Posts by Agamemnon

America's comms watchdog takes on the internet era's real criminals: Pirate pastors

Re: Pirate radio is harmfull

Silicon Valley Kids will take your shit apart, literally.

(I'd have stuffed needles in the antenna coax, let `em figure it out.)

It's hip to be Square: Twitter founder Jack Dorsey's other firm targets White Van Man

Re: Did anybody else

Now that's sort of a funny thing, I was at the cannabis store a few hours ago so...Cannabis outlets in Washington State are Cash-Only ... "though I have heard" there are cannabis dispensaries in Greater Seattle that take square (and there's a link on CNNMoney FWIW), I've not personally been in one that does.

1. Some of that is privacy in that folk generally don't want "Bought 3.5g of Alaskan Purple Thunderfuck (a real thing) + 4Lbs of Brownies" on their ATM. Some of that is the Major Banks won't touch them...HOWEVER, the place I was just at seemed to get a loan just fine for building out the interior (used to be a feed store in Redmond 30 years ago) and exterrior of the building.

2. There is ALWAYS one of those portable ATMs in the dispensary (and the security knows to sweep for skimmers). Banks might not want in...those ATM guys will show up *Anywhere*. Someone wants a cut of that pie and the fact that it's those guys surprises me, not at all.

3. The Inventory Management (massive stock rollover, like, daily) and Point Of Sale (Fixed AND Mobile Tablets, "server" upstairs) is so dialed-in that I'm astonished. Socketing Square into their systems would literally be Plug-And-Play (I'm excluding interoperability with existing accounting but I'll bet you QuickBooks is ~90% adoption, and that's trivial).

The Better Half just switched from PayPal to Square for her business and it's been dreamy (guess who does "IT" for her business....go on, guess). The "POS" is an 8" Galaxy Tab with 4G, or her phone, or her other phone, or my fondleslab if it's handy, or my phone in a pinch (with DEVICE management from the $Diety console, which I thought was cool), and "Product Management" is (please forgive me, but it's true) "Robust".

If Square is indeed picking up the industry, that gives them some states on the East Coast I don't care about, DC (care less), Colorado, and The Entire West Coast (Ca, Or, Wa) , or; The 6th largest economy in the world (I'm adjusting for our astronomical cost of living versus the UK).

There is No Way Jack Dorsey is going to leave that money sitting on the table ... for long. And if he does? Cool! Some plucky little upstart will come along and pick it up, and they'll be rolling in dosh to do other nifty things.

Re: Startup finagling

Oh, so how The Entire (dot)COM worked.

Carry on.

S/MIME artists: EFAIL email app flaws menace PGP-encrypted chats

Re: Who relies on this stuff?

LOLOL. Thank you for that Sir. Haven't finished my first cup of coffee and you put a smile on my face before anyone else could etch my usual scowl there.

I could wax silly about all of the problems with PKE and EMail and People, but I think you covered it quite nicely indeed.

Zombie Cambridge Analytica told 'death' can't save it from the law

Re: Pass out the torches and pitchforks!

The problem is: These aren't People, and they're about as close to "Demon" as you can get.

* They "stole data". Yeah, whatever. Who here hasn't? (ahem).

* They used it to manipulate the weaker minds in my country here (not difficult, I get that) and royally fucked things up (this is not to say that last election cycle in the US proved systemic brokenness from Everyone Everywhere) very much in this country, and by extension, lots of other things. And I Have No Problem With That either.

What I have a problem with is: A bunch of Pompus Fucking Sociopathic Pricks in a private company explaining frankly how they're going to screw These People, and they screwed Those People, for money. Because they could. Last I checked, this was CIA territory (and other state actors but come-on, if they took out Cambridge Analytica your mind would just sort of slip "The CIA" all over these articles).

Fellow Commentards are pissy and calling for blood because:

* They're clearly unrepentant, and planning to Scale? That should give one pause.

* They're sociopaths. Sorry mate, but they've got no value to the Human Race. They're parasites Seeding Chaos. That's pretty demon like.

... And changing the name on the sign in the window, so they can Keep being Sociopaths?

Yeah, on the wall.

Drone 'swarm' buzzed off FBI surveillance bods, says tech bloke

FLIR In 3...2...

Eats the power, but super usable.

Scratch Earth-killer asteroid off your list of existential threats

I don't mean to be pedantic (I'm a RegReader so that's bullshit) ...

The Chelyabinsk meteor did NOT <quote> Impact over the city of Chelyabinsk </quote>.

Moving at 19km/sec (I'm American, and I prefer metric, thanks) it finally gave in to it's pressure wave and our atomosphere and "Exploded over the city of Chelyabinsk".

Some bits impacted the forest, sure. If you like you could attempt to be even more pedantic and say it "impacted our atmosphere" and exploded, but it had done quite a bit of that "impacting" across a great deal of sky, so that would make you a wanker and I'd have to finish my beer at the other end of the bar whilst giving you the Stink-Eye.

"Exploded over Chelyabinsk" is correct.

Relating to the Rest of the article; Damn, I had such high hopes for an ELE this year.

An AU is about 93 million miles so the total area is about 100,000,000,000,000,000 square miles.

You are going to need a LOT of sentinels.

That sounds really good for the economy!

US sanctions on Turkey for Russia purchases could ground Brit F-35s

Re: leave increasing numbers of vital British-owned fighters grounded.

Lemons? I thought you chaps were "Limeys"?

Boeing CEO takes aim at Musk’s Starman-in-a-Tesla stunt

Re: pffftttt...

Ok, the concept of parking a Tesla in GEO above Everett, WA is really amusing to me.

Windows 10 to force you to use Edge, even if it isn't default browser

Re: Fucking idiots

I'm no fan of Apple, however I'll parlay with this:

Apple shit actually works. Apple shit is actually designed to work together. Apple shit isn't user-antagonistic. You buy into the whole eco-system when you use Apple. HOWEVER, it's xNIX under the hood so it'll ultimately do what I effin' Tell it to do.

Re: Fucking idiots

I keep telling ya'll, I'm a xNIX Admin that lives in Redmond (I'll be in prison for homicide before decade's close, I'm sure).

The Kool-Aid here is rampant, and most Macro$loppies working now aren't old enough to remember the Anti-Trust suit.

And this administration's DOJ doesn't seem too willing to reign in business so, I'll just say it to get it out of the way: Install BSD or Linux and call it an afternoon.

Oh, and "Edge" is the most secure browser because nobody fucking uses it.

MailChimp 'working' to stop hackers flinging malware-laced spam from accounts

Re: I like homophones.

A Terry Pratchet reference before 10AM puts a smile on my face.

May I buy you a pint, sir?

Super Cali neutral traffic bill makes web throttling bogus

Re: Please stop the "Super Cali" meme.

As I'm often in California, and consider myself a Californian, I have to strongly agree.

It's "California", or "Cal".

As I was just in LA, a tourist or transplant from the Midwest or South immediately outs themselves when they say "Cali" and we all sort of wander away.

It's like nails on a goddamned chalk board.

Ex-staffers slam Microsoft's 'lackluster' response to stacks of internal complaints

Re: #metoo

Linus tends to be *completely* fair: He flames Everyone without regards to gender, gender identification, economic status, race, religion, distro. #Linux #EqualOpportunity

Re: Service Normal then?

I live in Redmond, I'm in the industry (clearly, enjoying TheReg forums), and do not work for Microsoft... I'm surrounded by them.

Make no mistake, the God Complex and "I am the center of $projectFoo, I am Super Cool™" is rampant. I've had to percussively remind one or two that they're really not.

I'm a UNIX engineer, old Net, from Silicon Valley, and I can tell you that it is just as bad there at Yahoo!, Google, and Facebook... While they're wallowing in their KumBaYah bullshit pretending to be enlightened, assholes are assholes, and corporate is corporate: We see again and again that the toe that gravitate to corporate are sexist (etc etc) jerks AND Corporate HR is there to appear to be useful. There Is A Process! they claim, because:

It's all facade, and it's all about appearances.

Sneaky satellite launch raises risk of Gravity-style space collision

Re: Regulatory Oversight

Yeah, seeeee...that's my take-away.

I've been to none too few launches in my life and last I cecked, FAA was your hurdle.

FCC is not a relevant entity.

Concievably, I can make a satellite that radiates Nothing (which Aces's out FCC), gathers some data, looks around, and crashes the spinning rust next to my BBQ on a Saturday Afternoon. (Ok, that might be a bit liberal in design, I admit...beats IP over carrier pidgeon, let's go with it...)

So how and or why would the FCC care?

As far as rocketry goes, and the FAA, America is (theoretically) built towards the concept that if it's not explicitly Denied, it's implied you can do what you want. In the sky, this becomes less true. The FAA's charter is: If it implicitly allowed, it's specifically denied. Ultimately, this is a good thing I think.

However:Americans (in general) have this odd mix of Crazy, and wealth to actually home-brew an ICBM/Low Orbit craft for kicks, as a one-off. It's only a matter of time before "Big Richard" in Texas decides to *successfully* build his own thing and to hell with things like international treaties and let everyone know there's going to be a launch-plume that every satellite is seeing making edgy folk more edgy until he parks his microsats in a bad place and all hell breaks loose.

Won't be government(s) that screw Richard, tho. It'll be business that owns the CommSats suing him into oblivion. Government will just build a few new keyholes, with all new goodies on an up-rev, and grab a few bucks from the general fund.

But the US FCC is sociopathic right now, you'll have to forgive us while some of our politicos demonstrate complete delusion.

Sacked saleswoman told to pay Intel £45k after losing discrim case

Re: Money here

1. First Amendment. Don't like my language? Fuck you, and the horse you rode in on.

2. To shoot down my own argument; I'm from California and can sue you because your tie causes me emotional distress (it really is hideous, really).

Use of HTTPS among top sites is growing, but weirdly so is deprecated HTTP public key pinning

Re: I only just noticed...

Right? Noticed a bit back and had the same reaction.

Their problem had been, as I understand, getting their Advertisers on board so it all worked.

Billionaire's Babylon beach ban battle barrels toward Supreme Court

Re: Miserable old git

I threw Newsome out of a bar in The Marina once in SF, while he was Mayor, after his Scandal (didn't want to drink with the git, neither did fellow San Franciscans).

Trust that Gavin won't do anything to compromise his election potential.

That microchipped e-passport you've got? US border cops still can't verify the data in it

So ... some things:

1. To verify the public key on the RFID in the passport, you'd need a copy of the public key.

2. That would have to be stored *somewhere* and the public key would have to be scanned and sent to <location> over <network>.

3. Compare and pair the keys.

4. Presumably the TSA Agent would get a red light, or a green light (KISS principle) for the Cryptographic Validity of the RFID's data on their hand-held or base scanner thingy.

Simplified, sure. But that's mostly the correct way to do it.

The other way, is to put the public key in each scanner so it ust checks right there in the boxen.

I'll be here having a pint taking bets on how this solution gets pushed.

Careful with the 'virtual hugs' says new FreeBSD Code of Conduct

Berkeley, CA

I'd say Berkeley has lost if's mind, but that seems redundant.

US cable giant tries to wriggle out of 'crap ISP' legal battle now that net neutrality is dead

Re: Is Eric gunning for Congress or aiming higher?

Bob Ferguson in Washington State https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Ferguson_(politician)

This guy's a machine: Value Village, Motel 6, Purdue Pharmaceuticals, Monsanto, Comcast.

It's very strange, watching someone actually do their Jobs.

James Damore's labor complaint went over about as well as his trash diversity manifesto

Re: Re Geoffrey W: controversial bro-grammer ?

Aristotle was *also* a misogynist twot.

Former ICE top lawyer raided US govt database to steal aliens' identities

Surely you mean "Escape From New York". "Escape From LA" was the awful sequel.

"I thought you were dead." - Everyone

"I get that a lot" - Snake Bliskin

Bloke sues Microsoft: Give me $600m – or my copy of Windows 7 back

Problem / Solution

Just two weeks ago, my better Half's, mother's ThinkPad was acting very flaky. The Better Half is a competent computer user and had a go at fixing it before calling yours truly (I maintain a Shroud of Asshole™ to discourage this except in the most dire of cases).

Windows (7) was being blamed, when in fact, the poor hard drive was in it's death throes (an aggressive controller/drive test caused it to finally roll over and gasp it's last). No biggie as I've got stacks of consumer hard drives laying around, as when I get a new laptop (I go through them like Seattleites chug coffee) I pull the drive, drop in a much better one, and install BSD or Linux before the machine is ever turned on.

The problem came when Installing Windows... no media (naturally) and the recovery is on the now TITSUP spinning rust. Tho there is a legal key conveniently on the bottom of the boxen.

Lenovo wanted some $100ish USD and two to three weeks for delivery (little old lady in a home with no Netflix, ABSOLUTELY NOT an option lest she pester better half to misery, resulting in Me Being Pestered to homicide) and Microsoft said "Blow Us" (paraphrased, but still) which was irritating as I'm six miles from their campus and ten from one of their silly stores.

Enter: Pirate Bay.

Less than 15 minutes later, I've got an ISO for Win7 Home "Pro" (which confuses me), I kicked in an additional USB Stick rattling around my gear bag for The Cause, and an additional 10 minutes later, Install Media is sorted (did have to get a "Write Windows Stick" application for Kubuntu because arsing with dd at that point would have been irritating, figured it wouldn't be bad to have in the toolbox anyway).

Windows 7 installed Great. The key on the bottom was accepted as Gospel, and activation was without hitches or drama. The next right hours were spent screwing with Updates and Patches, but, no homicide prison sentence seemed worth the effort. Last, put bullets in the "Update To Ten" process.

Best part? No lawyers.

Who wants dynamic dancing animations and code in their emails? Everyone! says Google

*Sniffs* I read my EMail in (Al)pine <truly>. WOrks on my phone pretty well too. Screw `em.

Yorkshire cops have begun using on-the-spot fingerprint scanners

Re: But does it actually save time?

Living on the West Coast of the States, you can file that under: "Damned if you're politically correct, double damned if you aren't."

I just say "The Asshole" so everyone's offended, but isn't. Oddly, it works really well.

You dopes! US state's pot dealer database pwned after security goes up in smoke

Re: Serves them right

Duuuuuuude!

Here, hit this.

Re: Serves them right

I'm a Californian living Washington. We genuinely can't figure out what the fuss is about. Oh, yeah: Follow the Money.

[I don't actually want to toke right now but I'm packing a bowl This Very Second just to piss you off.]

You *do* understand that it's legal in, *GASP*, Washington DC?

Ok for The Beltway (and thank goodness, those twots could hit he bong a few times, mellow out), OK for Me, NONE for you. Prohibition of cannabis was actually a class-war issue against Puerto Ricans and Blacks by none other than Tricky Dick and friends. It's been used to fuel the Corporate Prison System for decades. Folk interested in synthetic stringy/ropey like things got in on the act and "Marijuana" was made illegal, when everyone actually calls it Cannabis.

Go drink your shit diet-pilsner-lite, turn on Reefer Madness (and enjoy the lack of prohibition) and leave those of us on the West Toast alone to our freedoms. Don't like it? Don't smoke it. Easy-peasy.

Now the IT angle:

♫ Don't bogart that database, my frieeeend, pass it oooover to meeeeee. ♬

Of course a mystery website attacking city-run broadband was run by an ISP. Of course

Re: Oh, *that* kind of attack

Oh good... I'm not the only one.

I figured they split off a few Tbits and pointed it at the Muni's edge and slapped it silly.

Then I thought, that's a ten second trace...IoJunk bot net? A service provider can just Summon/Owns one, and Deployed it?

There's simply no way the universe loves us nerds so much that we could get seats to that shit show.

Then I read the article to find: Jackass company hires jackass PR firm to run smear campaign. *Yawn* Yep, Thursday.

My story would have been more fun.

CLOUD Act hits Senate to lube up US access to data stored abroad

Re: On-premises Data

Ultimately... who *Always* foots the bill?

As a brother from across the pond, you lot seem to really, Really, dislike your PM.

We're not all that fond of our president.

I say we all say "Screw it" and go for a pint or three and lament our misery, together.

(Rapid problem salving.)

Beware the looming Google Chrome HTTPS certificate apocalypse!

Re: Well done Google....

Ah, no. I have a "boutique" hosting company:

* Lots of CMS.

* Customers are all remote and travel (some are quite famous, most aren't).

* They log in from cafes and airports and hotels to add and manage content, scheduling, check their mail and calendars.

* Some do that "advertising" stuff.

* I am currently sitting in a cafe in Redmond (you all know what's in Redmond...wankers) running a packet sniffer for my own personal entertainment.

Add that up and where do you find yourself?

* In need of *Basic Credential Security*.

* Mitigation of MITM to some degree (waves, while sipping on a mocha).

* Privacy of some personal or business information.

HTTPS is a Requirement for All of my customers, period, no questions, no crying/whining/bitching/pissing/moaning because The Reality is that:

Mobility Requires Security.

If you log in to your CMS without HTTPS from this coffee shop right now, I Own It (and I'll link to dodgy sites just to teach you a lesson).

Let's Encrypt allows me do this without sticker shock with the option to get Right Serious if my customer (I decide) Requires it for their use case, and we get a Heavy CA That is Trustworthy.

I Almost partnered with Symantec and I assure you fellow Vultures, they were much more interested in sales of services and upselling their idiot "Green URL Bar" than they were about Security. They Brooke the trust, they lose the *privilege* of playing.

Also on that list should be: Comodo, every major bank in the world, Uber (read ElReg headlines), Equifax, some hospital networks, intelligence communities, law enforcement. But, folk continue to show they have no grasp of the situation of "Trust". It seems all one needs is a boilerplate "We're sorry, we won't do it again." How many iterations of this before Regular Folk™ say, "Right, you're done?". In my experience, infinite.

Just read the headlines.

To hack Australia and learn its secrets, buy second-hand furniture

Re: More common than you might think.

I spent many a Happy Day in Weird Stuff. From a wee child to, well, a tall child, raiding that place for the greatest geedunk was just Randomized Joy.

Beers to you bud, you've made my day.

Oh, was just in that neighborhood recently (visiting Santa Cruz, needed stuff==Fry's Run!)...*sigh*: I'm sorry to say, the old Ham Radio Store on Lawrence is no longer with us. Just thought you might like to know.

America restarts dodgy spying program – just as classified surveillance abuse memo emerges

Anyone who quotes Ambrose Bierce is pretty much good in my book. Especially when it's used to point out that pretty much everyone's got it wrong.

Beer for you.

What do Cali, New York, Hawaii, Maine and 18 other US states have in common? Fighting the FCC on net neutrality

Re: Net Neutrality is not Net Regulation

Bejeabus.

THANK YOU for typing all that out (now I don't have to).

UpVotre and Beers are on me...All The Beers!

I appreciate your thoughtful response via very simple example. (Much Cheering)

China's first space station to – ahem – de-orbit in late March

Re: Murican serfs

"Nuclear Powered" Robot.

Can't omit that part.

Memo man Damore is back – with lawyers: Now Google sued for 'punishing' white men

Re: How to leak information...unintentionally

Considering that I'm currently sitting in Hollywoerd, and grew up in Silly Valley (and live in Seattle, you want to talk Kum-By-Yah,), I think I may have something to offer here:

I'm politically antagonistic...I hate all of your sides/perspectives and the only good politicial is the one [severely edited] and piss American Pilsner on their graves. And I work in the Information business. These being said

He was fired because he was a prick and his workgroup turned on him, went to management, and he was walked to the door.

I have managed a bunch of folk in my time, and so:

1. Google is Retardedly and Blindly Liberal. It's no less a Kool-Aid drinking Cult than Microsofties.

2. It is unlikely that a Conservative is going to fair well in that environment.

3. I have 20 people on my team, and One of them opens their mouth and pisses off 17 of the remaining, the one has to go.

There isn't enough Gold in Christendom to get me to work for Google (I remember when they were eight people above a used book store on the 500 block of University Ave in Palo Alto). They've gone off the deep end and Bully For Them!

But, as a manager, my Team Coherence is of Vital Importance to me.

This guy, as an individual, is a prick. I wouldn't have allowed him on my team to begin with ... so, really, Google HR is to blame for not descriminating against him back in the early hiring process where it would be Very difficult to prove (even in The Socialistic Republic of California) that a White Conservative Male was discriminated against. San Mateo County would laugh him out of the court room.

Apropos: When you pull a knife in a fight, and your opponet *Smiles*, you may wish to rethink some things because either:

A. Your opponet is crazy.

B. They know something you don't know.

C. Both.

Google will not be writing checks to this guy.

He should have moved to Texas and sued from there. He might have had a chance. For now, he's just pissing up a rope instead of Maximizing His Search Engine skills over at monster.com.

IBM melts down fixing Meltdown as processes and patches stutter

"but that the advice to do nothing is incorrect and needs to be changed: ...

NO! You are FUCKING WRONG.

WAIT. Sit the hell still and wait for a WORKING remedy. THis rushing in with ill-concieved, half-cocked bullshit is bricking shit.

Patching for the sake of patching is the same idiot game we played with, well SSL seems the latest cluster-fuck apropos.

Wait, for a usable solution (if you're not Intel) and Then Roll it.

There is a Huge duplication of effort here and it's going to step on other initiave's toes.

I, for one, do not have time to explain to My Powers That Be that I need new motherboards OR a Surface Mount soldering station and a metric shitload of new CPUs and BIOSs.

Chill out, sit down, and just wait a sec. Bejeabus.

Home Sec Amber Rudd: Yeah, I don't understand encryption. So what?

Re: Techies will continue to sneer.

Ah. The problem with your statement is that Techies DO understand politics.

It is a very simple, childish, and systemically broken system filled with arrogant gits that couldn't manage a career doing something actually Useful (like mowing my lawn, or refactoring some code I wrote for my better half some years ago, she relies on and I want to retire for the New Shiny thing I wrote).

We understand, we understand Quite Clearly.

The lack of clarity is one-sided.

Go ahead, ask me about James (FaLaLaLa Silicon Valley's Problem And Theeeeey Woooont Heeeeeelp Meeeee Break Their Stuff FaLaLaLa) Comey.

The thought: "I can do my job, your job, AND your boss' job, maintaining my quality of work, ex increasing that of yourself And your Boss by an order of magnitude, BEFORE I have to add espresso to my day." is largely, where the Well Deserved Sneering comes from.

*Sneer.* -sniff- *SNEEEEEER.*

Re: Techies will continue to sneer.

I think you have some extra tatas in your aggravation.

* Mines the one with extra tatas.

And we return to Munich's migration back to Windows – it's going to cost what now?! €100m!

Re: Free holidays in Seattle???

Sing it Brother.

I'm *Sitting* in Los Angeles (considering cervesas and fish tacos in Venice) right this moment, strictly because, I've spent the last four winters in ... Redmond.

Oh, no...not just Seattle but Macro$loppy Central.

It was actually a very nice town five years ago.

But the (consults your handy chart, fails to find "slizzle")...

Slizzle: It's 30DegF, why is this shit not Snow? Because it is Rain that Should be snow but it warmed up in this Magical Warm Layer about a mile up and is now a heaping glob of something that would very much like to be slush but can't be bothered to make the transition, so it's (not quite) Freezing Damned Rain (plus that Frost Chill thing).

Add in four months of the hammered-lead sky, an a Massive Influx of stupid (Microsofties, and Redmond's expansion of the Kool-Aid Stepfords), that wasn't going to fly this winter.

Beer and Sun for Us. Salut!

Magic Leap blows our mind with its incredible technology... that still doesn't f**king exist

Re: Hololens with lightfield simulation

Riddick goes Virtual.

5 reasons why America's Ctrl-Z on net neutrality rules is a GOOD thing

As an American I take Very Serious Offense...that your statement is accurate.

The NAKED truth: Why flashing us your nude pics is a good idea – by Facebook's safety boss

Re: Staffer they said, mmmok...

Well, now that you've said something about it:

About ten minutes.

Alexa, please cause the cops to raid my home

I'll skip my laughing at #IoT junk as you lot generally have it covered.

That image...Wow. I had a flashback to an early 90s rave on the West Coast. You should warn a guy.

I'll be rinsing out my eyes now.

'Screaming' man fined $149 for singing 'Everybody Dance Now'

Re: Not only for fatalities

Ah, my beloved home (California...I'm in Seattle these days).

I lived in Sili Valley before and during the (dot)Com(a) and you can bet your ass CHP will pull you over for Impeding The Flow Of Traffic. They can get you and your vehicle off the Freeway *now*, or *after* everyone just runs you over.

My Personal Favorite is having been pulled out of line my very self:

I was heading to San Francisco from Los Gatos, so, 280 it is. For those of you who aren't familliar, 280 is very Wide, wide lanes, lots of them, and it's oddly flat-ish and gently curvy for going through the Palo Alto hills. It's very well graded, and the surface is *Fantastic*...for Speeding Like Hell. The *actual* speed limit there is 75MPH (I'm mostly certain), but, um...I've done 110MPH+ at 02:00 and had CHP pass me like I was strolling along, without so much as a glance. During commute times, in my day (dunno about what it's turned into, rules were different) 95MPH during Rush Hour wasn't uncommon.

So I was doing 70MPH, far right lane (without exits) mostly to keep being being pulverized by something moving at a measurable decimal of "c" when I spy lights in my rear-view, and so I signal and grab some shoulder. Now, CHP (California Highway Patrol) is largely a very cool organization with fairly decent officers who mostly want everyone to play nice and make it to where they're going in one piece...so his first thought is that I was "New" to all of this, and understandably freaked out by the U.S. version of Autobahn.

I had to explain: I was "The (whole) Technical Team" for $StartUpDuJour, and my transmission was slipping like two midgets in a tub of lime Jell-O, and I had no time to fix it because...StartUps and Stuffs!!! AAAAAGH! (No, really, I was exhausted.)

To which he smiled, leaned close, and asked if I wanted two, Count Them; T-W-O Days Off!!! Because he *could* just throw me off at the next exit, or give me a fix-It ticket which would get me a day off (if I lied a wee about how long it took), and another day "in court" (stretching that till it screamed, as well) with the fix. And I could go to my partners and be all "Nope, got Legal Stuff, gotta' fix.", and I said "May I have the ticket, Please?". And he gave it to me. And then he threw me off of 280 at the next exit because I was, very seriously, impeding the flow of traffic.

I got two days off (which was tactically good), car got made safe (which was strategically good). And I have nothing but love for CHP.

Bill Gates says he'd do CTRL-ALT-DEL with one key if given the chance to go back through time

Re: Speaking of Gates FAILs...

In fucking SIPP.