A well written analysis as to why the congressional Republicans prefer to ignore the ramifications of Russian interference in our election last year. That seems like a catastrophically bad idea to me. The CIA’s assessment that the Russian government probably had a hand in the hacking the Democratic National Committee servers and the subsequent release of leaked emails written by members of the...
Waking up in a Libertarian USA
A dream sequence of waking up in a Libertarian USA Joe Conservative wakes up in the morning and goes to the bathroom. He flushes his toilet and brushes his teeth, mindful that each flush & brush costs him about 43 cents to his privatized water provider. His wacky, liberal neighbor keeps badgering the company to disclose how clean and safe their water is, but no one ever finds out. Just to be...
Showergate
Yesterday1, a cryptic message came across my phone. The NY Times flashed a headline that last week both Donald Trump and President Obama were briefed on an unsubstantiated, but deemed credible report that Russian officials had a dossier on President-Elect Trump that was potentially damaging. Reading the article, it was quite clear that it was un verified, and possibly unverifiable, but that it...
I’m so Ronery…
Circa 2005 – Oliver dreams when his Daddy is not home
Douchebags – Transit Freeriders
One of the perks of my job is that I get an Ecopass, and thus free fare for riding the Lightrail. It is super convenient, and I get a little exercise in the walk to and from the train station. All good. When I first began riding, I was wondering if they ever verify that riders have paid the fare or had used a Clipper card for the ride, as for the first 5 weeks, I saw not even one fare enforcement...
Living with Crippling Self-Doubt
While I have been successful at my career, I live in a perpetual belief that I am not good enough. I constantly feel like I am a fraud, and at any time someone will come along and unmask me.
Of course, all evidence points at the opposite, that I am quite competent, and capable, often exceeding expectations, and gaining the trust of my managers/executives and peers.
On the Diet Train
Over the Thanksgiving weekend, we visited with my dad, who is increasingly slipping into the maw of Alzheimers. One of the exercises was to sort through his pictures of us as children, in the late 60’s and early 70’s. My parents divorced in 1970 or so (my memory is hazy), but shared joint custody. So every other weekend, it was off to the father’s house, and since he was a bit...
Review: Full Contact
There are a few things in my computing life that have been constantly chaotic. Top of the list: my contacts. Looking at how my life has bounced around like a pinball, I have 3 active Google mail accounts, I have my Mac Address book, where all my added contacts from my iPhone dribble in to, and an old application and card scanner that wasn’t really compatible. In short, it was a mess. Then I...
Dumb things I do
I am sure I am not unique, that I am not the only one who does stupid things. Sunday, I did a 6.4 mile hike/walk. I had a small blister on my right small toe. As usual, I “popped” it, and went on with life. Then Monday, I felt like doing another hike/walk. Bad idea. Small blister became agonizing, and a huge portion of the skin on the bottom of that pinkie toe peeled off. Now, I am in...
Getting my online properties in shape
Having started with my web hosting at Media Temple, and their managed offering, their “Grid” platform. Circa 2010, it was state of the art, and worked very well. Apart from some shared MySQL database that had a couple of hogs who affected performance early, it was flawless. Then in late 2014, I got the notice that Media Temple had been sold to the pirates at GoDaddy. Having dealt with...