Media – Page 2

On the current unrest

The liberal-left media, it seems to me, fails to understand the motivation behind all of the on-the-street in-your-face unrest by progressives against the new Washington Republican regime. Yes, folks are angry about the policies, but that is not why they are taking to the streets in the cold of winter. I believe the unrest to be about hypocrisy, self-dealing, and ultimately, the bad behavior of Donald Trump.

Policy differences we can discuss. But would you raise your son to emulate Donald Trump? Would you leave your daughter alone with Donald Trump?

Donald Trump may already be on his way to impeachment. He has not been transparent in his finances. We do know that there is clearly a conflict of interest in his lease for his new DC hotel. We don’t know the extent of his dealings with foreign regimes. We know for sure that he thinks he can put a stack folders on a table at a press conference to try to fool and impress us.

The right wing controlled Congress is willing to suspend long standing rules to get their way. That is bad for the nation no matter who is in power. The Republicans have the nerve to demand speedy acquiescence in the approval of unqualified Cabinet Secretaries as they disregard our fresh memory of how they ignored a moderate and eminently qualified Supreme Court nominee for 10 months.

Their President has invited white supremacists into the seat of decision making. He cannot seem to be civil to friendly leaders of other nations. He has appointed Cabinet members who either have no experience in the function that they are supposed to manage or want to abolish that function. He is so insensitive to our friends that his appointee as Ambassador to the European Union is known to be an advocate for the dismantling of the EU and the Euro currency.

Trump is a nasty, insecure, narcissistic, lying, crooked shell of a leader. He does not care that the First Amendment precedes the Second Amendment in the interest of a free press. He can’t control his Tweets nor his outbursts. He shrugs off societal norms of behavior as an unnecessary impediment on his crusade to smother dissent. He is a loser and the nation loses.

Then, there are those false Christians who endorse this behavior because, they believe, Trump will make America great (again). I believe he will lead us straight to hell.

Progressives, however, know that this country is (and has been) great, despite its many flaws. And they want to make it better. They certainly don’t want this petulant child to destroy progress that we’ve made toward economic and racial equality. We are reminded every time he opens his ignorant mouth to attack the “media”, or to start a tweet war with a celebrity or foreign leader, that he and his ilk menace our nation.

That is why the fight has been taken to the street.

Chromecast and Google Home — A Great Combination

Two new toys showed up at the front door today. I took my time deciding between Amazon Echo and Google Home. I decided that Google Home was the my best choice. When I went to order, I saw that the Google Store is offering a discount on a Chromecast dongle purchased along with Home. The discount of $15 is available through midnight Pacific time on January 28.

Google Home is about what I expected, although it currently has some limitations. If your content is on Pandora, YouTube, or Netflix you will love the device. It cannot currently access content on Hulu or the various broadcast network apps. However, you can still access the content via your mobile device and then press the “Cast” button to view the content on your big screen.

The sound quality of Home is good for the size of the device. Setup of home is fairly easy using the Android app. Chromecast connects via an HDMI port but just hangs there. It ought to have some way of attaching it to the rear of the monitor. I may try some 3M double faced tape.

Home integrates with my Google calendar, so in the morning I can say, “Hey Google, what is my day like?” I’ll hear appointments, the weather, and the NPR news. It is supposed to be able to support multiple identities but I haven’t tried this yet. Tina will want to be able to hear her calendar too.

I tried listening to a number of different audio sources via Pandora and TuneIn. It all worked, except for CKTB, a news talk station in the Niagara area that I enjoy. Google thinks I am asking for CK TV and cannot locate it. I was able to cast content from the CBS app installed on my phone with little effort.

I’m sure I’ll learn more about the capabilities of Google Home and Chromecast as the days go on. Home is said to rely completely on the cloud so lacking features such as Hulu ought to be remedied in short order.

If you’re concerned about privacy, you should know that all your searches are logged, but can be deleted via the Google Home Android app. The device also sports a mute button should you wish to prevent Home to hearing private conversations.

If you enjoy varied media content and like to experiment, Chromecast and Home make a great combination and will provide hours of enjoyment.

A Modern Manchurian Candidate?

Max Boot writes in the NY Times, “The fact that Mr. Trump seems to give greater credence to the Kremlin than to United States intelligence agencies is precisely what has set off so much speculation about his real motives in cozying up to Mr. Putin.”

The quote comes from his article covering the publication, by Buzzfeed, of unsubstantiated foreign intelligence about the next President of the United States, CNN’s reporting on the matter, and Mr. Trump’s reaction.

I think that Max has succinctly summarized a fundamental concern that Trump continues to raise with his Putin praise.

Grizzly Steppe

It should come as no surprise to anyone even slightly knowledgeable about information security that the human factor is the biggest risk to unwanted exposure of information. The most dangerous way that a human can put himself or his organization at risk is to read an email. It is way to easy to embed malicious content in an email that can get past the rudimentary security filters that are in place in many organizations and especially on personal devices.

Malicious content in an email can masquerade as a harmless web link. It may seem to be from your your bank or from an email provider. It can direct you to a forged page and ask you to update some personal information or to enter a password. Are you sure that email is legitimate?

Malicious content can be easily embedded in a graphic or a pdf. Take a look at your spam folder. See any files with attachments? Subject lines like “Invoice” or “Purchase Order” from people you were not expecting or don’t even know signal trouble. Do not open those files! You may have been spearphished, targeted because of who you are or where you work.

So with all the talk about “Russian hacking”, this Department of Homeland Security Release detailing what they believe to be an organized campaign against employees of critical infrastructure, academia, and business puts the talk in perspective.

It is probable that no vote tally was changed as a result of any “Russian hacking”, but to discount the real threat to American society of organized hacking campaigns by foreign governments is foolhardy.

Chrome OS – The Right OS for Many

I am convinced that Google’s Chrome OS is highly underrated and under appreciated. I have been testing an ARM based Chromebook as well as an ARM based Chomestick with great results. If your primary email address is @gmail.com, and if most of your computer activity is email, messaging, and light document prep, you don’t need the complexity of Windows or Linux. And, if you think that Mac OS is simple to use, you have not tried Chrome.

The Asus CS10 boasts a quad-core RockChip 3288-C CPU, 2 GB RAM, and 16 GB eMMC.

I especially like the Asus Chromebit that arrived yesterday and which is now stuck on the back of a several year old Sony Bravia in the den. I plan to use it where I need a web browser to access content that is not already integrated into TiVo. Paired with a small Logitech wireless keyboard, it is all I need in the den and will free up the i5 Windows 10 machine that was previously used for web streaming.