Author: Kim du Toit

Security

Drive Time, Old Fartism

I have often — and it must be said, not unreasonably — been accused of being an old stick-in-the-mud who too often prefers the old days and old ways to much of modern life.  Here’s an example.

Back when I first lived in the Chicago suburbs (circa 1987-92), I drove an ancient 1970s Subaru GL like this one (only in nowhere near as good condition):

I don’t remember exactly how many miles it had been driven before I got it, but I suspect it was around the upper-120,000 mark.  This car had the advantages of a) being fully paid-off and b) having astonishingly-frugal gas consumption.

Reliability was likewise excellent, in no small part due to its regular maintenance at the hands of Dave, the cheerful owner of Eurocar Services in Des Plaines.  It was Dave who would call me to explain yet again how this or that part was starting to fail, always mentioning how long I could continue to drive it before it actually did, how much it would cost to fix it, and his recommendation as to when I would have absolutely no choice but to do so.  (He also taught me how to “cheat” my way past the strict Illinois emissions test, because there was no way it would have passed without said cheating.)

In this way, I managed to drive the “Scoobydoo” (his affectionate name for it) for about four more years before finally having to get rid of the thing;  because when your clothes start to smell of exhaust smoke when you get out of your car, it’s usually a sign from God or whoever that The Time Has Come.

I should point out that while Dave owned a computer diagnostic machine for the newer cars which could accommodate it, he was just as happy to work on ancient cars like mine that didn’t.

The above memory was triggered by this little story:

More than a million Range Rover and Jaguar drivers could face huge delays in getting their motors repaired after a devastating cyber-attack crippled Jaguar Land Rover.

The British car manufacturer has become the latest big-named firm to have been hit by hackers.

Bosses at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) were forced to scramble on Sunday, hastily shutting down global computer systems to protect sensitive information.

Efforts are still ongoing to reboot the company’s stricken systems, with the fallout effectively paralysing dealerships and garages, which can no longer order new parts from JLR.

Mechanics across the Indian-owned firm’s franchised dealership network rely on JLR’s diagnostic tech to identify faults and electronic catalogues to order replacement parts.

However, with these systems still crippled, it means owners of vehicles like the Range Rover, Discover and Defender models, as well as Jaguar sports cars, that need to be repaired are now stuck in limbo. 

JLR has insisted it is working to resolve the issue but warned its retail and production activities have been ‘severely disrupted’. 

It is unclear how long it will take the car builder to restore its IT network.

This would never have happened to my friend Dave, because of course he used to order parts by phone from a local supplier, or (as happened more than once) actually driving over himself to a supplier or junkyard to get what he needed.

Was it as efficient as the process is today?  Of course not.  Was it as vulnerable to outside interference as today’s techno-dependent process?  Also not.

Here’s my take.  If it were possible, I’d drive a 1974 Subaru GL (assume new or low-mileage secondhand) today long before I’d drive a JLR product of any variant — not the least because if your driving needs are relatively modest (as are mine), you can get by very well indeed without all that modernistic, expensive and vulnerable bollocks.

As long as there was a Dave around to maintain it.  And I know that Dave is a vanishing breed;  but I also know that he’s not extinct, and never will be — because there will always be some guys who take pleasure in tinkering with mechanical stuff, and gawd love them for it.

Okay, there are a couple of Jaguar (not “JLR”) cars I’d be equally happy to drive, but they would require a winning lottery ticket.

…and nary a computer chip to be found anywhere in them.  For these cars, there will always be a Dave.

Rock, Meet Hard Place Ep. 34

Crime, Morons & Idiots

Great Caesar’s bleeding eyeballs, how stupid can you get?

Most Democrats think that crime is a “major problem” in large cities, but they oppose sending National Guard troops to respond to the problem, according to a new AP-NORC poll.

Let me try to understand this.

Let’s leave aside the (quite-logical) assumption that Democrat government in our cities don’t really give a rat’s ass about the crime problem in their respective jurisdictions, and grant the point that they are trying to do something about the problem.

And failing.

I probably shouldn’t do this, but I’m also going to ignore the fact that the 2020 mostly-peaceful BLM demonstrations/riots led to appalling destruction of said cities, and Democrat city governments didn’t only try to quell the unrest, but basically encouraged it either by actual statements, or by inaction.

While that kind of lawlessness seems to have abated, what’s happened since is an appalling rise in violent crime:  muggings, murders, burglaries and so on have all rocketed skywards, and continue to do so.

However you frame the issue, one thing is crystal clear:  Democrat politicians can’t address the crime problem in the large cities.

What options, then, remain to anyone who actually does want to find a solution?

Well, during the aforesaid BLM riots, Trump 45 didn’t send in the National Guard, leaving it up to the local governments to deal with it.  And they didn’t.

Trump 47 recently sent in the Guard to clear up the crime problem in Washington D.C., and the city has, in the space of a couple weeks or so, become a safe place to live.  (Note that the only “opposition” to Trump’s intervention in D.C. has come from people — White Old Farts — who either don’t live there or else aren’t affected by the crime personally.  The actual — mostly Black — residents of D.C. are overjoyed that their city has become a safer place to live, and are not part of the demonstrations.)

So why, I ask, would Democrats oppose the same treatment for the rest of the crime-ridden cities?

Because it’s Trump doing the sending.  And Orange Man Bad.

Feckless fools, they are — both the Democrat politicians and their supporters.

Miracle Pill?

Health

Most vitamins are useless — at least, they’re at best harmless (unless overdosed, of course) — because most of it is just passed through urine.  It must be true because I read that in an encyclopedia (my Junior Readers can ask their grandparents to explain how the Internet was once all contained on paper, in leather-bound books — also ask for an explanation of “books”).

Where was I?  Oh yeah, vitamins.

Turns out that some are actually quite useful, at least until next week, when another group of “scientists” will tell us that Vitamin D gives us congenial herpes or something.

As you can probably guess from the above, I don’t set much store by vitamins;  the only one I do take religiously is the aforesaid Vitamin D, because I don’t go out into the sunshine a lot (I can get sunburned walking to the mailbox, hello Texas), and my doctor said I should or else Bad Things would most certainly happen to me.  In fact, when I go for my annual checkup, it’s the one thing he’s most careful to ask me about.  “Still taking that Vitamin D 1000u each day?  Good.  Keep doing that.”

Turns out that’s a Good Thing, for all the reasons explained in this little piece (via Insty once more;  thankee, Squire).

Of course, there’s a catch.  No, not the herpes thing, I just made that up.  Turns out that for my age, a daily 800-1000u is just the ticket;  but too much can make the telemores too long, which is a Bad Thing.

No, I don’t have the foggiest either;  you’ll just have to read it all for yourself.