Table of contents
FYI. Some explanations are in order.
What is a blog? Explains the difference between a blog and a forum.
Blog Entries List:
Links to blog entries below are listed in descending order starting with the first entry for the year to the newest.
To read the blog entries in chronological order from the first to the newest as I entered them, you can start with the first blog entry listed below and read down from there.
January 3rd, 2015: We need more people like Mother Jones in the world!
January 10th, 2015: Part 1: The multiple vehicle accident on Michigan's I-94 and how to avoid such accidents in the future.
January 10th, 2015: Part 2: There's still some people out there who don't think women should have equal rights.
January 11th, 2015: Human experimentation.
May 14th, 2015: The new Supergirl Trailer.
June 24th, 2015: Unsung heroes generally ignored by the mass media.
June 25th, 2015: How tyrants and fascist regimes create an easily-controlled population of serfs.
July 8th, 2015: Multiple shut-downs all on the same day and I have an alibi. Includes hidden spoilers for the Terminator Genisys movie.
October 21st, 2015: Back to the Future Day.
November 13th, 2015: Cross-device tracking.
December 31st, 2015: Listening to rock 'n' roll songs from the early days of rock to the present on New Year's Eve.
What is a blog?
To those who are asking "what is a blog?", a blog is a personal Web log (blog is a shortened way of saying weblog), a chronicle of events or a journal where somebody writes down things that happen in their lives, their thoughts, and opinions.
What's the difference between a blog and a forum? Some people confuse forums with blogs. A forum is for public discussion. You can look that up in the dictionary if you like. ;-) A blog, being a Web log, journal, or personal diary would be for an individual. Look at some personal blogs and compare them with forums, even those that for some odd reason are calling themselves blogs. You'll see the difference quickly enough.
January 3rd, 2015:
We need more people like Mother Jones in the world!
For those who don't know more details about who Mother Jones was, feel free to look her up. :-) But, she would fight the corporations for workers' rights, safer working conditions and opposed child labor.
The corporations which owned factories where children were losing fingers and had become disabled due to injuries and were sometimes killed on the job (the bodies of breaker boys were left among the machines until the end of the work day) owned stock in the newspapers so they wouldn't print a story about things like that.
U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt called her "the most dangerous woman in America" . . . when she was 83! "Pray for the dead, but fight like Hell for the living!" - Mother Jones.
You can keep your supermodels, Hollywood actresses and bikini-clad women on magazine covers. A real woman, to me, is one that won't back down even during a military court martial and will so strongly fight for what is right that she makes a national leader quiver in fear and pee his panties!
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January 10th, 2015: Part 1:
The multiple vehicle accident on Michigan's I-94 and how to avoid such accidents in the future
Saw the footage from the multiple vehicle accident on Michigan's I-94 (Interstate 94), ten miles east of Kalamazoo, Michigan. One report said that 150 vehicles were involved.
Please drive safely. Don't drink and drive. Drivers should turn off their mobile devices so they're not distracted with the screens. And, do not drive so fast that you cannot stop safely in the distance that you can clearly see ahead of your vehicle. There might be a semi just ahead with a trailer filled with gasoline. Wasn't anyone else but me taught things like do not overdrive your visibility because you need to stop in the distance you can see ahead of you? This is even more important for low-visibility conditions in winter when you need a lot more distance to stop in time. If just some of the people involved in this accident hadn't overdrove their stopping distance and visibility, this wouldn't have been as bad.
Let them call you grandma. You (and any passengers you may have in your vehicle) will safely get to your destination in one piece. Those who sped past you shouting insults might not . . . Maybe taking a small whiteboard with you to write down "ACCIDENT AHEAD PLEASE SLOW DOWN" may be a good idea, too, so you can run down the road (at a safe distance and only getting near the road when you're well past the other vehicles) in the direction the traffic's coming from and show oncoming drivers the sign. In the future, maybe billboards can automatically be overridden to show this same message to stop this from happening again.
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January 10th, 2015: Part 2:
There's still some people out there who don't think women should have equal rights
Sounds like a behavioral gender bias. The bad news is that it may be throughout most of the human race. The good news is that society's attitudes are changing, albeit slowly. There's less of the "a woman's place is in the kitchen" crap in some of the industrialized countries and many of them have given women the right to vote. Places like New Zealand did it in 1893 while more uptight places didn't do it until 1920. Some countries still do not allow them to vote, however . . .
The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (AKA CEDAW) international treaty adopted in 1979 by the United Nations General Assembly was ratified by nearly 200 states, but, some have reservations and restrictions and some countries, many in the Middle East, have not even signed it.
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January 11th, 2015:
Human experimentation
Remember when everyone was upset about the Nazis experimenting on people? Well, they weren't the only ones . . . Human experimentation in the United States
And people wonder why I have trust issues and think that phrases like "human compassion" are oxymorons?
Gee, I just can't imagine why . . .
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May 14th, 2015:
The Supergirl Trailer
Saw the trailer for the new Supergirl show on CBS. In one word? Ugh. Melissa Benoist is okay as Kara Zor-El AKA Supergirl, but, there are some things I don't agree with this 'revisioning' of Supergirl. Her secret identity as a normal person is now Kara Danvers instead of Linda Lee Danvers? Isn't the whole point of having a secret identity is to appear to be someone totally different than your real self? Using your real first name (many of us only have one although crappy database software frequently cannot accept that) in both your identities gives someone clues as to who you are in the form of increased similarities (body shape, height, hair color, voice, face and name).
Then, there is the whole Jimmy Olsen AKA James Olsen thing. While in the past, we've grown used to him being a somewhat nerdy, red-headed, eager beaver of a photographer, but, now, he's being replaced by some guy who looks like a jock? Ack! Talk about mis-cast! It's like casting the role of Peter Parker to Vin Diesel. Okay, so Mehcad Brooks is black, too, but, the feel of the character is more important here and stands out more than a simple skin color difference. What's next? A revisioned Pee Wee Herman played by a sumo wrestler? Come on, people!
Okay, a quick word about what some see as the 'blackification' of Hollywood. If you're going to change the skin colors of characters in movies and television shows, then, at the very least, use more than just black or white people. How about casting some Native Americans? Or more Japanese characters (one of my favorite characters in the Heroes television series was Hiro and it wasn't just because he could teleport, which I personally think is one of the cooler and more useful powers to have, if for no other reason than you'd never have to worry about gasoline prices or car repairs, but primarily because of his attitude, like when he teleported into a busy crosswalk, raised his arms and shouted in joy at having done it)? Or how about with a different accent (we all have accents) and from a different culture, like maybe a few people from Ukraine or the Czech Republic, but, with mild accents, not like the characters in some of the comedy movies in the past. And, while we're on the subject of accents (I'm really bouncing all over the place, today, aren't I?), there are people from many countries who speak English with little or no accents. Many of them study English for years in school like the Japanese, who start learning it in the fifth grade. They just feel awkward speaking it which leads to them not doing it as often as others. Want to mix things up? Cast someone who grew up in another country and speaks with an accent but is a different skin color than the majority of people from there.
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June 24th, 2015:
Unsung Heroes
Today, I saw a political comment with a picture of a woman from the first American Great Depression. The woman in the picture was Florence Owens Thompson. She was 32 years old when the photograph was taken by Dorothea Lange in Nipomo, California in March 1936. She called the picture Migrant Mother. Florence Thompson had ten children, altogether. To provide for them, she tended bar, worked in the fields picking beets, peas and cotton. She also worked in hospitals and cooked. One of her daughters, Katherine, said that Florence did all she could to provide food for her children even if she went hungry. That is the kind of a person I regard as a hero. But, while heroes such as Florence Thompson are virtually unknown, what they do and the sacrifices they make for others cannot be denied.
As for politicians, I have absolutely zero faith in politicians who talk a good game because, time and time again, once they get elected, they do as they damned well please which, quite often, is doing what their corporate masters tell them to do. You want to impress me? Follow the examples of people such as Florence Owens Thompson, Mother Jones, John R. Fox, Muelmar Magallanes, Nikola Tesla, Vincent Coleman (the train dispatcher), Dr. Liviu Librescu, Victoria Soto, Arland D. Williams Jr., the Chernobyl Three and Miki Endo. They were not pop culture icons like top 40 music artists, famous jocks or movie stars, but, these are the people that I look up to.
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June 25th, 2015:
Tyrants and serfs
The proven formula for tyrants and fascist regimes throughout history has remained virtually unchanged for centuries with minor adjustments for technological advances.
It's easier for tyrants to grind people into the dirt if they're kept ignorant. Spoon-feed sugar-coated and slanted history into their young minds and only teach them enough to work menial labor jobs and you essentially have serfs, many of which will believe everything they're told and won't bother to even look things up for themselves.
Today, there are added benefits for those who want to grind the people's heads into the ground under their jack-booted heels from advanced technology. Now, they can spy on them in every facet of their lives online or off, monitor where every dollar they spend goes, track their movements and create profiles for almost anyone. Thanks to Internet social media Web sites, most of their job is done by their victims. When they really want to put the screws in, they could create threats that the people will demand the government protects them from. This makes it so much easier to get them to give up essential freedom and liberty so they can feel safer. Make everyone have government-issued identification on them at all times. Track their whereabouts using mobile devices with GPS, license plate readers and cameras combined with facial recognition. Increase restriction on gun ownership so fewer and fewer people have them and those who do are known, making it easier to find them.
Hitler would have been proud . . .
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July 8th, 2015:
Multiple server failures and I have an alibi! :-) I also saw Terminator Genisys.
Today, the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange) went down, United Airlines flights were affected because their computers were not able to interface properly and the Wall Street Journal's Web site experienced problems.
Thankfully, I had an alibi and witnesses at the time of the events in question who can say I was out and about. I specifically made a point to talk to at least a couple of people at each location, making certain that I told them my name and spoke with them for a minute or so about things they would be certain to remember. Also, during the times in question when the first problems initiated, I was surrounded by people in a movie theater (I saw Terminator Genisys) and using even a mobile device would have been noticed. Even if they didn't, those inside of some movie theaters are being continually watched via hidden surveillance cameras. The larger the movie theater business is that you're going to, the more likely they are to have multiple surveillance cameras watching you even inside the movie theater itself as you watch the movie.
Oh, am I telling people things that are supposed to be a secret, again? Hee hee hee Well, at least with that one, I'm not violating a NDI (Non-Disclosure Agreement) so I won't get threatened with arrest and prison time. Remember the good old days when we were supposed to be considered innocent until proven guilty? *Sighs*
But, getting back to the subject of surveillance cameras; if you're in an industrialized country and live in a city, there's a high probability that you have been video recorded by at least a dozen surveillance cameras every time you leave the house to go to work, go to the store, to the bank, to a movie theater or even a fast food restaurant. You could rig up an infrared light detector which many modern security cameras use to see better in low-light situations (look for clear LEDs on it or near it), but, that will only tell you about the ones using infrared. It won't be able to stop them from video recording you. Even if you did have a way of doing that (for example, with a certain type of light source which could create a large area over that part of the recording which would make identifying you difficult) it would probably be illegal in some situations. After all, big brother in all his myriad forms wants to know and see all that you do. Then, there are the places which claim that you video recording or simply taking pictures is against their rules. Words like hypocrites or fairness don't seem to be in their vocabulary . . . Frankly, though, I believe that sousveillance in public places should be considered a right (and may be the only way of keeping some people honest, especially businesses). In America, it could be argued to be a First Amendment right, provided you're not doing it somewhere that people have at least some expectation of privacy such as in a phonebooth, hotel room, hospital room (a patient should have the same expectation of privacy as someone in a hotel room barring an emergency situation) or a restroom, although some unscrupulous types (like some store managers) put hidden surveillance cameras in there anyway.
Ever felt like you were being watched while . . . 'doing your business' in a public restroom? Maybe you were. Look up pinhole cameras. There are even online tutorials on how to hide them in ceilings. Is that really a very tiny hole in the ceiling above the toilet stall or is it a hidden pinhole camera?
Oh, yes. Before I forget or get distracted, again, which is more likely for me (squirrel!) . . . Some of the witnesses include:
A movie theater employee who studied biochemistry who had a first name which started with a Y. (Yes, I remember your name and I know that you have a sister who looks like you but I try to protect some people's privacy. This is just my way of confirming that you met me in case you or someone else needs it.) Among the other things she learned that day (such as a couple of easy to use mnemonic techniques) she found out what happens when someone asks me "what's up" and learned that when I'm looking for the salt shaker, I call salt NaCl or sodium chloride.
A fellow movie theater customer who I discussed alternate realities with and the movie Predestination (2014) which was based on Robert A. Heinlein's short story All You Zombies. Some called it the mother of all time-travel stories. Which can be taken more than one way . . . ;-) But, I don't want to spoil it for you.
An interesting Home Depot employee who knew that a pentagram with one point up instead of two is a Wiccan symbol and who I showed a Seal of Solomon and a Yin Yang symbol to. We talked a bit about alchemy in the plumbing supplies section.
Another interesting Home Depot employee who was working as a cashier who not only called me by name but did a little howl for me (without prompting her) in the store as she was ringing me up (if they still call it that).
A short look into a day in the life of Cyberwolfman? LOL
But . . . Getting back to the problems the NYSE, United Airlines and the Wall Street Journal's Web site had . . . What does it all mean? Well, unless other things manifest themselves such as short duration power outages, odd intermittent Internet connection issues and problems connecting to software repositories, et cetera, I wouldn't worry about it. For all you know, it's just something hidden in the code or software bugs. ;-) However, it's a good idea to not depend on things which are historically proven to be undependable. What makes matters worse is when the majority of people use the same operating system and don't install security patches.
As for the Terminator Genisys movie . . . It was fun and worth seeing for me, someone who has seen all of the movies in the Terminator franchise. It may be difficult for some to recognize the actress playing the role of Sarah Connor in this movie unless you imagine her with blond hair, with a different accent and . . . with dragons?! ;-) Yes, the woman playing the role of a young Sarah Connor is Emilia Clarke, known to many for her role as Daenerys Targaryen.
Should I tell you more about the Terminator Genisys movie? It might spoil your enjoyment of the movie if I gave away some details or it could deprive you of your delight in recognizing certain parts of it without being told of them in advance . . .
Hmm . . . What to do, what to do . . . Okay, here's the deal: I'll write out a few spoilers for you below but use an old-school Web page technique of hiding text that isn't reliant upon JavaScript (for those who keep it turned off).
Ahem . . . By your highlighting the below text you hereby state that you do not mind me telling you what's going to happen in the movie which may or may not spoil your enjoyment of it. Deal?
⚠ Hi there! One of the parts of the movie I particularly liked was when they showed the year 1984 and the various scenes from the first Terminator movie such as the reactions the guys with mohawks had when they saw the classic terminator (the T-800 or T-850 to the nit-pickers out there) coming towards them sans clothes. Another scene later in the of movie gave a hint as to what was going to happen to the older version of the classic terminator played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. They showed the silver colored liquid which could form the Cyberdyne Systems Series 1000 AKA T-1000 terminator but said that it wouldn't work without a special CPU needed to keep it together (such as those found in the terminators). "Pops" (what Sarah Connor called the 'friendly' T-800 played by Arnold although when he smiled he rattled people) fell in and later came out new and improved or "upgraded". The next important scene was after the initial credits rolled where they showed the hologram looking into something which was probably meant to appear powerful and dangerous. After all, they had to keep the franchise alive and create hype and get people to speculate on what it means, which will keep them talking about it for a little while, at least. ;-) Those who walked out of the movie theater before the credits started missed that extra scene. ⚠
Ack! You went to far! Hey, now . . . Just so you know, that is an erogenous zone. Oh, come on, you're not even going to buy me dinner, first? This is probably a bad time to tell you this, but, there are ways for people to see what you see on your screen, especially if you're in public, where they can just read over your shoulder or zoom and focus in with one of those surveillance cameras I was talking about above . . . Hey, where are you going? I thought we had something special? LOL
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October 21st, 2015:
Back to the Future Day
Today is the day that doctor Emmett Brown and Marty McFly along with his girlfriend, Jennifer Parker, traveled to in Back to the Future Part II, which came out in theaters in 1989.
While I'll admit that some things are here at least in their nascent forms, they are not fully developed yet and at such a low price as to be available to everyone such as hoverboards, flying cars, powered auto-lacing shoes, holographic movies and a Mr. Fusion power supply for automobiles.
Someone told me that they were going to make the powered auto-lacing shoes so Americans wouldn't have to bend over any more. But, thanks to the corporate-owned and controlled government from bought politicians to corporate executives placed in government agencies, many Americans should be used to bending over by now . . .
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November 13th, 2015:
Cross-Device Tracking
Were you aware that your various electronic devices could be given a signal via ultrasound which would share the information you have on one device onto others using audio beacons? Many people didn't. For those who want specifics, CDT (Cross-Device Tracking) can be triggered by televisions or other ads played on your mobile device, laptop, desktop computer and other things which can generate sound.
This is much more invasive than Canvas fingerprinting and why advertisers can still learn your habits and give you ads based on your Web browsing even if you turn off cookies, which I warned people about back in 2014.
So, do you keep your mobile device on you while you're watching television ads at home and elsewhere? Is your mobile device on while you're at home on the computer? Have you noticed the video advertisements inside of stores themselves, of late? Do you keep your mobile device with you at all times when you go out and keep it powered on? Oh, my . . .
Although I'm certain there are some out there who would think that corporations would never ever go so far as to do this sort of thing, be assured that they would. What we're talking about here is advertising gold, so that all the companies you do business with know all of your interests and buying habits, especially if you do any shopping on-line. On top of that, this information could be sold to other companies, not only for advertising purposes but also to insurance companies and the like. Don't you think a health insurance company would be interested in your pharmacy purchases or how often you purchase alcohol or how much time you spend at your local bar? Have you noticed, yet, that certain apps such as Adblock Plus (not the fake ones which sound like it but really can't block ads because they would get into trouble for it) aren't available in a certain operating system store and that this self-same operating system is made by a company which makes money off of advertising via their search engine (the very same one which wants to give higher rankings to 'mobile-friendly' Web pages which frequently have all white backgrounds which burn up your mobile devices' batteries faster)?
Ah, but think for a moment about who else would like this information. All that information on what you do in a nice, tidy bundle, possibly added to the information you have already given out about yourself, friends, fellow employees and loved ones via social networking services and Web sites, which are now, conveniently enough, connected, even those accounts you use under fake names which you didn't think anyone could connect you to.
Wasn't it nice of me to warn you about such things before you see what deals there are for Black Friday or Cyber Monday this year? If you appreciate this kind of thing, please consider donating a single dollar to keep this Web site going on the Help Cyberwolfman page.
Can you think of other things which can generate sound (even the kind of sound which you cannot hear and from devices you might not see) and could give even more information about you due to what they are and their specific locations? What about music? Movies? Radio stations? There's a few other things I could mention, but, anyone with a little imagination can figure it out for themselves. Besides, I don't want to give any more hints than I already have . . . Listen to the 'paranoids.' Their view of the world is oft-times far more closer to reality than that of the general population. These days, if you're not paranoid, you're probably deluded, especially if you think that corporate-owned politicians are going to take your side of things by opposing their corporate masters who gave them campaign contributions, free trips on corporate jets, et cetera.
Those running Project Toyfest must be ecstatic about this . . .
For more details, please check this out: Cross-device tracking.
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December 31st, 2015:
Truly rocking New Year's Eve
Tonight, I'm spending some time looking through the top 100 songs for each year from the earliest days of Rock 'n' Roll to the present while . . . experiencing an altered state of consciousness. Yes, alcohol is involved, but not champagne.
There are no commercial breaks, pauses for station identification or interviews with pop icons. It's 100 percent full-tilt party time!
For the songs, I have been looking through the lists for each year and finding the songs which I want to listen to and either playing them on my local media as it's called now or watching and listening to them on YouTube, preferring as close to the original year as when they did it but, also, trying a couple of newer versions of the song by other Rock groups who 'covered' it.
Quick side note (oh, come on, I know you were expecting me to go off on a tangent, it's kind of my thing, right?), in the early 1970s, George Harrison was accused of copyright infringement on his song My Sweet Lord because of its similarity to Ronnie Mack's song (which is probably remembered by many as being sung by the Chiffons) He's So Fine from 1963, although he was thinking of the song Oh Happy Day, which in its original version was a couple of centuries old and long out of copyright. *Pausing for breath and taking another swig out of my one-liter sized glass beer mug* But, for years after that, group after group has openly plagiarized well-known songs by popular artists with very little being said about it and nobody suing anybody. They're just called 'cover songs' and people talking about who did the best version. *Shrugs*
Okay, guess that's all I've really got to say at the moment and I probably shouldn't code (yes, I code everything, even creating Web pages like this one in a simple text editor) too much while . . . partying. My imagination comes out to play and odd things are thought up and created. But, anyone who ever visited my 3D world This Is It AKA ThisIsIt could tell you that. I don't think anyone ever found all of the secret rooms and what I was able to get bots to do even well over a decade ago still freaks people out . . . LOL
The 2016 blog page will get created if and when I have time for it and I still need to put up the new Samhain/Halloween pictures I took a couple of months ago. You guys really didn't think I'd forget about you, did you? ;-)
Remember to party responsibly. Don't get messed up and expect to drive home safely. Or, text and drive, for that matter. You might think you'll be okay, but, is it really worth the risk of losing your life? Either call a cab or get a ride from a sober friend.
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Other Blog Pages:
2003 Blog (with some from 2002).
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