Aimless Wandering

I admit it - I actually read the phishing e-mails, some more closely than others.  Not because I believe that the Crown Prince of Nigeria wants to give me any money or that I’ve inherited money from an unknown relative in Tiawan or anything.  It’s just that some of these e-mails are so pathetic that it’s kind of amusing.

The latest one to get my attention:

—–Original Message—–
From: chenjb [mailto:chenjb@mail.stut.edu.tw]
Sent: Wednesday, May 20, 2009 4:35 AM
Subject: Please Reply to this email:acct.service55@gmail.com

Attention,

This mail is to get you inform that there was a record of a deposited fund of $1.5 million dollars in our Bank with your details by Steven Coleman Company Ltd as your own share of the contract you both did

You are been noted as to get back to us so that we can be able to work out the transfer immediately.

UBA BANKING GROUP PLC

E-mail:acct.service55@gmail.com

David Doye

Note that more details will be needed for transfer clarity sake.

Thanks,

chenjb Lui

Please Reply to this email:acct.service55@gmail.com

What I really like is the e-mail address it came from - this guy is so lazy he can’t even be bothered to send from an e-mail address that might almost be remotely credible… Instead he just uses what is quite probably his own student e-mail account from his school in thTiawan…  So here it is for every e-mail spambot on the interwebs - chenjb@mail.stut.edu.tw  SPAMBOTS ATTACK!!!!!

Today a few former students were tasked with digging a trench around one of the buildings on campus to keep the racoons out…

Huh???

Because racoons who are smart enough to figure out how to trigger automatic doors, are smart enough to open trash cans unless the lids are belted on, are smart enough to figure out how to get inside a building and build nests in the ceiling can’t figure out how to get past a trench that’s a foot or so wide and a foot or so deep!?!?!?!?  As if the racoons couldn’t figure out to avoid the trenches outright AND JUST WALK ALONG THE CONCRETE PATHS THAT LEAD TO THE BUILDING!!!!!

Last year when I went to Mendenhal Glacier in Alaska I learned that they tried to do a similar thing to keep the bears away from the people.  The Park Service raised up some of the foot paths and put snow fencing around other paths in an attempt to keep the bears off the paths and away from the visitors…  The bears not being stupid, quickly realized that what the Park Service actually built was a BEAR EXPRESSWAY!  Why should the bears try and beat their way through the brush when they could walk on the fenced and elevated paths to get where they wanted to go?

So I just read this post on the TSA’s Evolution of Security blog. It’s a short article, go ahead and take a second to read it.  Don’t worry, I’ll wait for you to come back.

 I know what the author was trying to say with his post - but at the same time I think his post is completely missing the mark and shows a complete lack of understanding about why people hate many of the airport security restrictions.  There’s been a lot of discussion about the TSA’s Millimeter Wave machines and the privacy concerns surrounding them - and from what I’ve read the TSA has addressed them pretty well.  What concerns me more is that being screened by one of these machines basically means standing inside a giant radar range….

But what really got me about the post was the incident that the author was bragging about.  Every traveller wants the TSA to be locating and identifying the concealed objects that folks are trying to sneak past security - but even more than that we want TSA to be identifying and eliminating the objects that pose A THREAT to travellers.  It’s great that the concealed item was discovered hidden on the passenger, BUT once that concealed item was determined to be an innocuous container of lotion the passenger should have been allowed to proceed WITH THEIR LOTION! According to the post, the substance that this passenger was trying to smuggle was harmless lotion - the biggest risk to travelers it posed was that if it spilled somebody could slip and fall!

The trouble with 3-1-1 is that it doesn’t identify dangerous substances, it doesn’t even prevent them from getting onboard an aircraft.  It just limits how much of a dangerous substance an individual passenger can bring onboard.  Sadly like much of the “security procedures” that have been enacted since September 11, 2001; 3-1-1 gives the illusion of security without actually providing any increase in true security.  I’m all for practices that will make us more secure and will prevent any type of attack on this nation - but the reality is that short of living in a police state there’s a limit to what we can really do.  Many of the “security procedures” that we see or submit to give the impression of increased security without actually making us any safer. 

Just to be clear here, some good security measures:

• Screening airline passengers with metal detectors etc… for explosives, weapons and the like.
• Increased police/security force patrols of airports, train stations, bridges etc…
• The Air Marshal program
• Increased inspection of air freight and baggage

Secure measure that look good but don’t really do anything:

• Armed National Guard or Police squads standing at airport security checkpoint in addition to the 5 dozen TSA agents that main that checkpoint.
• Police checkpoints at airport, train station, cruise terminal entries to check id’s of drivers
• 3-1-1

Imagine the progress that we could make if somebody stood up and decided to stop wasting time, money, personnel, and effort on the theater of security measures and instead focused on those things that would truly make us and this nation safer?

Hey Wordpress Plug-In writiters here’s a little piece of advice for you.

After you create your plug-in and make it available for the world put up an example page somewhere.  I’m more likely to install and use your plug-in if I can see it in action.  Give me someway to see just what your plug-in is going to do and I’m more likely to install it on my site.

I’m sure it’s not easy to create a plug-in, but you probably have done so to meet some need that you discovered while using your own Wordpress install.  So why not build up something that shows off your creation and entices me to use your plug-in?

So The Wife cornered me last night because she says I’ve been grumpier than normal and wanted to know why.    What’s been bugging me isn’t much of a secret and we discussed it and there’s nothing in it that I have issues putting up here.

The bottom line is that the last 6 months have been lots of  “hurry up and wait” and the fact is it’s starting to wear on me.

I’d been pretty confident since last  summer that I would be getting promoted this year - despite this I ended up waiting two months for the statistics that would guarantee a promotion - and when the first rounds of stats were published that guarantee didn’t come.  Even more frustrating was that the first round of stats didn’t seem to be based in reality.  I knew that there would be more positions open than the statistics indicate, but there was nobody I could ask to find out what was going on.

Two months later - the stats were updated and this time I did get the expected guarantee.  While that was a relief, it then kicked off the next round of waiting.  The stats guaranteed that I would be promoted in 2009 - but not when in 2009 I would be promoted.  I’m pretty confident that I will be promoted by June 1 and know that I should at least be given the title for my promotion if not the pay in June.  That’s because I’m going to a school at the end of June that requires that I have my promotion in order to attend.

However the wait is frustrating me.  I want it to be June now. It doesn’t help that there are a few folks on campus who have been promoted already. A few truly deserve it and are really sharp folks - but there’s one or two who are really so stupid that I wonder how they manage to feed themself, and it bothers me that they’ve been promoted and I’m still waiting.  Just to be clear - none of the folks here were in competition with me for promotion and their own promotions had nothing to do with what I do and what I did.  But it bothers me that those rocks got promoted and I’m still waiting.

Adding to my frustration - we’re supposed to be moving this year.  Sometime this summer.  And I have no idea where.  The person who makes that decision has been completely silent on the matter.   The rules say that he has from December until the end of March to declare where we’re headed - and all he’ll say right now is that he has until the end of March to declare where we’re headed.  Add to that the fact that there are other people who are getting transfers this year and already know where they are going because the person they deal with is dragging their feet…  So that just adds to my frustration level.

Heap that on top of the usual crap that I deal with and the frustration level is pretty high.  Quite possibly the blood pressure too…

As I’ve mentioned before I’ve pretty much given up on Coppermine and am starting to post my pictures up on Flickr. I made a trip to the Point Reyes Lighthouse this past weekend and if I do say so mysefl took some great shots.  But don’t stop here - there’s more in my flickr stream -

The Washington Post will have an interesting article on Sunday by Bob Woodward discussing 10 Take Aways From the Bush Years.  Now before you go running over to take a look at this, while it is a political piece it’s not necessarily a critique of the Administration’s policy from the last 8 years.  It is however a look at a management style and the lessons that can be learned from it.  Take away the name of the President or the various Cabinet officials and this could be an effective case study for a leadership and management class and that’s what kept me reading this article.

Some of the lessons - don’t tolerate strong divisions amoung your staff - but allow your staff to voice dissent.

Don’t shoot the messenger - don’t discourage your people with presenting you with bad news.

Insist on strategic thinking.

Embrace transparency.  This is hard one for a Presidency, obviously national security has to be a priority but the President is elected by the people and the people need to have some idea of what the President’s decision making process is.

I could write a long post about how difficult the beginning of 2009 has already been for us, but I’ll let The Wife handle that.  But it’s safe to safe that the last day of 2008 and the first day of 2009 truely sucked.

So two months ago I broke down and created a Facebook account.  Believe it or not, I’m actually rather protective of my online privacy.  I know working on two blogs, regular appearances on one podcasts while producing and hosting a second, plus two Flikr streams doesn’t seem appear like I keep a lot of privacy online…  But leave me with my delusion ok?

Actually to try and protect some of my privacy, my profile isn’t hanging out there for all the world to see and much of it is hidden for the enjoyment of friends only.  Given how little I put in my profile it amazes me how much some people are willing to put in their profile, especially considering the poor record that Facebook has when it comes to privacy issues - anybody remember Beacon?  If anybody who’s a friend of me in Facebook wants my phone number or e-mail address they can ask me for it.  I’m just not keen on leaving it hanging out there for the world to see.

But the real dilemma I have with Facebook is regarding friends.  There’s A LOT of people on Facebook that I know - but just because I know them does that mean I want to friend them?  I don’t consider my Facebook account to be a vanity page, but rather as a way for me to keep in touch with past and current friends.  I know some folks who accept every friend request they get, but I don’t.  I’ve received a few that I have declined because I think Facebook recommended them even though I have no idea who they are.  But what about the folks I went to high school with?  There are a few folks that I hung out with that I sought out on Facebook and a few others who managed to find me.  But now there are folks who I never hung out with in high school who are trying to friend me up…  Most if not all of them were in the “popular” crowd, and few if any of them would even give me the time of day when we were in school yet now they’re coming to me to be my friend in Facebook.  Do I graciously accept their requests which make me look more popular, even though if it was 17 years ago and I was requesting to be their friend they’d probably say no?  Or do I ignore them since I didn’t get along with them back then and don’t really have much interest in them now.  Of course for a few of them, if I accept their request I get the opportunity to flaunt that unlike them I didn’t grow up to be an ignorant townie living in a run down single wide whose biggest aspiration is to some day move into a new double wide…

My favorite are the two requests that I haven’t answered yet.  I’m probably going to decline them, mainly because I don’t remember who they are.  I think I recognize the names, but I’ll be damned if I remember what they look like.

This afternoon I happened to have been watching MSNBC when the shuttle Endeavor landed.  For those not keeping score, the shuttle landed at Edwards AFB this afternoon due to bad weather in Florida.

Shuttle landings have become pretty routine, but at least a few of the cable channels pay attention when the shuttle comes in.  But it was pretty obvious that the anchor at MSNBC really had no clue about the shuttle program.

For those not in the know, landings at Edwards while not preferred used to be pretty common.  When the shuttle program first started Edwards was where the shuttle always landed.  It wasn’t until a few years after the program began that the runway at Kennedy Space Center was upgraded to accomodate the shuttle.  However the anchor kept trying to make a big deal over the fact that the runway was a little shorter and a little narrower than the one at KSC…  As if they don’t train to land at Edwards or the shuttle had NEVER landed at Edwards….

Is it foolishness or idiocy to be so anti-seatbelt that you’re willing to drive for an hour listening to the car bong at you than put on a a seatbelt?

Not just that but to refuse to even buckle the belt behind you to make the bong stop.

You Make The Call