As I started writing this post, a song came to me that is kinda sorta related. At least the part about what-if scenarios. It’ll make sense eventually. At least I hope so.
From time to time, I have wondered how I would get around if I were in a wheelchair for whatever reason. Yup, I’m weird. But seriously, nothing is guaranteed. Some day, I could break a leg or get in a car accident or some such, and…bam! I’m in a wheelchair! Maybe it’s only for 6 weeks, but six weeks is a long time when I don’t know how the hell to get around. Yeah, I know the simplest part. If I didn’t have a guide dog trained for guiding someone in a wheelchair, I’d have to use my cane to look for obstacles. But the margin for error is waaaaay narrower if I’m on wheels. If I find the high part of a curb when I’m walking around, it’s a minor oopsy. If I find a high curb in a wheelchair unexpectedly…I could be in that wheelchair a lot longer if it was originally only temporary. You get the point. Plus the physics is a lot different. Stopping instantly in a wheelchair is a wee bit harder, so the cane has to be longer. But how much longer? And how wide of an arc do you need so you don’t crash-clatter-crunch the side of your chair into everything as you go by? And don’t you need both arms to drive the chair if you have a manual one?
I have always gotten the sense that the knowledge about how this is accomplished is pretty sparse. Usually, when someone has two disabilities, it complicates stuff and people only know about how to do things with one or the other. This whole white cane and wheelchair combo seems to be no different.
There is an absolute crap ton of math going on here that I 100 percent do not understand, but it’s nice to know that I have options as it relates to the disposal of my enemies. On The Fuel Efficiency of Launching My Enemies Into The Sun
The biggest problem I face now is which would be preferable to me. Launching them into the sun seems more immediately satisfying because the outcome is certainly not in doubt. But firing them out of the solar system may give them more time to sit and think about what they’ve done, depending on how well they handle the journey. I’m not so big on the death penalty, because once it’s over, it’s over. You’re gone, never to think about your transgressions again. But the rest of us are still here, living with their fallout every day. So perhaps it’s better to think about them floating around out there for years and years, alone with nothing but their miserable thoughts. Yeah. Probably that. But it’s so much more natural to scream “into the sun” than “out of the solar system”, and the screaming about it is no small part of the experience. So who knows?
It appears we’ve solved nothing here. Sorry to have bothered you all.
If you’re a politician and you disagree with a court ruling, it’s fine to say so. By all means, feel free to calmly and rationally explain your issues with the judge’s decision and maybe even muse about possible next steps that your government may take if applicable. But at no time should you go out of your way to threaten a judge and generally whine like a little bitch. Don’t pull a Doug Ford, in other words. Christ, just listen to this fuckin’ man baby chew about the absolutely foreseeable consequences of a problem that his government has done nothing to fix and in some ways has actively made worse.
Ford said Gibson’s decision was “the most ridiculous ruling I’ve ever seen” that puts the rights of a few dozen people over millions of future transit riders.
“He comes out with this cockamamie idea that they’re gonna hold up transit, so for what, 30 people, they’re going to hold up millions and millions of riders, communities and everything,” Ford said at an unrelated press conference in Sault Ste. Marie.
“The judge is saying that we got to hold up projects and everything,” he said. “I wish I could get that guy’s address, I’ll send 50 encampments in his backyard and see how he likes it.”
It’s nice to hear him say, as he does in the video, that he’s going to take care of these homeless people. I’d love to know when he plans on starting and what he’s going to do. Are we raising social assistance rates? Restoring rent control so that people don’t become homeless simply because they’re priced out of the market? Mandating that a significant percentage (like maybe half) of all new housing be affordable? Tackling the waiting lists for geared to income housing? Funding supportive housing? Restoring funding for all the harm reduction sites you shut down? Building new shelter spaces instead of all of those stupid jails? Emphasizing support in the jails we already have instead of just warehousing people and hoping that the magical fairies will come and sprinkle mystical happy rehab therapy dust on everyone as they get released? Any of that would be far more worthwhile than whatever it is you’re doing now. I suggest getting off your ass and getting to work.
If you’ve spent oh, let’s say about 20 minutes online in your lifetime, you’ve probably run into one of those “verify you are human” or “I am not a robot” things. Most of the time, it’s a simple enough operation to prove you’re a person and move on with your day. Annoying for people with disabilities if not implemented well, but nowadays not something that’s going to make the difference between being able to use a service and being shut out nearly as often as it used to. I almost, dare I say, take it for granted now.
So of course, it’s time to start thinking about CAPTCHAs again, because the scammers have gotten involved. How it took this long for that to happen I have no idea, but here we are.
Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to not get caught up in this if you know what you’re doing. but if you’re like me, you’ve got a lot of people to warn all of a sudden.
It starts when you land on a website and get a “verify you are human” or other captcha prompt. It’s what comes next that identifies the scam.
A message pops up saying the captcha system failed and you need to run some commands to resolve the problem. First, you may be asked to click a “Fix It” or “How to Fix” button (where the scam’s alternate name “ClickFix” comes from). Unfortunately, this copies malware code onto your clipboard, but it doesn’t install it. It’s what victims unknowingly do next that installs the malware.
Victims who click the “Fix” button then get instructions to key in a series of commands, and it’s this step that installs the malware.
On Windows, victims may be asked to key in commands like this:
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Win + R (which opens up the Windows Run box)
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Ctrl + V (which pastes the malware code into the Run box)
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Enter (which starts running the malware)
On a Mac device, they may be asked to key in:
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Command + Space (which opens Spotlight)
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Type “Terminal”
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Press Enter (opening up Terminal, an interface in which code can be entered into the system)
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Command + V (which pastes the malware code into the Terminal)
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Return (which starts running the malware)
A legitimate CAPTCHA system will never ask you to do any of that. It’ll just fail with little to no explanation and make you solve the puzzle again and again until you finally get it right. If you’re on a site with a CAPTCHA that asks you to type a bunch of things into windows, ignore those instructions and get away from there immediately. If it’s a site you recognize, by all means report what happened, because they’ve now got a problem on their hands. But chances are (for now at least), if you’re seeing something like this, you’re not somewhere you really want to be. Be careful out there.
A Schenectady man has been charged with assault after investigators said he was part of a group that struck firefighters who were attempting to put out an illegal campfire.
Schenectady Police said the fire department responded to Central Park on Thursday, May 21 around 6:19 a.m. for a report of an open burn.
Fire Chief George Burns said firefighters were assaulted by several individuals at the scene when attempting to put out the fire., which was in violation of a city ordinance. Additional personnel responded to the scene.
Police said Samuel Toomer, 57, struck one of the firefighters in the face with a closed fist. The firefighter had a cut on their chin, bloody nose and other pain.
Toomer was charged with three counts of second-degree assault and a violation of the city ordinance against open burning.
And just in case you don’t get the reference in the title.
Do people young enough not to know who George and Gracie are still read blogs?
I don’t know about the rest of you, but it sure seems to me like there have been an awful lot of little league home runs in the major leagues this year. It feels like I’ve been waking up to at least one or two a week. I don’t know if that’s true, but there have definitely been tons of them this week alone so I’m just going to say I’m right and let you enjoy this amusing compilation of them.
I don’t know which one is my favourite, but this one courtesy of the Giants and Diamondbacks is up there because it’s not every day you see a guy get drilled in the bean, then dust himself off and make it anyway.
Giants center fielder Harrison Bader got a decent bounce from Carroll’s first-inning drive deep into left-center, and launched the ball toward third base. The relay throw, made nearly from the infield dirt, was accurate in a sense: Carroll, who had lost his helmet after rounding first base, received the ball directly to the back of his skull. As the ball rolled away, he rallied and scored easily.
I was struggling to understand what and why the hell any of this was happening until I read down to the part where the fellow had previously been arrested for possession of LSD and 27.92 grams of marijuana wax. I don’t know what that second thing is exactly, but it must be the black sheep[of the marijuana family, the one who does weird stuff like share candy instead of eating it all himself.
Investigators say that Tristan Stetina, 19, walked into a Mankato eatery Friday afternoon and “began throwing Skittles at employees and customers.”
A woman identified as “Victim 1” in a court filing told police that she was “hit in the back with a Skittle which caused a stinging pain.”
Upon arriving at the restaurant, a cop “noticed Skittles all over the gound and a bag of Skittles near the garbage.” The suspect, “Victim 1” told police, had a “heart shaped tattoo under his eye and another tattoo on the side of his face.”
Based on the description, police knew who they were after and quickly tracked him down at a nearby business. He allegedly fought with the officers and tried to trip one before being taken in on a charge of misdemeanour assault.
Oh, and one other thing. Please tell me that the words “hit in the back with a Skittle which caused a stinging pain” are just part of a dramatic, in the moment description, because they sure read to me like somebody’s campaigning for a starring role in a reboot of the Stella Awards.
I try to avoid thinking about people and their stupid ass trends as much as possible, but this is pretty much what happens when I’m forced into it.
Gen Z’s “maxxing” trend has gotten way out of hand. As looksmaxxers like Clavicular hype the benefits of smashing your face with a hammer, and self-described nothing-maxxers achieve new levels of doing jack s**t, Lewis Black can’t help but wonder: What the f**k is happening?!
Believe it or not, I actually know a couple of guys who tried to pull off the old switch places during a traffic stop thing once. They were both drinking, but decided, in their infinite wisdom, that the one that didn’t have a driver’s license was in better shape and thus less likely to get them into trouble out on the roads. I don’t know what it was that caused them to get pulled over, but of course they did. And it was at that point it dawned on them that the first part of the sentence “license and registration, please” is license, and that the guy who had a valid one ought to be the one providing them. This all worked out as well as you’d figure, and the two of them ended up heading to the tank until some people who are far too nice came down and bailed them out.
Dumb as that was, though, it was a Mensa meting compared to this. At least the guys in my story were A: alone together and B: both human beings.
Springfield Police Chief Clay Klipfel conducted a traffic stop on a driver who was going 52 mph in a 30 mph zone about 11:30 p.m. Saturday near West 7th Avenue and Main Street in the Town of Springfield, according to police.
The driver attempted to switch places with his dog, which was in the passenger seat of the Dodge Challenger – a process that Klipfel watched as he walked toward the car, police said.
The suspect – who had clear signs of intoxication, according to police – got out of the passenger side of the car and told the chief that he wasn’t the one driving. When Klipfel asked whether he’d been drinking, the man tried to run away, police said.
The suspect’s getaway attempt was cut short about 20 yards from the car when he was apprehended.
A man and a woman who were sober were in the backseat. The car belonged to the woman, Klipfel said.
This idiot better have credibly threatened to kill those other two people, because otherwise they’re no smarter than he is. There are two of you. Both of you are sober. One of you owns the car. Make better choices, for god’s sake!
the driver was arrested on a couple of warrants, plus charged with driving under the influence, driving while ability impaired, driving under suspension, speeding and resisting arrest.
The dog was released into the custody of the sober people, who were allowed to continue on their way rather than be sent for mental health evaluations that they could probably have used.
I may be the only one, but I was fully prepared to give Doug Ford a pass for buying that government jet.
Part of this is a me thing, because I hate travelling. In a perfect world, wherever I’m going should never be more than an absolute maximum of an hour and a half away from wherever I am. There are many reasons why you’ll never see me running for public office, but one of them is most definitely looking at campaign itineraries and politician schedules in general. “Wait. They’re in how many cities today? And they’re taking a bus? And they’re still expected to be nice to people? Does Trump’s cognitive test guy know about this?”
But my own travel preferences aside, it does sincerely make sense to me that if you’re regularly expected to be all over the damn place like government officials often are, that you should be able to be as flexible as possible about it. If you’re needed in both Waterloo and Ottawa on the same day, for instance, and you can make that trip in two hours rather than six, why wouldn’t you? And just as importantly, why wouldn’t we want you to?
Should Ford have made this case to the people? Of course. Explaining how things are currently done and outlining the time and cost savings you expect over time by spending what looks to be a lot of money up front would have taken more effort than “you bought me a plane, bitches! Surprise!”, but there’s no excuse for not doing it. Would he have gotten some blowback? For sure! But that’s part of being the public face of decisions. It might not have been super popular, but it might not have turned into a whole thing that’s going to dog him for years like it has now, either. He might have even gotten to keep it! And then whichever government came next could have used it too and hoped that we all forgot about how they used to call it the gravy plane to score some cheap political points instead of just being honest for once and saying “you know what, that really isn’t the dumbest idea…especially not the dumbest one this guy’s ever had.”
The $28.9-million private jet the Ontario government purchased — and Premier Doug Ford has now committed to sell — would only have been able to fly in and out of about 10 per cent of recognized airports in the province, according to a CBC News analysis.
Bombardier’s technical specifications for its 650 Challenger jet show it requires a distance of 5,650 feet to take off at its maximum weight, which means it couldn’t use the vast majority of airports in Ontario at full capacity, as they have runways shorter than that, according to runway dimension data from NavCanada. (Aviation industry standard is in feet, rather than metres.)
Those limitations raise questions about how the private jet would have helped the premier travel around northern Ontario — one of his justifications for needing the jet — and how the plane would have fulfilled other government uses Ford described at Queen’s Park on Tuesday.
“Sending firefighters up north to fight wildfires, or if we had floods, or if we had to bring people when we evacuate First Nations communities and we had to get them down and we would do that,” Ford said.
“Right now we’re chartering planes, and when you evacuate, you want to evacuate the elder, the children. I know it’s small, but if you can take two or three trips.”
CBC News cross-referenced a list of Ontario airports recognized by the federal aviation authority with runway data from a copy of NavCanada’s Canada Flight Supplement from 2021 to determine the longest runway at airports across the province. After removing airports that have closed from the list, CBC found the province’s Challenger jet would only have been able to use 19 of Ontario’s 179 operational airports based on the distance it needs to take off at its maximum weight and the length of available runways.
Not only that, but Ford also admitted that there are places in the north where it wouldn’t have been able to land no matter what because of dirt runways. That raises even more questions, because the province already owns more than one plane that can.
So much for the benefit of the doubt. Tell me again why these guys are the smartest, most responsible choice to run the province.