It’s perfectly normal to have a live listening device inside the privacy of your home, say trendy tech savvy people.
Category Archives: News
oh, no, it’s happening again :(
Why do we do this other stuff? Why not. If nothing else, football gives us a chance to relax from the deeper issues we post here at TAP. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to a third blog to post (one way or the other) about my opinions on the latest FBI firing.
Either that, or jump over to our sister site. Bask in the high quality website design. Pay no attention whatsoever to the actual written content. Either way.
Geoffrey’s bound for the woodshed
Does anybody remember Geoffrey the Giraffe? To be honest, until this morning I’d completely forgotten he existed. Even reading the articles about how Toys R Us is finished didn’t prompt me to remember. Only when I started to write this post did I recall.
Here’s the backstory. In 1948 following service in The War, Charles P. Lazarus descended into the African jungle in search of nothing but the highest quality products he could sell to the people, namely bicycles. He employed the finest in German explorers (unemployed since May 1945), coolies, and technology. After getting lost in the bush, soon only Lazarus remained alive. Soon to expire, he awoke from his pre-death slumber held in the firm embrace of one Geoffrey the Giraffe.
As he was slowly nursed back to health over many months, Geoffrey explained to Lazarus that the real money was in selling toys and baby products to the Boomer generation. Lazarus agreed to implement Geoffrey’s plan, but only on the condition that Geoffrey ended his self-imposed three-thousand year isolation and rejoin the known world. And so for near seven decades Toys R Us existed and Geoffrey delighted millions with his special powers.
Well, that was fun, but now the ride is over. Geoffrey is said to have tried to make a break for it. He’d procured tickets on a tramp steamer bound from Brooklyn to Kinshasa. But assassins in the pay of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts Bain Capital (who own Toys R Us) got him on the quay at 3am as he was trying to sneak up the mooring line. Rather than rejoin the jungle to wait for three-thousand years again, Geoffrey’s getting taken to the woodshed. At KKR Bain’s exclusive Adirondack retreat. But KKR Bain’s Masters are merciful, the deed will be done quickly.
It’ll be hard for future generations to understand just how central Toys R Us once was to the American experience. Now, gone. Any coincidence that it’s end came as a result of a private equity firm mismanaging it and filling it up with endless debt? I think not. I’m sure KKR made billions in profit off Toys R Us’ demise. But it still doesn’t change the long term dive in retail.
Six months ago after a personal experience with bad stores, I predicted the doom of retail. I thought this would take decades. But perhaps the rout has already begun.
Maybe in less than a decade there will only be the following physical stores left:
– Ultra Cheap Retail (Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, etc)
– Cheap Retail (Walmart, Target, etc)
– Niche Rich (Starbucks, Small Bookstore, Craft (of any variety), etc)
– Groceries
– Restaurants
– Pharmacies
– Home Improvement
And in the end, maybe it won’t be that bad after all. I took a look at the top 50 retailers in America. Of all those 50, here are the ones that don’t fit into my list:
Best Buy
Macy’s
TJX
Sears
Kohl’s
Nordstrom
Ross
JC Penny
Gap
L Brands
Bed, Bath, and Beyond
Toys R Us was #62. So that’s roughly 15-20% of all stores are doomed. That’s a lot, but it’s not like it’s 50%. So I guess the rout / realignment has already started.
Poor Geoffrey, RIP.
oh, no, it’s happening again :(
Why do we do this other stuff? Why not. If nothing else, football gives us a chance to relax from the deeper issues we post here at TAP. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to a third blog to post (one way or the other) about my opinions on NFL players kneeling or standing during the national anthem.
Either that, or jump over to our sister site. Bask in the high quality website design. Pay no attention whatsoever to the actual written content. Either way.
Giant Octopi, The Little Guy, and the curse of the Trump lens
I would gather that if I walked up to ten people on America’s streets and asked them what Qualcomm is, nine of them would provide one of these answers:
1) the quality control program my stupid boss(es) make me use
2) an internet or phone company
3) a robot assassin bent on revenge for the untimely murder of his girl
4) a blank stare indicating the person’s desire not to talk to idiots like me
Only one in ten would know they’re carrying Qualcomm in their pockets. If the brave new modern world is one where your smartphone is more important than having two functioning hands, then Qualcomm is more important to your life than your ability to digest food.
Qualcomm chips and semiconductor technology run in almost every new thing of the internet age. They have a monopoly on the business that would make even the most jaded of 19th Century railroad tycoons sweat with envy.
For years Qualcomm has been investigated, fined, sued, yelled at by its customers, rivals, and competitors as one of the very worst of the Giant Octopi. Qualcomm’s two biggest current problems are a massive lawsuit from Apple (which I find delicious given Apple’s known desire to cheat its own customers) and a $1.2B fine from the EU’s competition watchdogs. Over the last decade Qualcomm has likely kept food on the table for at least 13,487 lawyers, judges, court clerks, court security guards, and court security doggies.
Nobody knows about these things or cares. To them, their Apple or Samsung smartphone is Apple or Samsung. They don’t know or care that the chip that makes it all possible is from Qualcomm.
(As a brief aside, you need to admire the gall, guile, and skill of Intel’s marketing goons that got them front and center in the psyche of every computer user on the planet. In the 1990’s anybody who knew anything about a computer knew about Intel chips. You bought computers based on what Intel processor it had, and barely cared whether Dell or Compaq made the overall machine.)
So for those who don’t know what Qualcomm is, or are too busy wondering who Jennifer Aniston’s ninth husband will be, Qualcomm has been under a hostile takeover bid by Broadcom. Broadcom is another chipmaker based in Singapore. The purchase price offered was $117B. Yes, $117B. Or enough money to manufacture ten large aircraft carriers with swanky Slavic tracksuit racing stripes included.
This deal was always controversial because it would have further increased a trend in American business lately: CONSOLIDATION. There are only four major American airlines left. There are three major American cellular providers. Americans pay four or five times more for cable internet compared to other Western nations, and get slower speeds for the privilege.
So it was always a concern that Qualcomm and Broadcom could become one company, when Qualcomm is already essentially a Monopoly Man of the Giant Octopi. The question was if the Trump administration would allow the deal to proceed, or block it on anti-trust grounds?
Well, all of that’s changed yesterday. What’s happened instead is Trump has disallowed the deal on national security grounds. Essentially, USA is not going to allow THE American internet chipmaker to be owned by foreigners. Trump signed an order as such.
The Washington Post, as the newspaper of the capital, thus covers this story.
Because this is politics, and it’s DC, the article must of course focus upon Trump. According to the Post, Trump has signed this order because of his “protectionist instincts”. They even got some guy (everybody loves the anonymous quote now) to state that Trump wants the lesson “don’t screw with the government” and that the order is “brutal”. Again, “It smacks of anger on the part of the government to me. This feels a little more personal to me.” How dramatic. I’m seething with excitement at the rage drama associated with this esoteric technology topic.
So what we have here is a situation where one of the worst Monopoly Man companies on the planet wants to merge with another member of the Giant Octopi and then make the situation for the consumer even worse with a super-super Giant Octopi company. The US government stops this effort, for any reason at all, and the answer of the capital’s newspaper is it’s about Trump? Really?
You know, I’ve avoided saying this for a long time, because to me there’s almost no point addressing Trump. It is what it is. People think what they’ll think. Many people seem to have a visceral emotional reaction to Trump (one way or the other) that I just can’t understand. But essentially it’s this: Trump will be gone someday (likely in three years). Trump is who he is, for all the awfulness that he is. But one day he’ll be gone. But the Washington Post will still be here.
If I was a member of The Washington Post, I think I’d make it a point to understand that. Because essentially what has happened is The Washington Post, The New York Times, and most other major news organizations have mortgaged what little benign credibility they had left, in order to get at one singular man. I get it, I hate Trump too, but that credibility is never going to return. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not naïve, and certainly wasn’t before Trump came onto the scene, but it’s gone over the edge.
Hey remember when it was generally considered suspicious when a newspaper article quoted anonymous sources? Now it seems every news article is based on anonymous sources. Now I guess we just have to take it on faith that they didn’t get the quote from some guy down by the Sizzler. But seeing as how we can’t trust them [get Trump at any price] why would I believe anything an anonymous source says?
I’m never going to look at The Washington Post the same way again. It will always be an organization whose handlers sold their souls and journalistic integrity to get at one guy. To the point that they can’t even write an article about one of the most consequential technology topics of this year, without making it all about Trump.
Normally this wouldn’t be a massive problem. You’d be like, whatever, go read another newspaper each day. True. Except that every, single, person, in DC who makes decisions (Democrat or Republican) reads the Post every day. As in, the people who run government, and make decisions that impact people’s lives every day, are fed information by a publication that essentially has no credibility. That’s not a good place for any democracy to be in.
If the Post was a responsible newspaper, or at least understood their place in society, they would cover the Broadcom / Qualcomm deal through the lens of the status of monopolies, how the deal impacts American consumers (who pay more each day for their stuff because Qualcomm is corrupt), and also address the completely valid national security implications of handing Qualcomm to a foreign buyer. But instead, it’s about Trump and Trump and Trump, and the Trump lens. For everything.
That doesn’t help the Little Guy, it doesn’t help America, and that’s a sad, sad thing.
That this deal is dead, for any reason at all, is a good thing.
we analyze history to determine Xi’s future
Great news, everybody! As if the planet didn’t have enough problems, the most powerful man on the planet today just became a dictator. Now, lots of folks will claim that the title of most powerful should be Trump?
Nope. First off, Trump is too insane to be powerful, and in any case the power of any American President is severely constrained by the balance between branches of government.
In terms of raw power, the ability of one man to say a word and things immediately happen, it’s Xi. Here’s Xi applauding his own genius today after the rubber stamp goon squad parliament approved his ‘president for life’ title with a 99% vote.
Where will China be or go under one man rule with absolute total power? Hmm, well, let’s take a look at history to see how dictators actually perform by the track record:
failed artist
body count higher than Hitler’s
greatest serial killer in human history
hated by more Americans than Trump
presided over a Hollywood that molested it’s own women, did nothing about it, but oh man, he’s, he’s just so good looking
defenestration extraordinaire
The genius of America’s Founding Fathers was their understanding that no human being is capable of effectively and morally exercising unconstrained power. Trump is the reason America’s government is slow, ineffective, and dirty. They wrote the Constitution with the understanding that one day a Trump might be president.
America has had terrible, terrible presidents before too. I’m looking at you James Buchanan. But the country in general can move on. In three years when Trump is gone (unless the Democrats do something unserious, like nominate Oprah) the country will move on mostly the same.
To put it bluntly, humans suck. We’re a total mess. No one person is good enough or smart enough or talented enough to rule without checks on their person. Even Lincoln, who is in the running for greatest human who ever lived, made mistakes and it was fortunate that he had other people (like an aggressive Congress) to challenge him. It made him better.
Xi seems like a smart guy, but apparently doesn’t understand history. He thinks China needs one man rule to deal with it’s challenges. But history is merciless. And it shows us that dictators fail. China has many problems that require strong balanced leadership. But as of today, China’s biggest problem is Xi.
don’t know what to raffle? we’re here to help
They’re running a raffle at my work right now. People give money against their fellow employee’s name. The person with the most money off the draw on their name gets a pie in the face. They then take the money for the employee recreational fund. I don’t know how this is legal. Current workplace behavior laws are at the point it’s against the rules to ask a person what they had for dinner last night because that’s personal business. But we can hit somebody with a pie? I wonder what would happen if the person refused? Would they get held down by multiple people in some type of weird pie based hazing ritual?
I guess they could have raffled a gun? That’d be really fun. For, I guess, this is something people actually do. Lost among the usual recent, and entirely futile, gun violence headlines is this thing I saw where people are upset that a few (as in, more than one) active workplace raffles on the planet involve winning an AR-15. I don’t know how this is legal either. In most cases (local gun laws are more complex than trying to follow a Brazilian soap opera) I think the way it’s supposed to work is if you buy an assault rifle it’s for you. I’m not sure how you buy one, and then raffle it off like it’s a fruit basket.
Whatever. Both these raffle ideas are terrible. But don’t worry! We at TAP are here to help. Please pay attention as we explain how you can execute the very best of workplace raffles. Your cooperation, as always, is truly appreciated. As always, we truly desire to keep liquidation to an absolute minimum.
– Baby Lemur!
What’s the point in raffling a puppy or kitty? Boring. Everybody does that. Step up your game! Nobody on the planet has ever raffled a baby lemur. Trailblazing is one of the exciting parts of life. Live your life to the fullest! Can you imagine the look on your smiling coworker’s face when they awake at 3am and this little guy is perched on their comforter? What a moment! Little dude looks like a serial killer. I wonder if those eyes glow in the dark. That’d be awesome.
– Five Gallon Can of Unleaded Gasoline!
Everybody needs gas for things, cars, lawnmowers, torching the local Kia dealership, tire fire riots against the establishment, and so on. You rig the bidding by generating a fake news article (it’s easy nowadays, apparently) saying that the Saudi Aramco terminal in Dhahran exploded. Gas prices are going to triple overnight. But you, of all workplaces, are prepared as you have this can sitting on the break table. Be advised, most humans are crazy, so after showing the article you’ll need a security guard to watch the can and escort the winner out of the building.
– One Ham Sandwich!
Keep raffle costs down to the bare minimum with this most classic of winning lunchtime creations. What’s that you say? Nobody will ever bid on a ham sandwich? Wrong. This is where you’ll need the support of your boss(es). Most workplaces are traditionally run by fear, or incompetence, or both. It’s why Dilbert exists. All you need is for your superiors to threaten to fire anybody who doesn’t bid on the sandwich. They’ll be joking (hopefully) but only you and your boss(es) will know that.
– Battered VHS Copy of E.T.!
Oh man, I haven’t seen this film in two decades. Remember the heartwarming scene where the FBI guys accidently shoot Elliott and fumble around trying to get the burner gun into Elliott’s little fingers while they erase their body cam footage? And then E.T. uses his powers to explode all their brains inside their skulls in a grim vengeful rage, calmly saying “Elliott” as he methodically downs each screaming FBI guy one-by-one? Man, I loved that part as a kid the best. Oh, and somebody will bid on this tape. There’s at least one hipster in every office.
– Toy Car!
It is within our base human nature to be incessantly cruel to one another. If you doubt me, kindly take a stroll through any Walmart parking lot. The raffle is openly for a toy car. But you get the office jerk (most have more than one option) to begin leaking that he heard the boss say the car is a real car. The enthusiasm will build and somebody will win hoping that it’s true and that their life is about to change. Instead you mike drop the toy car on them and walk out. That somebody else is miserable will greatly increase the overall quality of your day.
– M134 Minigun!
If you can get away with raffling off a rifle why would you set your expectations so low? Show your employees you have the imagination and determination necessary to exceed even the most ridiculous of standards. Plus, as the Las Vegas shooting has shown a standard AR-15 isn’t enough anymore. In order to truly defend yourself you need firepower. And man, does this baby deliver! As long as you don’t happen to encounter an alien in a jungle, you’re good to go.
– Complementary Copy of TV Guide!
The most irrelevant of magazines is a good star of your raffle because it will only highlight how far we’ve come as a human race since the days where its use was actually needed. Think of it, once you had to use TV Guide to figure out what was on tonight. Now your television can tell you that electronically. Granted, mass shootings are 73 times more prevalent, our politicians are insane, giraffes still roam the Earth, and we’re poisoning our oceans (and bloodstreams) with minute particles of plastic, but, but really, your television’s got the guide in it now. Progress!
goodbye Robert Gabriel Mugabe, nobody will miss you
Too bad the guy replacing him is pretty much the same kind of evil man.
Once upon a time, this nutcase on television was considered a hero. No more.
what’s within the ‘big void’?
Great news, everybody! There’s a front page news story that doesn’t involve politics, sexual assault, destroyed human flesh, or politics. It’s the question of what’s up with this supposed big empty space discovered inside of Khufu’s giant ode to human waste, aka the Pyramids.
For the uninitiated, the Pharaohs built the Pyramids as giant teleportation chambers that were intended to take their souls to eternity as gods. The structures took decades to build and cost countless human lives. But as I’ll always say, who the hell are we to say this was stupid and didn’t work? For all we know Khufu is indeed seated upon his throne in Valhalla swilling barley wine from a highball glass shouting, “Foools!”
So basically a bunch of scientists have used new technology to look inside the rock of the Pyramid and have determined there are two empty voids inside the Pyramid, as shown in this diagram I ripped from the BBC:
Oh my, what the fuck could those be? Who knows. But we’ll speculate here, because why not? We’ve got nothing better to do.
1) These voids don’t actually exist, the technology is wrong, and instead these areas are just solid rock. Human hope and adventure are destroyed in agony as we realize all the breadth and scope of the human spirit still can’t develop technology capable of scanning a five-thousand year old piece of stone.
2) The bigger void is actually the Valhalla Purgatory Sexual Assault Branch Clinic. It was established by Pharaoh Apophis II after his demise in 2867 BC at the hands of an aggrieved female attendant. Weinstein, Spacey, Trump, and Clinton are all bound to do time there. They all get there down the road, and they find Louis XIV is seated in a wicker chair at the entrance. Louis pulls on his cigarette, and wryly states, “Welcome Gentlemen, pull up a chair, you’re going to be here for a while.” [pulls on cigarette]
3) The rock in the voids has crumbled for some reason due to the Pyramid settling, or natural erosion, or through mistakes by the original builders. In ancient times these weren’t voids but solid stone, but now they’ve emerged over the thousands of years since construction.
4) The voids were created in 2008 in secret by Jeff Bezos. It houses the “Arcane Division” of Amazon Web Services. Held on the bank of servers within is the hopes, dreams, fears, and buying habits of every man, woman, and child on Earth, to include whether the most destitute man alive wants to buy a comb or not. Bezos figured the Pyramid was the safest place to build this as, “No matter how crooked I am, how many politicians I bribe, or how hated I am, they can’t possibly blow up the Pyramids, right?” [lights cigar with Ben Franklin; puffs on cigar]
5) Khufu had a handball court built in there, just because he could. 3K slaves died to make it happen. It was sealed inside the rock. He never played on it once. This amused him every time he thought about it.
6) It’s where the aliens hid the bomb.
7) The Pharaoh’s builders made the voids to account for star fluctuation based upon their astronomical measurements (yes, they did this) and mathematical calculations. The intent to was to mass accelerate the Pharaoh’s divine journey into oblivion.
8) Beer repository for the afterlife. Khufu had 9K years of beer stored in there so he could swill in Valhalla with glorious abandon. What happens after the beer runs out in 4K years? Khufu hasn’t thought that far ahead, it makes him sad when he does. And in any case, all things being equal, Khufu never thought humanity would last this long anyways without blowing ourselves up.
9) Khufu had the chamber built just to mess with people’s brains. They’re entirely empty. They serve no purpose.
10) The chambers were hand carved from the bare rock by one time Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs, closet Bayern Munich fan, amateur bridge player, and perverse sexual deviant Zahi Hawass. Within the confines of the void he toils on a daily basis to supplement his meager millions of previous income with his own line of Indiana Jones custom hats, archeology lectures, commentary upon the Jewish race, boom mike operator temp assignment business for the National Geographic, Discovery, and History Channels, and his own independent line of male perfume “Pharaoh’s Shaft”. None of this is a lie, just ask the great man himself! @ZahiHawass “TUTANKHAMUN – HIS TOMB & HIS TREASURES is in Sweden! Come to my lecture on Jan 31st at the Oscarsteatern, Stockholm” [Editor’s Note: the ALL CAPS is ALL ZAHI! ALL THE TIME!]
FOOOLS! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA! [swigs barley wine]
they get away with it
Being rich and powerful must be sweet. You can basically do whatever you want. You can buy expensive cars or booze or giraffes. Or I guess sexually harass whoever you want. Now you might have been shocked by the idea that Harvey Weinstein could do so many horrible things to so many women for decades without getting exposed, but when you really think about it this is pretty straightforward.
Why didn’t at least one of his many victims (especially in this twisted age of social media) say even one or two things to someone that made this stick before last week. Some of the most well known and powerful celebrity women and feminist advocates on the planet have now fingered this guy. Why didn’t one of them tweet like three years ago, “Harvey Weinstein is a deviant sexual predator, he tried to rape me. #rape #yesallwomen”
Why? Because Weinstein was powerful. It’s as simple as that. Weinstein was one of the top five guys in Hollywood. He ended people’s careers in seconds. It’s the way of things. One of the themes I’ve noticed these last few days as women finally spoke out is their internal dialogue about what was going through their brains when Weinstein did his evil acts.
All these women in their own way mention some kind of cost / benefit analysis. They’re in fear and protection mode as they try and escape the clutches of this shit creep. But at the same time their brain is in fear mode about what Weinstein will do to them if they don’t give in. This type of analysis is older than humanity itself. It’s been playing out with evil rich and powerful men since before fire was invented.
We’d like to think in our super modern and connected culture that people can no longer get away with this. But they still do, because it’s still human nature. All the tweets in the world can’t change the human brain.
Regardless of what you think of Bill Clinton or Ted Kennedy I think you can make a reasonable claim that if either of those guys worked at the Sizzler for minimum wage, that both of them would have done severe jail time and been disgraced. Instead, they are both essentially American heroes.
I’m shocked that Dennis Hastert ever got caught for the horrible things he did to boys. But if you’ll remember, Hastert wasn’t initially caught for sexual crimes. They wrapped up Hastert for violating the government limit of how many $10K bank account withdrawals you can make without reporting it to the tax man. Only later did the authorities realize what the money was for. Otherwise Hastert would have gotten away with it.
I’m not sure what all this means, other than that as always humanity is on a perpetual quest to self improvement. It also means you have to take a rather cynical view of what people say. Especially if the person talking is rich and powerful.
Weinstein’s been a big time bankroller for women’s rights and so forth for decades. And that whole time … , well, that’s also why they get away with it. It’s the smokescreen to cover up who they really are.
Notice how Weinstein is already making the usual public relations statements about screwing up, learning, personal growth, etc. He doesn’t seem to realize he’s truly done. He still things he’s in control. That’s how twisted his brain is. He still thinks he can get away with it. That’s the biggest thing to learn about this above all.
Rich and powerful bad dude, rarely caught.
The Arcturus Project 