MaxRedline

Well, There's A Short-Lived Victory

Moments after successfully unlocking the San Bernardino iPhone, the F.B.I. rendered the phone permanently useless by spilling a glass of water on it, an F.B.I. spokesman confirmed on Tuesday.

Calling the accident “one of the biggest embarrassments in F.B.I. history,” bureau spokesman Harland Dorrinson told reporters, “There’s no way to express how bad we feel about what happened to that phone.”

Walking reporters through the mishap, Dorrinson said that shortly after the iPhone was unlocked, “There were a lot of high-fives, which led to the unfortunate spilling of the water.”

No, so far as we know, that didn't actually happen. But it wouldn't be surprising.

Best Korea Prepares For Another Famine

'We may have to go on an arduous march, during which we will have to chew the roots of plants once again'.

It seems that in response to the NorK's continuing relentless war against the sea, China has agreed to tighten sanctions against Best Korea, and L'il Kim's strategy of firing missiles into the ocean hasn't yielded any improvement in fish harvests.

What A Hoot!

Rolled out the trash this evening, and the yard debris bin, and the recycling bin. But you have to put your glass in another container, so I took that out. Tripped over a root from our lovely Ponderosa pine. Yep, fell right into the glass container.

Broke my eyewear as well, and part of the frame ran right through my eyelid and emerged past my eyebrow. Horrified my Bride. So off to the ER we went. Head-wounds bleed a lot, but off we went. I generally go with Superglue, but the Bride wasn't going to stand for it.

As it turned out, there was kind of a lot of damage from the broken glass and stuff too. And of course, they want to flush all the dirt out. That's a lot of fun, as well. Personally, I think dirt's a good thing - helps keep the immune systems going. But the folks in ER don't see it that way; given malpractice lawsuits, I can understand that. But...

A couple of dozen shots and a couple of dozen stiches and about four hours later, we're finally back. If you go to ER, it's always going to be about four hours if you're alive. They test for everything, since you're there.

Best to avoid the place. The people are nice enough, but it's just not a place you want to be.

Huh. Tech Stuff.

Got the Samsung monitor running again because the caps in the HDMI port died, so I switched to a standard VGA input. Seems to be working pretty well. Cool, I now have a dual-screen (I hate waste). That's pretty easy to do, you just hit screen resolution and select multiple displays.Works with Win7 and above, not sure about lower versions.

 

Bernie

It must be admitted that Portland/Willamette Valley voters are just really damned stupid. They'll fall for anything, as long as a supposed Democratic is involved.

Caps Died

Probably just one. I thought about tracking it down, but the monitor's over a decade old. If one capacitor has died, the others are likely to follow. So it's off to the recycling station for the old fellow. Fortunately, I have a couple of others that can stand in temporarily.

When the screen blanked, I started thinking about what might have caused it. I have an excellent AMD card in this box, so that's unlikely to be the issue. Correct; it works fine. So the issue was with the monitor. That kind of sucks. I've been able to bring dead monitors back, but these days, replacing a dead cap is a real pain. And like I said, when one goes, others tend to follow. So while the caps are inexpensive, there's the time issue.

Cheaper and easier to recycle and replace.

My in-laws bought one of those all-in-one touchscreen computers about five years ago. They're going to be in for a big surprise.

My Dog Is A Democrat

Terrible, but likely true.

$21 Billion Unfunded Liability

Great news!

TIGARD — The amount of unfunded liabilities carried by the Public Employees Retirement System has exceeded $21 billion, up from $18 billion last year. The deficit stems from high pension costs, poor returns on investments that fund state pensions, and a state Supreme Court decision overturning legislative efforts to rein in pension costs.

What this means is that at least 30% of payroll for public agencies such as schools and governments (state and local) will be going toward covering the deficit in the system, thanks to the efforts of the Democrat rocket-scientists who put it into place.

Public employers will be forced to consider budget cuts, layoffs or tax increases to pay for pension costs.

And what's behind door number three? Higher taxes and fees for you and for me; it's an absolute given that public employers won't cut staffing or budgets - they routinely spend every dime in order to "justify" budget increases for the next fiscal year. That's how they roll. And having just jammed through the highest minimum wage in to country (thus increasing the unfunded liability at PERS), you can bet they won't be cutting staff either.

Progressivism is hard work!

Law And Odor

The Santa Clara sheriff was told that it'd take two years and up to $20 million to install more security cameras at the county pokey,  and said "screw that!" So she whipped out her Costco card and bought a bunch of them herself. She's having the maintenance guy do the installing. Sometimes the bureaucracy just gets to be a bit much.

Hiding In Plain Sight

A Midwest company is producing a gun that looks like a smartphone with a really killer app:

The Minnesota-based company Ideal Conceal says it will sell the new weapon from mid-2016.

"Ingeniously designed to resemble a smartphone, yet with one click of the safety it opens and is ready to fire," the company says on its website.

"Smartphones are everywhere, so your new pistol will easily blend in with today's environment," it adds. "In its locked position it will be virtually undetectable because it hides in plain sight."

The gun is a double-barrelled .380 caliber folding pistol that will sell for $395, the company says.

Police are advised to simply shoot anybody who's carrying anything.

Trump Campaign Manager Charged

Police in Jupiter, Florida, said Lewandowski surrendered Tuesday morning to face a misdemeanor charge of battery, NBC News reported. He is scheduled to appear before a judge on May 4.

The Donald is not pleased; he doesn't think his guy did anything wrong. It appears that the cops disagree. Hey, campaigns always get ugly.

Who's Minding The Cows?

The Bundy boys would like to stay here in Oregon despite the fact that a federal judge in Portland ruled that they should be transported to Las Vegas to face charges related to their involvement in the 2014 armed standoff in Nevada over their daddy's beef with the BLM.

Brown last week said that deputy marshals could transport the Bundy brothers, Payne, Cavalier and Cooper from Portland to Las Vegas on April 13 to make their first court appearances on federal indictments stemming from the 2014 standoff near Cliven Bundy's ranch near Bunkerville, Nevada.

They were to be returned to Portland 12 days later, on April 25, according to Judge Brown's order.

They don't wanna go, so they've appealed to the 9th U.S. Circus Court of Appeals to stay here for the time being.

Hope those boys remembered to file for an extension on their income tax returns.

The Minnesota-based company Ideal Conceal says it will sell the new weapon from mid-2016.

"Ingeniously designed to resemble a smartphone, yet with one click of the safety it opens and is ready to fire," the company says on its website.

"Smartphones are everywhere, so your new pistol will easily blend in with today's environment," it adds. "In its locked position it will be virtually undetectable because it hides in plain sight."

The gun is a double-barrelled .380 caliber folding pistol that will sell for $395, the company says.

Dashcam

Who knew they were that inexpensive? 1080 resolution, easy setup - even if you can't read Chinese. All in all, pretty cool; I figured that if Russians can use them, I can as well. I'm not as dumb as I look.

It came with a SIM card, so you can transfer the recordings using that or an included USB cable, depending on your computer's capability. Resolution is excellent, which is kind of surprising since the device is so tiny, but it picks up a lot of detail.