2014 In Spam

Posted by on January 27, 2015 No comments

It was in April of 2013 that I made a change to the way I use my email.  Unlike most people, I don’t just have an email address, I have an email domain.  And I use that entire domain namespace by creating a specific email address for every business I deal with.

My email server processes the emails against a blacklist instead of a whitelist.  That means that I can create any email address I want, and it will get delivered to me unless I put it on a list to be blocked.  That reduces the amount of administrative headache I have.

The purpose of this is so that I can tell where my emails are being lost, stolen, or sold.  The instances of this in 2014 were pretty low.  Someone got my paypal email from someone I did business with, some political spammer used a public records request to get my electric company email, and one website’s user database got hacked (and they won’t admit to it).

What I was a little fearful of when creating this wildcard email account was that some automated script would hit my mail server and try a whole slew of predictable emails, like admin@, webmaster@, accounting@, president@, etc.  My wildcard account would catch these and I’d get inundated with mail.  However, this hasn’t happened yet.  I did get some spam by someone who guessed an email address using the firstname.lastname@ structure, so that email was then blocked.

My blacklist only has 6 entries, which I think is pretty good.  And to not have any spam is plenty wonderful.  I just did some checking and it seems my mail server software is rather old.  I think an upgrade will be in order sometime this year.

Quotes Considered

Posted by on January 26, 2015 No comments

“If you can’t handle me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best.”

That would be pretty damn unfair if the deal ended up as 90% worst and 10% best.  I think maybe the counteroffer should be: “I deserve a partner whose mean demeanor is at least 75% of the theoretical positive maximum.”

“It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.”

Anything is an answer to something, and everyone has at least one question.  So it’s not so much a matter of knowing some questions or some or all of the answers, but the mapping between the two.

“The way to write American music is simple. All you have to do is be an American and then write any kind of music you wish.”

I think Americans do this with just about everything.  Look at American Apparel, American Express, and American Eagle Outfitters.  Do something and put “American” in front of it and you have patriotic profits!

“Avoid the crowd. Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece.”

There are a shitload of shitty chess players now.  They’ve created their own rules and defined the pieces differently, so they are incompatible with modern, proper, intelligent chess players.

“All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors.”

Clearly coined by a non-programmer who doesn’t understand garbage-in, garbage-out.  However, I will give props to the analogy since the term “series reboot” in film has become fairly mainstream.  Maybe all playwrights are programmers and all audiences are lousy computers.

“Even with the best of maps and instruments, we can never fully chart our journeys.”

No duh.  You need to have a destination in mind before you start a journey.

“Shoot for the moon, and even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”

Space is huge and empty.  There is no “landing” if you miss the moon.  You will be adrift forever in an empty void.  If you are shooting for the moon, you need to be insanely precise.

Ask No Questions, Get No Answers

Posted by on December 30, 2014 No comments

I performed a brief social experiment today that gave me some surprising, and yet unsurprising, results.

At work, our break room has a TV.  And during break time, invariably, someone wants the TV to be going.  Sometimes, it’s HGTV, or sometimes sports, and one time, it was Jerry Springer.  Since I’m not a fan of TV in general, I’m annoyed.

Today, with no one around, I changed the TV to a dead channel.  I thought that would annoy other people.  I speculated that someone would immediately grab the remote and change the channel.  Instead, people just assumed the cable was out and didn’t even try to change it.  Some people were mocking the cable company, some people speculated that it was the weather.  No one ever looked to see if any other channels worked.

I like this and may do it often in the future.

No Budgeting Changes, 2015

Posted by on December 29, 2014 No comments

A blogger that I follow and enjoy for his personal product reviews recently did a review of a financial product called You Need A Budget.  This product isn’t new to me; it’s been around for a while.  In the post, he invoked the names of Mint, MS Money, and Quicken, so of course I was intrigued.

Also in the post, he gave a rundown of his former money management process and I was startled that it was exactly like my current process.  So I read the rest of the entry with great interest and then went to the YNAB site to read more.

The result?  I’m sticking with the way I’ve always done it with MS Money.  And you know why?  There’s one feature in Money that sucks in Quicken and doesn’t even exist in Mint: Cash Flow Forecast.  And that feature is how I handle my money.

Although my management technique mirrored the blog author’s, after I calmed down, I realized even though I do all that, I do something more.  The three key actions I do are:

  • Put every recurring and non-recurring expense in the Bills Summary feature
  • Put every source of income, recurring and non-recurring in the Bills Summary feature (including tiny things like manufacturer rebate checks)
  • Check the Cash Flow Forecast regularly and make sure the balance is rising

That’s pretty much it.  Cash Flow tells you if your income exceeds your expenses.  If you take on a recurring bill that makes the cash flow become neutral or negative, something needs to give.  The forecast can tell you when you will have the funds to take on a large expense or how long it will take to recover from an unexpected hit.

For me, I have 14 recurring expenses in my list.  They range in frequency from monthly, to quarterly, to yearly.  By keeping an eye on the forecast, nothing is ever surprising.  Since I am of the philosophy to charge everything and pay it off monthly, I just have a catch-all bill for credit card.

That is what YNAB seems to be trying to eliminate is the feeling of “where did the money go?” at the end of the month when the CC bill exceeds what is budgeted.  I can sympathize with that a lot.  Money does have a report, “Spending by Category”, but that is historical (unless you run it for the current month).  To make up for that, I just log my receipts more frequently and I can see where the money is going.  That’s something I’ve said before: keep your numbers in your face as much as possible.  Whether using YNAB, The Envelope Method, or Money, that’s the key: awareness.

Hard Drives

Posted by on December 22, 2014 No comments

If there’s one thing that’s true about me it’s that I drive a lot.  I drive a lot. Like on the order of at least 30k miles a year.  So cars and driving have always been part of what I do.  I have no issue driving an hour to get some food.  Lately, I’ve been evaluating how much time a day I might be losing to driving, but that’s for a different post.

It was in May, 2010 that I got my roadster and it didn’t change my driving frequency at all.  I still drove all over the place; I just enjoyed it more.  But the car did open up a few different doors.  It introduced me to the social aspects of having a specialized car.

The first thing I got involved with was an enthusiast club.  People who all owned the same make of car and just got together to hang out and talk car stuff.  I’m not exactly a social person, but I tried for a few months.  I’m also not really a gearhead, so I couldn’t really get into the conversation topics they liked.  So eventually, I drifted off.

One of the things they did discuss at the club meetings was racing.  And those discussions introduced me to autocrossing, which is a timed solo race on a closed track.  Autocross is less about speed and more about technical precision.  So I got involved in that and performed averagely.  One of the biggest things it did for me is allow me to answer “yes” when someone asks me about my car and asks if I race it.  That usually isn’t what they expect to hear.  It also educated me on the limits of my car’s ability, which proved to be far above what I would have imagined.

While participating in Autocross, another idea was tossed around – the road rally.  And this weekend, I was finally able to participate in one.  The rally wasn’t like what you see glamorized through insane photos of cars in midair or bashing through the countryside; it was simply a scavenger hunt done through vehicles.  Now of course, having a nimble sports car will help you when you need to stop immediately or do a quick 180 to go back and get a required photo, which did happen.  But yes, it did also happen that at one point we were driving 68mph on a 2-lane back road and another that we were driving 87mph and got passed by another team who was behind on time.  In the end, it was a rollercoaster experience, thinking we were most likely going to finish last in points and ended up coming in first with a 100 point lead.

So now I can say “yes” with even more confidence when asked about racing.

Hew Manity

Posted by on December 19, 2014 No comments

There’s a word for it.  Words don’t mean a thing.  There’s a name for it.  Names make all the difference in the world.
– Give Me Back My Name, Talking Heads, Little Creatures

Last night, I went tumbling down the Tumblr rabbit hole and I feel much the worse for it.  A couple months ago, a Tumblr user had made an inflammatory post that had had an indirect effect on me.  Wanting to understand why something like this would happen, I did a bunch of research.  I was unprepared for what I would see and read.  I learned that there is an entirely different vocabulary and mentality in the Tumblr subculture, which I feel has some real negative consequence.

To begin, the post that started this all is part of the SJW culture. SJW means “social justice warrior”, aka, morality police.  This in itself is troubling because morality is a cultural norm, which is why sometimes we are offended by foreign cultures while they find their behavior perfectly acceptable.  An SJW’s mission is to attack things they find offensive.

While researching the profiles of the people involved in the attack, I came across so many acronyms and terms that I had never heard of and that made absolutely no sense.  I had to resort to Urban Dictionary for many of them.  Sometimes they were terms that were repurposed, which ironically, is something that is offensive to this subculture.  They derisively call it “appropriation”.  So when they come up with a term to try and legitimatize their problems, they’re empowered, then that term is used by people who seemingly don’t deserve to use it and they’re victimized again.

That’s my first issue.  The next problem is the creation or promotion of terms to eliminate the concept of “normal”.  For example, if you are male and you dress like a male and act like a male, you are “cisgendered”.  If that seems confusing, just realize this term is the opposite of “transgendered”.  The term “cisgendered” has never needed to be used before (outside of psychology), because that was considered “normal”.  But in this subculture, you are expected to explain yourself as such because… well, because I guess it’s not enough to not say it at all and make that assumption.

Finally, a couple of words that are setting off my bullshit detector.  These are words that you will see used excessively in this subculture and not used anywhere else: Privilege and Identify.  In short, Identify (or “identify as”) means how you see yourself, which may be different from how you appear to be.  You may look like a man but see yourself as a woman.  This is different from being gay or being transsexual.  This simply means that when you say, “I identify as a woman,” you are demanding of the people that interact with you to completely disregard your appearance and behave as if you are a woman.  Then, Privilege is a term that is assigned to people who are unaware that they have it better than other people.  Typically, it is an insult and the intention is to make someone feel guilty or ashamed that their life is better.

I think I can summarize my anger at all of this together.  For as long as there have been cultures, there has been a discrimination against those that are “different”.  This new subculture is attempting to reverse that and stigmatize being “normal” (whatever “normal” is in their viewpoint).  This is such an ass-backwards way of trying to invoke change.  They should be trying to advance the acceptance of “different”.  And personally, I thought we were well on our way to that until I started this research.

As an addendum, I need to point out that this whole concept of “normal” and “different” is relative and is being perverted by those who want to treat it as an absolute.  No one can escape being different since every human is different in some way.  However, everyone has the power to determine how being different affects their relationships with others.  Demanding that others accept you how you want to be accepted is not acceptable, that’s being an asshole.

Dream Log

Posted by on December 15, 2014 No comments

Had a weird dream a few nights ago.  So weird, I had to keep reminding myself about it so I wouldn’t forget it like most dreams.

I was on this trip or tour or excursion with a bunch of people to a massive art project.  It was in a huge, multi-story building and the project was by David Byrne of Talking Heads fame.  The building was probably 12 stories high, but for whatever reason, we were going to start at level 9.  The idea was to work your way down to the bottom while taking in the sights.

The sights, as designed by the artist, were simply rooms presenting a different scene.  These scenes represented the gamut of emotional responses, from boring, to humorous, to shocking, to familiar, and on and on.  Very much something David Byrne would come up with.

The thing about the exhibit is that it was such a massive building, you couldn’t see all the scenes in one visit and that was how it was designed.  You would be on a guided tour and maybe the guide was showing you scenes in a particular order to create the expected emotional responses, not unlike how a song evokes emotions, or in longer form, a concert.  Still, very Byrne-esqe.

One of the ridiculous, obviously-a-dream details is that because there was no defined path through the building and you couldn’t tell your way around from room to room, a path was created with mud that had the consistency of chocolate pudding.  You would just walk through the muddy path, following the guide.

Well, another tourist and I decided that we didn’t want to miss out on any of the rooms in the exhibit, so we were going to break from the pack and see as much as we could.  It was understood that this behavior wasn’t discouraged, so we did it.  After seeing a couple of other rooms, we wondered how we were going to keep track of which rooms we’d seen already.  I had the idea of smearing some of the guide path mud on the door so we could identify which we’d seen already.  It was a good idea and we continued, eventually lagging behind and losing our group.

Now alone, I started to get a little concerned about being in this huge building where the rooms connected without any sense and some looked very similar to others so you couldn’t exactly make your way through it with memory.  Then I noticed that the group’s muddy trail was drying up and disappearing…

As that fear was building in me, I turned to my companion and asked if the desk we were at was the same one we had seen just a little bit ago.  I looked closely at it but couldn’t tell if I had smeared some mud on it or not.  And it this point, I kind of knew we were lost.

I woke up shortly after that.  As I kept reminding myself of some of the details, I started coming up with more things that could have happened, but I think those were probably influenced memories.

Let Me Tell You

Posted by on December 10, 2014 No comments

This is something that I’ve seen for a long time.  Maybe I’ve complained about it before.  But I’ve started to see the problem manifested in different ways and the progression is a little disturbing to me.

Quite a long while ago, news channels discovered there wasn’t really enough news to support a 24-hr cycle.  So they started doing more sensationalistic pieces.  Then they started moving towards opinion pieces.  With “opinion news”, they could discuss the same news story in many different ways, filling up the time needed.  The problem with that is that it’s opinion.  That’s one person telling you what you should believe.  And you know what?  That works very damn well.

Recently, an organization I was affiliated with came under attack by a variety of people led by a single blogger who drew a multi-step path of loose connections into an accusation of racism.  And you know what?  It worked pretty damn well.  Not flawless, because many people were able to think rationally and refute the claims.  But, when led down a path – “and if that’s true, then…” – some people will see whatever it is you want them to see.

Most recently, I saw a funny video on Youtube.  In the related videos, I was surprised to see some new genre, “reaction videos” was now legitimate.  Think about that.  You’re watching a video of people watching a video.  I bring this up because it’s another way of leading you down the path.  “You see how these people are reacting to this?  You didn’t react the same way.  You’re different.” 

And that’s the root of the problem.  All of these sources are trying to tell you how to think, how to behave, and what to believe.  Be yourself, be confident, be good.

Encroachment

Posted by on December 8, 2014 No comments

‘Tis the season to be homeless, or so it seems.  I’ll start by saying I’m ambivalent about homeless people.  I really don’t think there is a solution to it, much less a solution to those that actually desire to be homeless and live off of charity.  My reaction to homelessness would be, in D&D terms, chaotic neutral.  but anyway, the stories…

Case 1: The GF and I are out driving and stop at an intersection.  There is a woman wearing the standard-issue safety vest for panhandlers.  Joking around, I commented, “nice butt,”  the GF commented, “nice phone in the back pocket.”  But joking aside, the GF is a lot more generous and tolerant of panhandlers than I.  She will regularly offer a drink or a snack if she has one available.  I infrequently do that.

Anyway, to get to the point, the woman turned around and it was a person that my GF knew from her job.  Knew pretty well, in fact.  That changed a lot and not in the way it might sound.  This woman would show up nearly every day totally drunk and just be belligerent all day.  This is not someone you want to give money to, because it goes to one thing.

Case 2: I’m pulling in to a restaurant for lunch and a vagrant is in the lot.  I leave the car running and pretend to be busy with something inside.  Undeterred, he comes over and is happily gesturing at my car.  Yeah it’s a nice car.  I give him a thumbs up through the window hoping he’ll continue on.  Nope.  He continues gesturing and finally I roll down my window.

The guy is deaf, for real or not.  Signing some stuff, pointing and making noises.  I have no idea what he wants.  He eventually hands me a piece of paper with his pitch pre-written on it.  He’s deaf; he can’t hear or understand what I say; he wants money for McDonalds.  Sigh.  I give him $5 and tell him to enjoy his meal.  He seems extremely grateful.

Case 3: I’m leaving a restaurant and a guy is in the lot with a bike.  “What kind of car is that?”  “It’s a Miata.”  “A what?”  “A Miata.”  “Hold on I can’t hear you.”  He comes closer as I realize what I’ve gotten myself into.  “A what?”  “A Mee Ahh TA”.  “Oh!  That’s a beautiful car.  Must be very expensive.  Never seen one like that before.”

Trapped, I am.  “I just want to fuckin’ say something.  I want to fuckin’ thank you for acknowledging my existence.  All these other people just fuckin’ fly away.  They don’t even say anything.”  And it goes on like that.  It’s cold and drizzling outside and I’m not a fan of that situation either.  So to end the conversation, I say “you know, you really need to find shelter.”  And at that moment, I thought, “God damn it.  Why did I have to say that.”  I get more story, about his mom, who loves him.  I see him trying to figure out how to use whatever I’ve said to work in some kind of pitch, a pitch that will be full of profanity, certainly.   He points at an overpass and says how he has slept there for 5 days. (That’s his shelter, he says). 

I figure, ok, we’re going to do this, huh?  So I asked, “why do you do that?”  He was caught off guard. I said, “I know there’s shelter here in town.  Why don’t you go there?”  Well, he had to think quickly for that. “eeehhhhh, those shelters…. they’re not… nice.  They have bed bugs.  It’s not good.”  And I was getting ready to tell him it had to be better than a bridge when he commented, “he’s eyeing me up.”  I asked, huh? and he said “the cop over there.”  Then I hear behind my car, “Excuse me, would you mind coming over here and talking with me?”

The vagrant walks over and I shut my car.  I’m going to take my opportunity to get out of this.  I look in my mirror and no I’m not.  I’m blocked in by the police.  And… another car shows up.  I catch little bits of their conversation: “You from around here?”  “You have any weapons on you?”  “You said some things that worry me.  Are you going to get violent with me?” Oh boy.

So, the officers don’t find any reason to detain him and let him go.  So I’m going to just finish this up and get home.  I do the nice, dumb thing.  As he walks by the car to get his bike, I offer him a can of Coke.  I want that to be the end and I’ll go.  Nope.

More conversation ensues.  I finally tell him that he needs to clean up his presentation, stop swearing so much, and better things will happen to him.  I have to put the car in gear and start moving for him to get the hint.  I think he stroked the hood of my car as I backed away.

So there’s three recent interactions with the homeless and vagrant within a couple of weeks.  Where it goes from here, I can’t be sure.

Green Hat

Posted by on December 4, 2014 No comments

I was browsing randomly and ended up on an article about difficult interview questions.  One of the questions caught my attention: “Tell us a story which has a title of Green Hat.”  Oooo.  I like making up stories on the fly.  I spent less than a minute thinking and came up with this idea.  The luxury of time with writing means it’s a little more fleshed out, but I think I would have been able to get my point across verbally.

A man was out walking one day and came upon two old men seated opposing each other at a table.  In front of the the men were some seemingly random items on what looked like a complex map.

One man wore a white hat and the other, a black hat.  They stared intently together at the pieces in front of them.  When the man with the white hat would make a move toward a piece, the black-hatted man would reach towards a different piece.  Then each would pause and withdraw their hands from the map, leaving everything as it remained.

The newcomer approached the old men and asked, “Who are you and what are you doing?”  White hat replied, “I am the spirit of positive progress, the one across from me is the spirit of negative consequence.”  Black hat smirked in acknowledgement.

“What I am trying to do,” White hat explained, “is move the pieces on this map to the best position possible, but whenever I ready myself to move a piece, my counterpart prepares to move a piece in a negative way.”

The newcomer considered this and asked, “So when is the last time you moved a piece?”

“I have not for a very, very long time.  If I do, something bad will happen.”

“But, do you know what will happen?” asked newcomer.

“No. But it will be negative.”

The newcomer reached for a piece and Black hat reached for another piece.  To the positive spirit’s shock, newcomer slid his piece all the way across the map.  In return, the negative spirit moved his piece, although only a fraction of the distance.

The positive spirit was beside himself.  “Look at what you’ve done!”

“Did I not move a piece father forward than your opponent moved his back?”  Queried the newcomer?

“Yes, you did,” said the positive spirit thoughtfully.

“Then that is net progress.  You have not have that in a long time.”

The newcomer then pulled a hat from his pocket and put it on his head.  Both old spirits looked at him, surprised.

The newcomer said simply, “Green means go.” and walked onward.