky” sites (and don’t have or don’t pay attention to link scanning software), etc.

Recently two very (very) smart people I know did infect themselves with some malware by CLICKing on a popup “warning” that looked very much like a Microsoft Security Essentials window. One told me he thought as he clicked on it, “Oh, no! I shouldn’t have done that!” but by then it was too late. Took about an hour and a half to fully clean his system (only about 15 minutes on my part, since I could trust him to do the rest of the procedure himself, after having it lined out for him). The other person? Knew she’d infected herself and what she’d done to do so but had no clue how to extricate herself from the problem.

OK, I’m going to give some general Windows guidelines for avoiding infection from the kinds of fake anti-malware infectors these folks(and many less smart folks who had NO idea where or how they’d “been infected”) infected themselves with, and a couple of hints on manual fixes if you’ve gone ahead and infected yourself anyway:

1. No! Do NOT click on that warning! Not anywhere! No, don’t do it! Continue reading “Cutting Users a Slight Bit of Slack”

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For Your Child’s Classroom?

Or grandchild’s classroom or bedroom. Sweet dreams!

Thugs Standing Around: making citizens into subjects of the “feddle gummint” bureaucrappy.

Update: And no, the apocryphal (? Who knows? Could be real, you know.) book referred to in the graphic is not so far-fetched:

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Another Compgeeky Trifle

I mentioned my upgrade of passwords on my own computers and online accounts here at twc central a while back. Essentially, it involved using the first letters of words in lyrics of songs I know, modified a bit to obscure even those letters. Well, as I began doing this, I reflected on the many, many songs (once) in my performance repertoire that are in various languages other than English, and then I thought to meself, “Self, why not take a mix of those lyrics in both the original language and English and select the first letters of the words in those lyrics, then mix upper/lowercase letters, numbers and symbols in for those letters (in my own idiosyncratic manner)?”

And so it is. First letters of words to lyrics of songs I know in French/Russian/German/Italian/English (mixmastered at will), with liberal substitutions for those letters using symbols or numerals (some Roman numerals, even, subbing in for letters) resulting in passwords 60-80 characters long in many cases that are nevertheless memorable enough for me that a password storage and encryption app isn’t really necessary. Of course, I am assembling a hard copy of the key to relate each song to its site/use. And, also of course, the master key doesn’t name the songs. *heh*

Oh! There’s an idea! Melodies used as passwords! Encode them using both letters and numerals an use that as passwords. Good one. I know far more tunes than I know lyrics, and I could even transpose one tune (and add harmonies via a figured bass or “Nashville” notation) and use it for many different sites/uses.

Now, if I could just use audio passwords and whistle different tunes as passwords… If sensitivity were set high enough, I imagine fine differentials in tuning could be included. I’d like that, as I can still hear and reproduce pitches well. Heck, I could just use the two pitches that are always present via tinitus and reproduce them together (hum one, whistle the other) to produce the combined waveform. Now, that’d be a nice password. *heh*

Of course, I suppose I could use some sort of encrypted storage of passwords combined with a biometric master device, lie my Wonder Woman has on her lil notebook, but I’d have to add ’em all over the place, so no.

Upgrading my passwords is proving to be a bit more fun than I had thought it might be.

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Moderate Muslims? Pull the Other One

I was recently taken to task by a disingenuous arguer for stating that there simply are no “moderate Muslims”–that by Islam’s definition of “Muslim” such creatures simply cannot exist.

So, what, to a dim-witted, uninformed, Westerner who’s been lobotomized by years of drinking the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind KoolAid, is a “Moderate Muslim”? Well, the “Muslims Against Sharia” blog pretty much details the features of this mythical creature:

(CLICK to embiggen)

Strange that these folks call themselves “Muslims” since every single one of the characteristics they claim for so-called “Moderate Muslims” would cause their heads to be severed from their bodies were Mohamed to be alive and catch them. “Muslim” means “submitted”. Submitted to what? To the word of Mohamed. NONE of those characteristics cited for “moderate Muslims” are compatible with Islam as “revealed” by Mohamed. Any even semi-literate dumbass from the left side of the bell curve can discern as much from a simple read-through of any translation of the Koran. Sure, there are some “peaceful” verses (basically just plagiarized from Christian and Jewish writings) from Mohamed’s early, “Mecca”, days that soi disant “moderate Muslims” refer to in order to claim their religion is peaceful. But Mohamed is the final arbiter of truth in Islam–it’s black letter law to Islam, essential, fundamental doctrine. And Mohamed himself said, unequivocally, that any time two sayings of his conflicted, the latter saying was–not just preferred!–supersedes, indeed abrogates, the former. Period. And what sayings of Mohamed supersede the “peaceful” Meccan verses? Well, of course it is the violent Medinan verses that require the subjugation, torture and/or death of “unbelievers” at the hands of Muslims whenever and wherever possible. And if it is not possible to subjugate or kill unbelievers, Mohamed provided a special little dispensation for the Muslim: lie to the unbelievers.

So, as far as I can tell, from reading translations of the Koran and more from the Hadith and Sunna, there are no “moderate Muslims”. But there may be one or more classes of people who claim to be “moderate Muslims” and profess to believe the things in the graphic above.

1. Heretics against Islam. There may actually be some of these apostates who nevertheless falsely claim to be Muslims. Could be.
2. Genuine Muslims lying to foolish non-Muslims in order to deceive them and take advantage of foolish non-Muslims’ ignorance and stupidity.
3. Subliterate morons who have no idea what the Koran actually says and claim to be Muslims out of their ignorance.

Those are the ONLY classes of so-called “Moderate Muslims”. Period. Full stop. Placing any credence in the professions of any of these people is beyond foolish. It is foolishly dangerous. More, allowing people who, by the mandates of their own central, essential, fundamental religious doctrine, as clearly and unequivocally stated by their own “perfect” prophet, are required to be our enemies, required to subjugate or kill us, to frame the debate is tantamount to assisting them in our own suicide.

I could only hope for some self-proclaimed “moderate Muslim” to attempt debate on this issue (probably citing some Meccan verses in support of their lies). Only the most idiotic would attempt to do so, though, so tearing them a new one wouldn’t be all that much fun. *sigh*

BTW, before the lil piggie raises its head, the ONLY substantive difference between Sunni and Shia Muslims is the question of who should have inherited Mohamed’s authority. On questions of doctrine, there’s no real differences at all. It’s all political. But they’ll kill each other over the political differences and each claim (legitimate!) justification for doing so directly from Mohamed’s mouth.

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Bung Hole Method of Child Raising

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjYrg2u1e2U

Mark Twain once suggested a method of dealing with children like this: place them in a barrel and feed them through the bung hole.

At the age of 14, drive in the bung.

(Yeh, yeh, it’d never fly in today’s society–or in Mark Twain’s for that matter. Doesn’t mean it wouldn’t save a lot of trouble down the road… )

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“…the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office…”

More like “unwilling” in the case of The Zero (or, given the millions spent on obscuring The Zero’s qualifications, maybe even “unable to LEGALLY” discharge his duties), but perhaps it’d work, if there were enough congresscritters who’ve not yet become members of the corrupt political elite:

Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President…

At any rate, The Zero’s disconnectedness from reality would be enough to remove him, in my book. Who wants a delusional fantasist in the Oval Office anyway, save for those political elites who benefit from his insanity, the welfare plantation slaves and government “workers” who suck at the public teat and any others whose unenlightened, stupid selfishness cares not a whit for the destruction of the republic that seems to be The Zero’s goal?