Free Republic

CHICAGO, IL — After suffering a humiliating defeat in Chicago's mayoral election, Lori Lightfoot blamed her stunning loss on "those tricksy hobbitses." "They stole it from us!!" wailed Ms. Lightfoot. "Nasty, tricksy little hobbitses!!" The campaign watched the disastrous results come in from a dimly lit sushi restaurant, where the enraged Ms. Lightfoot gorged herself on juicy-sweet raw fish. "Gone!! It's gone, precious!!" cried Ms. Lightfoot to supporters. "Filthy, sneaky hobbitses!! Wicked, tricky, false! Curse them! CURSE THEM!!!" Long considered the electoral frontrunner, Ms. Lightfoot saw her lead evaporate as supporters became steadily more concerned about being murdered. "I...

Chad Mason, 36, was arrested on several charges, including sexual activity with an animal A Florida man was arrested after he had sex with a dog in front of families, wrecked a nativity scene at a nearby church and attempted to steal a vehicle. Chad Mason, 36, was arrested Sunday on several charges, including sexual activity with an animal, exposing sexual organs and criminal mischief to a place of worship. Mason knew the owner of the Goldendoodle dog and was taking it out for a walk in an apartment complex in the 2600 block of McMullen Booth Road at around...

U.S. — President Biden's congratulatory call to John Fetterman for his senate race win reportedly lasted in excess of three hours because neither man was able to form a coherent sentence. White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain was forced to adjust Biden's schedule as the call dragged on and on. Meetings on the economy, foreign policy, and immigration were canceled entirely. Fortunately, Biden was still able to keep his standing tea time with Kamala. "They just sort of growled at each other after a while. It was very raw and animalistic, as you'd expect from great leaders," Klain...

Inspired by the public's response to our 2022 Pride flag, we’re expanding our design to represent 40 LGBTQIA+ communities—and making it available for everyone to use and build on.

[dayglored comment] Those of us who have been forced to wait forever as Windows copies some huge file... well here's a way to make the wait more tolerable. Copying a large file from one drive to another, or over a network, can take quite a while, and there’s nothing you can do in that time, but wait. However, an enterprising developer has found a way to make the copy dialog more interesting -- he’s added a fully playable version of the arcade classic Lunar Lander to it. And this is no basic addition -- you can choose your difficulty level...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Joe Biden was loaded onto a convenient death cart Wednesday despite protests that he was not yet deceased. Witnesses claim the president wriggled a bit in the grip of Vice President Kamala Harris as she insisted he was pretty much as good as dead and attempted to load him onto the cart. "No, I'm not dead yet! I'm happy! I feel happy! Come on, man!" Biden allegedly said in front of several witnesses. According to sources, Harris got into a brief argument with the body collector who maintained that he had a strict policy to...

Yes, you read that headline correctly. Janet Jackson's music video for her 1989 hit single Rhythm Nation has been declared a security vulnerability after a Microsoft engineer discovered it could freeze some hard drives on older computers. Raymond Chen, the Microsoft engineer, said that a colleague shared a story from Windows XP product support that described a "major computer manufacturer" who discovered the music video would crash certain models of laptops. During the manufacturer's investigation, it was discovered that the audio signal from the music video crashed some of their competitors' computers. But there was more to it than that....

Roger Earl Mosley, who played helicopter pilot Theodore "T.C." Calvin on the original Magnum, P.I., has died. He was 83. Mosley starred alongside Tom Selleck during the show's entire run, from 1980 to 1988. Mosley appeared in two episodes of the remake series starring Jay Hernandez. Mosley's daughter, Ch-a Mosley, announced her father's death on Facebook, reports CBS Los Angeles. He died at 1:17 a.m., surrounded by his family, Ch-a wrote. "We could never mourn such an amazing man. He would HATE any crying done in his name," Ch-a continued. "It is time to celebrate the legacy he left for...

The blaster that helped the Rebel Alliance finally take down the Empire could soon be yours. Han Solo’s DL-44 Heavy Blaster Pistol from the original Star Wars trilogy will be sold next month by Rock Island Auction Company. The weapon isn’t just a lovingly crafted replica, either. It’s the actual prop that was wielded by Harrison Ford on the set of the original film in the franchise... Here's the auction page: Lot 1247: Documented Mauser Broomhandle “DL-44 Heavy Blaster Pistol” Prop

Get over it: Microsoft is a Linux and open source company these days 'The Evil Empire' hasn't been evil for about eight years now Opinion In the beginning, Microsoft was The Evil Empire.In 2001 then CEO Steve Ballmer declared: "Linux is a cancer." Later, Microsoft sponsored SCO's copyright attack on Linux; claimed that Linux violated unnamed Microsoft patents; and forced Linux-based Android vendors to pay for dubious patent claims. Bill Gates and Ballmer's Microsoft wanted to see Linux and open-source software (OSS) dead and buried.They did it because, as Microsoft's Halloween documents show, they believed "OSS poses a direct, short-term...

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—In the first step toward a world blossoming with freedom of speech, Elon Musk, the proud new owner of Twitter, ordered the company’s tech team to make all tweets by Bill Gates autocorrect to say “Poopy butt.” “Poopy butt poopy butt, poopy poopy butt butt,” read a subsequent tweet by Bill Gates. “Odd, I could have sworn I typed out a hopeful message on the benefits of global, forced, clandestine sterilization of women,” said a confused Gates, staring at his Windows Phone® while his tailor fitted him for a custom brassiere. “Why does it say, ‘Butt, butt,...

PORTLAND, OR—Local 18-year-old Olivia Hannah Jones had to file her taxes for the first time this year. As she frantically tried to navigate the IRS's obtuse website and fill out the non-user-friendly forms needed for the little bit of income she made working as a graphic designer last summer, Jones muttered to herself that she really wished her teachers had spent less time on polyqueer trans theory and more time on how to fill out a 1099 form. "1099-MISC? What the heck is that?" she muttered, trying to rack her brain for any trace of teaching she'd gotten in...

SACRAMENTO, CA—The California Department of Education has rejected 100% of biology textbooks from the state's public school curriculum because they perpetuate outdated backward ideas that there are only two genders, said Governor Gavin Newsom on Monday. "Children are the future," said Gov Newsom in a statement to the press. "It is inappropriate that we share these stone-age scientific ideas from radicalized scientists. Everyone knows there are an infinite number of genders. The science is settled." Orders of biology textbooks for grades 7-12 have been canceled. Joining them is a ban on all textbooks for grades 1-6. These books feature...

That should keep the criminals offline for, well, weeks probably Embedded links are in the original article. Microsoft has announced a months-long effort to take control of 65 domains that the ZLoader criminal botnet gang has been using to spread the remote-control malware and orchestrate infected machines. The tech giant's Digital Crimes Unit obtained a court order from a US federal judge in Georgia to take down the domains, which are now directed to a Microsoft-controlled sinkhole so they can't be used by the malware's masterminds to communicate with their botnet of commandeered Windows computers. From what we can tell...

[Dayglored note: This thread is not trolling, though the headline might seem that way. It's about a survey of BUSINESS NETWORKS by LanSweeper (https://www.lansweeper.com). The takeup of Win11 in businesses is glacially slow, while home users are starting to use it much more, or are forced to use it.] ---------------------------------------- The Slashdot page posted here links to a story on PC Magazine. Sadly, FreeRepublic is not permitted to post PC Magazine content, so none appears here. ---------------------------------------- The LanSweeper survey found the following: Number of Windows devices scanned: 10,000,000 Date of scanning: "this month" Devices w/ Win10 installed: 80.34% Devices...

The robots zip around hospitals delivering medicine and other supplies. Vendor Aethon has patched five critical vulnerabilities in hospital robots used to deliver medical supplies. The world of health-related cybersecurity issues is still relatively untouched. In recent years, we've seen the impact of ransomware outbreaks in hospitals; software vulnerabilities including those that could, in theory, stop a pacemaker from working, and countless patient data leaks at providers worldwide. However, unless there's a clear-cut financial benefit, many cyberattackers will ignore medical devices in favor of hitting businesses likely to provide them with illicit revenue. This doesn't mean that vendors, or defenders,...

If you are waiting for Windows 11 side-taskbar support before upgrading to the latest operating system, you may be waiting for a long time, according to a recent Microsoft Ask Me Anything (AMA) session. When Windows (11) was first released, the most controversial changes were the new centered Start Menu and the reduced functionality of the Windows taskbar. In the past, the Start Menu was left-aligned on the taskbar, and it was possible to move the taskbar, so it was pinned to the top, sides, and bottom of the screen. However, with Windows 11, Microsoft took away the ability to...

HOUSTON, TX—Local man and father of a 5-year-old trans pterodactyl Bradley Mingastank is struggling to find the medical care his young dinosaur son needs, as it is very difficult to find species-affirming care in the United States. "Seriously, it's 2022, and we still haven't figured out how to provide adequate medical care to children who think they're extinct flying lizards," said Mingastank. "I do my best to raise my son Madison as a pterodactyl per his wishes, which is important for his self-esteem. I only communicate to him in ear-piercing dinosaur screeches, I feed him small rodents and fish,...

“Smart App Control is a major enhancement to the Windows 11 security model that prevents users from running malicious applications on Windows devices that default blocks untrusted or unsigned applications,” Microsoft vice president David Weston explains. “It goes beyond previous built-in browser protections and is woven directly into the core of the OS at the process level. Using code signing along with AI, ... our new Smart App Control only allows processes to run that are predicted to be safe based on either code certificates or an AI model for application trust within the Microsoft cloud. ...Model inference occurs 24...

Don't wanna buy the latest stuff? Here's your watermarkThose running Windows 11 on unsupported hardware are getting an update, though not the kind that low-end hardware and VM users might be hoping for.The latest Release Preview of Windows 11 adds an undocumented feature that slaps a line of text in the lower right hand side of the Windows desktop and a similar warning in the Settings app for any system that fails to meet Windows 11's exacting standards.The message is short and to the point: "System requirements not met. Go to Settings to learn more."It's also far less obtrusive than...