Why don’t men (males) get more info?

Because we just do not care. I don’t listen to gossip (for the most part) and don’t care about it one way or the other. Most men are similar. Women are raised in a totally different social milieu where gossip is prized. Men are not, for the most part. It just means little to us therefore.

Relatedly, I had a couple of fairly close friends in the army and I didn’t even know their first names (everyone uses last names or army nicknames there). No idea if they had any siblings or much else about them. Not uncommon for men at all. Can’t even imagine that with a woman.

Which (non IT) department do you find has the least technical knowledge, and which one has the most?

HR and Accounting usually have the least knowledge. If you ask someone in HR what application they were using when an issue occurred, typically you’ll get a response like “Adobe Windows” or something nonsensical like that. I’ve had people in HR claim that their Windows has “never had a Start menu.” (Spoiler alert: it did and always had.)

Accounting people tend to be good at specific things in Excel, but nothing else. I’ve had a few who didn’t even really know how to log into their PCs. Which, you know, you’d think after 15+ years of doing so they’d get the hang of it. But you’d be wrong.

The most knowledgeable outside of IT tend to be business analysts, probably because like sysadmins (and related) in IT, they have to understand systems and they have to be good at many, many things. I’ve had a few BAs over the years teach me a thing or two I did not know (usually a keyboard shortcut or some reg hack). And that’s extremely rare, to say the least.

In Japan, vending machines are practically everywhere…Even at the summit of Mt. Fuji (12,389 ft above sea level), there are vending machines.

I didn’t see any vending machines, but there was a shop/snack stand near the top of Mt. Sinai in Egypt. I climbed that mountain in 1996, the route with the 3,750 “steps of penitence.” And that was a lot of steps. And when you finish, calves aflame, you see the inspiring sight of a bunch of other mountains that look just like it. That is, kinda tan and featureless.

Did it once, would not do it again.

The Covidians like to pretend and retcon that they did not drastically overreact to Covid, but if you go back and read their essays and tweets — dang, that is some pure fucking crazy there. Many were advocating that restaurants and nightclubs be closed down forever and anything fun halted for all time. Tons were carping about people going to the beach even after vaccination was widespread. Which, you know, is about the safest thing you could possibly do.

And many of them are still acting like whiny, undersupervised children but fortunately nearly everyone is ignoring them now. They are more suited for light amusement now than a real problem, so I hardly write about them any longer. I just look and do a sensible chuckle, then look away.

Anyone who thinks the Russian invasion and attempted genocide in Ukraine has anything to do with NATO expansion or Nazis in Ukraine is approaching Ian Welshian levels of cracksmoking fuckwittery.

It’s just the standard authoritarian revanchism; dreaming of mythical lost empires.

English can be a difficult language. It can be learned through tough thorough thought throughout, though.

I hate smartphones so much. If this is the future, the future sucks. We made a mistake — let’s go back.

If the left were really concerned with power imbalances in relationships, they should only allow people within 5 IQ points of one another to date. Now that’d be something real, unlike most of what they care about.

But the left can’t even credibly talk nor think about IQ, so that aspect gets ignored completely. But I can tell you from observation and experience it’s much, much, much easier to dominate someone where you hold a brainpower advantage than it is someone you hold a wealth advantage over or are merely older than they are. (How I know is that my mom, after my parents’ divorce, admittedly and purposefully only dated men much dumber than she was, and she ran them like they were marionettes. Again, this was a deliberate strategy on her part.)

I’m not famous, but am attractive and successful. And my bullying between fifth and ninth grade was so bad I got hit in the head hard enough with a tree branch one time I had trouble walking for days afterward. I have scars inside my cheeks from being punched in the face a lot. And my nose is busted up. Battle scars.

But it did get better. Those were bad years, though. For a while I had basically no friends and was a complete misfit. This is what happens when you’re poor, smart, and raised by wolves in a rural area. But I’m doing great now. However, I wouldn’t wish on anyone what happened to me. If it weren’t for books and music, I’m not sure I would’ve made it. In fact I know I would not have.

The first ten on today’s playlist:

A company that the org I work for does business with was grousing that we were quarantining their email. Which, we were. And that’s because their email server was an open relay spewing spam every which way. For those not in the know, an “open relay” means that if someone knows how, from anywhere on the internet and with no authentication, someone can send email pretending to be anyone else to anyone at all. I got tired of this company claiming the email issues were on our end and decided to do something about it.

So I connected to their broken-ass server and sent an email “from” President Joe Biden [joe.biden@whitehouse.gov] to everyone on their email chain, including all the people whining and complaining. The first part said, “This is President Joe Biden mailing you from your completely open email server to let you know it’s as secure as a screen door on a submarine.”

They were angry, but it got the point across. And they fixed their shit right after that. Sometimes people don’t listen so you have to make them pay attention.

Thank you, Mr. President, for your assistance. 😉

The North Carolina State Senate on Wednesday voted 30–15, along party lines, in favor of a Republican bill that would make it illegal for people in the state to wear a mask in public for health reasons.

Well, there’s a lot of reasons we’d never live in NC or FL again. This is one of them.

Gonna see Waxahatchee on Saturday. It’ll be in Oakland, so I gotta stay strapped so I don’t get clapped. Ok, just kidding. I’m not going to have any heavy weaponry, but I will have a decoy wallet just in case. And we won’t leave anything in the car.

America has some dangerous-ass cities, even with the drop in crime. It’s not quite Mexico bad, but it’s still pretty damn bad as much as the libs want to minimize the issue to score political points.

The first ten on today’s playlist:

I want to put up a framed picture of a picture of myself taking a picture of a picture of myself.