The Unbearableness of "The Unbearable Lightness of Being"

Currently reading this "Czech Post-Modern Masterpiece" and so far I don't see what all the excitement was about.  Even taking into account that I am widely held to be a moron of the first order I think the my inability to understand the point of this novel really isn't my fault.  

Seriously I am about a third of the way thru and so far this book doesn't seem to have a point.  It is supposed to be an exploration of life in the intellectual / artistic community of Prague during the Czech spring centered around two couples, who I think are having interlinked affairs and may or may not have a dog.  Instead what I have sounds like a recitation of items in someones day planner - typical prose:

 "On Tuesday Tomas woke up and brushed his teeth while wondering if Sabina, his exciting free-willed lover, would be available for a quick boning later in the day.  After completing this task he sat down to coffee and a roll, it was 6:30.  Picking up the newspaper, he saw that the Russians had invaded. As he read he contemplated, "What if Nietzsche was wrong?  What if there was no eternal recurrence?" Finishing his roll and coffee he rinsed the dishes and left for work.  Returning precisely eight hours later he ate the dinner his wife had prepared and then took the dog for a walk.  As he did so he saw a column of Russian tanks driving down the street while a soldier in the black uniform of the armored forces directed traffic.  The soldiers uniform both terrified and strangely excited him.  Watching the tanks roll by he contemplated, "What if Marx was wrong and there is no universal class struggle?"  The dog pooped and Tomas returned home.

So far it has gone on like that for page after pointless page.  Avoid this book like the plague.

New and improved (maybe)

Worried about the NSA snooping on your network traffic?  Try the "Don't Snoop Me Bro" VPN in a box -

You hook it up to your network and turn the key (literally, it has a physical key) and it turns on a VPN tunnel via a VPN service routing your data through another country. These guys sent me a prototype to check out, and it looks interesting (though won't work with my network setup). They're still deciding what VPN service provider it will use, and it seems like that's something that could make a difference in terms of overall usefulness.

Of course by VPN I'm sure they don't mean direct line to the NSA. (or maybe that's just me toying with your paranoia.)

Need a way to once again link current events in America to the fall of Rome? Try our new math product - Equations of the blindingly obvious dressed up to make me look brilliant.

By mathematically modelling historical data, Turchin finds that as population grows, workers start to outnumber available jobs, driving down wages. The wealthy elite then end up with an even greater share of the economic pie, and inequality soars. This is borne out in the US, for example, where average wages have stagnated since the 1970s although gross domestic product has steadily climbed.
This process also creates new avenues – such as increased access to higher education – that allow a few workers to join the elite, swelling their ranks. Eventually this results in what Turchin calls "elite overproduction" – there being more people in the elite than there are top jobs.

Banks using XP after Apr 2014 may be fined - OK this is of limited use to most people but I am enjoying it because so many retards have bought into the idea that because XP is old it's "tested" and more secure.  If that were the case every patch Tuesday wouldn't have a bunch of new XP security patches.

Hey, I want an online-comment propaganda army too!

Because nothing adds credibility to your argument like a cute blonde in a cheerleader outfit.
 


at least it always works with me.

Now, it seems, we have an answer to where some of this acrimony originates. It's of course impossible to tell whose vitriol is genuine and whose is being bankrolled, but at least some anti-Western comments appear to come from staffers the Russian government pays to sit in a room, surf the Internet, and leave sometimes hundreds of postings a day that criticize the country's opposition and promote Kremlin-backed policymakers.

In the US we call these people facebook users and they do it for free, once again proving the superiority of both our economic system and our way of life in general. 

Suck it Putin!  USA! USA!

Katy Perry giving up skimpy costumes…

in an effort to keep fans focused on her music.  World weeps.

RIP

 

“Enterprise Security is Appalling”

My first thought was,  “Of course it is, Kirk keeps beaming all the competent ones down on landing parties where they are promptly killed”.  Then I realized that the article is talking about IT Enterprise Security and my first thought was “duh” if it was good everyone from ‘those who wish to remain unnamed” to the NSA wouldn’t be running through everyone's’ data like it was a summer romp at the beach.

Highlight from the article -

The most effective approach is to match IT security to a company’s lines of business and most valuable assets, not simply reinforce security built to match a network or system topology. Making good rules for security isn’t enough, either: Ttey have to be enforced. “You’ve got to audit and make sure that people are following the rules. Minor mistakes lead to vulnerabilities,” he said.

Even figuring out what to protect requires the same kind of big-data analysis many companies use to identify new markets or develop new products, but that few actually employ to identify their own most valuable assets – both physical and intellectual property – and define how those assets contribute to key strategic business goals, Winter said.

…

Effective security is not limited to building a series of firewalls and data-protection policies. Good security is a process that requires the constant collection and analysis of data on the business and its competitive environment in order to be ready to counter threats before they become attacks, let alone breaches.

The way I read that is you actually have to provide some thought about what you are trying to protect.  Just going down a checklist and ticking off the boxes isn’t going to cut it.  The Snowden case would appear to be a perfect example.  The way it looks to me is that the NSA spent a lot of time protecting against outside threats but very little considering who could actually access and compromise their data and they got burned.  The speaker the article references is making the point that that kind of thinking is a systemic problem.

Could this be why Spain is no longer a major military power?

Great, now even the internet is criticizing my life choices