Posts by Tikimon

Le roi est mort, vive le roi

Assume we get rid of Socialist Security Numbers. It won't make any useful difference because the entities that wish to track and trace us want us to have a unique Identifier of some kind. Everyone was assigned an SSN by a government entity and could not change it. No better human-tagging system existed so it became the default US ID Number. But times have moved on.

If we stop using the SSN for identification some other Primary Key will be chosen to tag us with. The easiest new identifier choice would be an existing one that has lots of data attached to it already. What fits the bill best? Your Google or Facebook ID. The one they're sharing with the Feds already.

So my informed-cynicism take is that we can kill SSN for ID but it will be quickly replaced with something worse, probably your electronic ID from Google. I hope I'm wrong, but...

New date finder!

Hey, is this a great way to find dates or what? Any owner of such a device is by definition horny, sexually adventurous, and likes to bring electricity into the bedroom. Match signals to singles (or attached and not getting enough) and you have a short list of dating prospects with a better than normal chance of getting laid.

Technically anyway. In reality, that would be unimaginably creepy.

OMG more please!

When I read articles like this, I usually have to fill in the True Story myself. Unfortunately, doing so makes me feel like a bitter old curmudgeon. Which I am, but that's beside the point. To have someone do it for me lets me revel in the rewrite and laugh with a carefree heart.

Many thanks! Can this be a semi-regular occurrence, like Dabbsie's rants?

Maybe they should just invest in "Wearables" instead

Hey, wearables meet all the same points as a space program. There's no unmet need for it, no viable plan to make it real or any notion of what to do with it if it somehow is actually constructed. And what else but wearable tech has the ability to waste as much money for so little return as a poorly-run space program?

In a general observation...

Whatever the topic, I dearly love to see self-important Guardians Of All That Is Genuine going apeshit trying to prevent changes to living systems from an arbitrary Point In Time. I imagine them on the beach, desperately shoring up the sand castle they built as the uncaring tide overtakes them. Be sure to swim with the current when that last tower falls!

I tell you Grog, words with more than one sound, they source of evil. One sound each word is good to say what you want. Cave of Barg's Clan make new words with two... sill ab buls they call them. Those words not pure, not True Clan, we no speak. We talk this way for all time!

Countermeasures!

OK then, let's scatter about a selection of old flash cards, each infected with a different choice of the nastiest malware we can find. Go ahead, load that into your computer, Officer Jackboot. Ditto the grinding up a few and scattering the dust around the whole house and yard. It won't stop them, but it might temper their glee at finding hidden storage devices.

“The networking ecosystem is too fragile and slow, too hard for users to participate in"

So the users can't handle the existing networks, but are somehow going to design their own on the fly? How the bleep does that work?

TIME TO RETRAIN

Professional clowns losing business due to clown fears? EXCELLENT! Nobody really likes them! The only reason everyone hires clowns is because... well, you're supposed to right? Clowns for kids? Even if they terrify the kids?

Momentum has carried clown parties far enough. Let 'em fade away already. Find a NEW CAREER!

Hey, the tech industry is perfect, hit 'em up.

"1 out of 3 computers is infected by malware every single day"

They only manage to infect one of three computers they work on with malware? That's not much to brag about.

Citizen donates weapon to UK carrier, changes mind

In a fit of untrammeled pity for the British Navy, a concerned citizen attempted to donate his UAV. Although unarmed, it would have at least given the carrier the start of an air wing, and provided some much-needed recon ability to detect possible threats to run away from.

Then he realized, "Why am I giving a perfectly good drone to those wankers?" changed his mind, and flew it home again.

Nothing ever changes...

Long ago in the pre-WWW era of walled garden ISPs, I was an AOL user. Pages were often all-text due to the speed of modems back then. Then AOL decided to show little icons next to every item, so each page load downloaded ten new icons. In those days, that ate lots of time on a paid-per-hour connection. Pay to download stupid little images?

Enter ArtValve. It simply blocked the icons from downloading, saved money and made surfing bearable again. 20+ years later I'm blocking ads and scripts. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose...

Kickstarter's not all bad...

I've funded two projects and got the products on time. You may wonder, what life-changing notions induced me to part with my hard-earned cash when they didn't actually exist yet? Pure silliness! Both projects also had attainable goals and a solid plan to get there.

First was The Gentleman's Single Use Monocle, "The world's first Disposable Single-Use Unlubricated Monocle, for the On-the-Go Gentleman." Yep, it's a sight gag item and was cheap.

I'm actually proud to have helped Kickstart the game "Exploding Kittens". Huge success and has spawned sequels and expansions. I figure I'm doing my part to make the world a stranger place.

Step One: Ban. Step Two: Discredit.

First the Feds ban Kaspersky products from their systems. Now you have The Big Lie under way, and can claim the result as prior evidence. Look, the US Gummint banned Kaspersky, they must be evil Rooskie spies!

So when Kaspersky Labs later uncover the scaly claw of the NSA et. al. behind a malware campaign or similar onerous deed, they can point to this and claim it's Russian-sponsored misinformation.

Demonize someone enough and nobody will listen to or defend them. It's straight from the Josef Goebbels Propaganda Handbook.