John Boehner released a plan which would end up with a balanced budget in ten years. This is a bit better than the approximately 20 years it would take for the Ryan plan to have reached a balanced budget. Given that the entitlement programs' deaths have moved up several years and politicians have lobbed a…
Idiot Or Genius: You Make The Call
Leonardo DiCaprio is going to fly around the world to "save the environment."
A Few Curmudgeonly Notes
William Briggs notes that the "assault weapons" ban had no effect on homicide. There's a reason the regulations were not renewed: they were nigh upon useless for any purpose. Take a look at the negative effects of a welfare state. This is the UK version of a welfare queen, and don't think that she's alone. Federal…
Troy Hunt On A Roll
Two Troy Hunt articles today. The first concerns the latest push to make everything in your household Internet-accessible. This idea was around during the '90s (smart refrigerators could tell you when you're out of milk, for example), but we're getting to the point where our current infrastructure can support a growing number of "smart" devices. …
Bill Livingston can be a jerk so I don’t have to be
A couple of weeks ago, I had a big blog post planned about Art Modell didn't deserve to be in the HOF. I scrapped it because it felt like I was being unnecessarily vindictive and because I think he had a legitimate case with choosing the first African American GM in the NFL. Bill Livingston…
Obamacare Notes
Yuval Levin has a couple of excellent points regarding Obamacare: first, that there's a huge, government-induced moral hazard problem; and second, that its timeline is unworkable. Regarding the timeline, this is something that will get pushed back over and over, given the way government IT projects tend to go. Even if there are states which…
Outsourcing Done Right
I've joked about doing this before: hire somebody to do my job for 20% of the price and then pocket the rest. The one part of this which surprised me was the discussion about how clean the guy's code was. Normally, when you outsource development, the end result is a horrible mish-mash of copy-pasted garbage. …
Some More Security Notes
Some phrases that the feds look for when trying to find corporate malfeasance. Check out the comment by beakernx01 for a new game: hit the most triggers in one completely innocent e-mail. It's been weeks since I've last complained about how broken the SSL model is, so here's another opportunity. Apple is trying to prevent…
Some More Security Notes
AV Test comes down hard on Microsoft Security Essentials. I have been recommending Security Essentials to people because it's free and most anti-virus covers a similar range of malware. This might force me to change my mind and recommend some other (free) product. A college student learns a hard lesson regarding security testing: don't go…
I Can Haz Malware?
In Japan, police caught a stray cat carrying malware.
36 Chambers - The Legendary Journeys: Execution to the max! 