Track THIS

An Australian man, working for a Western Australia water management company, was invited to a meeting at work, with their equivalent of Human Resources. Every employee was given a PDA (Public Display of Affection or Personal Digital Assistant, depending on day of the week), to track where they were. His records stated that he was working at different places but there was no report from his PDA/tracker that he was there.

The fella had a thing for a certain snack food. The bag it came in was foil and mylar. He placed the PDA in the bag, which acted as a Faraday cage. For those of us not electronically oriented, it's a device from which no signals get in or escape. This prevented the PDA from ratting him out. A brief investigation showed that he was out playing golf. 140 times. Now there's a man dedicated to his work. Or something.

• it's time for my non-seasonal rant about unboxing. As we spend a lot of time online (admit it - you'll feel better), we might have seen this. This is a activity wherein you take a picture of something you got and post it online. We, who work in IT and have a more evolved and nuanced sense of sarcasm, can find no useful reason for this behavior. We also make Lemon Face when we see people posting pictures of their food. Or stupid Dog Filters.
• This behavior is particularly egregious in the world of musicians. Some perfectly affable gent will take a picture of his brand new, just released effects box. Every reader is excited because they haven't gotten theirs yet or they're waiting for a demo on YouTube, to figure out whether they need this box or not.
• And what greets them, after the headline "New Illudium P32 Explosive Space Modulator"?  A flipping picture. Gee, that's helpful. Stereotypes don't appear from a vacuum, hence the stupid guitar player.

You've got a cell phone. Of course you've got a cell phone.

You have your location services on, either through ignorance, because of the Gee Whiz app, or you simply don't care. Even if location is off, you can still be tracked. What kinds of information is tracked and what might be traced back to you? Some ad companies will allow you to opt-out but want your Wifi and Bluetooth MAC addresses. Yeah, right. Does it matter that Google collected information anyway, after these were opted out?

Whether you have an existing or new android cell phone, here are five simple tips to keep it safe.

• What price security?  Paypal purchased TIO, a payment processor, for $230 million. TIO got hacked into. TIO halted all activities to avoid further losses. Meanwhile, the Personally Identifiable Information of about 1.6 million customers leaked. Paypal announced that it had found issues with TIO's data security program that did not adhere to its own standards.
• This infers that Paypal did not check TIO's security standards.
• Is a $230 million acquisition a mere pittance - too low to bother checking out its security? Where's the line? A billion?
• In addition to not bothering to secure itself (it owns TIO, therefore it's Paypal), the business has provided a lot of grief to a lot of people. Even though I was a customer, I'd advise not using it.

One of the largest (Chinese) manufacturers of drones stands accused of helping China spy on the US. Because we buy Chinese drones.... what could possibly go wrong? Once again, the government keeps us safe.

• It's a good thing the holidays are coming up. We now get treated to all sorts of ridiculous xmas commercials, some showing up as early as Halloween. This year we're treated to talking carrots and meerkats with German accents, that seem to go on forever. The Brits get a continuing story of two people who met on public transportation and are trying to hook up. This must have something to do with a cell phone provider, or why would they bother bothering us with this nonsense. The only reason I don't throw the screen across the room is that the female is cute, with a lovely, understandable Scottish accent. And I can't afford another screen. As I type this, I swear to you that the commercial just came on.

Yeah, I'm old school. Up til the current car, all my tires were cheap and large. The current car has tires that are small, with large rims and tiny (not thick) tires. What do you suppose would happen if current cars used real tires? My guess is a better ride, but I have absolutely no knowledge of tires, except that mine cost over $200 each, where they used to cost $60-80. Aside from the sound of Get off My Lawn, this is a genuine question. Any car people readers?

• Think you're busy this holiday season? The poor folks at Amazon have been working 55 hour weeks, falling down on the job, and taken away in ambulances. Fortunately the problem was solved when the executives jumped to inaction and offered the employees small chocolates.

Everybody's favorite right wing tongue, Gene Simmons, was banned for life from Fox News. According to reports, he barged in on a staff meeting and exposed his torso, shouting, "Hey chicks - sue me!" Furthermore, he told Michael Jackson pedophilia jokes and mocked the intelligence of the staffers.

The article did not explain, however, why he was banned.

• Everybody's favorite perennial presidential candidate, Vermin Supreme, sued after he was denied a permit to bring ponies to a Hillary Clinton book signing.

Vermin Supreme for president

• After brief research, which is the only kind of research I do, Vermin is now a libertarian. Considering the recent candidates, as well as the Guy in the Loincloth, Vermin will be a welcome change.
• Vermin's 2020 slogan: How could I possibly be any worse?
• Before I decide on whether he gets my vote, I want to know if there will be personalized boots for our heads, or will they just say Vermin Supreme on them? How does one go about sizing them?

Today's Stupid Commercial: What worries you most about your financial future?

One of the kids pops up and says, I don't have any money.

• Also overheard on tv: "she's in an advanced stage of pregnancy." 
• What's that - the baby's halfway out?

Marshall Update: as mentioned previously, the oncologist canceled Marshall's last chemo treatment because he was doing so well. This week's appointment was looking around for lesions in his mouth. It turns out he's not fond of fingers in his mouth, much like the rest of us. 

So after all that, the onco wants to operate, to remove the lesion and go with pills for a while. When we got the estimate, one of us turned white, the other turned green. When we said we'd need to think about this, the doc said no problem - it just has to be done within two weeks. With oral chemo, it'll give him 6-9 months. Oddly enough, other options we discussed earlier would give him the same amount of time.

No one mentioned another operation until today.

Can't help but feel we're being led down the Golden Path, only we're giving away all the gold. Last I checked, neither of us are vets, so it's not like we can ask medically relevant questions. As you'd imagine, this is somewhat upsetting.

Mind you, Marshall's in great spirits; eating like mad, drinking like madder, and demanding everything be dropped so he gets what he wants at that moment. He's got bounce in his step, almost like a puppy. He's leaping on furniture he couldn't six months ago. 

The only criterion is that he's pain-free and comfortable.

this is probably a bad blog to read if you're an Apple fan