Thank Goodness Most Spear Phishers Are Stupid

 They do not realize that firebaseapp and on.microsoft.com in an email address means filter it directly into spam folder.

Why Linux is not Replacing Windows Anytime Soon

I s pent most of my career using Unix for software development or being sys admin for a herdof Sun workstationx. Unix/Linux has many virtues.

A friend who is not technical has just switched from Windows 7 (don't laugh, he is moving his email from AOL after 36 years).. He wanted a regular backup of his files to a USB hard drive.

Okay, how hard can this be? Somewhere there is a program either GUI or shell-based that does this, right?  Not that I could find. After a lot steps that brought back memories:

1. Set up mount of USB drive in /etc/mount. What? HNo atomount or autodiscovery? You run lsblk to see what devices are attached, determine which is the USB drive, copy its 8 hexadecimal digit UUID and several other close to magic fields. (I started to remember what UID and GID mean as I fiddled.)

You rediscover that mount is a very picky program. How many spaces between parameters, Running sudo mount -a may not identify errors, just silently fail. How would it be to make a mount editor that prompts you for the parameters ands adds them to /etc/mount?

3. The backup script using rsync was fairly straightforward.

#!/bin/bash

# Mirror backup to USB drive (vfat friendly)




BACKUP_BASE="/mnt/usb-backup/Backups"

LOGFILE="$HOME/backup.log"




echo "$(date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S') - Backup started" >> "$LOGFILE"




# Check if USB is mounted

if ! mount | grep -q " /mnt/usb-backup "; then

echo "$(date) - ERROR: USB not mounted at /mnt/usb-backup" >> "$LOGFILE"

echo "ERROR: Please run: sudo mount /mnt/usb-backup"

exit 1

fi




mkdir -p "$BACKUP_BASE"




# === Directories to mirror - Add more here if needed ===

declare -A DIRS=(

["/home/$(whoami)/Documents"]="$BACKUP_BASE/Documents"

["/home/$(whoami)/Pictures"]="$BACKUP_BASE/Pictures"

)




echo "$(date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S') - Starting rsync mirror..." >> "$LOGFILE"




for src in "${!DIRS[@]}"; do

dest="${DIRS[$src]}"

if [ -d "$src" ]; then

echo "→ Mirroring $src" | tee -a "$LOGFILE"

mkdir -p "$dest"

rsync -aAX --delete --info=progress2,stats2 "$src/" "$dest/" >> "$LOGFILE" 2>&1

else

echo "Warning: $src not found" >> "$LOGFILE"

fi

done




echo "$(date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S') - Backup completed successfully" >> "$LOGFILE"

echo "✅ Backup finished successfully!"

echo "Log saved to: $LOGFILE" 

Adding an entry to crontab was simpler than mount but it still screams for a tool to help you add an entry. Some of why Linux remains user-indifferent is that for a lot of geeks it is the same theory as stick shifts: "It keeps the riff-raff out." 

Urologist Tomorrow

I am hoping this catheter will be removed for good. Inflamed prostrate gland usually shrinks back to normal in 1 to 2 weeks after appendicitis. This is really unpleasant.  The only good side is there are no nighttime needs to urinate. The downside: carrying around a reservoir when you go to bed and get up and a leg bag during the day,  both which require periodic emptying. You will remember the leg bag because it is like wearing a 1 pound weight on your leg after a while.

From watching TV ads, it appears that there are people who have a permanent recurring need for catheters. I cannot imagine what would preclude surgery to fix whatever underlying condition has put them in that state.

UPDATE: Catheter removed.

This May Be a Lifetime Comet

Comet MAPS will be appearing in April. This is a member if a Sun-grazer family. A couple 19th century members of the family were visible in daylight. (As I recall, one never came out the far side.) These are called Sun-grazers because they get within 100,000 miles of the Sun's surface.

A Reminder of What Universities Give America

 3/26/26 Daily Caller presents an Instagram video (which is why I have not included it here:

Shocking video from a radical anti-Iran war protest in Philadelphia showed participants explicitly supporting Islamic terror groups and calling for “cheers” every time an American servicemember comes home “in a casket.”

It also calls for support for Hamas and Hamas. Remember who hates women. 

Does Bad Diet Cause Obesity?

 If you wander through YouTube, you will videos offering many explanations for why Americans are obese today, when they were not in the 1950s. Certainly, my recollection is that in my elementary school classes (1963-1968) it was usually one kid in each class who was fat. (By junior high, that was me.) Pictures of 1950s and 1960s American seem healthily skinny. But did fat people not get photographed?

United States Long-Term Trends in Adult BMI (1959–2018): Unraveling the Roots of the Obesity Epidemic

. 2024 Jan 9;21(1):73. doi: 10.3390/ijerph21010073

As you will not be surprised to see, obesity in America has always been a poor people's problem. But look at the BMI in 1960 through 1980. What did Americans eat back then? Steak, potatoes, hamburgers, hot dogs, butter in and on everything, milk shakes, cookies, cakes, pancakes, sausage, bacon: You know, a really fattening diet. Care to throw your hypotheses into the comments? 

Solution is Obvious

California Attorney-General complains that Baird v. Bonta (9th Cir. 2026) will provoke fear:

“Allowing the open carry of firearms in densely populated counties creates unnecessary anxiety, terrorizes children, and instills fear throughout our communities."

I agree that open carry likely will terrify the sheep that inhabit California cities. SolUtion: Remove obstacles for law-abiding people to receive concealed carry licenses. Concealed carry scares no one.