J.P.

Messages.

It started with daydreaming. I was working along this morning, minding my own business and trying to concentrate on the task of the moment when I started thinking about chasing storms. This quickly connected to me wondering how many homes in tornado alley actually have storm cellars like we see in “Twister” or “The Wizard Of Oz”. I did a quick search, intending to find a statistic. Instead, I landed on real estate listings in West Texas for homes with a storm cellar. I started looking at these listings. I then noticed a common decorating theme in all these homes.

They have “messages” everywhere. Inspirational messages. Religious messages. Stencils. Framed nuggets of wisdom. Food cabinets labeled “PANTRY”. I can only assume I have missed out on some sort of Live, Laugh, Love opportunity in our attempts at decorating over the years.

In case you don’t know how the bathroom works.
Ownership labels.

Wine cabinet goals.
Instructions and Inspiration.
Directives.
More Directives.

Pressure Cooker.

We’re watching this reality show called “Pressure Cooker”. It’s on Netflix. We haven’t watched a reality show in years but apparently the formula hasn’t changed much in the decades we’ve had to endure these things.

It’s basically “Big Brother” with a smattering of cooking. Cooking is not the focus at all. There’s mean contestants and a Red Room for confessions and a horrible person being a backstabbing contestant because that’s what’s celebrated in the world these days.

I’m not enjoying the show anymore but I’ll watch it for the rest of the family. I couldn’t care less what happens to these people. They’re probably back at Blimpies.

Security.

Cross-posted from Facebook.

Hello family and friends. This is a free IT security consultation.

Please make sure you’re using a secure password and two-factor authentication (2FA) here on Facebook (actually everywhere). Today I’m receiving messages from folks saying they found photos of me on TikTok and the provided link goes to a scam website. For what it’s worth, I’m not on TikTok.

Your password should look something like this: B@c0n3ggs!zzXaYum!yuM with random characters mingled with something you can remember, or something completely random stored in a password manager like what’s built into both iPhone or Android or in an app like 1Password or Bitwarden. Two-factor authentication is when you either grab a code of an app on your phone or get a code sent to you. I’ve included a link describing 2FA. I use a free app called Authy.

It pains me to see the Internet continue to be such a potentially dangerous place with scams and leaks and lost data and impersonation and the like. The Internet was suppose to enrich our lives, not endanger it. Safe surfing!

What is 2FA/MFA?

Caturday.

I’m assuming there’s a bird perched near the window out of view in this photo. Truman has been in this position for five minutes, never moving, never wavering. There hasn’t even been a twitch of the tail. He is as still as a statue.

He seems to be in good spirits today, even making a rare appearance on our bed this morning for some scritches and pets. When he does decide to engage in this behavior he starts with a visit on the bed, receives some pets for about 10 seconds and the nips at my hand, steps away for a bit and then comes back for the real thing. I think he gets overwhelmed or overstimulated with the initial scritches and doesn’t know what to do with himself but then decides everything is just fine and comes back for a second round with no nips at my hand.

His purrs are loud.

He had his annual visit to the vet yesterday and for six years old is in great health. I occasional hear comments about him being such a “big kitty” but he actually lost 2.4 pounds since this last visit. He could stand to lose another 1.5 pounds but he’s doing the right things and his adult cat diet kibble seems to be doing his some good. Making his way around the dogs is probably keeping him on his toes as well. The vet had no disparaging things to see, so that was encouraging.

You Will Consume Ads.

Twitter finally announced they will no longer allow third party applications to access the service. So for the thousands of people that used applications like Twitterrific or Tweetbot to access their Twitter accounts you’re out of luck. If you want to continue using Twitter, and I don’t know why you would want to but that’s another rant, you must use the official Twitter app. Historically I have found later versions of the official app overwhelming with ads and weird timelines and of course the ridiculous algorithm that tells me what to see instead of just a reverse-chronologically ordered timeline. Today’s Twitter is designed to engage, enrage, engage some more, and enrage some more in what they hope will be an infinite loop of visits, thus securing revenue by forcing you to see their ads while you’re seething in between tweets from Marjorie Taylor Greene and her ilk when you’re just looking for pics of naked men and/or cats.

A few links explaining how awful (actually how much of a dick) Twitter was with the handling of this transition.

From IconFactory, the creators of Twitterrific.

From Engadget.

And finally, a good hint as to why Twitter is starting to sweat ad revenue a little more. Elon Musk is REALLY killing the already questionably solvent business with his antics.

As a quick aside, Tesla’s stock price has been dropping like a stone since Elon Musk’s focus on Twitter. Stock holders are not happy.

Breakout.

I’ve posted about this song before. It just makes me so very happy. I’m delighted to have found the original video I remembered, with bits of color here and there as the video progresses. The official channel has a weird monochrome version of the video which doesn’t look right at all. Enjoy “Breakout” by Swing Out Sister, in its original color incarnation. After all, the track screams for a colorful existence.

Taco.

My husband and I picked up a few mid week groceries at the Safeway this evening. While browsing the snack aisle I noticed a classic looking bag of Doritos on the bottom shelf. The taco flavor is my favorite. It took a lot of willpower not to eat the entire bag when we got back home.

Gaslight.

TwitterDev on Twitter announced today they started enforcing rules about using their third-party API and they may have broken some of the popular third-party apps. I’m not on Twitter anymore. It’s not an awful company owned by a shitty owner and honestly I don’t know why anyone would continue to work there, but to each their own. So I’m not really invested in what happens with the platform. I’m really sick of hearing about it. I guess I am invested because I would take great glee in watching the whole platform go up in flames after a massive data leak and the personal details of every user on the platform somehow made it to the masses.

Anyways, no one knows what the actual rules are and how they were broken because no one knows the rules. In reality, Elon Musk just pulled the plug because he wasn’t getting revenue or data or something and his ass kissing sycophants (I think that’s redundant) are just covering his ass.

If you’re still on the platform, why? All I see are folks crowing about capitalism being awful and we shouldn’t have billionaires in the world (that’s a different debate) but there you are, still using the platform run by an idiot with way too much money. The guy is all smoke and mirrors. He couldn’t even run the 1939 controls that create The Wizard of Oz.

I really wish an insider still at Twitter would grow some balls and just crash the damn thing, but no one will do that because of the required ass licking. So we’re stuck hearing about Twitter every other damn minute because the news media can’t do anything without and too many people are getting their dopamine hits.

I’m not better than anyone using Twitter. I’m my own brand of ranting idiot and I’ll freely admit that. But please, just shut the damn thing off and delete it from your devices.

Dark.

It’s been a cloudy, hazy weekend here in the Soronan Desert. We have winter like weather coming up this week, with the snow levels coming down to Tucson city proper by this weekend. There’s also a hard freeze in the forecast. Exciting times.

The predicted snow at this point isn’t a huge deal as it’ll be just a dusting that will probably melt quickly, but I’m sure it’ll still make an impact on the area. If it happens.

It’s been raining a lot for the past 48 hours. I still find the lights of the city to be quite beautiful, even under the clouds.