Posts by Unbleached White Girl

US Supreme Court puts Texas social media law on hold

So... it's not right to censor hate speech in TX, but it's okay to rewrite history for textbooks because students shouldn't be made to feel bad about their racist great grandparents just because they owned slaves?

I'm referring to a textbook written for public middle schools in Texas 7 years ago, that said, "The Atlantic slave trade between the 1500s and 1800s brought millions of workers from Africa to the Southern United States to work on agricultural plantations".

Sounds more like a voluntary migration in the hopes of a brighter future & more opportunity.

Privacy? Watchdogs? Fines? Whatever, nerds, more people than ever are using Facebook and filling its deep coffers

Talk poo-poo all you want about Facebook...

...but in wildfire country (Northern California) it's literally been a lifesaver. On 9/12/15, when the Valley Fire hit suddenly, fast, and hard, our notification came in the form of Reverse 911 calls.

The land lines were down in less than 2 hours. So they resorted to having 5 deputies driving house-to-house, usually evacuees saw them pulling up their driveways in their rearview mirrors.

They later estimated that 90% of the residents had self-evacuated - because it was hot & smokey, or they saw there was a fire on Facebook. It was chaos. A few of my friends had to drive thru a "wall of fire".

At Harbin, a local resort, they began evacuating some 800 guests, residents, & crew well ahead of the notification, which came when the fire was already upon them.

For the next 2 weeks we were glued to Facebook, as support groups, info groups, etc. were formed. Best wishes, prayers, and blessings were sent from around the world. Videos, maps, photos were posted, missing people were located, animal rescues were done, stories were shared, evac centers were set up, necessities were donated, friendships were formed. People in the fire area posted updates and encouragement for those of us on the outside. And during the recovery process we used Facebook to exchange information.

We still do, in fact. And every year, when fires hit other parts of California we go on Facebook to offer whatever help we can. . A CSI friend of mine said he'd never had much use for Facebook before the fire. It's funny though, isn't it?

I mean, Facebook, of all things. Who'd have thought?

Oh snap! The road's closed. Never mind, Google Maps has a plan...

Let me count the ways..

I can't even begin to count how many times I have gotten lost using Google maps. At least as many times by way of 'Gas Station Directions', altho that is usually due to eager overexplanation such as:

"...when you see a battered, brown '65 Chevy under a Sycamore about 2 houses from the corner on the left, start looking for the 7th house on the right that is white with green trim and parked in front is a..." Sheesh, can't you just tell me the house number?

Only worse is Google Earth - very likely the source of many a property line dispute. I've even been referred to GE by County Planning, who should know better.

When my mother's landlord discovered a hippy dude cultivating cannabis on his property & went to the Sheriff's office, Deputy Fife asked him, "Are you SURE that's your property? Do you have your deed with you? Because it shows here..." And there it showed, on Google Earth, as sure as our President is a Post Turtle, that GE had granted the land in question to the hippy dude whose lot actually ended on the other side of the creek.

So I deleted Google Earth, & instead of Google maps, I plot my course in advance, and choose the simplest possible way.

We knew it was coming: Bureaucratic cockup triggers '6-month' delay of age verification block on porno in the UK

Oh dear me. I am just wondering what a cockup may do for all these youngsters. Doesn't that kind of thing make one's eyeballs fall out or something?

And what is the plural of 'cockup' anyway?

UK slides from first to fourth in UN e-gov survey

How Did The USA make the top 5??? Now there's a shock!

While the rest of the world was teaching kids to program, we were still arguing about letting the students use computers in school. We are so far behind, it's no wonder we have to outsource. It must have been because we made our cyber-techies start using chopsticks to eat their Vegemite sandwiches at Tea. That's the US Govt's logic for just about everything: Do what the top countries do and soon we'll be on top!

Or it could just be that it's the hackers/gamers who get all the security jobs.

Trump wants to work with Russia on infosec. Security experts: lol no

It's A Rather Embarrassing Time to Be A US Citizen

So to put it in the perspective of a Sanders' supporter - which I was. Which I am:

The Russians have been caught rigging an election by influencing us podunk-ditchwater 'mericans to… I'm unclear here - did they influence us to vote for the Donald or to NOT vote for the Hillary?!? If I recall correctly, about 5000 of my closest friends and I, and a whole bunch of other voters were already decided: a 35 year career politician, whose life goal was to be the 1st woman president, was not someone who had the best interests of her Descamisados at heart. Pardon us for being so stupid that we're going to be influenced by the truth. The rednecks who didn't already know that were already so busy worshipping Trump that they were oblivious. The ones who were already unwilling to vote to a party, well, it just confirmed what we already knew. And the rest were so busy pulling the turnip leaves out of their hair that they voted for her anyway.

Well, no matter. Where was I?

Oh. Yes. So, the big deal is that some Russians rigged an election by exposing an election that had been rigged.

By the Democrats. The Democratic National Committee to be precise. That certainly doesn't sound very Democratic. So was Hillary a part of this? Or did she just provide an unsecure domain for them to hack into? I was unclear here too. Until recently. Hillary was a part of it only to the extent that she did "control the party’s finances, strategy, and all the money raised.” During her 2016 campaign. Before she "won" the Democratic nomination. This according to DNC interim chair, Donna Brazile.

But Elizabeth Warren contends that "that’s a whole lot different from illegally conspiring with Russia." True dat. But, just thinking aloud here: had they been working for the United States government instead of the Russian government, they would've been protected from ratting out the DNC under the Whistleblowers Protection Act of 1989.

Hillary's DNC is coming from the angle of how/why Trump won, when the actual issue they should be trying to find a solution to is how/why Clinton lost.

Though the worst of all this is that this little witch-hunt - that I personally resent putting my tax money toward as much as I resented putting my taxes toward the President's 'fly trouble' during the last 2 years of the Clinton Administration, when Bill couldn't control his L'il Bill - is overshadowing far more critical issues.

Not the least of which is the 10,000 plus immigrant children that are currently in U.S. Concentration Camps - separated from their parents and not even being allowed to have physical contact (hugging) their own siblings, that are being neglected, doped up, abused &/or molested - that their Federally employed Caregivers seem hell-bent on converting into SED (Seriously Emotionally Disturbed) children. Some of these children actually ARE U.S. citizens, some that are not are, nevertheless, North Americans. I live in a rural part of California and I know for a fact that without these people - who are willing to live 2 families to 1 apartment, & work under a blistering sun, for low wages, often in substandard conditions, and owing their soul to the company store - this country, indeed the whole world, would no doubt starve to death. Because, there ain't no white man that's willing to do what they do. So, yeah, "Roses are red, Tacos are enjoyable, don't blame a Mexican if you're unemployable," is true too.

All thru the 2016 presidential campaign - which has helped make us the laughing stock of the world - I kept waiting for someone to say, "Haha, gotcha! You've been Punked!"