Friday Morning: Lovely
We made it to Friday! Yay! And that means another jazz genre. This week it’s shibuya-kei, a sub-genre/fusion born of Japanese jazz. Our sample today is by Kenji Ozawa. Note how damned perky it is, blending jazz elements with pop and synthpop. Its cuteness might also be described as kawaii, but that’s a whole ‘nother topic.
Some other shibuya-kei artists you might want to try are Paris Match (Metro), Aira Mitsuki (Butterly), Maki Nomiya (Shibuya-kei Standards), Takako Minekawa (Plash), and Kensuke Shiina (Luv Bungalow).
Get your mellow on and jazz your Friday up.
Urgent: Update Adobe Flash immediately if you apply patches manually
Go to this Security Bulletin link at Adobe for details. The update fixes 23 vulnerabilities, one or more of which are being used in exploits now though information about attacks are not being disclosed yet. And yes, this past Tuesday was Patch Tuesday, but either this zero-day problem in Flash was not known then, or a solution had not yet been completed, or…whatever. Just make sure you check all your updates, with this Adobe Flash patch at the top of the list.
USDOJ doing its PR thing on #AppleVsFBI
After reports this week that FBI director James Comey was a political liability in the case against Apple, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch appeared on Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show to make the case for Apple writing code as requested by USDOJ. She said,
“First of all, we’re not asking for a backdoor, nor are we asking anyone to turn anything on to spy on anyone. We’re asking them to do what their customer wants. The real owner of the phone is the county, the employer, of one of the terrorists who is dead,”
Right. And my iPhone-owning kid wants a ham sandwich — will Apple write an app on demand for that, just because my kid’s the owner of the iPhone?
Look, nearly all software is licensed — the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone may be property of the county that employed him, but the iOS software is property of Apple. Maybe Lynch needs a ham sandwich, too, a little boost in blood sugar to grok this point.
Volkswagen’s Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Week continues
- Looks like VW’s U.S. CEO Michael Horn bailed out because he butted heads with the Holzkopfs in German leadership (Jalopnik)
- By butting heads, that is to say, Horn dislikes the idea of jail time (Forbes) — though naming executives is pro forma on such lawsuits, if Horn was only in his role for roughly 18 months and this fraud goes back 8-9 years, AND Germany’s executive team disagreed with Horn’s proposal for U.S. dealers and vehicle owners, he’s reasonably twitchy about sticking around.
- VW updated its emissions standards defeat code after its existence was revealed (Forbes) — wanna’ bet it was a software patch?
Stray cats and dogs
- White House wants +20M more Americans on broadband (DailyDot) — Under ConnectALL initiative, a new subsidy program will help low income citizens get online with broadband access.
- Pew Research study shows 15% of Americans still not online (Pew Research Center) — Rural, low income, minority, elderly are most likely not to have internet access; they’re the same target group as proposed federal ConnectALL program.
- But good luck with broadband speed or cable TV content if HBO-TWC-Charter continue to scuffle over the TWC-Charter merger (AdAge) — Yet another example of the fundamental conflict between content makers and internet providers; internet providers should focus on the quality of their internet service, not on the content in the ‘series of tubes’ they supply.`
And just for giggles, note the Irish economy has expanded at fastest rate since 2000. Gee, I wonder what would happen to the Irish economy if major tech companies like Apple moved to Ireland?
I’m out of here — have a great weekend!
Ah, yes, the Internet Of Things. “Amazon gadget hijacks owner’s heating after hearing radio report. Echo, a home automation gadget, reset its owner’s thermostat after mistaking an NPR broadcast on its capabilities for a voice command.”
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But, you know, this raises some real possibilities. If my spouse tells me to do something, can I have Alexa/Siri/Whoever respond? Can Echo not must manage, but also perform, my household chores? Call the kids down to dinner?
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Friday ruminations (wishes, really).
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Be careful what you wish for. Because your kids will hack Alexa so fast your head will spin while you’re having pizza delivered for every meal through eternity.
It turns out there’s an easy way to stop your mobile calls from being intercepted. See below. It seems, though, that one disadvantage would be that your call might not actually quite get through to the other end as desired.
“Chicago man faces felony charges for using cellphone jammer on the train because ‘he gets annoyed at people talking’ around him.”
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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/chicago-man-arrested-cell-phone-jammer-metro-article-1.2561018
OMG, that WV software patch article is a howler. Here’s a couple lines to whet your appetite.
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According to the report, the previous version of the cheater code … caused the car to erroneously switch into clean test mode, and it led to increased wear [!!!] on the particulate filter,” the report continues. … When Ferdinand Piech took over as CEO of Volkswagen in 1993, one of his first orders of business was to adapt Toyota’s continuous improvement philosophy, called “Kaizen.” … or KVP. 20 years later, KVP was so rigorously implemented that even the cheating was improved, well after it had come to the attention of the regulators.”
Judge awards $7.5 billion to families of of 9/11 victims in a default judgment against the government of Iran. Another $3 billion was awarded to insurers who paid out on the claims.
https://www.rt.com/usa/335174-iran-damages-september-911-victims/
It says the same judge cleared Saudi Arabia of any responsibility in the plot.
How about the embassy that approved their visas to enter the United States?
One would need to revise Irish economic statistics by trying to eliminate all the pass through items, such as claimed receipts from sales and use of IP, that are allocated to Ireland but never get there except as accounting entries, and, therefore never benefit the Irish economy. Ireland is a preeminent tax haven. That’s the part of its economy which is expanding. If that deprives dozens of other countries of needed tax revenue (it does), the Irish seem to say, eat potatoes or have another Guinness [:-)]. Sadly, many other countries are trying to emulate Ireland rather than seeking to close the closeable loopholes that allow such massive tax dodging.