Kurt's Thoughts

It’s frightening that there are folks that are investing in a non-guaranteed currency – one that ultimately they’re putting faith in with very little knowledge of how the system works.

Take a look at this:

• How the Bitcoin 1% manipulate the currency, deceive its user community, and make its future uncertain
  http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/how-the-bitcoin-1-manipulate-the-currency-deceive-its-user-community-and-make-its-future-uncertain/2013/06/30

The article is based on this research:

Quantitative Analysis of the Full Bitcoin Transaction Graph
http://eprint.iacr.org/2012/584.pdf

The Bitcoin scheme is a rare example of a large scale global payment system in which all the transactions are publicly accessible (but in an anonymous way). We downloaded the full history of this scheme, and analyzed many statistical properties of its associated transaction graph. In this paper we answer for the rst time a variety of interesting questions about the typical behavior of users, how they acquire and how they spend their bitcoins, the balance of bitcoins they keep in their accounts, and how they move bitcoins between their various accounts in order to better protect their privacy. In addition, we isolated all the large transactions in the system, and discovered that almost all of them are closely related to a single large transaction that took place in November 2010, even though the associated users apparently tried to hide this fact with many strange looking long chains and fork-merge structures in the transaction graph.

Untraceable money.  I wonder what sort of organization would be interested in such a thing.  Hmmm.

Wow.  This activated neurons that hadn’t been used in my head for years.

This is Fidelity Investment’s password policy for the past decade:

• Password Standards
  Use 6 to 12 letters and/or numbers
  Do not use one entire piece of personally identifiable information such as your Social Security number, telephone number, or date of birth. Instead, alter or disguise it (e_g., Jane212Smith)
  Do not use more than 5 instances of a single number or letter, or easily recognized sequences (e.g. 12345 or 11111)
  Do not use symbols, punctuation marks, or spaces (e.g., #,@, /, *, -.)

It’s 2013.  You’re a major financial institution.  Get off your IBM mainframe or AS/400-authenticated garbage and get a real authentication system, okay?  It’s embarrassing.  No, really.  While the rest of the planet’s web services – including free email systems Outlook.com & Gmail – are presenting multi-factor authentication with the usage of passphrases containing hundreds of characters, you can’t even get basic passwords right?

Let’s review, shall we?

1. No passwords larger than 12 characters.
   [MOUTH AGAPE]
2. No non-alphanumeric characters.  Non-alphanumeric characters are arguably one of the best defenses against brute force account hacking.
3. No server-side authentication.  Fidelity.com doesn’t authenticate itself to you with known information about you & your account to demonstrate that it really is Fidelity.com you’re logging into, and not a man-in-the-middle.
4. No two-factor authentication.  Not even a cellphone solution like Phone Factor. 
5. No authorized workstation activation. (a from of two-factor authentication)  There are no personal PCs that you can bless with special cookies to access your account.  Basically, anyone can log into your account from any PC in the world.  Nice.

Yes, I get that you have an account lockout policy.  Fine.  But so does everyone else & that doesn’t stop them from implementing complex passwords.  I seriously expected this to be fixed a long time ago.  Y’all make Morgan Stanley look downright MODERN despite their ridiculous flash-only interface.

Sigh.

Not surprisingly, this table could also be attributed to most Internet comments.

“I love Apple.  I LOVE APPLE.”

– Senator Claire McCaskill (D) Missouri in a Congressional Hearing with Apple CEO Tim Cook on the $44B in taxes they avoided

You gotta kidding me.

Yup.  Congressional pandering to Apple has gotten so disgusting that now even Jon Stewart is calling them out.

Full article & video here:

• Tax Men – Apple
  Senators laud Apple CEO Tim Cook for his amazing products and outside-the-box interpretation of the American corporate tax code. 
  http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-may-22-2013/tax-men—apple

These stupid things make me cry every damned time. 

I suppose deep down it’d be really, really, really nice to have the balls to do something like this.  But I’ll see how Matt himself feels about his ‘line of work’ now that he’s got a little one.  Because the day I had my son, was the day everything changed – work, fun, energy, interests/hobbies, worries, focus…

Here’s the one from June of last year.  I only saw it 4 hours ago.  The fact that I missed it completely tells me maybe I need to expand my circle of interests or something.

I hope Matt Harding manages to continue doing what makes him happy.  With all the videos he took during this 5 min montage, the last clip is the simplest & one that opened up the waterworks for me.

Good job, Matt.

Someone named IamNorris posted a map comparison showing where “Whole Foods” are located versus “Walmarts”, with the implication of this being a determination as to “where the rich people live, versus where the poor people live”.

Something that dawned on me was, “Where’s the middle ground?  Where’s the middle class?”  And so I started thinking… where does our family shop?  I think I’ve got the solution:  “Trader Joes”

Locations of Whole Foods in Los Angeles:
Big surprise, they’re all located in Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Westwood/Bel Air, Brentwood, Santa Monica, Culver City, Venice.

Locations of Walmarts in Los Angeles:
Again, not surprisingly you see them located in Norwalk, La Mirada, Hawaiian Gardens, Bell Gardens, Cerritos, & Paramount.

Location of Trader Joes in Los Angeles:
Again LOTS of Culver City Rancho Park, West Hollywood, Hollywood, North Hollywood, Silverlake, Mid-Wilshire, Manhattan Beach.

Have you ever had a piece of equipment that you bought “just in case” an discovered how incredibly useful it is after the fact?  It’s like a 6th man on the bench that suddenly steps up.  That’s what the Energizer All-in-One is like.  It’s the Jeremy Lin of home accessories. 

At its most basic, the Energizer All-in-One is a single body luggable battery with 3 uses.  It can:

• Jumpstart your car when the battery goes dead with its jumper cables
• Inflate tires & other items with its air compressor
• Provides 12V AC power for either a conventional US power socket or dual car accessories
• Provide directional light using a bendable LED white flashlight at its top

I bought this on a lark during a Black Friday thinking that it’d be convenient.  It’s usually $120 but it was going for 60% off so I said, what the heck.  Boy, am I glad I did.  This thing is so convenient it’s crazy.  Here’s why:

• I’ve left my lights on or drained my battery 5-6 times accidentally by having items plugged into the car adapter or leaving my lights on.  This has jumpstarted the car in under 5 minutes every time.
• I’ve had to inflate my tires or my son’s basketball/soccer ball numerous times and simply pulling this out was dirt simple.  No need to find a power source for the compressor:  The unit IS A POWER SOURCE.
• I’ve had to jump my car in the pitch black.  The arcable/bendable LED flashlight at the top is exactly what you need to illuminate the area around your car battery to hook the jumper cables to it late at night.
• The AC adapter port provides power to charge my laptop an addition 10hrs plus.  I have no idea how much juice is in this thing because it’s never run out of power on me.

There’s two catches:

1. The instructions say that you must recharge the unit after every use or you’ll diminish the life of the battery.  I bring my unit indoors and plug it into the wall immediately after using it.  I’ve read some negative reviews about the unit on Amazon – the primary complaints revolved around the unit not being able to retain a charge, and I highly suspect these folks used it, then left it for a while with a diminished charge & that goes against the instructions which clearly states that the unit needs to be fully recharged after every use.
2. To recharge the unit you need to plug it into a wall socket… and there’s no cable to do that.  ANY lightweight TWO-pronged AC extension power cable will work & I didn’t need heavy duty cabling.  I used a thin power extension cable I typically use for Christmas tree lighting.  It would be nice to be able to charge the unit via the car adapter while the car is running but I guess I understand that there may be safety hazards associated with that.

Ultimately, this has saved me a ton of money on AutoClub calls.  Maybe I’m absent-minded and a little abnormal but I used to have to call AAA to jumpstart my car at home all the time (6-7 times a year) because I’d drain the battery due to my forgetfulness around plugged in peripherals on the AC adapter or leaving my lights on or simply not using the car and letting the alarm system drain the car battery.

…but now I don’t need to.  The Energizer All-in-One has saved my bacon more times than I can imagine and did it QUICKLY if I was scrambling to work.  If I could write a Yelp review for this little unit I would.  But I can’t so this is my review.  Most useful piece of equipment I’ve owned in years.  5-stars!

• AMAZON: Energizer 84020 12V All-In-One Jump-Start System with Built-In Air Compressor and Power Inverter ($125)
  http://www.amazon.com/Energizer-84020-All-In-One-Jump-Start-Compressor/dp/B0030B2N10/
• AMAZON: C2G/Cables to Go 03115 18 AWG Outlet Saver Power Extension Cord (NEMA 5-15R to NEMA 5-15P), Black (6 feet/1.82 Meters) ($5)
  http://www.amazon.com/C2G-Cables-Outlet-Extension-Meters/dp/B0002J1KS0/

(Photos taken from M. Johnson/webrat55 on Amazon)

Every so often a product comes a long that makes my mouth hang open, thinking, “OMG – that’s EXACTLY what I need.”

AquaNotes was exactly that product.  It’s a waterproof notepad that allows you to jot down ideas or reminders you have while in the shower.

The notepad isn’t actually made of paper.  It’s a white rubber/plastic material that you’d swear has the exact consistency of paper.  It allows for writing on by pencil, pen, and basically any writing utensil.

The top of each sheet is perforated so that you can rip the note off of the pad to take with you to work or wherever you need to go.  It doesn’t get “moldy” or “retain water”.  It just hangs on the shower wall using two suction cups, along with a 3rd suction cup that holds a pencil.  (Both included)

And it’ costs $7.  $7 to never ever forget a thought you had in the shower.  I bought a stack of them & I bought one for everyone in my family as a stocking stuffer.

OMG, TAKE MY MONEY, AMAZON.

• Aqua Notes – Waterproof Notepad ($7, Amazon Prime)
  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003W09LTQ/r

The 7th Annual Sake & Food Tasting Event is scheduled for Friday, July 26, 2013 Samuel Oschin Endeavour Pavilion at the California Science Center.  More details to follow. Stay tuned at LTSC.org

Yesterday, my Mitsubishi Diamond Projection TV (WS65718) wouldn’t turn on.  Nothing happened when I hit the power button.  I punched the “System Reset” button using paperclip.  No dice.  I guess it was bound to happen considering the set is over 10 years old (purchased in 2002) and really, despite being left on for days sometimes, never had a failure until now.

Off to Bing I go for a solution.  Unfortunately, the only advice I got that seemed of value was this:

Unfortunately there is only two things the end user can do. First, unplug the set from the wall for 5-10 min. This forces the micro-processor to reboot. After plugging the TV back in and it still does not start up, then a technician will have to be called in. You can go to http://www.mitsubishi-tv.com to contact them and/or find the nearest technician.

I indeed tried this, and failed.  I ended up having to find a repair shop to do a house call and evaluate my TV’s reparability.  After all, the unit is massive and isn’t the kind of thing you throw into the back of the car.

HELLO?  UM… DO YOU REPAIR BIG SCREEN TVs?
If you live on the Westside of Los Angeles (Santa Monica/Mar Vista/West Los Angeles/Westwood/Century City/Beverly Hills/Brentwood) the only shop I found that did repairs on Mitsubishi TVs was a place called “Precision Sound Service” – and they were recommended by the original store that I purchased the big screen from over a decade ago.  And yes, they did house calls.

Today, Diego stopped by and took a look at the unit for a service charge of $89.  He popped the front & the back and grimaced.  He said he’d have to take out the entire projection & electronics assembly and take it back to the shop to replace 1 of the larger modules & possibly one other.  Estimated price:  $350.

I swallowed but ultimately, who am I kidding?  If he gets it fixed – and fixed well, it’s more than worth $350 being that a new TV would be $5000 in the range I’m thinking of.  Besides, this unit was in the $10,000 range & state of the art back when I got it.  (At a deep discount, mind you) so I think $350 is a fair investment for 10 years+ of usage.

So the massive assembly left with him.  And the TV is pretty much just an empty hull.  We’ll see how good these guys are.

To be continued…

————————–
References:

• http://www.mitsubishi-tv.com/support/troubleshooting
• http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070920234853AAcVQFc
• http://www.justanswer.com/tv-repair/4jnuz-mitsubishi-diamond-series-hdtv-1080-won-t-turn.html
• http://www.tvrepairsantamonica.com/

I love that my son head bops to this tune.  Here’s something to listen to while you listen to “Windows Weekly” or read through Ed Bott or Mary Jo Foley’s blog because hey:  35,000,000 hits can’t be wrong.

It’s a little grainy because it was taken a bit ago at night with a low end camera phone but given recent events with Oracle & their questionable security patching attempts, I thought some folks might find this LA driver’s vanity plate humorous.  No, I didn’t know who the driver was.

And while we’re at it, there was also this one, spotted in Northern California:

Wow.  That was some announcement the other day.  Some of the best tweets I read from the Sony Playstation 4 event:

• “THE PLAYSTATION 4 SAGA ENTERS IT’S 903RD DAY”
  https://twitter.com/DrPizza/status/304394768757174272
• “I’m concerned.  Should we organize a concert for them or something?”
  http://www.twitter.com/alexandrapullin/status/304395576643043330
• “The PS4 reveal is hopefully coming to a close #LetMyPeopleGo”
  http://www.twitter.com/ericbangeman/status/304395806683828224
• “If I was a cynical person, I’d ask if the PS4 version of the nexwt great game in the Call of Duty sseries will still be based on DX9”
  http://www.twitter.com/willsmith/status/304394790143946752
• “People at the PS4 event are literally dying of old age.”
  http://www.twitter.com/DrPizza/status/304394772708204545
• “Conspiracy: The PS4 hardware is invisible.”
  http://www.twitter.com/clubdirthill/status/304394505522659331
• “There’s a “post show” for those who survive.”
  http://www.twitter.com/WithinRafael/status/304394299125166080
• “I’ve seen companies events with tweet choirs that were more interesting.”
  http://www.twitter.com/harlemS/status/304393002544160770
• “The PS4 press conference is a DoS attack against Xbox Next.  Everyone will still be at the sony event when MS shows off its console.”
  http://www.twitter.com/DrPizza/status/304392615518932992
• “Kinda like a filibuster”
  http://www.twitter.com/TheRomit/status/304392803302133761
• “Once again, following a live event on twitter is more fun than the event itself. #ps4”
  http://www.twitter.com/TheRomit/status/304392069420552192
• “I hope someone from Xbox land is taking notes.  For example, “remember to make sure the press conference ends.””
  http://www.twitter.com/BrandonLive/status/304390862014672897
• “A whole new Gran Turismo game could have been developed during this presentation.”
  http://www.twitter.com/DrPizza/status/304389721050722305
• “PS4 Conference: The Deathmarch”
  http://www.twitter.com/alex/status/304389265431883776
• “PS4 will launch as soon as this event is over, which is to say 10 months from now.”
  http://www.twitter.com/Gartenberg/status/304389168220471296
• “So in the “Post-PC” revolution, SONY’s PS4 becomes more PC than ever.  Fascinating.”
  http://www.twitter.com/jperlow/status/304388857082826752
• “So the Burger King social media team is running the Sony event?”
  http://www.twitter.com/edbott/status/304388338637488128
• “This feels like college all over again, the paid presenter is not speaking english.”
  http://www.twitter.com/bdsams/status/304387061933281281
• “This demo is fake as hell.”
  http://www.twitter.com/clubdirthill/status/304386401691111427
• “So, I’m confused are you trying to sell me a console or convince me to move to France?”
  http://www.twitter.com/harlemS/status/304381859704487937

SCORE #1
This is based on the following question:

Q: Please think about your overall satisfaction … Considering everything you know or have heard about the company, its products, its service, and support organization, would you say you are:
4 = Very Satisfied (VS)
3 = Somewhat Satisfied (SS)
2 = Somewhat Dissatisfied (SD)
1 = Very Dissatisfied (VD)

CALCULATION:
Score = (% of Very Satisfied) – (% of Somewhat Dissatisfied + % of Very Dissatisfied) + 100
(Range = 0-200, 200 being highest)

EXAMPLE:
Scores based on the following responses for all participants would be:

• 4, 4, 3, 3, 3 –> 40% VS, 60% SS –> NSAT = (40) – (0+0) + 100 = 140
• 4, 3, 3, 3 –> 25% VS, 75% SS –> NSAT = (25) – (0+0) + 100 = 125
• 4, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3 –> 17% VS, 83% SS –> NSAT = (17) + (0+0) + 100= 117
• 3, 3, 3, 3, 3 –> 100% SS –> NSAT = (0) – (0+0) + 100 = 100
• 4, 3, 3, 3, 2, 1 > 17% VS, 50% SS, 17% SD, 17% VD –> (17) – (17+17) + 100 = 83

METRIC:
Our required value for score #1: 171
(In other words, even if all ratings are “Somewhat Satisfied”, the score would be 100, far below 171.)

—————————————————————————————-

SCORE #2
This is based on the average of 6 specific questions, multiplied by 10.  All questions are rated from 1-9, 9 being highest.

1. Understands my organization’s strategic priorities* (*)
2. Presents my organization with innovative technology solutions that can maximize our ROI (*)
3. Documents my expectations for a successful working relationship (Conditions of Satisfaction)* (*)
4. Holds executive business reviews (meetings with my organization) that include the right people, communicate progress on priorities, and are a valuable use of our time (*)
5. Has a joint plan with my organization that addresses our technological needs and overall business goals (*)
6. Collaborates with partners to deliver value to my organization (*)

CALCULATION:
Score = (Sum of all ratings)/6 x 100

EXAMPLE:

1. Invests time = 7
2. Works together = 7
3. Engages right resources = 8
4. Seeks feedback = 8
5. Takes action = 7
6. Provides information = 7

Score #2 = (7+7+8+8+7+7)/6 x 100= 73

METRIC:
Our required value for Score #2:  82
(Again, even if all scores are “8”, the total score is an 80, which is below the required score of 82.)

Just in case I never posted this:  Do you remember that scene in Mallrats where William can’t see the “sailboat” in the stereoscopic picture?  Did you ever wonder what the hell was in that picture?

Well, here it is.  A capture of the screen from the movie.  And yes, amazingly the stereoscopic picture works perfectly in the below snapshot:

Here’s the funny part:  There’s no sailboat.  I won’t tell you what’s in there but there’s no boat to be found, albeit there are 3D objects in the picture to be seen.

For the cynics reading this, this isn’t preachy… it’s actually an amazing & emotional short film & it’s only a 1:30 long.

UPDATE 2/23/13:
Just realized how sloppily this post was written and so I cleaned it up, added some additional photos and corrected the mistake about the wording on my 5 year service award.

————————————

ORIGINAL POST:
Take a look at this.  Below is a snapshot of the web site where Microsoft employees can purchase replacement Service Awards – the awards given to us for being employed for 5, 10, and 15 years.  (You can see there’s a space for folks that have been around for 20.  Haven’t made it quite there yet.  Crossing fingers!)

BACK STORY:
I’ve been with Microsoft for 17 years running.  Back in 2000 when I was given my 5 year Service Award, they didn’t give away fancy shmancy Kryptonite-ish crystals like those you see below.  We got a brushed aluminum desk clock about 3”x3”x1” that read:

“5 YEARS WITH MICROSOFT!”

No, it’s written exactly like that… with 2 exclamation points. (Correction: I guess I remembered the award incorrectly because it did in fact have only 1 exclamation point in this photo)  Anyway, it was so… umm… ‘unique’ that that clock became sort of a target of humor.  One person told me it looked like a hood ornament when I got it.

At 10 years, it got classy.  The photo below is of the plaque that commemorates the famous 10 shares of stock that all employees were granted back then.  (I don’t know if they still do this)  I’m actually very proud of this plaque and was pretty giddy when I got it.  Only the people I revered the most at Microsoft had one of these.

Nowadays, we get these beautiful crystal service awards as you see above.  But if you look really carefully, you can see the costs associated with each below the photos.

Yup.  $419.00 for the 15 year award.  That’s a $150 difference from the cost of the 10 year award which sells for $269.00.  Color me stunned! 

…kinda makes you wonder what the 20 year award is like,‘eh? 

If you’re a UCLA football fan, you should remember Kai Forbath, arguably the best kicker in UCLA history, up there with the likes of John Lee.

According to Wikipedia, take a look at his career in the NFL to date:

Professional career

Dallas Cowboys

After being projected as the second-best kicker in the 2011 NFL Draft, Forbath was not selected. However, on August 2, 2011, he signed with the Dallas Cowboys as a rookie free agent, and was subsequently placed on the reserve/non-football injury list.^[3][4] He was waived on April 16, 2012.^[5]

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers claimed Forbath off waivers on April 17, 2012. During preseason, Forbath made five out of five field goal attempts, including a successful 55-yard kick.^[6]

Washington Redskins

The Washington Redskins signed Forbath on October 9, 2012, replacing Billy Cundiff.^[7][8][9] Forbath made his NFL and Redskins debut in an impressive fashion, knocking through a 50-yarder as his first career NFL field goal in the home game against the Minnesota Vikings on October 14, 2012.^[10] He was also a perfect five of five on extra points, as the Redskins defeated the Vikings 38–26. His performance was essential in the Redskins’ victory over the Baltimore Ravens in Week 14, where he recorded 48 and 49-yard field goals and then a game-winning 34-yard field goal in overtime.^[11]

On December 23, 2012, Forbath set the NFL record for consecutive field goals to begin a career with 17 in a row, beating Garrett Hartley, who previously held the record at 16.^[12][13] The ball was sent to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.^[14]

Question:  How stupid do you think Dallas must feel?

As a relatively frequent traveler with a computer bag, I laughed at this until I realized how often I put my PC down.  Bitlocker-encrypted or not, if I were to lose my laptop… whoaaaanelly.  My only saving grace would be that I use the cloud for the frequent backup of my data but damn is this easy.