Earlier here, the alleged "credit" from Best Buy in exchange for dropping off a computer running Windows XP was discussed. The post detailed what actually happened when I took them up on their "offer", and it wasn't pretty. As I was rather perturbed, I contacted the state Attorney General's office because because I hoped that others could be spared time and effort by learning from my experience.
Interestingly, I received a call today from Best Buy corporate in Minnesota. A very nice guy wanted to talk about my complaint filed with the state AG, and hoped that we could find some common ground. It's amazing what can happen when you don't just roll over.
I was getting fairly perturbed with frequent outages here; no ability to blog, no access to the blog. Since I pay a bit over $100 a year to run this place, it was disturbing. I mean, no complaints if it was a free site like Wordpress.com, but when you're paying, you want solid service.
My analytics returned 502 errors, indicating that other applications were hogging server resources. I was finally able to get through to Typepad, and was told that they'd been hit with multiple DDoS attacks. That lines up with my results, and apparently they're hardening their servers.
So I'll cut them some slack for awhile, and see what happens. Apologies for the erratic performance here; with any luck they'll have things running smoothly again soon. Iwas pretty certain that it wan't anything at this end - unlike some of the Wordpress attacks - and that seems to be the case.
A former police officer died while trying to set ablaze a food cart belonging to a blogger who exposed crooked cops and other corrupt city officials.
The guy was a "former police officer" in Little Rock due in no small part to the blogger's online activity, and the cop was apparently determined to destroy the blogger's hot dog cart, and thus his livelihood. The blogger awakened early in the morning to see his cart in flames, so he dialed 911 and then managed to put the fire out, prompting the ex-cop to return in an effort to reignite the cart. Clearly, he wasn't too bright; the blogger saw him, ran out and tackled him, and the e-cop is no cop:
Payne hit the pavement face-first, however, and died from his injuries. Bordeaux said his only desire had been to immobilize the perpetrator and hand him over to authorities.
He quickly realized, however, that the dead man was former LRPD officer Todd “Creepy Todd” Payne, who was fired from the force in 2010 for multiple violations, including a DUI crash in which Payne attempted to leave the scene, incidences of witness intimidation, lying to superiors and dereliction of duty.
Bordeaux had written extensively about Payne at Corruption Sucks, and believes that the former cop was attempting to strike back at him for exposing his crimes.
It was only a matter of time. Drones outfitted with infrared cameras are being used – not by the cops (yet), but by extortionists – to locate marijuana grow-ops. Once discovered, they move in to hit up the grower for a cut of the profits
This blog was unavailable for several hours from afternoon into the evening on 04/17. As it seems to be occurring with greater frequency, I've begun exploring options for transitioning to a different platform. There are pros and cons to doing so, as this site's been here for around a decade. But while this was a pretty good platform when I shifted out of Blogger, outage issues have become rather more frequent in the past few years, since Six Apart's venue became a Say Media venue. It's irritating, to say the least.
Forget computers, smartphones, and other gadgetry. The safest and most secure form of agency-to-spy communication is still short-wave radio and one-time pads. Ham transmissions are untraceable, and can come from just about anywhere in the world; computers and phones just aren't suitable in tradecraft.
"Nobody has found a more convenient and expedient way of communicating with an agent," says Rupert Allason, an author specialising in espionage issues and writing under the pen name Nigel West.
"Their sole purpose is for intelligence agencies to communicate with their agents in denied areas - a territory where it is difficult to use a consensual form of communications," Allason says.
And yes, some of these transimissions have been recorded. They're suitably spooky. Nor are they likely to be the work of pranksters; few people are into short-wave radio these days, so setting up transmitters in various locations isn't worth the effort - or the cost.
Airbnb's really gaining in popularity. Escort services and other hookers are renting apartments for a few days and turning over tricks in privacy and comfort.
“Hotels have doormen and cameras. They ask questions. Apartments are usually buzz-in.”
Hey, it's way cheaper than a hotel, too!
No wonder the local politicians are so jazzed about the company's decision to move its headquarters to Portland; keeping it weird is what it's all about.
Portland's Tri-Met devlopment agency (formerly a transit agency) has been busily spending billions of dollars to build little two-car light rail "train" lines in the area for over thirty years, now. So they must be a smashing success, right? Um...yeah, about that:
Five U.S. metros (Buffalo, Portland, Sacramento, San Diego, and San Jose) opened light rail systems in the 1980s to great fanfare. The mode offered many of the benefits of subway systems for far less public money; San Diego's system, per mile, cost about one-seventh of Washington, D.C.'s Metrorail. Light rail cities like Portland became transportation models for the country, pointing toward a transit-friendly urban future.
Interestingly, transit use in Portland has seen a steady decrease since Tri-Met began its building spree; cannibalizing bus services along the way, and it looks as though others have seen similar results.
According to an analysis of Census data, in four of the five cities with new light rail lines, the share of regional workers choosing to ride transit to work declined, and the center city's share of the urbanized area population declined, too. San Jose was the only exception, seeing a quarter of a percentage increase in the percentage of workers using transit and a 6 percentage point increase in its center city's share of the urbanized area.
Unlike Portland, San Jose has a large assortment of high-tech companies employing hundreds of people. And while Portland politicians love to tout their Green&Sustainable, high-tech chops, the plain fact of the matter is that the big players are all in suburban Washington County; Portland doesn't attract the big players, it attracts the bit players. Most of the city's high-tech companies do nothing but software, and they don't need a lot of staff.
As an example, city politicians crowed about a San Francisco startup that's vacating the Bay area and moving their headquarters to Portland. That company has a total staff of five. Lately, they've been crowing about Airbnb, which is nothing more than an intermediary between short-term renters and folks who'd like to rent out their spare bedroom or vacation home for a few days. Airbnb claims they'll bring 160 jobs to Portland - but most of those are simply customer service slots; hardly "high-tech".
It's not even especially new; before Airbnb, there was Craigslist, and before Craigslist, there were electronic bulletin boards. So Portland-area taxpayers are on the hook for tons of money in bond payments that with but one exception were never voter-approved in exchange for reduced bus services, longer transit times, and higher fares in order to attract a few software-based companies like Airbnb to the city of Portland?
Sorry, Charlie - that's not exactly a rousing success, no matter how you try to spin it.
The Target attack was peanuts. Experian, one of the big three US credit reporting agencies, hasn't bothered to notify people of the hack attack that may have swiped as many as 200 million social security numbers, names, and addresses.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. —
The North Carolina Attorney General's Office is now joining other states investigating a massive data breach at a credit reporting agency that has put 200 million Social Security numbers at risk.
State justice officials told Channel 9 they are concerned about how many residents could fall victim to identity theft because of the breach uncovered at Experian.
Keep a close eye on your bank accounts, IRAs and 401(k) accounts, and a whole lot more. And fasten your seat belt; things could get bumpy.
Ever smaller, faster, and sneakier, drones are big business in Dayton, Ohio. The place where American aviation got its start is now the nesting place for much of the country's drone development, and considerable progress is being made throughout the field.
Yep, that's a drone; it can recharge its battery using the electromagnetic field of power lines while its camera keeps an eye on the subject. If you're not paying close attention, you might think it's a bird. But that's not as small as they get - not by a long shot. In the works are so-called micro UAVs the size of moths, flies, and spiders.
Currently, batteries are the main drawback, as the tiny batteries drain too quickly to provide much useful life. Developers are optimistic that advances in battery technology will soon afford the micros extended run-times to allow deployment on missions ranging from search and rescue to sniper liquidation (after all, who's going to notice a fly in the room?).
Of course, the uses will be many: farmers may use drones for precision crop-dusting or locating loose livestock - implant an RFID chip into the steer's ear, then send out the drones. And it's a safe bet that police will use them; Seattle PD has already applied to the FAA for a permit. And they technology's likely to be widespread in the next year and a half:
A law signed by President Barack Obama in February 2012 directs the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to throw American airspace wide open to drones by September 30, 2015.
All views are welcome here, but there are a few rules that most understand intuitively. If you're stupid, you need them spelled out. So this note's for you:
1) You don't get to call people names (referred to in general parlance as an "ad-hominem attack").
2) You don't get to hijack discussion threads. This means that you confine your comments to the the post, and/or to comments related to the post.
3) You don't get to spit, drool, crap on the carpets, nor employ expletives - even if you believe that doing so showcases your vast intellectual capabilities.
4) If you happen to be stupid enough to be unable to comply with the above rules, you will receive one (1) warning - after which your subsequent comments may be removed, and your comment privileges revoked.
