There’s already a few other posts about the perils of complex software. Features are faults is one. The more we ask a program (or any system) to do, the more likely something will go wrong. This post is about various time saving features that backfire, when some feature promises to save me time but ends up costing more. Or in short, when the smart feature is really stupid.
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Because I am old, sometimes instead of watching new original content, I want to watch old preexisting content which is not available on Netflix or any other streaming service. Fortunately, there is a solution. Netflix also has a service which will mail me plastic circles that I can watch by putting them in my plastic circle player. I can manage the queue of such circles by using my browser. Ah, the wonders of technology.
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Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker is underway. The basic facts, that Gawker published excerpts from a video showing Hogan having sex with a wife that was not his own, are not in dispute. Hogan alleges that publication of the video of his intimate affair is a violation of privacy. Alas for Hogan, he can’t make a copyright claim because the video was recorded by the home security camera of the cuckolded husband, Bubba the Love Sponge.
Gawker is making the expected First Amendment defense. Or, in their words, “Because the Internet has made it easier for all of us to be shameless voyeurs and deviants, we love to watch famous people have sex.” See? Public interest.
Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away in another courtroom, the jury returned a verdict in favor of Erin Andrews in her lawsuit against a hotel that allowed a peeper to record a naked video of her. Before posting the videos publicly, he had attempted to sell them to TMZ, who declined. Apparently the so called journalists at TMZ don’t care about the public interest.
(For the record, I’ve always loved Hulk Hogan, or at least the character that is Hulk Hogan. I’ve never been quite as impressed with Gawker’s character.)
I’m reading Most Secret War by R. V. Jones, an English physicist’s account of his intelligence work in the Air Staff during World War II. I’m only up to the beginning of 1941, but it’s been a terrific read so far, with many enlightening anecdotes. A few dealing with erroneous assumptions were particularly good.
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On the Brave New World of Mars, humanity is segregated into genetically engineered castes, each a different color. Beneath the surface of this inhospitable Dune like world lives Darrow, a young miner. The Helium-3 must flow. But rebellion is afoot, and Darrow undergoes operation Gattaca to transform his lowly Red body into that of a Gold. Then it’s off to the Institute, where he competes in the Hunger Games to crown the next Ender. Soon he’s caught up in a Game of Thrones as the great houses vie for power. Along the way he makes some quirky friends, all the while remembering his dead Braveheart wife.
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How hard is it to preload a PC with the software it needs to work? Really fucking hard.
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Time and Esquire both went full Trump this week, with cover titles of “How Trump Won” and “Hater in Chief”, respectively. Not to mention very similar red, white, and gray color themes.
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Unexpected roaming fees are the worst. You’re just cruising along, having a jolly old time, and then boom. $20 per megabyte??? Should have read the fine print. Of course, if you had known to read the fine print, you probably would have already known about the roaming fees, and therefore not needed to read the fine print. And so it goes, in life and in ssh.
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OpenBSD 5.9 won’t be out for a little while, but it may be helpful to plan ahead, especially since there’s been some considerable progress on hardware support. Here are some notes about what works in general and a few particular models.
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