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.

The Contributors and The Creators

Posted by on December 3, 2014 No comments

Well, it’s been a year of lessons for me.  As I’ve mentioned in prior posts, I am on the board of a non-profit organization.  And after a little over a year of operations, that organization is shutting down.  The experience that I got out of it has changed a lot of how I view the world, especially towards the end.  The net take-away for me is that being a contributor to society doesn’t really have any payoff, either monetarily or emotionally.

Let’s look at the beginning.  When you start a business with a group of people, you might all be excited that you’re all building something great.  Don’t believe it.  Everyone has their motives for the creation of the entity and one or more people involved will only happy to be receiving the benefits of the existence of said entity.  The assistance you get from them will be minimal at best.

As time goes on, because of the lack of contribution, you will find yourself picking up the slack, through donations of time and money.  You will convince yourself that the business just needs to get over the hump and it can become self-sustaining.  As the excitement wears off for the others, you are left more or less alone.  Don’t believe in any “build it and they will come” dreams.  You’re going to have to drive people to your cause, and probably will have to do it alone.

Then, as you’ve put so much time and effort into your creation, and it actually seems like it might be stabilizing, you might be fortunate enough to be the recipient of an attack.  That attack could be in any form, whether financial, betrayal of a corporate officer, character defamation, or something even worse.  Maybe you can survive it.  Maybe your supporters rally to your cause and get you through it.  But, maybe, it just changes your entire perception of why you built the business in the first place.  Is it worth playing in the same playground as the bullies and the attackers?

And then, as time and negativity set in, there is no one left that believes in the cause.  The ones that were originally in it for themselves have already left.  If you’re lucky enough to have fresh members who you hope would feed the excitement for the cause, they may falter and leave.  What do you have left?  Start from scratch again with all the time and money investment that goes along with it?

The ideal life of a non-profit is like crowdsurfing at a concert.  The original people holding the surfer can’t keep doing it forever.  It needs to be passed on.  But when there’s no one available to pass on to, there can only be a collapse.

But anyway, back to the the title.  People may think being a creator is easy, since you just have to think the idea, get it started and off it runs.  That’s not always how it works.  Think of a for-profit business.  Sure you can run that until it explodes in a torrent of money or disaster.  But when you create a non-profit, you are not an owner.  There are NO owners.  You are a creator and a perpetual contributor until someone chooses to relieve you.  That time may never come.

What A Baby

Posted by on December 1, 2014 No comments

This is rather an oddball post for me, but whatever.  Mid-life, end-of-year, retrospective, introspective bullshit.

I want to think that the old saying, “real men don’t cry” is pretty much obsolete now.  So I feel ok with making a top 5 list of songs that get me choked up.  Sometimes, you just need an emotional release, with all the crap that goes on in our hectic lives.

I can say that I kind of need to be “in the mood” to cry.  Lots of times, I can power through these songs or just not actively listen to the song, or just not think about the meanings I get from it.  There’s plenty of times I hear the song and don’t even register any emotion, but sometimes, it just hits me – as the kids say nowadays – “in the feels”.

So without further adieu:

#5: Steve Morse Band – The Oz.  This one doesn’t exactly make me tear up, but the guitar solo is one that really gets to me.  Not as much anymore, but I remember a time when it was really something powerful for me.

#4: Kansas – Lonely Wind.  This one gets me with the “choir-y” arrangements.  It kind of brings me back to my grandfather’s funeral when I was very young.  Didn’t feel anything throughout the whole funeral until the end, when the choir started singing, then it was over.

#3: Flying Colors – Peaceful Harbor.  Another with choir arrangements and a message about “weathering the storm.” I’m not really sure why the nautical imagery affects me so much.

#2: Rush – Time Stand Still.  A song about getting older and how time seems to speed up.  How we don’t seem to realize how quickly things come and go.  How you should always live in the present and appreciate the current moment.

#1: Indigo Girls – Cedar Tree.  The worst: losing the love of your life.  And worse than Rush’s song, realizing in hindsight that it was “the best you ever had.” But then, it’s too late to appreciate it for what it is, because it’s over.

All Things Considered

Posted by on November 18, 2014 No comments

Since I’ve been working on my CD collection, I’ve been thinking about CDs a lot lately. There’s a lot of talk on the death of the CD format, with it being replaced by digital downloads. On top of that, there’s talk about the music industry not making any money anymore. On top of that, there’s the discussion of digital piracy and how to get people to pay for music again.

All these issues are intertwined.  The industry is losing money in some areas, but not in all.  Part of it is because of the third point, piracy, but another good part of it is that there are now multiple, durable playback mediums.  CDs are very durable, and where they may fail, digital copies and CDRs fill in the gaps.  So the industry doesn’t have the opportunities to resell an entire collection to a consumer in a new format, and the instances where the industry has to sell replacements has decreased, too.  You can see the industry trying to adapt by selling special editions and remastered versions.  It’s not working out all that well.

Some say the CD is dead for the same reason “books are dead” – because the physical media takes up space.  I recently read about a company whose purpose is to license out-of-print classical music and create CDs on-demand.  It made me wonder if the entire music business could be like this.  (I’ve also wondered if automobile sales could be like this, too.)

My issue with that concept is that CDRs do have a limited shelf life.  Supposedly, aluminum CDs also have a shelf life, but that is yet widely proven.  Also, for me, buying a CDR is no different than downloading the music and making the CDR myself.  So, unless someone is willing to archive the glass masters and one-off actual CDs, I’ll stick with my originals.

So, let’s think of the future where manufacturing CDs is obsolete and digital or CDR is pretty commonplace.  In that time, real CDs have value – they are elevated to collectables.  So, why can’t the industry make that happen a little sooner?  Just manufacture less CDs and let the market decide who wants to pay to own a physical copy of the music instead of owning a license to a digital copy.  The CD becomes the collectable.  The industry saves money from having a lower on-hand inventory.  CDs gain a marketing edge as “limited quantity”.

In some of my daydreams where I am a famous musician or maybe the owner of a record label company, I would brainstorm how to make my albums valuable and how to get people to buy instead of steal.  A long time ago, I thought including a video with the album would be a nice value-add.  Back then, digitally copying a DVD was prohibitive in storage and bandwidth.  Not so much anymore.  And now today, lots of special edition albums include a behind-the-scenes DVD.  So then what?  I also thought about books.  Books are more difficult to reproduce digitally and don’t hold the same allure when seen on a screen.  A recent album I purchased was being sold direct by the record label as a bundle with a DVD, a shirt and a poster.  It was 3x what I paid for it, but I think that’s a nice option.  Whatever the solution is, it has to be physical, because digital has no value.

And maybe in the future, the only physical thing needed to make the album special will be the CD itself.

Hard Times

Posted by on November 14, 2014 No comments

The last couple weeks have been difficult for me and have resulted in me performing a reassessment of society.

First, I have learned that intolerance, prejudice, and hypocrisy make up a holy trinity.  When someone publicly attacks you for something that they find offensive, and then pins a label on you that can’t be proven, you have little defense.  You can try to be rational with them, you can try to argue with them, you can try to dismiss them, but you cannot win.

Second, I learned that everything in life must be treated like open-heart surgery.  You get one chance to do anything and if you don’t do it the correct way and do it perfectly, you are an utter failure.  This is especially true when you are doing the work you have done all your life.

Now, I will say that these are not things I believe, only things that I perceive right now.  It’s going to be a while to recover from these latest blows to my faith in civilization.

Prediction

Posted by on November 5, 2014 No comments

A while ago, the world was abuzz with the celebrity nudes hack.  I was recently reminded of a recent update I had seen for Dropbox.  It’s easily understood that anything that can be used by you for good can be used against you for bad by someone else.  This feature is no different.

The specific feature that was added to Dropbox was “Remote Wipe”, which is intended to be used if you lose your phone or other portable device.  By triggering a remote wipe, your data is no longer available to steal.  That is a good thing.  This is presumably done through the Dropbox website.

But what happens if someone gains access to your Dropbox website account?  They can remotely wipe your data.  Now instead of your portable device being a backup copy if the service ever became inaccessible, now it’s vulnerable whenever the service is accessible.

Naturally, the hacker would either change the password and/or copy off all the files for their own potential ransom request or personal use.  Can you imagine opening up your Dropbox folder one day and have it be empty except for a text file with instructions on submitting a ransom in bitcoin?

I keep saying it one way or another.  The cloud is not to be trusted. 

You need to:

  • Keep your data locally.
  • Have unique usernames at each website – Use a password manager like KeePass
  • Have unique passwords at each website – Use a password manager like KeePass!
  • Keep a PIN on your phone.
  • Keep catastrophic data in an encrypted file – Use TrueCrypt 7.1a

The more of this you do, the more secure you will be, which means the more comfortable you will be. 

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Posted by on November 4, 2014 No comments

I absolutely despise this season.  I’m not talking about the holiday season, I’m talking about politics season.  This is the time of year where everyone that has an opinion has an uncontrollable urge to convince you that they are right about something and you should think the same way.  It’s like a Caribbean straw market.

And of course, nothing is off the table when it comes to pitching your case.  At a public event a couple weeks ago, a crotchety old woman came up to me to explain why I needed to be opposed to a public transit initiative.  “It’s going to go from City A to City B.  What’s in City B?  Nothing.  There’s no reason to go to City B.  It’s stupid.”  Well, that’s a convincing argument.  Especially for people who live in City B.  Since I didn’t live in that county, I couldn’t vote on it anyway.

But yesterday, I got a spam political email for a public transit referendum in my own county.  What is it with the hatred of public transit?  There’s a bunch of selfish fucks that think if it’s not for them, they’ll fight it to the bitter end.  But before I rant on that too much, this is the point of contention for that email.

The email was delivered to an email address used exclusively for paying my electric bill.  I’ve mentioned before that I’ve started using a single email per website, so I can track how my addresses are misused.  So I responded and asked how he was able to acquire an email address that is used for a single purpose.  Did my electric company sell my email address?

I was surprised I got a response and more surprised by what he said:

No, they did not.

Beyond that, I will say nothing other than what I do is in full compliance with the law.

I chose not to engage him any further.  It is clear that the best criminals are the ones that use the law to their advantage.

Knowing that my email was not sold tipped me off as to how the address was collected.  Somewhere in the electric company’s website (couldn’t find it on a quick search), there is a notice that says that communications with a government agency – which my electric company is – are public record.  Somehow, somewhere, there is a way to request these communications, which would include email addresses.  It’s legal, for sure; it’s also immoral, for sure.

And that pretty much sums up this season.  It’s a bunch of fuckasses doing anything they can to manipulate you and get done what they want done for their own personal gain.  It’s all selfishness.  Two generations before mine – the “greatest generation” – knew that by creating infrastructure for everyone, everyone benefits.  The current in-power generation, throughout their entire life, has created an a la carte existence, where you pay only for whatever you want.  More importantly, you don’t pay for anything that you don’t want.

There is no sense of community anymore.  There is no sense of making the world a better place.  There is no sense of altruism.  The selfish pricks keep screaming their heads off about taxes and how “I’m just looking out for my children’s future!”  Well, how about you do some looking out for other children’s future? 

Gas Runners

Posted by on November 3, 2014 No comments

A few days ago, I was driving home and saw a couple of gas stations with different gas prices.  The one station’s prices were “cash only”.  It got me thinking about a couple of things.  First off, I thought that there isn’t any incentive to go to a cash-only station if the prices are practically the same.  I wondered if it was a desperate concession for the station owner to implement surcharges for credit cards.  This led me to consider gas stations as a whole business.

With any business, you have income and expenses.  You can play with these elements in any possible way to create profit, that is, more income than expenses.  When you are selling gas, you have one income source – gas sales.  You would have many, many expenses – licenses, maintenance, labor, taxes, utilities, and on and on.  One of those expenses would be credit card processing fees.  Like I said, play with these sources to create profit.  Eliminate CC fees and you may make a profit, or more of a profit.

With larger gas stations – ones with integrated convenience stores – you would have multiple sources of income, including food/merchandise sales and possibly lottery ticket sales commissions.  Your other expenses may go up too, but we all know that buying anything from a convenience store is not the cheapest choice.  You are paying dearly for the convenience.

So, by having the C-store, your profits from one sector can offset the expenses from the other.  You can absorb the CC fees because your C-store sales are subsidizing them.  This made me wonder how gas stations could even survive without solid c-store sales.  Maybe this is why they have to sacrifice CC processing.

So now, on to my idea.  You have a gas station with customized gas pumps.  The pumps have a large touchscreen that performs as a kiosk.  After you swipe your card to activate the pump, the screen allows you to purchase items in the store.  Within the store are one or more “runners” that will pick and run the items out to you at the pump.  That’s it.  A simple idea.

But more than just simple, this is an improved form of convenience – you don’t even have to go inside the store.  You don’t have to run your credit card twice – your gas and purchases are combined on one receipt.  The store doesn’t even have to be customer-accessible.  It could be optimized for quick-picking.

The ordering kiosk software could remember people by their credit card numbers and provide frequent, recent, and favorite item lists to choose from.  As with everything modern now, you could tie it to an online profile where the customer could review purchases and create lists of favorite items to be shown on their next visit.

If you haven’t determined it by now, this is how a small station could compete with a large C-store.  You have the extra income stream of the merchandise sales, but a much lower overhead of running a large store, including maintenance, taxes, cleaning, utilities, and more.  And, in some ways, the service level would be higher.  With so many people in a rush, saving the time of going in, shopping, and standing in line to pay (again), all that time is saved.