Going on Tour with The Monkees, Playing Mike

Predictum, the University of California Berkeley's project, scrapes Faceyspaces, Twitter, and Instagram posts to assign a 'risk score' of a target (prospective hire). Noted:

We should all take for granted, then, that nowadays our social media posts are being scrutinized.

Apparently my nieces didn't get the bulletin, as they have posts all over the place of them completely drunk, tossing their cookies, and throwing gang signs (these are early 20-something white [bread] girls).

The software must be pretty accurate: Faceyspaces and Twitter are attempting to revoke all access. Here's the great part - don't read if you're drinking or eating:

Facebook revoked most of Predictim’s access to users, on the basis of violating the platform’s policies regarding use of personal data

Mozilla's guide to creepiness of holiday purchases.

• At work, I can't get into Helpdesk's ticketing system. Someone suggested I fill out a ticket to get it fixed.
• But seriously, when I could get to it, it had reversed time: the system told me it had fixed the problem before I told them there was a problem. Quantum Helpdesk.

University Yucks:

Two London student groups are replacing the word women with "womxn" in communications, to be more inclusive.

What about words for womxn who identify as telephone poles or fluffy bunnies?

• Who named the British dishwashing liquid 'Fairy'? The Marketing department must've gotten some really good stuff.
• Buy their other products: Pussy, Sperm, and the new soap, 'Faggot'

Bugcrowd University offers free courses on security:

Learn the basics of hacking and bug bounty hunting with videos, tutorials, labs, best practices and more on GitHub.

• Oopsie - Dell reset all user passwords. We can't be too upset about this - after all, they're a small company with few resources....

In Pennsylvania, our drivers licenses use facial recognition. I was furious when I found out. Know who else uses facial recognition? China. At least China doesn't pretend they're not draconian. The other day, one of their cameras saw a billboard on a bus, featuring a celebrity, and thought the bus was the celebrity.

My rants about driverless cars are legendary (here only). Now the software can be used for cars AND facial recognition - that's driving and spying. Do you feel comfortable with buying a driverless car now? After the Muskmobile killed one lady? After another driver went the same route and found the car trying to kill him too?

For some people, this is the future. I can't argue their point, but I'll repeat my objection: the technology is not ready for prime time.   As for spying, that's a different issue entirely. America would have to actually DO something to stop it, hence there will be more and more. On a personal note, I would be terrified to be in a driverless car. For my entire life, someone has been driving. If I don't see someone holding the wheel, I might scream loudly, thinking we're going to CRASH. It would take longer than it's worth to get used to, even though I don't like driving that much (not to mention the privacy issues).

• Five lightweight browsers for linux

Our good friends and fearless privacy advocates at Google are in trouble. Again.  Seven EU groups say Google's location tracking is against the law. I like the EU, at least today. You know you'll never see legislation like this in the US. In fact, it's probably exempted from laws. They're facing a class action suit in the US, though. The depth of Google's spying is astounding, per the article.  They use all sorts of Sneaky to trick users and steal their info for marketing. There is a program called 'close the loop' which proves that if they have more than one piece of information, they can link them up for a more complete and accurate profile. Just like Faceyspaces. It's not like we haven't been warned...

Google's response is that you can opt out, and that it's not fair that people can sue them.

Dear lefty

• Blue Ball, Pennsylvania's Don Somewhatconfused asks why people put laptops on desks.
• Because Mom drank while she was pregnant with you.

Things are going well here at Hell Central.
Every now and then, I wish I were a Normie. Just like everyone else.
It usually passes quickly.

Todays Project of Death was printing.
Normies can print with just a mouse click.
Not me.

No, when I need to print, it requires 2 printers, 4 laptops, a coupla cables, much screaming, and my Comfort Elephant for afterwards. He's called Stanley, because I call a lot of things Stanley.

With the printer on, I hit PRINT.  That should do it. I set the whole thing up and it has printed reliably ever since (all three times I used it). So there's no way in hell it's going to work today, especially as these are important papers. And if there's one thing I hate (there are literally thousands), it's doing anything at all with a printer, except printing. Troubleshooting, changing toner/carts, trying to determine whether it thinks it's online or not, and calling Stanley to demolish it (CLYDE - SCRAP THE MERC!).

So naturally it didn't print.
I told you so.

The printer was on, connected, and there were jobs in the queue. So I released them and just like my sex life, nothing happened. Since that didn't work, I tried it again, like my sex life, with the same result, like my sex life.

Printer told me it was ready to download.
Download WHAT? It doesn't download pages....
It was still definitely connected.
This is when the screaming came in handy. Or that's what I told most of the neighbors and the police. Although it still wouldn't print, I think I intimidated it just a little.

What do you do when it doesn't work?
Have you tried turning it off and turning it on again?
The guys who program printers have a wicked, sadistic sense of humor. Never watch the display as a printer comes up... they make the boot sequence run through about 12 different red light indicated errors before things settle down. And when it settled down, it made a noise. I swear the little f-er is mocking me, ever so slightly.

Releasing the jobs again, the 2 whole pages printed.
And then 2 more printed.
And then a whole buttload more printed.
Mind you, I printed TWO friggin pages of an email.
Something in the line thought I said two COPIES of the entire 134 page email.
Or the little f-er is still mocking me.
So I called Stanley.
And we won't have that problem ever again.
Until the next printer.

• Suspected criminal to police: these pants aren't mine - they belong to a pregnant girl. Same suspect: can you take these handcuffs off so I can put my hair up?

Hey, have you stayed at a Marriott/Starwood hotel? Ever?
I ask because Bad Guys spent four years inside their network. They were only discovered when they tried to remove their malware. In addition, Starwood purchased Marriott while the criminals already had access to the system. The odds are in your favor, though, because only 500 million accounts were accessible.   It sure is convenient to use credit cards and bank cards for transactions, but it seems it's better to pay cash for everything. You won't lose your card or any information in the inevitable break in. Remember: it's not just the vendor...  it's everybody else in the chain.... processors, employees, third parties.. If you used your Starwood password for anything else, change it now.

Unrelated: Now would be a very good time to send job applications to Starwood. My Spider Sense tells me the higher levels of IT will be hiring soon.

Also Unrelated: The Dunkin Donuts Perks program got hacked. Just Perks.
P.S. You don't need an app to buy coffee. Really. It accesses your location and tells you you're near a Dunkin, then stores the information, plus whatever else you give it permissions to. Same for any app from any retail outlet.




Dear lefty

• reader Sandy Vajyma asks what happened with the last girlfriend before you got married? 
• Dear Twat: she had one more penis than I require.

Police in West Virginia fired on a black man carrying a gun that wasn't loaded.
A policeman was fired.. the one who didn't shoot the man with the gun. Interesting story.

• the Google Play store said there was an update to the Duckduckgo browser. What are the chances.....

Broken? It's Best to Leave it That Way

Perhaps because it's first thing in the morning.
Perhaps because it's the work phone, which I only pick up to see if it's charged.
Perhaps just because it's work....
Yeah, because it's work.

The phone has some bizarre message about the number no longer being associated with the cell carrier.

Yeah, because it's work.

I have this aching desire to work. Well, not work, but just work. Only work.
GOOD GOD - I'M GOING TO HAVE TO CONTACT HELPDESK!
Please, no.
Anything but Helpdesk.
I'll take an increase in hours.
I'll give them my car.
Not Helpdesk....

Maybe if I ignore it, it will go away.
Hey... doesn't this mean no one can call me? Nothing useful ever comes from the work phone anyway. In fact, I feel the same way about my personal phone, which is a fun mobile computer that bothers me by ringing sometimes.

• As an aside, it's probably a good idea to keep your porn on your personal phone. It's not that I have any knowledge of this (ahem), but I know the software (MDM-mobile device management) the company uses can see everything on your phone, from calls to whatever you've got stored on it.

Deflated, and with the day already ruined, I strengthened my resolve and found my way to the Helpdesk software. It's not that I can't find things that are right in front of me (I can't), but the address for the software tends to change fairly regularly. At the Twilight Zone<tm>, my last employer, where the law of gravity was just a suggestion, desks were rearranged on a quarterly basis. No one knows why, although the company was 75% female. It was also 20% gay, which meant when my good looking male coworker left, women lined up to say goodbye, and so did some of the men.

At this point, the situation usually falls apart. 

I was not disappointed.

I got the whole name and department information correct.

Then came the department to which the request went. This is the Big One.

Normal companies have a triage person, who routes service requests to the correct place... not these guys. They want to know the correct department. Since we're a rather large shop, there are many, many departments, most with weird names. To their credit, the designers put in a search field, so we could search for the correct department. To our detriment, it only lists departments.

Follow me for a second....

You have a problem with something... anything.

You fire up Helpdesk, which asks to which department the issue goes.

How on Earth do I know?

Let's play this cool. Let's do a search!

Let me see... I'll put in PHONE - that should do it.

Nope. I now have a list of departments beginning with P.

Ok, maybe iPhone. Nope- departments beginning with I.

No, seriously.. I've been here for years and have absolutely no idea where stuff goes. No one does. Even my own department changed names fourteen times since I got hired.

Before I even got to Department, I had to fill in what area my issue started with. I checked the available choices for phone, cell phone, mobile phone, and rhubarb; none of which were listed. Of course none were listed - these people have the brains of snails. Perhaps they felt nothing ever went wrong with a cell phone. Hmmmm.... software (no), computer (no), coworkers (not today), flatulence (see Coworkers). Wait - let's go with Hardware! It's hard. It's more solid than cardboard and my computer. Folks, we have a winner!

Well, so I thought....

Next category was Type of Issue.

Uh-oh.

Well, it's not a computer, kinda. It is also not email. It is definitely not trashcan (even if some characterize iDevices as such), and I don't think it's Cardboard, although sometimes I have my doubts.   Hey, wait... Mobile..it's Mobile. It's small, light, and I carry it with me. Yes, Mobile. Not mobile phone or computer.. just Mobile. Ok, let's go with that.

Annnnnd back to which department.

With something like 3400 departments (I made that up), I have a very small chance of hitting this one (Advanced Math tell us it's approximately 1 in 3512). I can page through the list, which will only take a few days. Unfortunately, after paging through the list, I still won't get the department right, because it's called ESPN, Group of Intelligent Cardboard Monitors.

Do you see my problem?

There are people at their desks with broken computers that won't boot up. They're still waiting for Helpdesk, because the request was routed to the wrong department. The joke's on them - it will never be routed to the correct department. They don't care, and answering calls or emails is not technically mandatory.

The only choice left is to.. I can't even type this without using up my PTSD days.... Call Helpdesk.

There are people still on hold with Helpdesk, having died six months. Their dessicated corpses indicating to CSI they still had the phone to their ears. Other people have committed hari-kari rather than deal with them. Their entrails are in jars, on expensive display shelving in Helpdesk Headquarters, in a large, sprawling underground complex.  Why underground?  It's much more difficult to find, should we ever come for them, nuclear weapon in hand. Helpdesk is a forward-looking department, having set up a blast-proof waiting area.

There's another reason Helpdesk is so hard to find. Have you ever seen a helpdesk person? It's kinda like Revenge of the Mole People, but ugly. It's much better that they're phone-only. They hire normies as window dressing, in case someone manages to locate them with an actual problem.

Eventually, in theory, you'll reach a helpdesk person on the phone.

Belgium is famous for its show horses. Speaking of ADHD, I heard this on tv while typing.

So a helpdesk person will answer the phone (stop it), after interminable  repetitions of how important our issue is to them (stop it) and they'll get to us at the soonest possible time. In fact, everyone in the company can recite this announcement verbatim, even at 2am, in their sleep. And now their spouses can too. If they don't have spouses, their Friends with Benefits or casual hookups can also recite this... although next week, they'll have no idea why.

Should one of the cheerful, helpful Mole People helpdesk workers actually pick up the phone, you'll breathe a sigh of relief because the operator is not in India. Then you'll stop breathing because the operators are located in a place even more difficult to understand: the deep south. One suggestion was to give you subtitles on your phone. They speak so slowly, it's not a problem for even the oldest of phones to keep up with.

Billy Bob or Lucretia Bob will then cheerfully attempt to assist you. 'Helpdesk' is a euphemism for 'good luck and don't hold your breath - nothing will ever get done.'  The amusing irony here is that they think our accent is unintelligible and hilarious, so they frequently mute the phone to break out into laughter.  Because of this, they frequently mis-hear you and 'fix' the wrong problem. And when I say fix, I mean don't fix. It turns out they too can't figure out how to fill out the online helpdesk software.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Speaking of filling out forms correctly, I'm developing a small issue (me? An issue? Small?). My employers have always welcomed diversity and encouraged personal development (they hire a lot of weirdos). As a result, my emails tend to be more creative than others'. My boss, a gentleman of the highest order, might have a touch of the old ADHD, so he doesn't read every word in a sentence or paragraph. I sent him an email, feeling lucky because today might be the day he reads my email, casually mentioning that if he doesn't fill out this form by the time I leave, I will turn into a nagging female Bitch from Hell. If you have ADHD, that sentence reads "fill out form, Bitch," so he does the only thing he can do: he forwards it immediately to the Department of Forms (he knows which departments to send stuff to, which is unheard of from a 30 year employee). Yes, he forwarded the email, with Bitch from Hell, to the woman in charge of that department, with a guess that maybe he needs to fill out the form. He may or may not get his answer, but tomorrow I'll find out how women feel wearing a bra, thong, and Business Casual. It will upset me so much, I'll turn into a Bitch from Hell.

• I just got another email with 'personalized' ticket suggestions from Live Nation. Once again, due to algorithms that have obviously been drinking, the results are interesting. Considering that I've seen Jeff Beck twice, ZZ Top, and Eric Johnson, the obvious recommendation would be Cher. Cher - the woman of 1,000 faces, courtesy of plastic. She can't perform in front of hot stage lights or she'll melt. Cher, who believes that the president is literally Satan because she can see the red suit and horns.

Another note from the people who are 'keeping us safe'.

You know that, in order to keep us safe, the Safe Systems must be safe. And the Government Accounting Office published the fact that our Department of Defense systems are quite vulnerable to cyber-attack. I guess we'll need higher taxes so we can be kept even more safe. After all, we haven't 'sent military advisors' to any new countries recently.

• Google had a small breach. They covered it up. They waited. Then it ate Google+, which, coincidentally, was just announced to be shutting down. It's pretty bad, but don't worry... Google is your friend. They'd never do anything to hurt you (except the over 500,000 people who might have been affected).

Say, Is That A Sexy New Laptop?

WARNING: Rant.

After spending over a week troubleshooting my work laptop, mostly waiting for troubleshooting, it was decided to send me a new one, possibly because I kept annoying them by wanting a functional computer. They don't like that.

The laptop that was sent Friday failed to appear, but I did get a call the following Tuesday, asking me some questions about it. It turns out it wasn't sent Friday. So it was going out First Thing Tuesday. If you believe that First Thing Tuesday means literally First Thing Tuesday, you're a fool. Like me. First Thing Tuesday is not a point in time, but a range of potential points in time, once again exploiting quantum theory. Depending on where you work, First Thing Tuesday can mean anywhere from First Thing Wednesday all the way to First Thing Tuesday in any year ending in a vowel.

It arrived Last Thing Friday.
It arrived so quickly(!) because they really wanted me to have it. They really wanted me to have it because I couldn't get anything done. Period.  Strangely enough, not getting anything done is not sufficient reason to rush any task at all. The old machine is chugging along, running fine, provided I don't close it (or go under 60mph). OOPS - what is that strange icon? Hmmm.... software was added to your machine and it will have to be rebooted. But.. but.. if it's rebooted, I'll never be able to work on it at all. This is why they're working at TOP SPEED on my new laptop.

I skipped the mandatory step of setting up the 35mm film cameras to make an unboxing video and got straight to unboxing. Hmmm... very light. Looks smaller. Uh-oh.. smaller is NOT better... a lot thinner. Uh-oh, Macs are thinner. HEY - it powers up! Normal people aren't this excited when a device turns on. This is because normal people aren't me and I'm not normal people. Plugging something in and having it behave as advertised is a Minor Miracle.

This smaller thing is worrisome. My personal laptop is what you would call Somewhat Larger than most (all) laptops. It is referred to as a Desktop Replacement, due to size and horsepower. Weight was not high on the list of design goals. Yes, it's larger and weighs more than a Volkswagen, but dammit, it's powerful, has a huge screen, and it's portable (provided we rent the flatbed car carrier in advance).

So there I sit, with a functional laptop. As if the joy from it powering up wasn't enough, it let me sign in! I thought I had died and gone to heaven, and was hanging around with Marshall again. And then I saw it... apparently size was the first consideration for this laptop, as they HOME and END keys now require the FUNCTION KEY to operate. What kind of blithering idiot makes a basic navigation key a function of FUNCTION? Dell, that's who. And the keys are at the bottom, while DELETE is up top. I'd have gladly sacrifice the INSERT key, which serves only to get in my way and screw up my already disastrous typing.

A month ago, my coworker was out of his mind because he got a new machine with Office 2016 on it. I laughed, but only politely. I was howling inside. He said to just wait - it was coming for me too. It was all I could do to not cry.

And here we are, a new laptop with.... you guessed it... Office 2016. The 'glass is half full' people would tell me to be thankful it had Win 7 on it and not Win 10. When I worked at the Twilight Zone<tm>, Manglement was deciding on what kind of mandatory training would be required when we 'upgraded' from one version of Office to another. Training? It was the same )$&@ing program. I don't mean to say I require training on Office 2016,... just that it's a flaming piece of excrement, made worse by calling it an 'upgrade'. 'Upgrade' doesn't actually mean upgrade.... 'Upgrade' means 'you better pay a lot to use this new version because we're not going to support the old version that you finally got set up and used to using.'

The only reason Humanity has not risen up and does something really horrible to Microsoft or just the designers of the RIBBON, is that they're stupid, lazy, and love blinky things. It causes violent urges in me if I even see it. I have everything optimized to take up as little screen space as possible, and now it's been cut way down because of some hideous menu that must drop down on me instead of letting me work. Android uses something horrible called Material Design. Everything I install uses this hideous video bloat, so I have to learn to hide it. It pains me to say this, but it looks like Google's been sleeping with Microsoft. The work you do with their programs has come in second to the design of their programs. I learned to hide the little hemorrhoid. But then I had no menus. I figured out how to put tiny little icons on the top left of every program with just the amount needed to do actual work.

After we put the Ribbon People's heads on poles around the compound, we're going on an even larger campaign: WHO TF THOUGHT IT SHOULD BE MANDATORY FOR EVERY PROGRAM TO START MAXIMIZED? When I start a program, it shouldn't splay itself over everything on my screen, yet here we are. This is not limited to MS. Office 2016 retains the ribbon and adds screen bloat for design. Big fat borders. They did away with certain things in 2016 and I have to use Skype for Business. MS bought Skype, complete with backdoors, and probably inserted new backdoors of its own. You might be guessing that no one asked me. And if you guessed that, you'd be very correct. Ok, I'm a team player, I'll use Skype. Oops... how do you make this thing smaller? It opened up and took most of my screen, but I used the standard method to make it smaller. Then STOP. I cannot make it smaller than eating 1/4 of my entire laptop screen. It takes up 1/3 of the width. One third of my (*$&@ing screen, eaten up by one program you can't resize. Or maybe we didn't pay enough to get the Secret Sizing Code<tm>. Even my coworker was stunned, although it worked for him. Aha - maybe it feels about me the same was I feel about Microsoft. Nah, it couldn't.

The laptop sure is light, though.
It looks to have higher horsepower and RAM.
And it's light. It's got that going for it.
It has some bizarre resolution.... like 1472x924, which might be why Skype won't get any smaller. My eyes aren't old enough to require this.
But it's light.
It has a hot spot. What is a hot spot - one of those internet thingies?  No, a spot where you rest your hand that's hotter than it needs to be. I wonder if the exploding Samsung batteries had this problem before.....
It's also thin, which helps it to be light.
It has no optical drive, which also helps it to be light. It also helps it to be completely useless, as no one was issued an external drive, nor would anybody want to carry it. Good thinkin', guys.
Sure is light, though. And well laid out.
The most exciting and important bit about this new Wonder Laptop is the tiny Dell Blue band around the nipple. No, really.. you know the little pointer stick thingie that sits around the G and H keys? It's black. But they put a tiny little, almost rubberband-like blue 1/16" bit of rubber around it. But it doesn't light up (sad face). Whatever we paid for these, the nipple should light up. Plus with lit nipples, it's much easier to find them in low light situations. THIS is the kind of thing that makes Normal People rise up in anger. You can strip their rights one by one, but don't take away their emojis or they'll find you and do things to you while you sleep. Possibly involving a Kardashian.

Make sure you're sitting down for this part... I insist. I can't afford the liability insurance should you fall and damage any of your organs.  The laptop wouldn't let me log in this morning. Gee, a few days ago it let me log in fine. Not today.

Of course not today, it's the second damn day I've had the brand new confounded thing, why would it let me log in?  Coworkers, who always come by for the latest bad news and my bright, sunny outlook on life, stop by and wonder why I'm incredibly glum, instead of pissy with hate. There hasn't been a single I FUCKING HATE MICROSOFT in the building all morning. People are concerned. Are those tears coming down your cheeks? Why does that happen?

Logically speaking, if it worked Friday, it should work Monday. Except for me. Perhaps I brought a little Twilight Zone<tm> with me. Good lord, I was going to have to call Support... please don't make me call Support. It will be three days before they bother to call me back and another three to fix the actual issue. Hey, maybe those Glass Half Full people had something after all.. I could make an entire career out of broken equipment. I couldn't get a day's work done in 35 years because I had to call Support and wait a minimum of weeks to get each repair done!

Nah.

So I looked further and discovered a setting might have changed, although it was illogical. And sure enough, the illogic change worked and I was in. Then I hit Outlook and two of them came up. Makes perfect sense, no?  Speaking of burning down houses and heads on poles, SOMEBODY changed the color of the Outlook icon to blue from that hideous burnt yellow color, which is how I used to find it. This is NOT an upgrade. They're just screwing with us now. There's an entire back room that quiets whenever someone tries to find Outlook. The backdoor sends them a signal and they all look up at their room display, which is roughly the size of a room, and watch the n00b look for a program. Because some genius set the design meeting for after lunch on a Friday. Ten mojitos later, somebody got up off the floor and said, "Hey guysh... let'sh change the colorsh of the iconsh randomly." Laughter consumed the room, with full agreement from the employees that were conscious and capable of legally giving their consent (and hadn't peed in their own, or somebody else's, pants yet). And that's why the colors are different. Don't let them tell you it's a visual enhancement, designed to help you work better, smarter, and faster. The software should have come with drinks, at which point their design engineering would have made some sense. Maybe not.

Sure is a light laptop, though.

How Do You Stop... the Grass from Growing?

Video Me Video You Blues

Research (that I didn't make up) shows additional productivity when a second monitor is added. So I use at least two. For a little while, the monitor cable has been going. You have to wiggle it to get all the colors.  Not being able to suffer it any longer, I got another one from The Pile. Don't ask about The Pile or my wife will tell you.

There are few things I truly despise in life. One is the 'ribbon' in more recent versions of Microsoft Office. It's foul, evil, and serves no useful purpose. It just sits there, taking up valuable screen real estate. After I hide it, I get a little less agitated. The other things I hate is DB9 connectors, otherwise known as VGA or   monitor cables. The end of these things was designed by a very clever sadist. The two screwy things that secure the cable to the computer are guaranteed to catch on anything in the vicinity, like power cables, audio cables, network cables, dog leashes, and internal or external organs. Today I was unpleasantly surprised by the connector getting stuck on my hair. WHY?

After having extricated 26 things from the cable end, I got the little bastard situated, but the last laugh was on the cable: the screen was missing red.

The other thing I would like to eradicate from the universe, and I probably haven't mentioned it before, is Microsoft Windows. I haven't said anything bad about Windows in a few hours... I must be slipping. My Windows virtual machine is set to NOT install any updates. As I was closing it yesterday, it had four updates to install. Even in public schools, but maybe not colleges, four is greater than zero. So Windows overrode the user's settings and installed updates anyway. Why do I hate Windows? This is just one of the many reasons.  There are many instances when you don't want to install updates. Microsoft has deliberately overriden the users preferences. I will not use an operating system that makes its own decisions and knows better than me. Windows: it's not an operating system - it's a virus.




It's not like I don't listen to new 'music' because I don't like it. I don't listen to new music because it sucks. Sometimes it shows up on tv in commercials, a particularly egregious example being "yeah, we're all about a good time, yeah, we're all about a good day" over clapping, in an annoying monotone, by what sounds like a black female. It offended my ears. Along with the aforementioned "You got me like ah, and ooh, with all the things you do."

• Faceyspaces will allow users to delete their history on the service. This is good and a nod toward privacy after they got caught doing what they do normally. Of course there's a hitch: everything you're deleting has been used to profile and sell your data already.

Firefox wants you to know that they're not ads - they're sponsored content. With Firefox 60, you'll see ads. Mozilla says there's no personal information sent, just HTTPS pings when you do something on the about:home and about:newtab pages. Every 30 days, the data will be aggregated and permanently deleted. Mozilla claims they don't share data with any third party. You will be able to opt out.

If the opt out uses cookies, you're screwed because you delete your cookies at the end of the session or on a timed basis or when you close the browser, right? As we tin foil people say, trust nothing and no one.  I'll try opting out. If that fails, there will be another way to stop this behavior, perhaps via about:config. The whole nonsense is run by Pocket, which Mozilla bought. Perhaps disabling Pocket will fix things. You'll hear about it right after I do. The other option is to use a different browser, but I really like Firefox, plus the Chrome-based browsers phone home to Google.

• Volkswagen and Audi car infotainment systems have been hacked remotely by Dutch security researchers, in two 2015 models, the Volkswagen Golf GTE and an Audi A3 Sportback e-tron, both made by Volkswagen Audi Group (VAG).  The hack does not impact any critical systems, although what you say could be remotely monitored. The critical systems are a firewall away from the infotainment system, so it's only a matter of time.
• In good news, the researchers were invited to VW HQ to go over the hack, which will result in stronger systems. The bad news is that every car will have to go back to the dealer for updated firmware.

The wife took the dog to visit some people in faraway lands. I really miss at least one of them. As I still haven't received the all clear for a Vice Wife (who steps in when Wife cannot perform the duties of her office), I have gone to a different system. Now I ask for a babysitter to watch me, in case I get up to things while bored. I get into a lot of trouble normally - it's worse when left alone. Since I wanted to build trust in the process, I suggested our favorite pizza place's headmistress, a particularly fetching lady. Wife knows her and approves, except for the babysitting part.  I need to work harder on a solution.

• "I found bladder leak underwear that's actually pretty" said the commercial.
• What the commercial didn't say was that if I put them on without a bladder leak problem, will I still feel pretty? Sometimes a man likes to feel pretty.

Well, it's almost that time of year again: grass season.

You know what that means... I have to find places to hide every time Wife says anything to do with 'mow'. I decided to work smarter this year, as I haven't perfected that invisibility thing yet. And even if I did, I'd still knock things over and make rude noises, giving myself away.

Last year was the happiest year of my life, grasswise. We hired the kid from across the street. He missed spots and needed a lot of direction, but he got me out of mowing. Wife says she doesn't know if she wants to hire him again this year.

WHAT?

This kid is the greatest thing to happen to me.... err... grass since it was invented. Schools teach that grass was discovered, not invented. This came as a hell of a surprise to Bill Crabgrass, noted inventor of trash bags, falling leaves and yes, grass. 

I asked, meekly, she had in mind. David Crosby just put out two albums, Tom Petty stubbornly remains dead, and Cindy Lauper, shockingly, is on tour with Rod Stewart (show starts at 8, recommend you get there at 9). She hasn't gotten back to me yet, so that's been keeping me up at night.

I suggested she give the young man another chance... after all, she'd want one. In the spirit of fairness and neighborliness, it appears that I'm safe for another season.

Oops. Except for that Satan Weed. It wasn't invented, it was discovered, right after clouds and tornadoes. It's a clump of dark green grass that pops up out of nowhere, growing to a foot and a half overnight, even though Mr. Crabgrass' invention has not yet started to grow. Since we have yet to sign a deal with the neighbor, the job looks likely to fall to me. I'm going to need a lot of excuses as to why I cannot possibly complete this allegedly necessary task (feel free to contribute):

• back hurts
• can't remember how to install the battery (it drops in)
• forgot to charge the battery
• need to change the tires from winter air to spring air
• mower no good on Satan Weed
• someone got their penis stuck in the vacuum. Again. (well, the thing attacks)

I wonder if, for a signing bonus, I can get him to take out the trash.

• It's handy to know a few words in every language, preferably dirty phrases and curses. Yesterday I expanded my vocabulary:
• Vez al pista - have you seen the runway? - in Brazil/Portuguese. If this won't get me chicks, I don't know what will.
• So I get with my Subject Matter Expert (SME) in Portuguese, who can't even translate it. She suggests this is not the way to go about meeting women. Fair enough, how about a few curses or body parts? My SME is not impressed and refuses to give me any interesting words or phrases, except the more hopeful "Kiss me, I'm stupid."
• I may have to get a new SME.

Cambridge Analytica, the company that got caught up in the Faceyspaces fracas for siphoning off personal information, is going out of business.  In completely unrelated news, the founders have registered a new data analytics company called Emerdata.

ThermionicEmissions' cynical bent tells us that Emerdata will operate extremely similarly to Cambridge Analytica.

• OOPS - Australia's Commonwealth Bank lost records for 12 million people (almost half the population) when two magnetic tapes were misplaced by a subcontractor. Per Australia's Privacy Commissioner, "a decision was made not to alert customers." Now there's some serious privacy for you.
• One of the possible scenarios was that the tapes fell off the back of a truck when they were being transported to be destroyed. 
• Cut it out. In what universe does a truck carrying tapes keep the back door open so things can fall out? You will notice that no armored trucks carrying cash keep their back doors open so money can fall out.

Because we haven't done enough damage to the language, we have a new word: micro-volunteering. Since we're not sure what it's about, let's do what we always do... take the ball and run with it. No matter if we're running the wrong way - I did it all the way through my childhood.

I'll micro-volunteering to help the neighbor take out the trash. She'll take it out, but I'll think about it for her, donating my time.

Perhaps I can micro-volunteer to help at-risk youth. I'll give them the url of this blog and they'll never be the same. Perhaps help is too strong a word....

In a little while, I'm micro-volunteering to walk the dog.
"Honey - the dog needs to go out."

• This seems to be a weird week. Moreso. Dad calls Wife: We were so worried. You called the other day at 6am. We called you right back and no one answered. We tried for days.
• News to us.
• Wife checks the phone log. Yes, there were two outgoing calls at 6am to parents. The only problem is that no one made them. Yes, there's one call from Dad, but no others from 'all week'. 
• The phone made two calls by itself.
• This is Regular Weird. Delightfully Weird was last time, when my phone called Dad, Dad's phone called Brother, and Brother's phone called me. There were NO calls in any of the phone logs.
• Just in case you think I'm done... my parents rush to answer the phone in the bedroom. It rings a lot. The only problem is they don't have a phone in the bedroom.

The Hacking Demons are at it again.
There's a Windows 10 issue, as if there wouldn't be. Bear with me, as I don't use Windows 10. The problem seems to start if the user uses a browser based upon Chrome. It displays a time-out issue and the entire screen turns black. The long and short of it is that you're screwed at this point because no one has figured a workaround. The article I read did not specify anything but my guess is that you shouldn't be using Chrome or any other browser based upon it. On the linux side, Opera, Chromium, Iron, and Vivaldi are based upon Chrome, and I believe all are available on Windows. If you're not already using it, try Firefox. Technically this isn't a hacker issue, but let's put it there.

If you're an Under Armour user, meaning if you use MyFitnessPal, you're one of 150 million affected in the data breach. 


Got an iPhone? The latest update has a bit of a bug. Since iDevices don't have bugs, this is an Undocumented Feature. Apple has decided that it is more important to listen to a caller than speak. The feature mutes the microphone during phone calls.  You can decided if this feature works for you, but remember, Apple leads, and the rest of the world follows (per an actual Apple employee who came to work to preach to us).

My computer hurts.

Actually my morale hurts.

If it were my computer, the problem would already be solved. This is the work computer, which is locked down so well I can't even put naked ladies on the background. I hate to say it, but this is a really great thing. It keeps people from destroying their PCs and doing all kinds of damage to the network. And from naked ladies, but one must take the negative with the positive.

I did everything that had to do with computers and networks at one point. I remember what it was like to be a desktop computer fixer or a helpdesk. We did our jobs well and efficiently, so we could get to the next issue. However, this was not the perception of the users. Because we were not standing at their desks the moment there was an issue, before they even had to notify us, we were fat, lazy, incompetent, and spent all day playing solitaire or looking at naked ladies (recurring theme, I know).

One day at the cube farm, I was under someone's desk, fixing something (no, the view was nowhere near as spectacular as one would think). Someone suggested to someone else that they call IT for their problem. She immediately blurts out how Stupid IT never does anything right and never bothers to show up. It suddenly gets very quiet in this area. I leap out from under the desk, pop up at the complainer's desk, and ask what Stupid IT can do for her today. There was laughter and a really red face.

The moment I got out of helpdesk, I made it a rule to never be like that: a surly, entitled user, who expects repair yesterday, plus your lunch. This has not served me well at my latest employer. Let's call the atmosphere City Worker, where you're lucky to have a phone to call Helpdesk, and if they answer, it's a minor miracle. If they make out a ticket, the sun will shine for a week straight. If they actually route the ticket and address the problem, the lottery ticket you just found will be worth $4.5 million.

Two weeks ago I lost three days waiting for Helpdesk to fix an issue. Three days of work. I tracked my Helpdesk ticket, which spent some time in Purgatory, then migrated to the San Francisco office. No one knows why, so I called the San Francisco office to speak to the new owner of my ticket. He wasn't in, but I got his handy voicemail, on which I left a polite request to call me. I figured I'd hear from him, as I said the ticket didn't even belong to him. Nope.

Finally I gave up and called a Helpdesk person directly, who fixed the issue in fifteen minutes. My ticket was still in San Francisco and had not been touched. If I waited for someone to grab the ticket, I'd be at three weeks as of now. Who knows - three weeks might improve their overall stats. Perhaps they grade personnel not on closed tickets, but on how long they keep the client waiting.

Not to be outdone, I logged on this morning to find I couldn't get my email. On planets where gravity is universal and works the same everywhere, if you can log onto the network, you can read your email. As we apparently have some sort of gravitic anomaly, I can't. Meanwhile my coworkers are having trouble getting into random apps. I called Helpdesk. Apparently wait times are so bad that it offered to call me back when it was my turn. Yay! So I kept my phone close. After a few hours, I even took it to the bathroom and kitchen with me. If I were a betting man, I'd bet that I could read a book called How to Pick Up Chicks, get some experience doing it, pick up a coworker, go to the parking lot and have sex in her car, then go back to my desk, the phone never having rung. City Workers are jealous. The federal government wants to know how we do it. We're a model of modern corporate inefficiency.

DAY TWO

It is Day Two, as indicated on the previous line.
The system that was supposed to call me back didn't.
[sigh]
So I called back and got a tech immediately.
[it's mind blowing and byzantine]

For the next 90 minutes, we did everything possible to fix the issue. The first thing we noticed was that a reboot fixed one of the problems. This is positively insane, as I booted up a few minutes prior to the call. WINDOWS.

No fix applied got me email. We gave up and I got an override, allowing me access to email. Some 'experts' will review the problem and fix it. Strangely and coincidentally, I noticed an update running by itself. The same kind of update that caused the problem weeks ago.  No one will review this or implement any larger fix.


DAY THREE
You didn't think I was getting off that easy, did you?
Could not get into the system at all. Again.
Called two support people, one of whom put in another override, which worked. I was then free to get screwed by a new piece of software the boss bought.

Helmsman, I'll expect that mood lifted by 1300 hours, understood?
Can not, Sir. Morale's taken two torpedoes in the aft flingenbottom, Sir.

Usually horrible morale is caused by a grossly incompetent boss. In this case, it's simply getting to where you need to go to do your work. And if I spend the rest of the week without email or not doing my job, no one will care. The Department of Motor Vehicles has sent over their two top operations guys to figure out how we get nothing done with such grace and style.

an honest politician?

Vizio Must Go

Our good friends over at Vizio, who make approximately 1 of 5 tvs, just got fined a few million by the FTC over information collection. Enabled by default, the tv would send information on everything you watched, including IP address, to identify you, then sell the data to aggregators for a profit. In normal information theft (make no mistake, that's what this is), only non-identifiable information is sold - nothing that can tell anybody who you are. In this case, everything possible was sent up the line. The 'feature' was hidden in the tv's menu, behind some innocuous setting.  Under the terms of the settlement, Vizio admits no wrongdoing and states that permission should be obtained first, before collection, as if they thought of it first.

I have a box with a Vizio tv in it, alleged to be a Dumb TV, so this shouldn't apply. It will be interesting if I ever decide to open it. This kind of screwing should be dealt with most harshly.

• A German Shepherd/Akita mix recently escaped the shelter to locate a woman who fed him treats. If this isn't a match made in heaven, I don't know what is.

If it's Tuesday, it's gray and rainy. Actually if it's most days ending in -day, it's gray and rainy. What does this mean? It means Business as Usual for most. For us, it means the Loud Family is now using a power saw to cut through what sounds like metal. Outside. In the rain. And they won't even have the good grace to electrocute themselves.

• IRONY: Social media phishing attacks are up 500%. How do I know? Social media told me.

A fellow was using his drone for work purposes (no, really) when it, instead of performing a loop, performed an unauthorized software update. After the update, it did not fly so much as plummet. Plug that into your self-driving car.

• The University of Sydney (read this with an Australian accent) has announced a $30k scholarship for men from rural areas who intend to work in rural veterinary science.  Even though 90% of the field is female, reaction was predictable: "It seems they care more about money than they do about my being a woman and getting equal opportunities."
• I'm against these kinds of tests for any position. I want the best candidate regardless of gender, color, or planet of origin. Would you want less than the best vet working on your pet or livestock? Would you want less than the best police person protecting you?
• What hath feminism wrought? We demand preferential treatment: it's ok to make concessions, so long as it's to women.

Did you ever have one of those days?
I know I have. Plenty of those days.
You know, those days when stuff falls?

I walked into the house and placed the mail on the table. The top envelope slid right to the floor, behind the table, in a place that was ridiculously difficult to access. While trying to access it, a ceramic key holder also left the table. This was not the way I had intended to spend my time at home and I loudly proclaimed this, at which point three more things fell behind the table.

On my way to the kitchen, I swear I heard something leap to the floor behind me.
In the kitchen, a cup launched itself into the sink, free from my assistance. At this point I snickered, realizing what was happening. I had created what scientists refer to as an Extra-Heavy Gravitic Field (EHGF). Scientists have absolutely no idea how I manage to create this but at least they have a name for it. Names make people feel so much better, even about car crashes and earthquakes.

Having realized what was going on, I was less upset and even jovial as I watched  various kitchen implements leap from the counter and items on the drying rack plummet to the ground. It looked like a comedy in the vein of The Exorcist.  After placing something in the rack, something else rocketed to the floor, I completely lost it and started assisting the Extra-Heavy Gravitic Field by means of throwing stuff at the walls and the ground. Whoever makes those silver juice packets should have used this as a commercial - no matter whether it jumps from the counter or gets launched at the wall with extreme prejudice, the package does not break.

• Need to make a few bucks? Want to expand your notoriety and maybe get a personal nasty tweet from the president? Porn site XHamster is holding auditions for a Trump look-a-like. Do not underestimate the industry that brought you "Who's Nailin Palin?"

It's Sick Time at the lefty house.
A week ago, Wife had what looked like the sniffles, which abated in a day. Over the last few days, I had some truly odd symptoms, which led to a fever. Yes, my wife got me sick on purpose.

Fast forward a day and Wife is now sick again/still.
I think I figured this one out: there existed only one day that I was sick and she wasn't. Her Evil Plan was to get me sick, then minimize the time she'd have to play nurse by getting sick herself. Truly evil. And this is not the first time, sympathy be damned. It's not that I'm looking for anything, but a cup of soup would be nice.

Wife gets sick pretty well. It usually goes right to her throat, cutting off speech. Do you have any idea how bad it must be for someone who talks at least 20 hours per day to lose their voice? The result is a lot of people trying to 'speak' via some sort of poorly modified hand gestures combined with a pad and pen. All I can do is nod my head and hope no one required an answer. Come to think of it, this idea isn't different from when she can speak.

This becomes even more complex for the poor dog, who does not understand poorly modified hand gestures combined with a pad and pen. Not that he couldn't pick it up in a week or two, but holding your hands out wide and shaking them does not register as MOVE to him.

Meanwhile, he has taken advantage of his mom's bed rest by whining pitifully for a second breakfast, as I have no idea whether he was fed already. Again, smart dog.

Apple Follies

Why I Hate Apple: Work decided the iDevice they provided needed an operating system 'upgrade' and let me know. Following the destructions, I told the phone to upgrade. It refused to, demanding wifi access. Work does not provide wifi access. Now I will have to open Fort Knox (my home network) so the infernal device will update. I hope it doesn't wreck my wireless system or my entire network.

Why I Hate Microsoft: Due to an incredibly complex, yet indescribably silly system, my computer at work tends to receive 'updates' on weird schedules, if at all. When the system has to reboot, it becomes completely unavailable to me if I need to work from any other desk or system. The updates usually come with no notice and reboot the computer in the middle of the day, usually when I'm using it. This particular imperative update appeared not so much an update as a Hose The System patch. When I logged in, it just kinda stared at me, daring me to launch the device into low earth orbit (LEO). Rebooting, it continued to sit there, mocking me, at which point I put my head in my hands and prayed for a system that would allow me the exceedingly complex task of allowing me to work. In my office environment, working is not specifically encouraged (or discouraged) and when a system goes down, it's time to Get Social, very loudly, with a neighbor (or four). Being Old School, I want to work.

Ten minutes later, the system appeared to be doing something, and by doing something, I mean the hard drive light was flashing, in either a non-mocking fashion or a very sophisticated mocking that completely went over my head. Another five minutes later, I was in. Mind you, I still couldn't work because some of the network systems wouldn't connect, so perhaps this counted as half a victory.

Why I Hate My Job: I don't really hate my job - I just hate that I have so much trouble doing my job, due to software, configuration, and hardware screwups. Rather than test updates, I suspect they wander around to any old employee and ask if they think we should distribute an upgrade. Any Old Employee, being a total moron, hears the word Update and vigorously shakes their head in the affirmative.  If the question was "Should we distribute an update that will hose every computer in the corporation?" all the employee would hear is Update and approve it heartily. Being the curious sort, I asked a coworker if she was having any new issues (as opposed to unaddressed old issues) after the update. She said no trouble, other than taking twice as long to log in. Well, that sounds like trouble to me, but my coworker might be the person asked if the entire corporation should Update. Being a troubleshooting sort, I asked who I should contact to report this and she stopped completely, pondering this metaphysical dilemma, and said she couldn't think of a person who could help or who would be receptive to this information. My coworker has been employed for twenty years. This does not mean she's a complete idiot - it means that in twenty years, she has not found a single helpful systems person who could help.

And now, just for fun, the Helpdesk software isn't answering my call for help.
For some slightly more fun, I can't get into a scheduled meeting today.
I have a new goal for the day: to get through it while remaining in my seat, without explosions.


This has been a weird morning.

• There's a very serious Android issue/hack happening. It actually goes back to an old linux issue (Android is built on linux). The issue has been patched on linux but android, because there are so many phone vendors with their own crap loaded on top of android that it won't be fixed anytime soon (if at all). The hack could already be incorporated into android programs. The best advice, which actually is best practice, is to only get your software from Official Sources and download only well-known programs from well-known companies. Crap can come from offshore or small authors and often hides in games and popular categories of programs. You have been warned.

The AT&T Time Warner merger is drawing scrutiny for all sorts of things, no less whether they can preserve CNN's journalistic integrity. I suspect that's something like the legacy of Hillary's veracity.

• The Pentagon is investigating artificial intelligence, with weapons that can identify targets and make (kill or not kill) decisions. My only question is will it be more accurate on city streets than police. Or will it be programmed to shoot black people automatically. [NOTE: satire]

Some health plan costs will increase by an average of 25%, Aren't we already paying an obscene amount for coverage? 25% more? Obama and everyone who voted for this should be jailed NOW. But before we throw away the key, the Rs and Ds need to FIX IT NOW. Not promise after the election.

I'm about to undergo a benefits interruption. This means I'll be without insurance (that I have to pay out of pocket due to $5k deductible) or pay another $500 per month for Obamacare until the situation changes (soon). I'm sick over this. We're at the point that my insurance is waaaay more than my wife's insurance, and she's the chronically ill one.

• As if it weren't enough that the druggies are dispatching themselves with Oxycontin and other opioids, word comes in that people are abusing (DRINKING!) hand sanitizer because of its high levels of alcohol. We need sensible hand sanitizer laws. Only criminals have hand sanitizer. Why do you need more than one squirt of sanitizer anyway? Large dispensers must be forbidden.

A British Air flight was diverted after members of the crew became ill. No word on what kind of ill or if there was contraband hand sanitizer involved.

• the Philippine president told the US to forget about the defense deal if he stays in longer.  Good, I say - give him what he wants. It's all part of my evil plan to stop 'exporting democracy'. Let's put our money where our mouth is... Support our troops: bring them home.

Despite the recall and very real possibility of explosion or fire, some Samsung Note 7 users do not want to give up their phones. Pyromaniacs? Masochists? Suicidal? New drug testing? Unbelievably kinky?

• Today is National Pumpkin Day - tomorrow is National Poor Excuse For A Day Day

---> Be helpful to someone today: after they trip, say "be careful" <---

Tech Support - WHAT Tech Support?

Whenever I call or email tech support, I'm really nice.  It's because I know they have a terrible job and I've been there myself.  Although I no longer do helpdesk work, I do work closely with them during my hours of toiling.

In the past two weeks, I have had two horrible experiences with tech support.  At this point one issue has been resolved and I have only recently stopped scraping pieces of my cranium off the ceiling long enough to type this out for my friends in hilarity..... Suffice it to say, if my department at work performed this way, we'd all be out looking for jobs.

Apparently this is not the case everywhere.

The Case of the Bad Display

I recently got an HP Elitebook laptop at work.  It is roughly the weight of a medium size car and has a seventeen inch display.  It is manly and magnificent.  We have purchased rather a lot of HP laptops and desktops at work as a result of transitioning from Dell Hell.  Sadly, one day I turned the laptop on and got only a gray display.

HP phone support was very helpful.  We diagnosed a bad display and they said a tech would be in touch to schedule a time to come out and fix it.

A week later, I called HP, wondering where my personal tech was.   They told me there was an issue with getting the parts and he would be calling tomorrow.

Another few days later, I called HP again.  The rep read the log and asked me what he could help me with.  Well, if he read the log, he'd realize no one had called or come out to fix my laptop's errant display.  I politely let him know there was no movement from last time.  He said to excuse him for a moment.

Did you ever wonder where tech support goes when they ask you to hold on?  Do they switch displays and continue watching whatever kind of porn tech support enjoys?  Are they writing a few additional chapters of their autobiography?  Pee-pee break?  I sure as hell don't know.

Tech Support Guy comes back and informs me that Repair Guy called last Friday.

No he didn't.  The phone didn't ring all day Friday and no one left me voicemail.

In any case, Tech Support Guy was going to phone Repair Guy personally and have him get back to me within thirty minutes.  That was kinda nice, actually.

Shortly thereafter, Repair Guy calls and says he's an hour out and would be happy to drop by to fix the problem.

More surprisingly, Repair Guy made it within the alloted time and found the building.  I work in the Twilight Zone, which is supposed to appear on Google Maps but doesn't really.  To find our building, you have to possess at least a few working brain cells, which rules out most of the people who try.

Repair Guy was very competent, personal and professional.   I have to admit that I hate working on laptops.. too many tiny parts that tend to become airborne and land in the carpet, where they rest in peace forever.  This guy tore the entire laptop down in no time, screwed in the new display and powered up the laptop.

Have you ever seen a broken laptop display?  It looks a little like fractals on acid.  I hesitated to point this out because we were apparently looking at a display that was broken right out of the box.  As it turned out, I didn't have to say anything because Repair Guy said it for me.

My company purchases a warranty for next day service because we can't have machines down.  Here we are, a week and a half out, and I still don't have a functional laptop display.  I hate to say this but we didn't have this problem with Dell (we had lots of other problems).

Repair Guy apologizes profusely and says he'll get another display overnighted.  Of course, overnighted refers only to shipping, not whether the warehouse has the part in stock.  So he might be back the following day and he might not.

Two days later, Repair Guy returns, pops in the new display and all is well in the world.  Total time: two weeks.

I'm loving the service, HP.
My coworkers inform me that you have honored your promises on every other repair.  Although I'm not surprised the glitch affects only my computer, I'm still saddened by it.




The Case of the Errant Security Cameras

Work purchased an eight channel security camera system with DVR to keep watch over the place.  The reviews on Amazon were very favorable and I felt comfortable going forth.

In spite of not knowing a thing about security cameras or DVRs, the system went up without a hitch.  And when I say without a hitch, I mean eight hours of hurling wires above a drop ceiling and falling off ladders.

Once everything got plugged in, it worked perfectly.
And when I say perfectly, I mean that all eight cameras worked and I got the whole thing configured, mostly without consulting the manual.  It was a minor shock to all present.

One of the neatest features of the system is that you can plug it into your network and monitor the cameras remotely, like on your phone.  Everyone was excited.

And when I say everyone was excited, I mean right up until I tried plugging the thing into the network. I gave it an IP address (like a house address for the network) and it completely failed to show up on the network.  I gave it a different IP address, which also failed to show up on the network.   I even tried giving it a third IP address and screaming, all for naught.  It's funny - screaming is a necessary technique employed by anyone who has ever worked on computers (or possibly cars).

After mucking about with this device way too long, I decided to email tech support.  I received an email response in record time, uplifting my spirits.  When I say my spirits were uplifted, I mean right up until reading the email, which was the equivalent of a long wait on the phone: "We're sorry but we're really busy.  Your email is very important to us.  Because of higher than normal email volumes, we will answer this email within one to five days.  You are cordially invited to hold your breath until then.  Remember, your email is very important to us."

One solid week later without a response to my very important email made me weary, in a very large and existential way.

Things were getting grim so I had to bite the bullet and get on Support Chat with them.  The cute little box informed me that I would have to wait up to three minutes.  Two minutes.  Then one minute or less.  Funny how time flies when you're waiting for someone to answer.  It was like watching a Microsoft Copy Dialog Box, which tells you that you have four seconds to go but it really means forty minutes.

Eight minutes later, Support Chat Guy hops on chat.  I explain the issue to him.  He tells me I need to plug the device into a router.  I am working on a huge business network with hundreds of computers and he wants me to plug the DVR into the business router, as if I were a home user.

I shook my head and explained to Support Chat Guy that this was a business and there was no way to plug the DVR into the router.  He said we might not be able to get the unit working then.

Sigh.

I told the fellow that I gave the box an IP address and it's not coming up on the network.  He spends thirty chat minutes (175 minutes in dog chat) trying to get me to plug the DVR into the router.  I keep telling him the router is not a concern if the device isn't showing up.

Sigh.

As I mentioned, I don't want to be rude but I do want my problem solved expeditiously, which isn't going to happen if this guy can't think outside of the box of Home User.  It is apparent that he does not understand networking and I don't wish to spend the time to school him.  I suggest the next level of support and he suggests I call on the phone.

Done.

So I call on the phone.  The noise in the background sounds worse than the noise in the background of my workplace, which has been described as `slightly louder than a soccer riot'.  Phone Support Guy reads over my case and immediately asks me to plug the DVR into my router.

This is like deja vu all over again.

I try explaining networking to this nice person, who apparently realizes that he is over his head much faster than his colleague.  He suggests having a higher level support tech call me back.  Unfortunately due to the time difference (I didn't ask but I'm guessing Estonia, Moldavia, or Eastern Bumfuct - the English side) they can only reach me between three and four o'clock so it might not be today.

Two days later there is a voicemail from the camera company, stating that he has tried to reach me two times.

Really?


WHY IS THIS SO INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT?

More Stuff from Work

I haven't done an update about the Twilight Zone<tm> lately, so I thought I'd fill you all in on what's up.

Firstly, although I am not a member of the Helpdesk Team, I'm on their Funny List.  Here are some genuine subject lines from my friends at the Helpdesk:

• I am a pc in the Bethlehem office.
• We have a computer that lost its email.
• ..cannot get on her internet.
• unable to get cursor back to normal static
• I have getting regular messages
• every other day my outlook get corrupted..
• I deleted my icon for Outlook and I need it back
• Updating Windows to 8 or 9
• I had a phone that their email yesterday
• I am have issue with my Outlook.
• needs 3 pc's builded
• My laptops has a few virus on it
• We've been using an old Microsoft Access program for over twelve years...
• I fix it by myself.
• one of are computer is having a problem with the screen
• It is making a loud blowing sound.
• I am continuously have this box....
• My anti-vial software is out of date....
• I just purchased and I phone....
• Will be possible if I get bigger monitor
• I think I just deleted all my files...
• Are internet is down.

See - I don't have to make this stuff up; my coworkers are that good.

While warning a new hire to duck when the Nerf Wars start or the dart guns came out, I discovered that another of my number does not approve of the blowdarts.  He didn't exactly explain why but was quite adamant in his position that he'd call the police the next time they came out.

Call the police?

What's wrong with a friendly stress-buster blowdart game?  Even if you suck them, they don't fly backwards; so his complaint, while severe (and stupid) has no merit.


But let us wade from the cool, still waters of Helpdesk and Blowdarts to an area close to my heart: Security.
Several years ago, with management's blessing, I put together a desktop security policy.  Just the other day I discovered that the CEO saw the policy, ripped it up, and to make matters that much more silly, told no one.

I'm guessing the corporate security policy is going to take a bit longer in committee than I thought.