Folks,

Looks like we will be getting a flurry or two of snow and snowy mix today, tonight and tomorrow afternoon. It is drizzling rain now with no snow evident. The real snowfall will be and already is in our western mountains. That has already started falling. Webcams show it piling up. No accumulation expected past the mountains other than a bit on grass and cars in our most northern counties, at this time. Weather Ouija Boarders have, however, been known to get it wrong. I remember one time when a trace was predicted and that proved 3" of snow incorrect.

Wonderful news today, for average gamers like us, coming from Nvidia.

Nvidia Launches the $3,000 Titan V. That is said to be the world’s most powerful PC GPU.

Now everyone can buy a really good GPU. A status symbol for sure. We can brag about paying $1,000, $2,000, $3,000, or even $10,000 for a premium GPU from Nvidia. Yup, you may have noticed that $10 K wonder is meant for super computers. But if you really covet PC bragging rights, you can probably get out your Rhodium plated Credit Card and order yours and one or two extras in time for Christmas giving. Seems a bit of overkill to me, but what do I know?

MG:

PC Security? Is there any really? Odd animal indeed. They can even be used by savvy hackers to gain entry into your computer, so say some security experts. Leo Laporte for instance. For the last several days I have been greeted after boot-up by a notice from my security suite and /or by Malwarebytes that this or that file is a PUP or has been blocked for irregular activities. All were false positives. Can you say aggravation? The guys and girls who enjoy causing dangerous high blood pressure and added troubles for computer users should all be rounded up and slowly drowned in gasoline, then their bloated carcasses should be set afire. Just my opinion.

Ads? Oh, yes indeedy. I get soliciting notifications for everything I buy from any retailer online especially Amazon and Best Buy. It is almost so annoying I consider not buying. I could block them and I can block all or individual scripts but many websites just won't work without allowing them. Today, I fired up Firefox just to see if advances on extensions have been made. Not a lot. I then had to sign in again to Gmail and Hangouts and allow cookies for the fun of it so the logins would be saved. Is a little "security" worth the hassle?

Every entity, nearly every website you visit wants to collect as much data on you as possible. Every website we visit, every choice we make on any site tells someone something about us. It is accumulative. Even when it is anonymous, data can be used to create profiles that allow others to predict typical behavior and use it to predict buying or action patterns or even use anonymous data to create desires for product and services. We ad folk used to do that even without the huge databases being constructed today and they were effective.

It has seemed to me for a long time now that we have all carelessly accepted into our personal lives data collecting smart devices that may or may not have our best interests at heart. Yes, we've all been bedazzled by high-tetchy stuff and done this without caring much about the possibility they can be used as digital Trojan Horses. Perhaps by now we cannot even do without them? Can you imagine going back to encyclopedias, land lines, envelopes and stamps? Impossible!