View 841 Saturday, September 06, 2014

Edits and additions through Monday, September 8, 2014

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

President Barack Obama, January 31, 2009

Today was the day I was going to catch up, but at 2 PM I was still in my pajamas and hadn’t had lunch yet. I generally dress upstairs in my bathroom, so I have breakfast in my pajamas, so that wasn’t unusual; but about 10, when I was ready to go up to shower and dress, Roberta came to tell me of a tale of woe. Saturday she generally tries to Skype with one or another grandchild, and before she talked to one of them she had wanted to look up something about the education system, and she couldn’t do it. Her Internet browser exploded in advertisements, and she couldn’t even find Google. Clearly something had got into her system that ought not be there.

I went in to have a look. It was a mess all right. Something had changed the home page of both Internet Explorer and Firefox to Trovi, as well as the search engine. There were other problems. Control Panel showed me a number of programs I’d never heard of were installed. I removed several of them – Roberta couldn’t remember using them – but when it came to trovi and sizlysearch, the Microsoft operating system couldn’t remove them. Instead I was taken to a web browser page with one of those “are you human?” things to fill out which would take me to the Trove Uninstaller. God knows what that would do to her system, so I declined the offer. Task Manager showed me that several trovi and sizlesearch processes were running. I could close them, but seconds later they came back again.

Same with Internet Explorer and Firefox: I went in to remove all addins and extensions, but neither sizylsearch nor trovi could be disabled; the disable button was greyed out. There were a couple of other undisableable addins.

Since the search engines weren’t reliable as a means of finding out how to get rid of hijacked search engines, I asked my advisor team for advice, and also went up to my own systems to see what I could find. Online searches with uncontaminated systems told me that Trovi and Sizylsearch were notorious: not exactly malware, but certainly adware, and annoying. They also intentionally made it difficult to eliminate them, which moves them to malware status in my judgment.

Meanwhile, I had turned on Microsoft Security Essentials deep scan on Roberta’s machine. When I went back to her system the screen was dark. Nothing I could do with keyboard or mouse would get me a signal from it. Curiouser and curiouser. I pushed the hardware on/off button. A message about restoring windows appeared. That seemed a bit odd, but Windows came up all right, along with a Microsoft Security Essentials report that it had found WORM: Win32/GAMARUE and removed it. Looking that up advises me to scan any hard drive that her system has ever been connected with. That’s fairly easy since her machine isn’t part of the Chaos Manor networking system, and she doesn’t access other sites here. I also restarted Microsoft Security Essentials and told it to do a full deep scan. This took a while, but eventually it ran to completion having found no other malware.

Except there was: that is, if you count swizlesearch and trovi as malware. They were both still active, raining ads in new windows and generally being aggressive, enough so that her system was in essence unusable on the Internet. Also something about extreme weather was periodically giving us voice messages along with sponsoring commercials.

By now I had a consensus among both advisors and from my on line search: what I needed was malwarebytes.org and their scanner. I could not get Internet Explorer to go where I wanted it to. I couldn’t get internet Explorer even to open a new tab with a right click. Trovi really owned that program. I turned to Firefox. At least I could get a new tab, but I noted that Google was no longer available as a search engine.  I had to trick Firefox into going there by directly typing the full https://malwarebytes.org address into the address window – no search needed – and even then it popped up three more windows – not tabs, but new windows –  each offering technical expertise about malwarebytes.org but none of them having that address. They were pretenders hoping I’d go to them for help rather than malwarebytes.org.  I patiently closed each of those windows and the next ones that popped up,and some after that,  and by then the original window had got itself to the malwarebytes.org site. That site offers a free and a paid scan download. I chose free. That came down fast, and I ran the installation program. It updated itself, and began the scan; in seconds it had detected 19 threats. I looked at them (clicked details) and lo! sizlsearch had four entries, and Trovi had three. There were others including extreme weather reporting – it was that one which kept giving us sound messages along with sponsors – and some other stuff that I’d never seen before.I kept checking the scan progress, and it was finding a few every few minutes. Eventually it found 49, and announced the scan complete. I let the malwarebytes scanner quarantine them all, reset Roberta’s machine, said a few words of potent white magic, and when her system came up I opened Internet Explorer.

I was greeted by the Google home page, which is what Roberta uses. Trovi had hijacked that, but now Trovi was nowhere to be seen. Task manager showed that no trovi or sizyle processes were running, and now, several hours later, they are still gone. Of course we’re changing passwords just in case.

And I downloaded the malwarebytes.org scanner to this machine and ran it: it found one ancient file it wanted to quarantine, but nothing else. I’ll buy the professional edition and set it to scan all the other machines up here at intervals, since it catches stuff that Windows Security Essentials doesn’t believe is malware.. And it’s 4:30 in the afternoon.

A Republic if you can keep it.

So I still haven’t caught up. I have to pay bills, and there’s other stuff that didn’t get done while I was still in my pajamas at 2 PM. But I’ve dressed, showered, had my lunch, and I’ve put this in the day book, from where it will be easy enough to consult for writing into the column, and now it’s time to post this and pay the bills. I have some other stuff to write about, including the difference between a democracy, which the Framers of 1787 detested – “There never was a democracy that didn’t commit suicide…” – and a republic, which is what Franklin said they had created. “A republic. If you can keep it.”

While I was dressing I thought about the concept of “fair play” and “fair game”.  In the old honor system, some people were outside it: they were not treated as honorable opponents, they were “treated as wolves are.” This was the sentence passed by the Roman Senate on the surviving members of the Catalinarian rebellion.  To be regarded and treated as wolves are.  I suppose we are too civilized for this, and we are bound to treat our barbarian enemies as if they were entitled to be treated as we do other men, but it makes you think.  Especially when they behead journalists and stone young girls for not marrying whom they are supposed to marry. Now of course I was thinking about the creators of trovi and sizylesearch and how we ought to think of them: they use Internet freedom to get as close to the malware line as they possibly can – there is some evidence that at least one of those started with the best of intentions – but end up costing thousands of people hours of time, adding up to more hours than there are in a long life; all wasted on countering their efforts.  That’s sort of the equivalent of murder. But I haven’t time to think all this through.  Another time.

But first I have to catch up. Beginning with paying the bills.

For those interested in travel and what we carried in the year 2000, see http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/adventure2000.html

Rick Hellewell, my security advisor, says

It looks like Sizlsearch is installed as part of a ‘you must install video software to view that movie’ kind of thing. Which should never be done. Prompts such as that are never to be trusted. If you think you need a video player, go to the source (Adobe Flash Player, I suppose) manually, never via a link or a message while browsing.

And, although Malwarebytes has a good reputation (as does Tom’s Hardware site), not sure that having two antivirus programs is a good idea.

But no anti-virus program will protect against a user installing an ‘add-on video player’, which is almost always a vector for installing malware.

I’d also recommend, after a power-off restart, a re-run of any malware scanner programs, just to make sure that things are safe.

…Rick…

Regarding two scanners, I can see they might interfere with each other, as each looks at the other’s data base.  An interesting experiment, and I do silly things so you don’t have to…

But note what Rick is saying. If you try to open a movie of the grandchildren, and up pops an offer to give you free software to view that movie with, don’t do it.  Leave the offer on screen and get someone who knows about this stuff to look at it. And be careful how you close that screen.  I generally close the whole browser rather than click anywhere in a potential malware screen, because just because it looks like a “close this window” place to click, you don’t know what it’s actually connected to.  Or at least I don’t. 

As to the programs needed to view that video, chances are you already have programs that will open that movie, and you only need to know how to do that,  But do not let accept the offer of free movie viewing software from some friendly but unknown site, and do not give unknowns permission to install stuff on your computer. And do not trust it simply because a once reliable publication says you can.  I’ve told you that twice before.  What I tell you three times is true.

And I am reminded that I should tell you that malwarebytes is not a primary anti-virus and worm defense.  Microsoft Security Essentials remains essential.  But MSE does not remove some of the annoyingware that can make you crazy. Malwarebytes.org will do that. Use them both.

The California Sixth Grade Reader http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LZ7PB7E/ref=as_li_tf_til?tag=chaosmanor-20&camp=14573&creative=327641 contains the stories and introductions from the original official California 6th Grade Reader in 1916. Similar readers, most of them containing the same stories as the California reader, were in use in well over half the other states. I had a Sixth Grade reader with most – nearly all – the same poems and stories in a country school, two grades to a room, in Capleville, Tennessee in 1943. These are the stories that Americans all had read, and formed part of the common American culture.  I have added a few introductions and a foreword directed to those who will be reading this book, and with a lot of help from readers and my advisors we have published it as an electronic Book. It is available on Amazon and readable in the free Kindle Apps for most tablets, PC’s, and smart phones like iPhone.  My six year old grand daughter likes some of the stories, particularly the one about Beethoven and the Moonlight Sonata.  

On closing malware popups:

Rick Hellewell, our security guy, says

A "normal" popup window will have the usual "x" in the upper right corner of the window, so you use that to close the errant window.

A popup window can be created without the ‘x’, or can disable the ‘x’ normal function. Or they can put a ‘fake’ ‘x’ button that actually does something else. So you may have to use another method.

If the popup window has the ‘focus’ (is the ‘active’ window), then you can try Alt+F4 to close it. Or you can look at the taskbar (usually the bottom of the screen) where you might find the indicator of multiple browser instances. You can then find the ‘bad’ instance, and right-click that instance to close it.

If that doesn’t work (sometimes new popups can be spawned), then you might need to go into the Task Manager (right-click the Task Bar, then select Start Task Manager; in Windows 8 I believe you can hit the Window button, then just type in Task Manager to start it). From there, you might see multiple instances of your browser program, and you can force stop it.

If still persistent, a last resort is a full shutdown/restart might be needed. And, after that, perhaps a malware scan might be in order.

This page has pictures and instructions on the process: http://www.wikihow.com/Close-an-Internet-Pop-Up .

…Rick..

Eric adds:

When in doubt I go to task manager and kill the browser entirely. "Nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure."

When in doubt use task manager.

And thanks for the sales spike in the California Sixth Grade Reader http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LZ7PB7E/ref=as_li_tf_til?tag=chaosmanor-20&camp=14573&creative=327641

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

View 841 Friday, September 05, 2014

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

President Barack Obama, January 31, 2009

This is a day book. That means that I start out not knowing what will happen or where I am going. Today’s experiences certainly came out that way.

Another day eaten in large part by locusts, and I got little done. I am also convinced that Microsoft hates me.

I had to drive Roberta out to Kaiser this morning. I took Precious, the Surprise Pro 3, for a test. While out there waiting I tried it out as a laptop, both with OneNote and Word 365, using both the Stylus/Pen and the keyboard. I’ll have all that in the column I am preparing which I will have up soon now (not, I hope, Real Soon Now; but things do tend to eat my time in unexpected ways). One thing I did learn: if you intend to use a Surface Pro 3 as a laptop – and it is entirely possible that you can – you will need to get a number of usage problems solved when you are home; learning them on the job isn’t feasible.

Also, if you are just beginning Word 365, and you are not familiar with Windows 8 (sometimes known as Microsoft’s New Coke) do not try to learn the two together on a Surface Pro 3. There are too many unfamiliar things to learn all at once, and you can’t be sure whether your trouble is Windows 8, Word 365, or the Surface.

Having learned that I decided that the first move would be to get familiar with the Word 365/Windows 8 combination; and if that was too difficult, install Office 365 on a Windows 7 machine. That seems logical – but then I discovered that although I bought and paid for Office 365 Business Plan, which allows me to install Office 365 on several machines, I did that with the Surface 3 Pro – and I have not the foggiest notion of how to install it on anything else. I tried logging in to Microsoft Office 365, but I have no notion of what the user name and password are. I bought the subscription, so I must have used something, but if I logged any of that I sure can’t find it, and my memory of the event is that there was nothing to log. I send in the credit card number and downloaded the software. Fortunately it was American Express, which means that I have a way to make Microsoft listen to me if I can’t figure this out, but I’d rather not have to fire that cannon.

If any of you KNOW what I should do – a Microsoft web site I can ask for help, or something – please send me mail. I bought Office 365, and paid for it; downloaded it to the Surface 3 Pro, and have successfully used full OneNote and Word on the Surface Pro,. Searching my Inbox for messages to me from Microsoft disclosed that on August 26 I paid for it, and there’s a link that actually seems to log me in automatically to my Office 365 account; it give no User Name and asks for no password, but it is aware that I downloaded Office 365 to Precious, the Surface Pro 3, and Swan, a Windows 8 Desktop. That tells me more than I knew before, because I didn’t remember that I had already downloaded it to Swan. Clearly I have been told how to download this to another machine, and I suspect I only need that link to do it for yet another system. I can hope. But it all seems a rather odd way of doing business.

I’ll have more to say about all this when I learn more. I am also eager to try this terabyte of cloud storage I get, supposedly common to all the machines I have this Office 365 on. Much to learn. But since it’s now on Swan – what I was trying to accomplish before I began this – I’m ready to learn some more. So I started this asking for help, but apparently I am able to help myself. It’s still the enough for the column, because I don’t do those until I have a happy ending, but I am getting closer…

The Ebola news continues to be alarming. There may or may not be some advances in treatment, learned from the use of survivors. This is well summed up in a Forbes on line article :

WHO Ebola Drug Panel: Use Survivor Serum To Treat Ebola Victims

The World Health Organization has just concluded a two-day consultation in Geneva among 200 health officials, regulators, ethicists, scientists and drug company representatives.

The goal was to produce a consensus statement on assessing the safety and efficacy of experimental Ebola preventives and treatments.

The most immediate action will be taken with convalescent patient serum for treatment and already-planned safety trials for two preventive vaccines. Three primary recommendations were made.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidkroll/2014/09/05/who-ebola-drug-panel-use-survivor-serum-to-treat-ebola-victims/

There are other recommendations, and it doesn’t take long to read. What everyone is being careful not to mention is the very real possibility that the Ebola virus may mutate producing a strain that can propagate itself through a vector, or directly through airborne cough particles. As I understand it, an odd mutation of influenza produced the Spanish Flu epidemic back in World War I times. I have no idea of what the probabilities are, but in these days of frequent air travel, I am sure many health safety officers are concerned that there will come a strain of Ebola that can infect before the symptoms are fully displayed. There are other unpleasant options. I hope the authorities are thinking about these matters.

My Tuesday newspaper tells me that President Obama is “enraged” at Israel:

Obama’s Curious Rage

Calm when it comes to Putin, ISIS and Hamas, but furious with Israel.

By

Bret Stephens

Sept. 1, 2014 6:32 p.m. ET

Barack Obama "has become ‘enraged’ at the Israeli government, both for its actions and for its treatment of his chief diplomat, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. " So reports the Jerusalem Post, based on the testimony of Martin Indyk, until recently a special Middle East envoy for the president. The war in Gaza, Mr. Indyk adds, has had "a very negative impact" on Jerusalem’s relations with Washington.

Think about this. Enraged. Not "alarmed" or "concerned" or "irritated" or even "angered." Anger is a feeling. Rage is a frenzy. Anger passes. Rage feeds on itself. Anger is specific. Rage is obsessional, neurotic.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/bret-stephens-obamas-curious-rage-1409610734?tesla=y&mg=reno64-wsj&url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204730204580127784230834408.html

I am probably the wrong one to comment on Israel and Gaza. Back when some influential people listened to me I took part in some policy discussions on what Israel might do, with particular attention to the actions of the settlers, and I was in favor of Israel drawing definite boundaries, removing the settlers from beyond the boundaries, and essentially unilaterally declaring a two-state solution. It’s more complicated than that, but the consensus was that if Israel got out of the occupied territories, sanity might return, particularly if there were good economic incentives. My advice was based in large part on familiarity with the plight of Christians in the occupied territories.

In any event, Israel decided to give something like that a trial, and at considerable cost brought the Israeli settlers out of Gaza and withdrew all Israeli troops from there. There followed some investments into Gaza. The hope was that Gaza might become something like Hong Kong. After all, at one time Beirut was known as the Paris of the Orient.

Clearly that didn’t work. Hamas took over and while there was considerable investment and construction, much of the investment went to rockets and much of the construction to tunnels for bringing in and concealing rockets; after which thousands of the rockets were fired in the general direction of Tel Aviv and other densely populated civilian areas of Israel. The Israelis have mostly been polite enough to avoid telling us they told us so.

Thus I am more likely to be enraged at those who used the opportunity to build rockets rather than infrastructure. I am not sure why one would become enraged at the Israelis for taking measures to prevent the rockets and destroy the tunnels. Of course that will involve asymmetrical casualties; what would one expect?

But I confess I am baffled that the President of the United States would be enraged at Israel. Perhaps this is misreporting, and I missed the refutation form the White House?

These were sent to me some time ago, and I marked them for posting with a comment.  I’m out of time for a comment but they are still worth your attention:

http://sultanknish.blogspot.ca/2014/07/know-your-military-colonists.html

http://warontherocks.com/2014/07/how-to-lose-the-robotics-revolution/

Pop culture metaphors applied to U. S. vs. Russia

The first that comes to mind is Blazing Saddles, Gene Wilder to Cleavon Little, on the subject of Mongo "Don’t shoot him, that’ll just make him mad.".

The second is the 09/05/2014 episode of Girl Genius www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php on dealing with attacking bears.

Obama in this case might be well advised to consider the candygram.

Tim Harness.

Never do your enemy a small injury, advises Machiavelli and just about anyone else who thought about it for a while…

Hi Jerry

I have enjoyed Larry & your books since high school, in regards to Australian temperature data sets our BOM (Bureau Of Meteorology) has reset all data obtained over 200 years.

It is a true scandal we actually have remote region records kept by families for 150 years (as official recorders) that is now not valid. I live in South Australia & from day one (1836) of settlement an official recorded meteorological data apparently most of this data is wrong. All data not compliant with global warming has been discarded, the reason is it doesn’t meet current standards.

If you use the recorded data hottest days in the 1930’s followed by 1890’s but due to adjustments every hot day since 1990 is a record (still lower than previous) The memory of those people that diligently recorded all things meteorological is being discarded, the disrespect of these persons is an insult to their legacy.

There are many regions where adjustment by BOM has turned cooling into warming, but worse than that they make media releases saying hottest day on record but don’t say record reset.

This is the easiest website to link to http://joannenova.com.au/2014/09/bom-homogenisation-in-deniliquin-creates-discontinuities-and-changes-trends/

Our our national newspaper The Australian has many examples, I am a practical person a humble tradesman but can see that I am being played here.

Chris

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

View 841 Wednesday, September 03, 2014

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

President Barack Obama, January 31, 2009

Yesterday was mostly a discussion of the man sent to a mental ward for writing a science fiction novel. https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/incarcerated-for-writing-a-science-fiction-novel/ my tentative conclusion was that this was more a case of bad reporting than anything else.

Dr. Pournelle,

Even though reassured by the better-sourced articles you’ve linked and commented upon, I’m still a little concerned that the McLaw situation could easily turn out to be Gulag-style thought crime persecution, and perhaps even more so than the recent seizure of a basketball team. We seem to only still have the authorities’ version of events.

-d

I hope you’re wrong, and I do believe that enough concern was aroused that competent reporters – there are still a few left in the journalism establishment – will discover the truth. As far as I can tell this was bad reporting, not malicious officials.  There do remain some good people in local government.  If we don’t believe that, we must conclude the the experiment begun in 1787 was a failure, and we could not keep the republic.  It degenerated into democracy and downhill from there, as the Framers feared it might.

But I just got tonight:   McLaw speaks!

Today’s LA Times Editorial Headline is “HOW TO PUT VLADIMIR PUTIN IN HIS PLACE.” The painless remedy, the TIMES tells us, is sanctions against Russian financiers and private companies. Another term for economic sanctions is economic warfare.

Today’s Daily Tech headline is Russian Hackers Hit Home Depot with "Massive" Credit Card Theft

Previously we had in the New York Times::

JPMorgan and Other Banks Struck by Hackers

A number of United States banks, including JPMorgan Chase and at least four others, were struck by hackers in a series of coordinated attacks this month, according to four people briefed on a continuing investigation into the crimes.

The hackers infiltrated the networks of the banks, siphoning off gigabytes of data, including checking and savings account information, in what security experts described as a sophisticated cyberattack.

The motivation and origin of the attacks are not yet clear, according to investigators. The F.B.I. is involved in the investigation, and in the past few weeks a number of security firms have been brought in to conduct forensic studies of the penetrated computer networks.

According to two other people briefed on the matter, hackers infiltrated the computer networks of some banks and stole checking and savings account information from clients. It was not clear whether the attacks were financially motivated, or if they were collecting intelligence as part of an espionage effort. Aside from JPMorgan, it was also not immediately clear which other banks were infiltrated.

JPMorgan has not seen any increased fraud levels, one person familiar with the situation said.

“Companies of our size unfortunately experience cyberattacks nearly every day,” said Patricia Wexler, a JPMorgan spokeswoman. “We have multiple layers of defense to counteract any threats and constantly monitor fraud levels.” Joshua Campbell, an F.B.I. spokesman, said the agency was working with the Secret Service to assess the full scope of attacks. “Combating cyberthreats and criminals remains a top priority for the United States government,” he said.

The intrusions were first reported by Bloomberg, which indicated that they were the work of Russian hackers. But security experts and government officials said they had not yet made that conclusion.

We have also had attacks on Target, Walmart, and other major consumer outlets.

I have seen no allegations from official Washington that Russian hackers are encouraged by their government, but I do notice a decided lack of vigor among Russian cybercops in pursuing these plausibly deniable computer experts.

So we are to put Putin in his place with economic warfare. I am reminded of the filk song “Bashing the Balrog.” Perhaps we need a new verse.

It would indicate that once you start bashing the balrog, the balrog gets to bash you. Economic warfare, like any war, is costly to all the participants. There is real damage. Most of it is to property, and the casualties are profits and bank accounts, but the damage and casualties are quite real even so; and most economic wars end with no real winners, and a great deal of residual resentment. There are no established rules of engagement or laws of economic war, and no clear paths to victory; and we have little experience in ending an economic war.  About forty years ago, RAND Corporation published several studies on the theme of “hostile trade”, mostly about Japanese foreign policy during the Shogunate. I presume there are later studies of economic war, but I’m not familiar with them. It does seem a hazardous venture.  Russia needs Russians, or Slavs who speak Russian, and needs them badly; Russian population decline is an existential threat to Putin’s nation, and his power to do something about it grows less with time.  The US possesses neither the means nor the will to prevent Russia from increasing its influence over, and probably eventually annexing, the Don area of the Ukraine.  Making what Russia sees as a vital interest cost a great deal more than it would without our economic war effort will not be ignored.

Bashing the balrog is an adventurous undertaking.

Perhaps this is what the President meant by a “reset” in relations with Russia? An economic Cold War?

An even stronger view:

‘Russia’s intervention in Ukraine isn’t madness; it’s a rational, realist response to what it correctly perceives as a geopolitical threat right there in its own backyard.’

<http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/how-the-west-drove-russia-into-ukraine/>

——-

Roland Dobbins

In fact, as we have consistently argued on spiked, the crisis in Ukraine owes far more to Western meddling than Russian. In fact, for the past 20 years, Western leaders have thoughtlessly, blunderingly provoked and frightened Russia over Ukraine. They have tried to pull Ukraine into the orbit of the EU, if not the EU itself. They have issued the half-baked offer of NATO membership to Ukraine, while simultaneously withdrawing it. And they have persistently, and self-aggrandisingly, talked of ‘promoting democracy’ in Ukraine and promulgating ‘Western values’. And what has made this so dangerous, what has led the region to the precipice, is that those selfsame Western actors pushing this policy-triad in the Ukraine don’t even recognise their intervention, their meddling, their clueless interference in Russia’s neighbour and one-time ally, for what it is: a provocation and a threat to Russia. 

It is in the American national interest to protect the Baltic Republics; but the Ukraine situation is very nearly an operational definition of a territorial dispute in Europe.  Some kind of federation within the Ukraine would make sense, but the West has shown no signs of understanding or encouraging that. It is not likely that a US economic war against Russia will benefit anyone at all.

I tried using Word 365 on my Surface Pro 3, and it was a disaster.  I am a sloppy typist, and one remedy to that is autocorrect: I change things like he3lp to help in autocorrect, and never have to worry about them.  The Surface Pro 3 keyboard is pretty good for a portable keyboard, but I still hit more than one key at a time, or get the wrong one, more often than I should.  Sometimes I just have to live with correcting the mistakes, but some of them are unambiguous, and thus good candidates for autocorrect. Over time I have built up a good set of autocorrections that go with the keyboard of that particular machine, and it works well.

But with Word 365 I can’t find autocorrect.  I can’t even find the ‘Word Options’ button that’s on the bottom of the drop down menu that comes when you click the big colorful button up in the upper left  of the Word screen – and for that matter I can’t find any big colorful button. for some imbecilic reason Microsoft has changed everything, and I intend to uninstall Office 365 from the Surface Pro and put in Office 2007 or something of the sort.  I don’t intend to learn a whole new word processing editor.

I’m asking for two opinions:  does anyone like Office 365, and whether you like it or not, how do you find Word Options, Proofing, and Autocorrect in Office 365?  When I try searching for them, I get page after page of add ins I can buy that will restore the old command structure of Word.  I don’t really want to do that.  I’d rather just uninstall 365.  But apparently the people who pay for search placement have so taken over the search business that it’s darned near useless: how can you trust a commercial offer to fix a problem when you don’t know what it’s replacing? 

In Word 2007, you hit the big colorful button; find Word Options; select Proofing; select autocorrect; and finally type in what is to be corrected (or paste it in) and what it is to be corrected to.  But with Word 365 I can’t even find the big colorful button, and when I use Google or Bing to ask where the hell autocorrect is, I get page after page of offers to buy something to fix the problem, but nothing about how to find the proofing or autocorrect feature.  Does anyone have any help?  I see mysterious hits on how to add features to the quick access too bar or something, but I can’t find the features in the first place.  Has Microsoft lost all semblance of sanity>

[Later.]

Thanks to all you readers who pointed out to me that in the old WORD the big Colorful Blob up in the upper left corner was in fact called FILE although it did not show that name, and that in Word 365 you can manage by fooling around to get a big blue thing to pop up that contains the word FILE.  In fact now that I have it I can’t make it go away, but I’ll figure that one out.  It has a long list of stuff including the word ‘options’, not WORD OPTION as it used to be, and that list contains proofing, and that will lead to autocorrect as before.  I still find it incomprehensible that Microsoft wants me to relearn use of a program I have been using since 1988, but perhaps I am merely being surly.  I seem to have developed some new pains today, and I’m back up here because I can’t sleep.  So I suppose that has solved the problem, and perhaps I just didn’t know what I was looking for.  I thought I was looking for the word FILE as a menu, but for the life of me I couldn’t find it.  Now it won’t go away, but better that than vanishing.

My great thanks to all those who took the trouble to tell me something that they must have thought obvious.  I really did look for FILE, and I didn’t see it.  I am also told by long time readers that Word 365 is actually better than Word 2007, and doesn’t take all that long to get used to; which is a comfort.  Thanks to all of you.

One more thing.  This tale will be in the column I am preparing.  At http://word.mvps.org/faqs/customization/AutoCorrect.htm there is a very readable exposition on using autocorrect, with good instructions.  It is very worth your while if you do a lot of typing and you use Word 2000 or later.

I have two more questions:  Does anyone know how to make autocorrect work in Windows Live Writer?  I suspect there is no way, but I would appreciate knowing for certain;  Second, where is the autocorrect dictionary stored? Is it transferable?  I understand there are ways to make up autocorrect options that will be used only in a particular document, but I doubt that the entire autocorrect list is incorporated in the saved document file. In any event I would appreciate knowing if the autocorrect list can be transmitted to copies of Word on other machines. Thanks!

And we have this on the global warming data:

http://jennifermarohasy.com/2014/08/heat-is-on-over-weather-bureau-homogenising-temperature-records/ which looks pretty dramatic. I have always been concerned with the particulars about average temperatures accurate to a tenth of a degree C. I don’t know how to get the average temperature of my house – some rooms air conditioned, some with fans, some just closed off, and do we include the two9 attics? – to a tenth of a degree C at any given time, much less a daily average, or a weekly, or a yearly average to a tenth of a degree C.  I am unsure how one would do that for the County of Los Angeles for the year 2015, and I am darned sure there is no reliable way to get the average temperatures of Los Angeles County accurate to a tenth of a degree C for the year 1915, much less for 1815.  I can understand that we have records of when ice formed and broke up on certain streams and rivers, but that doesn’t translate precisely into degrees C, much less tenths of a degree C.  As for the entire nation, I can’t understand why anyone would pretend to know the average temperature of the Continental United States in, say, 1840 to a tenth of a degree C – whether as an annual average or as a temperature at any arbitrarily chosen moment in time.  Estimates from tree rings and vegetation deposits are possible, but temperatures to a tenth of a degree?  Yet the rise in global warming is shown in tenths of a degree.

The above image is from Wikipedia.  Note that it shows a rise of about 0.8 degrees C from 1880 to the year 2000.  Now we know that the temperature is rising: in 1814 the Thames froze over hard enough that market sheds were constructed on the ice.  In 1776 Colonel Hamilton brought the cannon captured by Nathaniel Green at Ticonderoga to General Washington on Harlem Heights across the frozen Hudson.  We know those events happened, and they argue much colder winters in London and New York 150 to 200 years ago, so the temperature has certainly been rising.  How much is not so certain.  Growing seasons are longer now then they were then, so we can easily infer a warmer climate, but how much warmer is not so easy to determine.

Now Australia seems to be inquiring about data manipulation.  And I have yet to see a straightforward discussion of the data “smoothing” and “averaging” and other such measures that allow anything like tenth of a degree accuracy of annual global temperature.

McLaw speaks!

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

View 841 Monday, September 01, 2014

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

President Barack Obama, January 31, 2009

I pretty much took the weekend off – well, I worked on the upcoming column for Chaos Manor Reviews in which I’m going to talk about how we have updated Chaos Manor in the years since I wrote the last column – and I did some work on fiction, but today, Labor Day, Alex came over with some friends and we did a barbeque.

So I was going to skip today’s day book, but I can’t. It’s not often that I pay much attention to the Daily Kos, but this entry got my full attention:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/30/1326004/-Incarcerated-For-Writing-Science-Fiction# 

A Dorchester County, Maryland, teacher was taken in for an "emergency medical evaluation," suspended from his job, and barred from setting foot on another public school. Authorities searched his school, Mace’s Lane Middle School in Cambridge, for weapons. As classes resumed, parents worried that their children were in danger, so police decided to remain on the premises to watch over them.

What happened? The teacher, Patrick McLaw, published a fiction novel. Under a pen name. About a made-up school shooting. Set in the year 2902.

I first saw it in a Science Fiction Writers of America Forum, and apparently it’s all true, and the author appears to still be in some kind of restraint, possibly retained for psychological evaluations or something. Now I hope there’s some terrible mis-reporting, and it’s all exaggerated, but this is designed to arouse paranoid feelings in science fiction writers. All fiction writers for that matter.

I’ll have more on this if I find out more. Breaking news is generally unreliable. I sure hope that is the case here, but I fear it is not. It happened days ago, and there is still no report of any charge or specification, or of what evidence was used to cause a warrant for search of his house.  Obviously the authorities have the right and for that matter the duty to search the school, but if their only reason for doing so is that a teacher wrote an SF novel about a school massacre set in another century, they must not have very much to do in Cambridge Maryland.  Do judges routinely issue warrants for searches in such circumstances? 

I have found this.  From the Atlantic:

From the Dept. of Insane and Dangerous Overreactions to Fictional Threats:

A 23-year-old teacher at a Cambridge, Md. middle school has been placed on leave and—in the words of a local news report—"taken in for an emergency medical evaluation" for publishing, under a pseudonym, a novel about a school shooting. The novelist, Patrick McLaw, an eighth-grade language-arts teacher at the Mace’s Lane Middle School, was placed on leave by the Dorchester County Board of Education, and is being investigated by the Dorchester County Sheriff’s Office, according to news reports from Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The novel, by the way, is set 900 years in the future.

Here is part of a breathless, law enforcement-friendly report from WBOC, which describes itself as "Delmarva’s News Leader":

He’s a man with many names, and the books he has written have raised the concerns of the Dorchester County Board of Education and the Dorchester County Sheriff’s Office.
Early last week the school board was alerted that one of its eighth grade language arts teachers at Mace’s Lane Middle School had several aliases.  Police said that under those names, he wrote two fictional books about the largest school shooting in the country’s history set in the future.  Now, Patrick McLaw is placed on leave.
Dr. K.S. Voltaer is better known by some in Dorchester County as Patrick McLaw, or even Patrick Beale.  Not only was he a teacher at Mace’s Lane Middle School in Cambridge, but according to Dorchester Sheriff James Phillips, McLaw is also the author of two books: "The Insurrectionist" and its sequel, "Lillith’s Heir."

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/09/in-cambridge-md-a-soviet-style-punishment-for-a-novelist/379431/

 

And of course the Soviets used to do precisely that: send dissidents to the psychiatric ward.  I confess that the enthusiasm with which Daily KOS and the Atlantic, neither precisely a conservative publication, arouses concern; but I had yet to see any actual charge or specification of an illegal act. On what evidence were search warrants issued? Did this chap actually exhibit any bizarre behavior?  I don’t for a moment believe that someone who writes and publishes a book can’t be off his nut, but certainly the deed of writing and publishing a novel cannot possibly be prima facie evidence of homicidal mania…  In any event this chap seems to be barred from all county property and turned out from his job, with no hearing and up to this point nothing alleged other than that he wrote and published novels about a massacre in a public school; not under his own name, but under a pen name.  And if that’s all he has done, this is definitely a matter for concern.  Surely the authorities know they have not alleged any crime? 

The LA Times has a story that adds a significant detail:

http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-teacher-was-not-placed-on-leave-over-books-authorities-say-20140902-story.html

Reports circulated this weekend that a middle school teacher in Dorchester County, Md., had been placed on administrative leave over his two futuristic novels about school violence. That is not that case, authorities tell the L.A. Times.

"It didn’t start with the books and it didn’t end with the books," State’s Attorney for Wicomico County Matt Maciarello told The Times. "It’s not even a factor in what law enforcement is doing now."

There have been no charges filed against Patrick McLaw, a teacher at Mace’s Lane Middle School in Cambridge who self-published two novels, "The Insurrectionist" (2011) and "Lilith’s Heir" (2013), under the pen name Dr. K.S. Voltaer.

 

Free speech supporters who believed the author was targeted for the books’ stories of school massacres in 2902 have been purchasing the novels from Amazon. "Bought this in protest of the local authorities arresting and confining this person just for being a teacher and writing a book about a school killing," reads a typical comment, one of more than 100.

In fact, McLaw has not been arrested. No warrant for his arrest has been issued.

Concerns about McLaw were raised after he sent a four-page letter to officials in Dorchester County. Those concerns brought together authorities from multiple jurisdictions, including health authorities.

McLaw’s attorney, David Moore, tells The Times that his client was taken in for a mental health evaluation. "He is receiving treatment," Moore said.

Because of HIPPA regulations mandating privacy around healthcare issues, he was unable to say whether McLaw has been released.

McLaw’s letter was of primary concern to healthcare officials, Maciarello says. It, combined with complaints of alleged harassment and an alleged possible crime from various jurisdictions led to his suspension. Maciarello cautions that these allegations are still being investigated; authorities, he says, "proceeded with great restraint."

What’s more, he told The Times, "everyone knew about the book in 2012."

McLaw, who is also known as Patrick Beale, was placed on administrative leave on Aug. 22 due to "concerns raised by law enforcement," according to an official statement by the Dorchester County Public Schools.

The problem here is that there is still no specification of whatever he did to warrant search of his house, or commitment to involuntary mental treatment.  One would think that this would be forthcoming.  Getting a search warrant for someone’s house when he is already apparently undergoing mental evaluation should require that the culprit has done something; but since we don’t know the text of this mysterious letter, or anything about his four page letter to officials in Dorchester County; one would think that by now there would be enough known to allow release of some details justifying the official action.  The Soviets used to send dissidents to the mental ward on the grounds that you had to be crazy to resist communism.  What is it that this chap didn’t believe, or believed about the school board?  And why were his books ever mentioned at all in the original story?

Maybe he had fits behaved in a way inconsistent with being a high school teacher: if so he ought to be removed from a classroom, but how does that justify searching his house? But in fact the only violence in the story is in his books.  There must be more to this, and it is possible that it’s just lousy news reporting, but I confess I am still worried.

One reader feels about the way I do:

Dr. Pournelle,

Regarding that Soviet style action against that writer/teacher in Maryland, I’m willing to pledge $250 toward his legal defense if the facts are as stated. I want to say unbelievable, but I can’t anymore.

I don’t have a lot of extra time to research the matter, but I trust that you and your readership will be able to ferret out the truth. Just put the word out and I’ll send a check.

Regards,

D

It seems so unlikely that we can hope it’s just bad reporting on the part of Atlantic and Daily Kos, but it’s important enough to be certain that this is all it was.  I’ll continue to watch it.

On the Other Hand

Jerry:

Regarding the fellow who self-published a book about a school massacre, here is what you have to do to earn only a reprimand but not a suspension:

http://dailycaller.com/2014/08/29/this-week-in-teachers-who-write-school-massacre-fiction-and-want-to-stab-some-kids/2/

Who knows what they would do with the author of the Hunger Games, in which children are trained and set loose to hunt and kill one another.

MikeF

But that link led me to this one:  http://dailycaller.com/2014/08/29/cop-who-killed-napster-exec-while-texting-and-driving-wont-be-charged/ and I do believe the world has gone mad.

Incarcerated writer

It sounds like the teacher is being held under a law dealing with being "a danger to himself or others." That is a medical hold. Unfortunately HIPPA ties the hands of all involved on releasing information, while the press is free to speculate. The most common cause of such things is a threat to harm himself (threats to harm others is of course criminal).

The claims of harassment could be related to rebuffed romantic advances towards a coworker. Which could explain a letter indicating he may wish to harm himself. I guess we will find out more as time goes on.

—

—

Al Lipscomb

MCSE AA4YU CISSP

I really hope that’s all there is to the story.  Bad reporting and a rush to get something out without thinking it through,.

And finally for the night we have:

http://www.stardem.com/easternshore/news/dorchester_county/article_47f06380-8a13-5a72-bd8c-c40c3513b977.html

CAMBRIDGE — As police began investigating allegations made against Patrick McLaw in mid-August, concerns about a four-page letter he sent to a deputy school administrator led health officials to seek an emergency evaluation of the Mace’s Lane Middle School teacher, Wicomico County State’s Attorney Matt Maciarello said Tuesday.

McLaw’s attorney has told the L.A. Times that McLaw is getting treatment.

Although some reports have focused on McLaw’s books, leading to online petitions calling for McLaw’s release and reinstatement as a teacher, Maciarello said he wasn’t sure “how it turns out (in some media reports) that Mr. McLaw was arrested over his books.”

McLaw has not been arrested and has not been charged, Maciarello said, and is “of course, presumed innocent.”

Although McLaw’s books are “relevant,” Maciarello said, the writings were not a primary factor in the investigation.

Eventually it gets to some specifications of actual actions, which might have been sufficient to justify a warrant to search his house, and an admission that perhaps the authorities ought to have been more forthcoming:

Health officials were brought in because of concerns that it was more a “mental health matter,” Maciarello said.

“Nobody was overreacting,” the prosecutor said of that meeting. “Everyone was acting calmly,” with safety and due process for McLaw the primary concerns.

Law enforcement officials brought the health department in “from the ground floor,” Maciarello said. “They did everything right. We have a very proactive and engaged health officer. This wasn’t an overreaction by law enforcement.”

Maciarello described McLaw’s letter as a “farewell address/resignation” and said the Wicomico County health officer was “chiefly concerned” about the letter.

Health officials filed an emergency petition and McLaw was taken to Peninsula Regional Medical Center, the prosecutor said. McLaw was represented at a subsequent court hearing, at which Maciarello was called to testify, by Salisbury attorney David Moore.

Moore, who told the L.A. Times in a story published Tuesday morning that McLaw is getting treatment, could not be reached for comment by presstime Wednesday.

Under Maryland law, court records concerning petitions for emergency evaluations are not publicly available.

As a result of those restrictions, the ongoing investigation and concerns about due process, Maciarello said, officials initially had opted to “release the bare minimum” about McLaw.

“Law enforcement at all times had concern for him and his family,” he said.

But public concerns caused officials to be more forthcoming.

“This is about trust in your government,” Maciarello said. “It’s important to be as transparent as possible.”

We can all agree with that.  So the story may be no more than it seems to be.  But as Glenn Reynolds said in an email to me, the pity is that things have go to so bad that we are ready to believe the authorities have lied.  “I’m deeply concerned, and as Stephen Green says in Trifecta, what does it say that we no longer trust the media, the schools, law enforcement, or the DA to tell the truth here?”  Precisely.  It was they who put out the first press release mentioning McLaw’s books and giving no reasons for search warrants other than those books.

The moral of this story is that if you don’t want to be thought a tyrant, don’t act like one. And if you don’t want to be thought to be covering something up, don’t act as if you are.  American education is not what it was when I was younger, but some vestiges of the once world envied public education of the United States remains, and we aren’t as easily snowed as apparently the authorities thought we were.  They claim they were trying to protect the young man’s reputation while taking suitable precautions.  They could have done that a great deal better.  Perhaps they know that now.  We may hear more of this and we may not, but it does not appear to be a full fledged violation of the First and Fourth Amendments. 

For more on all this see http://www.popehat.com/2014/09/02/patrick-mclaw-skepticism-and-law-enfocements-obliging-stenographers/ which has a rational presentation with details.

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.