Geekly Update - 08 Feb 2018 - Comments Page 1

"You bet your sweet bippy" is from the old TV program "Rowan & Martin's Laugh In".

The one "Token" ring to unlock everything? No. Just.... No. I have no "smart" devices, and I'm content to know that in order for somebody to look into my refrigerator, they'll have to physically break into my house. A "Token" master control key would mean that there would be a single point of failure that would allow access to EVERYTHING. You want to steal my information? It'll take you a while to figure out where it's all stored.

It's from Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, a zany television show from the late 1960s. The word bippy, by the way, means “butt.” The phrase “You bet your sweet bippy” is a linguistic descendant of earlier versions that go back to at least the 1880s, when phrases like “You bet your sweet life” were commonly used.

Will this Geekly Update still make me 146% smarter?

The article about uploading a mind to a new body couldn't help but bring to mind a story my sister, a hospital nurse, told me to illustrate the mentality of gang culture when the mother of a gang member, who was brought in to the ER with a gunshot to the head, questioned the staff, "Can't you do a brain transplant?" Sorry, I know it's not related, but...

Several years ago I ditched Microsoft Office in favor of Open Office, an open source office suite, and never looked back. Always good to explore other options.
Regarding Equifax judgments: all court judgments are worth zero if the defendant refuses to pay up. Still, all you lose is a few hours of your time and it does bring some relief for righteous indignation.
Thanks Bob for a great GU, as always!

I heard Linux market share doubled last year from roughly 1.5 to 3%. I can only hope this trend continues and accelerates.

The story about the p**n law ("Human Trafficking Prevention Act") is 10 months old. And the bill was introduced in congress in 2014 and went nowhere.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Ooops, didn't realize that. And glad to hear it!

Re: " I predict a long life for Microsoft Office 2016, the current version."

Will Office 2016 last as long as Office 2003, which serves me well on my Windows 7 machine? (I will never "upgrade" to another Microsoft product, since Windows 10 bricked my machine.)

Regarding Stoll's scoffing at the internet, Ken Olsen once said no one needs a computer. He was right: no normal person needs a computer. How much computing do we do? We browse, we email, we Facebook, we read Geekly Update -- no computing. (Olsen was a founder of DEC, whatever that was...)

Of course it was Laugh-In, but I recently heard someone trying to steal Elaine's credit for yada, yada, yada! Can you imagine?

A judgment against equifax may in fact be worth more than the paper on which it's written. In most states you can have a triple-sealed copy of the judgment recorded in any county where equifax owns real estate or tangible personal property (like computers, office equipment, etc.) Then have a sheriff from that county levy upon the property in an attempt to satisfy the judgment. The sheriff will post a notice of levy on the real estate and slap stickers on all of the personal property. At that point, you can hold a public auction (following state rules regarding execution on judgments) to sell any of the property. Of course, if there are any prior liens on the property, those would have to be satisfied first from the auction proceeds.

A guy did just that at a local Bank of America branch after he got a judgment for attorneys' fees against them when BOA negligently foreclosed on his home when he didn't have a loan with them. According to the newspaper article, BOA corporate paid up quick.

IMHO, the Token ring is a terrible idea. Putting all your eggs in one basket always has been. It's a neat idea, but anything that interconnects one's life so thoroughly shouldn't have a single point of failure. And I thought I was nervous using a password manager...

As long as we are back to the 60"s with you bet your bippy....who said you bet your life in=yers before??

The problem with futurist Clifford Stoll's predictions for the future was that he took 1995's state of technology and projected that far into the future, not accounting for massive improvements in technology and younger generations who grew up with computers.

What Stoll didn't realize back in '95 was how the general population is getting dumber each year and are more inclined to believe all the misinformation out on the web.

The problem with the discontinued Facebook program wasn't that it didn't accurately report users troll 'likes', it was simply that the vast majority of users refused to admit (and still do) they were played like a fiddle.

Facebook "Fake News" filter: I was recently notified by Facebook that I had shared and article that was "disputed" as Fake News. They didn't say that it WAS fake, just that the info contained was DISPUTED. Oy vey!

"(Olsen was a founder of DEC, whatever that was...)"

DEC stood for Digital Equipment Co., a New England manufacturer of mini-computers (much smaller than a huge, multi-room IBM 360 mainframe, but certainly much larger than the PCs which followed them), and late 70s/early 80s PCs that were in competition to the original IBM PC, but ran, if I remember correctly, the CPM (Control Program for Microprocessors) operating system.

Unfortunately, for DEC, IBM rolled over virtually all other competitors in the marketplace with the modular Personal Computer, that ran an early edition of Microsoft's MS-DOS, renamed for IBM, as PC-DOS.

Businesses were familiar with IBM products, such as the revolutionary IBM Selectric typewriters, which were generally more expensive than competitive products from Remington-Rand, Adler, Olivetti and Smith-Corona, but built like a tank, totally reliable, and backed by the largest and best sales and support team in the office equipment business. An old business adage was "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM equipment."

DEC tried unsuccessfully for about a dozen years to gain market share in the segment dominated by the IBM PC, but was ultimately swallowed up by the up-and-coming PC maker, Compaq, in the late 80s. Less than 10 years later, Compaq was swallowed up by Hewlett Packard, itself a maker of higher-end computing equipment, which was looking to expand its business in the home and personal use area.

Token is a horrible idea and will fail in it's present form. However, eventually there will be some type of chip or mark as part of a person's body that will enable all transactions, etc.

A ring as security? Ask my wife - I lost our original wedding ring (taking it off to protect it while working on my car, and placed it on the hood. I then jumped in the car for a quick test run to verify my repair - no ring when I came back).