← Feed

Posts

• View post

  Doing a simple spreadsheet in Libreoffice Calc (v 26..8.0.3.on MacOS - BTW did you know that Libreoffice won't allow that version number to be selected and copied from the "about" pop-up? Why?) Ten minutes: Encountered two bugs and one gratuitous change that removed functionality (or moved it to a place not mentioned in the documentation.) Sheesh.

• View post

  "humanitarian reasons" ?? Yeah, right. "Trump and His Aides Helped Bolsonaro Flee Brazil for the U.S. President Trump ensured Flávio Bolsonaro, who lost a presidential election in Brazil and faces multiple criminal investigations there, could enter the United States, U.S. officials said." https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/29/world/americas/flavio-bolsonaro-trump-brazil-us.html

• View post

  @detondev Check out the Santa Cruz Puma Project. Especially look at their "Puma Tracker" page. We've had several visit our house (we can hear them - they sound like a cross between a human baby crying and a domestic kitty cat - one coming right up to the front door knob. Our neighbors lost some goats to mountain lions. And they have killed at least one person (several years ago.) https://www.santacruzpumas.org/

• View post

  Perhaps Google should have remembered and honored its original promise not to be evil... "Alphabet loses $482 billion in market value, the biggest drop in its history" https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/article/alphabet-heads-for-a-500-billion-drop-in-market-value-the-biggest-in-its-history-134824763.html

• View post

  A few minutes ago, the skirmishers began a hostile engagement in the election battle... "Justice Department subpoenas California officials in escalation of its scrutiny of elections" https://apnews.com/article/california-noncitizen-voting-trump-midterm-lawsuit-20714065e59fe13db0e53c711a3ca390

• View post

  I suspect most folks forgot that Patrick Stewart was in "I Claudius" in 1976... He played a very dangerous character... (The entire I Claudius series is worth a watch.) https://youtu.be/xA6QbwPGlgk?t=893

• View post

  @lauren@mastodon.laurenweinstein.org @darkuncle@infosec.exchange I also gave up running my own mail servers. But one thing to remember: under US law e-mail that has been lounging on your email provider's machines for 180 days or more is subject to warrantless retrieval by the Feds. "Under the law, the government does need a warrant to access the content of electronic communications that are 180 days old or less, but doesn't need one for older emails. " https://www.aclu.org/n...

• View post

  @irene@discuss.systems - I took a look at your note "Slow Software". I felt that the general notion was quite rational - separating high impact code (and thus give it more care) from lesser impact code. I do testing - I break code. And I've noticed an increasing tendency of builders to presume ever-faster underlying processing, memory, and network resources. I work with the latter - network services going bad. I am seeing more and more code begin to break on low performance pl...

• View post

  How many authenticator apps do I need? I've got: - Google Authenticator on my iPhone/iPads - Authy (on some platforms) - 2Stable - RSA Authenticator (which seems incompatable with the Google one) And now ID.me wants me to download their authenticator app. Hey guys, can't we just have ONE standardized time-based authenticator that runs on Windows, Android, MacOS, iphone OS, iPad OS, Linux, and maybe *BSD? And also, not cost $50/year - I'm looking at you 2Stable.

• View post

  It concerns me that so many in Congress feel that impeachment is a criminal law process subject to the same procedural and substantive limitations as our criminal law, or that impeachment may only be for crimes enumerated by our Federal and state laws. That is not true. Impeachment by the House and Trial/Conviction in the Senate are not criminal procedures. Indeed, our Constitution clearly allows for post-impeachment criminal and civil actions. Impeachment & Trial/Conviction are *politic...

• View post

  I have been an opponent of the death penalty. Not because I feel that such punishment is unethical - I understand and often share the sense of utter revulsion that people have toward such criminals. I base my opposition on the fact that we spend far too much time (and resources) in courts in a never-ending dance against actually carrying out the penalty. Life without the possibility of parole is a good substitute. But here is a case and person about which I would have absolutely no objection...

• View post

  This headline ought to have been: "Texas Defunds Police" Instead of: "Texas police department ordered closed for failing to provide any benefit to community" https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/15/trinidad-texas-police-department-disbanded

• View post

  Wow, the Apple MacOS update to MacOS 27 is 26.5Gbytes. 26.5Gbytes!

• View post

  Here is an article well worth reading ... read all of it. I have similarly come to the conclusion that domestic white nationalist christendom is the greatest danger that our nation faces. "‘A Bible-sized blind spot’: congressman sounds alarm on rising Christian nationalism" https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/26/jared-huffman-rising-christian-nationalism-no-prophets-book

• View post

  What a stupid idea.... "Google Search testing forcing searchers to sign in to get more search results" I propose that each of us create several fantasy Google accounts (or resurrect accounts previously used by dead people) and then we quietly exchange the credentials. https://searchengineland.com/google-search-testing-forcing-searchers-to-sign-in-to-get-more-search-results-484223

• View post

  Uh, this is ambiguous - did Blanche also withdraw the part giving the trumps immunity from tax audits (and thus effectively from paying taxes)? That immunity is what El Cheato really cares about. "Holdout senators back Blanche for AG after he formally withdraws Trump fund plan" https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3w05gx32d4o

• View post

  Saw an utterly wonderful production of MacBeth last night at Santa Cruz Shakespeare. I think they did the full text without major edits. The sets were minimalist - which is important these days when live theatre is struggling. Yes, it is Elizabethan-era English, but with the good acting and articulation, it's rather easy to understand. It runs through the end of August. (It's an outdoor venue and can get quite chilly.) There are several other plays going on in rep this summer - we...

• View post

  Another of the rules I'd put into place should I ever wake up to discover that I've become Emperor of the Universe... The Rule Against Digital Perpetuities: No Digital Rights Management (DRM) limitation or anti-copying mechanism may endure longer than the original copyright in the protected work. The Pledge: I pledge to neither specify nor standardize nor implement any system that does not conform to the Rule Against Digital Perpetuities. https://www.cavebear.com/old_cbblog/...

• View post

  And my final (perhaps) ex cathedra bull (based on the possibility that I did wake up as Emperor of the Universe this morning but failed to notice): The pledge: I pledge to vote for no Republican candidate for any office - whether local, state, or federal - in any election held before 2037.

• View post

  When I was designing office support systems and networks for a rather large bank we had a cardinal rule: Never break the user's train of thought! I am amazed at how bad, even with massive increases in computer and network horsepower, that that role is broken with an almost virulent violence.

• View post

  I agree. There are so many who read our Constitution's supremacy clause incorrectly. Federal law is supreme only in those areas in which the Federal government has authority. Yet the 9th, 10, and Preamble make it clear that the scope of that Federal authority is limited. And all of the rest falls to the states and the people. Thus Hawaii - and every other state - has the right and power to tell SCOTUS to take a flying leap at a rolling donut when the matter in question is subject to Sta...

• View post

  For those among us who aspire to revive "the good old days" this little book should be required reading... "The Good Old Days: They Were Terrible!" (And yes, it is that Otto Bettmann, of the archives.) https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81ZinsA41VL._SL1375_.jpg

• View post

  Saudi Arabia with nuclear material that could readily be made into a dirty bomb and with a bit more work made into a Hiroshima style bomb. What a concept. Not a concept that fits well with the fact that most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, as was Osama bin Laden. Not a concept that fits well with a country built around a ultra-fundamentalist religious system. Trump is a coin-operated marionette; whoever inserts enough coin gets to pull Trump's strings. And the Saudi's have proba...

• View post

  Here's something that may be a rather in-demand job for the post Trump/MAGA era: Forensic accountant (Not to be confused with a forensic anthropologist.)

• View post

  Over the last 250 years Congress has been incredibly stupid by passing laws that do not self-destruct (i.e. require re-passage) after a period of time.) Those ancient laws have become land mines or weapons in the hands of a stupid vindictive president like trump. https://www.axios.com/2026/07/21/trump-smoot-hawley-tariffs-canada

• View post

  @tallship@public.mitra.social @tychotithonus@infosec.exchange Taking a bit of a detour - I remember when the ccTLDs were new. The folks who handled .TV set forth on an expedition to climb the tallest peak in Tuvalu. So they gathered their North Face and other mountaineering gear, down jackets, crampons, and ice axes and set forth to climb. And climb they did - to the peak of the highest point in Tuvalu - 15 feet above sea level.

• View post

  Regarding a requirement for voter id: Voter ID is not a stupid idea. The trouble comes not from the ID itself (unless that ID becomes a national identity card). Rather the trouble comes from the difficulty in obtaining that ID, especially for poor people, young people, people who have trouble in remote locations or who have limited abilities to go to DMV offices or the like, or minorities. My sense is that the D-party is taking the wrong tack on voter ID (although the SAVE act methods of vot...

• View post

  Well, now that JD Vance is moving to the northern Virginia suburbs (a gated area I presume) he won't be using his official government provided residence at the Naval Observatory in DC. So they ought to open that DC house - it's kinda nice - to homeless families.

• View post

  I think we can pretty much conclude that it is the policy of the government of Israel to commit ethnic cleansing. I make a strong distinction between the people of Israel and the government of Israel. The people of Israel deserve to have their sovereign country, peaceful and secure My point about ethnic cleansing applies to the government of Israel not to its people (although some clearly support that goal.) I also believe that the Palestinians deserve their own country, peaceful and secure....

• View post

  OK, if el trump wants to put tariffs on Canadian smoke then the rest of the world can impose tariffs and taxes on Starlinks' sky pollution and also that now approved system of big solar reflecting satellites. "Trump threatens to tariff Canada over wildfire smoke choking northern US cities" https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyq93j34lgo