... not as we are, but as we would like to be. Wolfgang is most noticeable by his absence - no greeting at the door when I come home, no canine friend sleeping in his usual spot, no morning greeting when I wake up, no goodnight dog biscuits.
What's worst of all is in the mirror, all I see is me as I am. It sure was better with him.
If Ike wants a friend in Washington, he should get a dog.- Harry Truman, on Eisenhauer's 1953 Inauguration
It was 2012. I was done with the Atlanta-Austin shuttle. What I found was that my family liked me being away from home all the time, as long as the paycheck cleared. My soon-to-be-ex was increasingly angry and dismissive; my two surly teenage sons were, well, increasingly surly.
And so I channeled my inner Ike and got a dog. I wanted something that I knew would love me, without asking for anything in return (except for love and kindness, that is). This was Wolfgang's introduction to this blog.
Unlike Jack, he also loved being around other dogs. He would play at the dog park, and was always good about sharing his Frisbee. I've never seen a dog get along with other dogs as well as he did.
The Queen got him a raincoat, because I would take him out, rain or shine. She called him the "Morton Salt dog".
Near this spot rests one who had
Beauty without Vanity;
Strength without Insolence:
Courage without Ferocity;
and all Man's Virtues with none of his vices.
This has been a long post, but it's his due. I sure would rather not have the occasion to write it. The Queen and I will never see his like again.
If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.- Will Rogers
He can't walk without help. It's time.
Blogging will be sparse since The Queen Of The World and I are busy spoiling him.
UPDATE 27 MARCH 2023 20:35: More tomorrow, but he was such a friendly dog.
Liminal space is a word and a concept I ran across a couple of years ago. When I understood what it was I realized that there were times in my life when I had experienced liminal space and had no words or framework to process the experience.
In some ways, liminal space can refer to a place and how we experience it. It can also refer to a time period and life experience. It is time outside of time.
The death of someone close can push a person into a place where time feels stopped, where even if you are required by situation and events to function normally in an exterior way, it seems that life is on hold. Memories arise of times and events long past. The colors of ordinary life fade.
In the Bible, it is the retreat into the desert. The 40 days, a symbolic number in the Old Testament, not an exact count of days and nights. A time apart from the ordinary flow of life.
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion is a modern example of the experience. Ms. Didion's book chronicles her grief following the sudden death of her husband. The suspended time of weeks and months where she thinks irrational thoughts and hopes, awash in memory, wanting to bring him back. The time fades slowly back to normal as she processes the loss and begins to resume her life.
My own experiences with this phenomena is not to fight it or try to move past it. Give it the time and respect it deserves. Look deeply at the loss, your grief, the regrets and guilt you feel. Take the time and space you need.
Decades ago, in what I see as my first adult experience with liminal space, the Catholic church in the town I lived in was an old, very small, building and it remained unlocked. You could go in day or night. Attending service there was a completely different experience to being there alone. The silence and sense of timelessness was nearly overwhelming. I carried a camera with me once and here is one of the pictures I took trying to capture it on film.
I share this, not to focus on my losses, but to offer my thoughts and condolences to Borepatch. As he mourns his brother and faces the loss of Wolfgang in the coming days, I ask you all to keep him in your thoughts, whatever that might mean to you.
"Honor the space between no longer and not yet."
--Nancy Levin
This week as another offering from the New Nashville, one that gives me hope for the future of Country Music. It's a brand new release from Luke Combs that could have come out 30 years ago. It's classic country.
The Queen Of The World pointed this out to me, thinking it would make a good Saturday Redneck post. She's single-handedly trying to rescue country music for me.
Sure as the north star shining Sure as in spring the dogwoods bloom Sure as the sunset sinking west before it falls Like the leaves in autumn trees were made to do I’m still falling for you girl From the second that I saw you My whole world stood still After all this time I’m just as in love as the day I made you mine I ain’t stopped flying high and never will I’m falling for you still Sweet as summer honeysuckle True as the words written in red Pretty as the daisies growing wild upon the hill Like the rain that came from storm clouds overhead I’m still falling for you girl From the second that I saw you My whole world stood still After all this time I’m just as in love as the day I made you mine I ain’t stopped flying high and never will I’m falling for you still I’m still falling for you girl From the second that I saw you My whole world stood still After all this time I’m just as in love as the day I made you mine I ain’t stopped flying high and never will I’m falling for you still Falling for you girl From the second that I saw you My whole world stood still After all this time I’m just as in love as the day I made you mine I ain’t stopped flying high and never will I ain’t stopped flying high and never will I’m falling for you still Falling for you still
Older Brother called yesterday with bad news. Younger Brother died suddenly and unexpectedly. There sure seems to be a lot of death in my family lately. Do not recommend.
Younger Brother didn't like the classical music I used in Dad's send off. He didn't care for the Gospel I used for Mom's. He liked this, and I sort of think that he'd think it would be appropriate.
James died far too young at 45. He wrote this song, which is one of the Blues classics. You wonder what else he would have written if he had gotten his full three score and ten.
I missed the Ides of March, so this is a belated Ides Dad Joke.
How do you make a Caesar Salad?
Stab it a bunch of times.
I see that a few dozen of you have clicked through to the old post I linked to yesterday (well done, you!). I'm reposting it here because it has held up so well. Remember, this post was written almost 15 years ago and the Android data disclosure problem shows that it is still current . It is also one of the very first posts to get the Best Post tag. It's interesting (and a little gratifying) to be able to dust off such an old post to illustrate current events.
Note that I had to update a link in the post due to Internet link rot.
======= Originally posted 7 September 2008 ==========
We'd like you to change your girder_connector_bolt() function to also spread Nutella on toast.This is not only possible with software, but it happens all the time:
We'd like you to add IP network capability so that people can remotely manage the factory control system.The problem is that we're not as smart as we think that we are. Adding the IP networking capability adds security risk, but nobody stops to think about those new risks. And then someone finds out that a single IP packet can crash the process control computer [this is the link that I had to update due to Internet link rot - Borepatch] that controls your industrial ovens, and all your cookies burn up.
How do you get a squirrel to like you?
Act like you're nuts.
Nota bene: The guy who took these pictures must have been nuts indeed.
TL;DR: all photos that were cropped on Google Pixel Android phones from 2018 until this month didn't actually delete the cropped data which can be recovered. If the cropping was done for purpose of privacy or redaction, then the photos (which very well may have been shared on social media) are not secure at all.
Details: security is a subtle thing - one day you can be secure and the next day not. This problem came from a change in the Android OS. The way one of the OS functions worked in Android 9 changed with Android 10. But the implications of this were subtle and app developers didn't realize the implications, so the Markup app that functioned securely under Android 9 suddenly functioned insecurely under Android 10. We've actually seen this before (note: this is one of my favorite posts here).
So what do you do if you have one of these phones, and pictures that you've cropped? Well, the new Android updates fixes the bug, so you don't need to worry about new pictures that you've cropped.
But every one of your pix that you cropped between 2018 and this month can expose cropped data. You'll have to decide if this is a problem for any particular picture. If it is, you should display the picture in full screen mode and then take a screenshot - and then delete the original picture.
There's a very nasty security bug, and you need to change your phone's settings:
Google security analysts have warned Android device users that several zero-day vulnerabilities in some Samsung chipsets could allow an attacker to completely hijack and remote-control their handsets knowing just the phone number.
Between late 2022 and early this year, Google's Project Zero found and reported 18 of these bugs in Samsung's Exynos cellular modem firmware, according to Tim Willis, who heads the bug-hunting team.
Four of the 18 zero-day flaws can allow internet-to-baseband remote code execution. The baseband, or modem, portion of a device typically has privileged low-level access to all the hardware, and so exploiting bugs within its code can give an intruder full control over the phone or device. Technical details of these holes have been withheld for now to protect users of vulnerable gear.
It's actually normal to withhold details until there's a fix. The researchers contact the manufacturer and give them details so they can create a fix. Releasing details before the fix is ready will just help the Bad Guys develop an attack.
So if you have one of these things, here's what you need to do:
According to Google, the following devices use potentially vulnerable Exynos modems: Samsung's S22, M33, M13, M12, A71, A53, A33, A21s, A13, A12, and A04 products; Vivo mobile devices including the S16, S15, S6, X70, X60 and X30 series; the Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 series of devices from Google; and vehicles that use the Exynos Auto T5123 chipset.
Google issued a fix for CVE-2023-24033 affecting Pixel devices in its March security update. Until the other manufacturers plug the holes, Willis suggests turning off Wi-Fi calling and Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) to protect against baseband remote code execution, if you're using a vulnerable device powered by Samsung's silicon.
I don't use Android so can't really help with how to turn off WiFi calling and VoLTE, but it should be in the Settings.
We are told that the reason that we don't see new record high temperatures despite the global climate getting hotter is that the winters are getting warmer while the summers are not. Unfortunately for this explanation, this doesn't seem to be the case. Tokyo winters have been getting colder for 40 years:
Tokyo winters have been cooling since 1984
With all the news about global warming, surely the decades long winter-trend for the city of Tokyo must be one of strong warming. Yet, looking at the mean DJF winter temperature trend for Tokyo going back 39 years using the untampered data from the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), we see a trend that has to surprise the global warming bedwetting dolts:
Data source: JMA.
I seem to be repeating this message - I posted about this last year. But "hottest year ever!" Yawn.
Chinatown may be the ne plus ultra of Film Noir. Scoring 11 Oscar nominations (including for best Score), it has memorable quotes ("Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown.") and great acting. Uan Rasey's haunting trumpet on this piece mostly exceeds our ability to describe it: "lush" and "romantic" are both true but fall far short.
Long time readers will know my dislike of "modern" Country music. But The Queen Of The World told me that I had to listen to this song. You see, she had been an Atlanta Braves fan but she started wearing Red Sox shirts for me. Remember, all you need is three chords and the truth.
Mama, I'm calling, I've got some news
Don't you tell Daddy, he'll blow a fuse
Don't worry I'm doing okayI know you raised me to know right from wrong
It ain't what you think
And I'm still writing songs
Just never thought I'd see the day
I've never felt this wayI met somebody, and he's got blue eyes
He opens the door, and he don't make me cry
He ain't from where we're from, but he feels like home
He's got me doing things I've never done
In Georgia they'd call it a sin
I'm wearing Tennessee orange for himHe took me to Knoxville last Saturday
And I wore the hat on his dash to the game
Sure wasn't Athens, but I
Fell for him under those Neyland lightsI met somebody, and he's got blue eyes
He opens the door, and he don't make me cry
He ain't from where we're from, but he feels like home
He's got me doing things I've never done
In Georgia they'd call it a sin
I'm wearing Tennessee orange for himMama, forgive me
I like him a lot
Hell, I'm learning the words to "Ol' Rocky Top
And he's got a smile that makes me forget
I've always looked better in redBut I met somebody, and he's got blue eyes
He opens the door, and he don't make me cry
He ain't from where we're from, but he feels like home
He's got me doing things I've never doneI met somebody, and he's got blue eyes
He opens the door, and he don't make me cry
He ain't from where we're from, but he feels like home
He's got me doing things I've never done
In Georgia they'd call it a sin
And I still want the Dawgs to win
But I'm wearing Tennessee orange for himI'm wearing Tennessee orange for him
A few months ago our vet recommended we put Wolfgang on Adequan. This is a medication originally developed for race horses that helps with arthritis and joint pain. Since his back is basically nothing but arthritis and his hip joints are all jagged, the joint lubrication that Adequan seems to provide makes a big, big difference.
So big, in fact, that I don't think that he'd still be with us if we weren't giving him these shots. Generally he, feels a lot better the day after getting the shot and it lasts for a week.
Except it's not taking longer for us to see the effect, and it's not lasting a week. Sigh. And it's $150 a month. Double sigh.
But every day is a gift. We're going out of our way to spoil him some each day.
ChatGPT bots are now auto-generating lawsuits against robo-caller bots. The Future is stupid.
Hat tip: A Large Regular.
In this day of cancel culture it is possible that this film might not get made today. In this day of Hollywood decline (billion dollar comic book extravaganzas to the exclusion of most everything else) is is possible that this film might not get made today. That's a shame, because it's a great story with great actors giving great performances. More to the point of today's post, John Barry won the Oscar for Best Original Score.
You've heard his music before. He wrote the James Bond theme, and scored eleven Bond films. He wrote the music to Dances With Wolves, Lion In Winter (one of my favorite films ever), and Born Free. In 1999 Queen Elizabeth appointed him OBE.
Out Of Africa is about the opposite of Bond music. Rather than exciting and with an edge of danger, it is lush and lyrical. I quite like this - it's good music for a Sunday morning.
So it seems that the Silicon Valley Bank has failed. This doesn't effect any fish out there in San Francisco Bay. They keep their money in the River Bank.
Police warrant orders man to surrender video from camera inside his home:
Last year, around the Thanksgiving holiday, Ohio businessman Michael Larkin received a request for video from his Amazon Ring security system from Hamilton city police.
He complied, providing video from his doorbell camera that was stored on Ring's servers. After balking at further demands, he subsequently learned that authorities had bypassed the need to get his consent by presenting Ring with a search warrant for video from several of his Ring cameras, including one that covered an indoor area of his home.
According to Politico, Larkin received a notice from Ring that the tech biz had received a warrant and was required to turn over video from numerous cameras, without giving the owner with any say in the matter.
I expect that this won't just happen with Ring video devices. If you have these sorts of cameras, you might want to make sure they're only recording video of outdoors.
The Biden administration’s new National Cybersecurity Strategy takes on the third rail of cybersecurity policy: software liability. For decades, scholars and litigators have been talking about imposing legal liability on the makers of insecure software. But the objections of manufacturers were too strong, concerns about impeding innovation were too great, and the conceptual difficulties of the issue were just too complex. So today software licenses and user agreements continue to disclaim liability, whether the end user is a consumer or an operator of critical infrastructure. With this new strategy, the administration proposes changing that.
The strategy’s discussion of the issue starts with an incontrovertible point: “[M]arket forces alone have not been enough to drive broad adoption of best practices in cybersecurity and resilience.” Indeed, the strategy goes on to note, market forces often reward those entities that rush to introduce vulnerable products or services into our digital ecosystem. Problems include the shipping of products with insecure default configurations or known vulnerabilities and the integration of third-party software with unvetted or unknown features. End users are left holding the bag, and the entire ecosystem suffers, with U.S. citizens ultimately bearing the cost.
We must begin, the administration says, to shift liability onto those who should be taking reasonable precautions to secure their software. This will require three elements, according to the strategy: preventing manufacturers and service providers from disclaiming liability by contract, establishing a standard of care, and providing a safe harbor to shield from liability those companies that do take reasonable measurable measures to secure their products and services. Together, the three points are based on a recognition that the goal is not perfect security but, rather, reasonable security.
The Devil is in the details, of course, but conceptually this seems pretty reasonable. Whether this will be used by big software companies lobbying Congress to hobble dangerous competitors, or to squash Open Source software remains to be seen.
RSA is the encryption that underpins secure Internet messages. Without it, there would basically be no commercial Internet. So it was concerning to see a paper published saying that Chinese researchers have a quantum encryption technique that cracks RSA. Except, not so fast:
The paper from 24 researchers in China might have remained a matter for those well-versed in advanced mathematics, cryptography, and quantum computing – a fairly small set of people – but for the fact that it got noticed by cryptographer Bruce Schneier.
"This is something to take seriously," he wrote in his blog on January 3rd, 2023. "It might not be correct, but it’s not obviously wrong."
Schneier did not take a position on the paper, but the following day The Financial Times took notice in an article titled, "Chinese researchers claim to find way to break encryption using quantum computers."
Evidently they haven't.
Late that day, on January 4, Scott Aaronson, chair of computer science at The University of Texas at Austin, and director of its Quantum Information Center, offered a rebuttal with a succinct three word review of the paper: "No. Just No."
Crypto mathematics is notoriously hard to do right, and deceptively easy to screw up. It looks like this paper made an unwarranted assumption that a particular algorithm is much faster when using quantum cryptography. It's actually no faster than plain jane cryptography.
So secure Internet messages are safe, at least for now.
Wolfgang's dog buddies came by for a couple hours yesterday. Not too much running around (he doesn't get around very well anymore) but lots of rolling in the grass and hanging out. I think they realize that he's not his old self, and that's OK with them.
Got to love dogs.
Wolfgang loved it. He's good about not whining very much, but he got so excited and happy that he was whining when they all showed up.
Got to love dogs.
He's paying for it - he crashed pretty hard last night and is a little slow and creaky today, but I'm really glad we did this.
We're giving Wolfgang a party today, where his doggie friends will come by. Hopefully it's not a "Goodbye, Wolfgang" party (he's dome somewhat better this week) but we know that he's living on borrowed time.
And so his buddies are coming by to play and lie on the grass with him.
Every day is a gift. Seize the day.
Ask not ('tis forbidden knowledge), what our destined term of years,
Mine and yours; nor scan the tables of your Babylonish seers.
Far better to bear the future, my Leuconoe, like the past,
Whether God has many winters yet to give, or this our last;
This, that makes the Tyrrhene billows spend their strength against the shore.
Be wise, strain your wine. Life is short, should we hope for more?
Even now, envious time has fled.
Seize the day; put little faith in tomorrow.- Horace, Odes 1.11
There's a proposed bill to require bloggers to register and self report monthly to the state if they are are blogging about the governor, attorney general, or other members of the Florida executive cabinet or legislature.
Not a law yet, but a bill. Here's the pertinent section:
Section 3. Section 286.31, Florida Statutes, is created to 137 read: 138 286.31 Blogger registration and reporting.— 139 (1) As used in this section, the term: 140 (a) “Blog” means a website or webpage that hosts any 141 blogger and is frequently updated with opinion, commentary, or 142 business content. The term does not include the website of a 143 newspaper or other similar publication. 144 (b) “Blogger” means any person as defined in s. 1.01(3) 145 that submits a blog post to a blog which is subsequently 146 published. 147 (c) “Blog post” is an individual webpage on a blog which 148 contains an article, a story, or a series of stories. 149 (d) “Compensation” includes anything of value provided to a 150 blogger in exchange for a blog post or series of blog posts. If 151 not provided in currency, it must be the fair-market value of 152 the item or service exchanged. 153 (e) “Elected state officer” means the Governor, the 154 Lieutenant Governor, a Cabinet officer, or any member of the 155 Legislature. 156 (f) “Office” means, in the context of a blog post about a 157 member of the Legislature, the Office of Legislative Services 158 or, in the context of a blog post about a member of the 159 executive branch, the Commission on Ethics, as applicable. 160 (2) If a blogger posts to a blog about an elected state 161 officer and receives, or will receive, compensation for that 162 post, the blogger must register with the appropriate office, as 163 identified in paragraph (1)(f), within 5 days after the first 164 post by the blogger which mentions an elected state officer. 165 (3)(a) Upon registering with the appropriate office, a 166 blogger must file monthly reports on the 10th day following the 167 end of each calendar month from the time a blog post is added to 168 the blog, except that, if the 10th day following the end of a 169 calendar month occurs on a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday, 170 the report must be filed on the next day that is not a Saturday, 171 Sunday, or legal holiday. 172 (b) If the blogger does not have a blog post on a blog 173 during a given month, the monthly report for that month does not 174 need to be filed. 175 (c) The blogger must file reports with the appropriate 176 office using the electronic filing system: 177 1. As provided in s. 11.0455 if the blog post concerns an 178 elected member of the Legislature; or 179 2. As provided in s. 112.32155 if the blog post concerns an 180 officer of the executive branch. 181 (d) The reports must include all of the following: 182 1. The individual or entity that compensated the blogger 183 for the blog post. 184 2. The amount of compensation received from the individual 185 or entity, regardless of how the compensation was structured. 186 a. The amount must be rounded to the nearest $10 increment. 187 b. If the compensation is for a series of blog posts or for 188 a defined period of time, the blogger must disclose the total 189 amount to be received upon the first blog post being published. 190 Thereafter, the blogger must disclose the date or dates 191 additional compensation is received, if any, for the series of 192 blog posts. 193 3. The date the blog post was published. If the blog post 194 is part of a series, the date each blog post is published must 195 be included in the applicable report. 196 4. The website and website address where the blog post can 197 be found. 198 (4) Notwithstanding any other law, a magistrate is 199 authorized to enter a final order in determination of the 200 reasonableness of circumstances for an untimely filing of a 201 required report and the amount of a fine, if any. 202 (5) Each house of the Legislature and the Commission on 203 Ethics shall adopt by rule, for application to bloggers, the 204 same procedure by which lobbyists are notified of the failure to 205 timely file a report and the amount of the assessed fines. The 206 rule must also provide for, but need not be limited to, the 207 following provisions: 208 (a) A fine of $25 per day per report for each day late, not 209 to exceed $2,500 per report. 210 (b) Upon receipt of an untimely filed report, the amount of 211 the fine must be based upon the earlier of the following: 212 1. The date and time that the untimely report is actually 213 received by the office. 214 2. The date and time on the electronic receipt issued 215 pursuant to s. 11.0455 or s. 112.32155. 216 (c) The fine must be paid within 30 days after the notice 217 of payment due is transmitted, unless an appeal is filed with 218 the office. The fine amount must be deposited into: 219 1. If the report in question relates to a post about a 220 member of the Legislature, the Legislative Lobbyist Registration 221 Trust Fund; 222 2. If the report in question relates to a post about a 223 member of the executive branch, the Executive Branch Lobby 224 Registration Trust Fund; or 225 3. If the report in question relates to a post about 226 members of both the Legislature and the executive branch, the 227 lobbyist registration trust funds identified in subparagraphs 1. 228 and 2., in equal amounts. 229 (d) A fine may not be assessed against a blogger the first 230 time a report for which the blogger is responsible is not timely 231 filed. However, to receive this one-time fine waiver, all 232 untimely filed reports for which the blogger remains responsible 233 for filing must be filed with the office within 30 days after 234 the notice of untimely filing was transmitted to the blogger. A 235 fine must be assessed for any subsequent late-filed reports. 236 (e) The blogger is entitled to appeal a fine, based upon 237 reasonable circumstances surrounding the failure to file by the 238 designated date, by making a written request to the office for a 239 hearing before the magistrate from the Second Judicial Circuit. 240 Any such request must be made within 30 days after the notice of 241 payment due is transmitted to the blogger. The office shall 242 transmit all such timely, written requests to the chief judge of 243 the Second Judicial Circuit along with the evidence the office 244 relied on in assessing the fine. The magistrate, after holding a 245 hearing, shall render a final order, upholding the fine or 246 waiving it in full or in part. 247 (f) A blogger may request that the filing of a report be 248 waived upon good cause shown based on reasonable circumstances. 249 The request must be filed with the office, which may grant or 250 deny the request. 251 (g) Fines that remain unpaid for a period in excess of 100 252 days after final determination are eligible for recovery through 253 the courts of this state. 254 Section 4. This act shall take effect upon becoming a law.
There are plans to build a GPS and data network, and it no workee (very well) without a reference time. The Moon doesn't have that. Yet.
Time being one of the fundamental parts of determining position using satellites, interoperability standards had to be agreed upon after the launches of the various GNSS constellations.
That has meant making up for slight timing differences between GPS, Galileo and other GNSS systems by introducing fixed offsets – something that everyone involved would prefer to avoid in building out LunaNet and similar systems.
ESA navigation system engineer Pietro Giordano said a joint international effort to create some form of Lunar standard time began after a November meeting of ESA's Space Research and Technology Centre.
I must say, this is very much the 21st Century that I was promised.
Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing;
’twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.- William Shakespeare, Othello
I'm with Mike from Cold Fury: Trump has to go. The only thing I would add is that he has to go because he's too stupid to realize that his idiotic attacks on Ron DeSantis are trivially falsified by watching the video he posted. Dumbass.
All that one gains by falsehood is, not to be believed when he speaks the truth.- Aristotle
Matter is the first attempt to bring together the biggest names in smart home to develop a standard for secure, reliable interoperability for connected devices. However, Matter matters because it could go much further than just smart homes — it could be applied to all connected devices.
Up until now, device-to-device communication across brands has been lacking. But when Matter is widely available for smart home consumers, it means more compatibility with more devices, making it easier to purchase a secure and seamless connected smart home, no matter the brand. But the benefits of seamless connected devices could expand far beyond smart home. It could enable smart cities and connected buildings to interoperate reliably and securely, connected health devices of various brands to work together natively and even reliably connect devices in space.
Makers of “internet of things” products, such as smart kettles and fridges, and software developers will face heavy fines if they do not meet tough rules aimed at averting cyber attacks, according to draft EU legislation to be unveiled next week. Companies will have to obtain mandatory certificates that show they are meeting the basic requirements of cyber safety that minimise the risk of attacks, according to a confidential document seen by the Financial Times. Those that fail to comply will be fined up to €15mn or 2.5 per cent of the previous year’s global turnover, whichever is higher.
New sheriff in town, it seems. And the MATTER effort is encouraging. Maybe I'll have to stop saying that security wasn't an afterthought, it wasn't thought of at all. Good.
Glen Filthie asked for an update on Wolfgang, and so here we go. His back legs have been getting increasingly tangled up. Yesterday he fell twice as I was taking him out when he woke up. You can tell that it frustrates him, but increasingly he wakes up hurting at night (we hear him panting) and every now and then he whimpers. It's intermittent, but increasing.
He's still alert, although he's sleeping more. The Queen Of The World says it's because that's the time he doesn't hurt. I think she's ready to let him go. I'm not, but as I see him in pain more often, I'm getting closer.
TQOTW's daughter said recently that when it's time, he'll let us know. I expect that's right. For now, he hasn't let me know.
But he can't run with the dogs at the dog park, which frustrates him. He's a very social dog, one who likes and gets along with almost all dogs and people. I have to say that I did a much better job socializing him than my old shepherd, Jack.
And so we're planning a doggie party, with his neighborhood dog friends coming over to lay out with him on the grass. He loved to do that back at Camp Borepatch in Georgia, and he still likes to do this today. It's not a "time to say goodbye to Wolfgang" party, but I don't know how he will be in 2 weeks at the rate he's going. So we're having the party this weekend.
In a way, it looks kind of like when Dad was in hospice. You know the trajectory, but not the timetable. Every day is a gift. Turn up the music, and dance with your wife.
You wonder what other music he would have made if he hadn't been found hanged in a jail cell in the '80s. He's "the best guitarist most people have never heard of".
Keeping the ancient rome theme here:
What do you call a roman with a cold?
Julius Sneezear.
Reader TheAxe left a comment on yesterday's post about a never heard of before Roman Emperor:
How did Incitatus vote when he was in the Senate? "Neigh!"
Note: Incitatus was supposedly the Emperor Caligula's favorite race horse, and he supposedly appointed him to the Senate.
Well, they new about him, but thought he was fake. It turns out he was real:
For three centuries, the Roman leader Sponsian, who was first discovered on a set of coins found in Transylvania, was believed to be fake. Unearthed in 1713, the coins depicted him as an emperor — but in the absence of other information, the unconventional coins were widely dismissed as forgeries.
However, a new study on four ancient gold coins from The Hunterian collection at the University of Glasgow and the Brukenthal National Museum in Sibiu, Romania, has revealed that not only were the coins authentic, but they shed light on an obscure figure, and his role in the Crisis of the Third Century.
The Roman Empire very nearly fell apart during the Crisis of the Third Century. It did temporarily split into three pieces: western, central, and eastern. Our histories may need to be updated to make that four pieces, with Sponsian leading the province of Dacia. We have so few historical sources from this period that it is (to me) endlessly fascinating.
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The Crisis started to come to a close with Aurelian who united the three parts (for which feat the grateful Senate gave him the title "Restitutor Orbis" or "Restorer of the World"). We've seen Aurelian here before, but never Sponsian. You have to wonder if Aurelian had to campaign in Dacia to bring that back into the Empire.
Glen Filthie doesn't seem to think too highly of the cult classic film Army Of Darkness. Just how much of a cult classic? People make crazy good homage films to it.
Wirecutter (you do read him every day, right? I thought so.) posts a complete concert of Allison Krauss and Union Station, which includes this song. Listening, it made me think on the weakness of Music Criticism, the dissection of songs. It made me think on the saying "All you need are three chords and the truth." This song is not sophisticated, musically speaking. But it speaks directly to the heart, with the volume turned up to eleven.
Allison Krauss and Union Station need no introduction; if you've never heard of them just listen to this. And listen to how how when the band first starts to play the song the crowd starts to cheer, and then settles down to "quiet as a church mouse". And at the end the applause goes on, and on, and on. That's Allison Krauss and Union Station. Oh, and this bit from her Wikipedia bio kind of sums up the phenomenon that is Allison Krauss:
As of 2019, she has won 27 Grammy Awards from 42 nominations,[3] ranking her fourth behind Beyoncé, Quincy Jones and classical conductor Georg Solti for most Grammy Award wins overall.[4] Krauss was the singer and female artist with the most awards in Grammy history[5] until Beyoncé won her 28th Grammy in 2021.[6] When Krauss won her first Grammy in 1991, she was the second-youngest winner at that time.
Three chords and the truth. A Truth worthy of not just a love letter, but a love letter to my sweetheart.
When You Say Nothing At All (songwriters: Paul Overstreet, Don Schlitz):
It's amazing how you can speak right to my heart
Without saying a word, you can light up the dark
Try as I may I could never explain
What I hear when you don't say a thing
The smile on your face lets me know that you need me
There's a truth in your eyes saying you'll never leave me
The touch of our hands say you'll catch me if ever I fall
You say it best when you say nothing at allAll day long I can hear people talking aloud
But when you hold me near, you drown out the crowd
Old Mr. Webster could never define
What's being said between your heart and mine
The smile on your face lets me know that you need me
There's a truth in your eyes saying you'll never leave me
The touch of our hands say you'll catch me if ever I fall
You say it best when you say nothing at all
The smile on your face lets me know that you need me
There's a truth in your eyes saying you'll never leave me
The touch of our hands say you'll catch me if ever I fall
You say it best when you say nothing at all
I would be remiss if I didn't also mention the band, especially Ron Block (guitar) and Jerry Douglass (perhaps the world's greatest dobro player).
Thanks, Wirecutter. And double thanks to my sweetheart.
