Guns Along the Potomic

Among my friends I am somewhat known for “radical” views. I tend to believe that the states should not be allowed to license anything. Contrary to the BS statement of states, driving is NOT a “privilege” but the right to move about the nation as one sees fit. We don’t need state licenses to know how to drive, etc. I can envision a process wherein you take a driver’s license test – once. And get issued a license, which is valid forever and an insurance company can use, among other things, to know that you have shown proficiency in some of the basic driving skills. There are others – driving school diploma, competition license, etc. The point is that we need liberty – which is basically the freedom … Continue reading

A Farewell to Zings

Doctor Charles Krauthammer, a paralyzed psychiatrist and irascibly syndicated columnist, writes that he has only weeks to live.  The letter is matter-of-fact, and the fact is that it’s over.

This unwelcome sentence is occasioned by a fast-moving cancer which had looked to be beaten, but which gained the upper hand.  A rapidly invasive, mid-abdominal cancer “everywhere” sounds perhaps like the miserable interconnected pancreas/gall bladder.  I lost my mother to pancreatic cancer about a year ago, and if you know how to do the “pancreas salute”, then you know that this one is meaner than many.

Krauthammer has been a fixture on the TV screens of reasonable and unreasonable people alike, depending upon whether or not you agree with me about politics.  I parted with him in many of … Continue reading

Recommended Music

An amazing remix of a song I already like very much. Very subdued, a very pleasant but relentless tension. Pen Perry (whomever that is) has found a way to rely on the crashing energy of the original and include yet omit it at the same time. Waiting for the blast that never comes — feeling it nonetheless. There is a presence, like something large and invisible standing just behind you. Off to one side. It’s probably friendly. Probably.

Hold On Tight

I am moving to Bluehost.  This blog and (hopefully) everything in it.  The move should be transparent, but it will probably be a disaster.

You brave souls with the trauma of Anything2.0 deserve better — well, you’ll probably get much worse.

I am so furious at Yahoo hosting and email and all the rest of it that I will simply rip the band-aid off.

 

Here we go…

What is this nonsense? OpenH264.org Download

Had a brush with some badness named “openh264.org”.

I am sitting in a Starbucks with its own internet access, my very own local shady access point.  When I connect to the access point, there is a popup which requires me to click I ACCEPT THE TERMS etc, and then hit the CONNECT button. This usually goes smoothly, as I have the password stored, and that’s all I have to do. But today I got hit with a pop-up that said such-and-such a site is trying to download(?) a file.  The file was named something like this:

http(s?)://ciscobinary.openh264.org/{LONG-ugly-UID-here}.zip

What do you want to do with this file, open with IE, do something else, [ ] remember this choice, OK/CANCEL.

This popul was the obscured by another that said something … Continue reading