Move over bison burgers, the ancestor of cows is coming back. Scientists edge closer to bringing back the aurochs, the fearsome cattle breed last seen in the 1600s The creature, the ancestor of modern cattle, once roamed forests and marshlands from Britain to the Balkans and beyond to Asia and North Africa. But it disappeared from…
The Google Photos Rediscover This Day feature felt I needed reminding of today five years ago. It is true that I took some photos (1,2,3) while on a beach trip. And it is also true that I cherish these photos. But it is also true I cherish them because they make me weepy and sad.…
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. ― Martin Luther King, Jr. There are books, that one has for twenty years without reading them, that one always keeps at hand, that one takes along from…
Someone in Athens found some pipe bombs. They took it to the police headquarters to report having found it. People question how he could do something so dangerous. My reaction is I can easily see someone thinking of the police and taking them there. The reason why we train people how to conduct themselves in dangerous…
Part of the political content that lately makes me uncomfortable about discussing political things are the gotcha posts. Someone makes a mistake and another person on the “good side” catches them in that mistake and cuts them down in epic style. (We call  it “owning.”) The one I saw prompting this post was a name redacted…
There is no enforced standard for passwords for a web site, so they can be all over the place for requirements. Nor do sites typically explain what are the exact standards before a failure. And then most will state the minimum and types of characters. But, too many leave out the maximum number of characters allowed so…
For a while my self-hosted WordPress has been a royal pain in the ass. Trying to compose through the WordPress.com interface through Jetpack would show occasional errors that “Saving of draft failed” or an inability to communicate. Sometimes it was usable, sometimes there were so many errors I gave up and used the site. The…
Ran across a site where if one changes the email address associated with the account, it sends the confirmation email to the new address. Say, I am a Blackhat and used a phishing attack to get the password for the account. Having legitimately logged in, I then change the email address associated with it from victim@outlook.com…
Every time I go through movies I have bought and try to redeem the digital copy, I suspect the companies make the process so difficult that no one will actually do it. Companies like the gift card racket because they get the money and recipients hold on to them for far too long. Movie companies charge…