The odd dozen

THERE have been tens of thousands of gun rights supporters at a protest in Virginia’s capital complaining about possible changes to gun laws.

One of the laws they were concerned about was the right to buy only one gun a month and thus 12 a year.

How many guns does a person need? Even in the worst of the westerns or gang shows, nobody has more than two guns in their hands at any time.

Nobody needs to buy a gun a month, it’s expensive and hard to actually justify their purchase but it seems to be allowed and probably happens.

Two six shooters should refer to the number of bullets, not the number of guns.

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Amazon boss and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos has had his phone hacked and lots of material taken using a virus.

This event is a bit more unusual when the suggestion that a Saudi Arabian prince is considered. However, the situation gains some credibility when the Washington Post’s ongoing campaign concerning Jamal Khashoggi’s murder is included in the discussion.

The overall concern is that if his phone can be hacked, then what about the rest of us that don’t have access to a whole IT department to protect us?

I also get a lot of emails from Princes but mine seems to be only from Nigeria and I don’t respond to their invites or offers.

To date, my phone hasn’t been hacked although that may be because I am just a normal, boring citizen and please don’t think of that as a challenge!

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Another Monty Python team member, Terry Jones, has left us. His brilliance created a world of chaos, confusion, humor and “a naughty boy.”

Where will we see this again? Our Parliament and politicians will provide most of this but not the humor and rarely any brilliance.

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An Australian developer has produced an app that allows people to upload a photo of someone else and match it with other photos of people and their location. Police in America have already tested and successfully used it to arrest one person.

The introduction of cameras on mobile phones has led to millions of photos being taken and far too many being put online for me to ignore. The Instagrammers and influencers may not realize that by default the location is embedded into their photos. They might be pleased as this would confirm that they actually were there although the photos of their home and children also show where they are.

The technology that allows facial recognition is under attack from privacy advocates but why? If you have done nothing wrong, then you have nothing to hide although the reality is that some people err in their life choices.

The concern of people being recognized in photos has gone too far with Google Mps and Street View blurring number plates on cars and people’s faces. The silliness of this was demonstrated when a family saw the Google camera car approaching and stood to attention out the front. Their faces were blurred but so was the dog’s face.

People should be happy to be known and seen although not obsessively. Live a good life and be seen doing it.

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It looks like there are some attempts to hide the truth in America although the most puzzling one is the new model uniforms of the US Space Force, basically Army camouflage uniforms with new labels stuck over them.

The concept of camouflage space uniforms is puzzling as there are very few trees up there and I thought the aliens were either green or grey.

The truth might be out there, but it seems to be well camouflaged. (dfitzger@melbpc.org.au)/PN

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