Men need to learn to talk about their issues in general. My pops was brutal when I was a kid. It wasn’t until I grew up that I finally understood that he was made that way. His own dad basically destroyed him.That didn’t excuse all the terrible things he did but it did explain it. It was hard to be angry with him after that. I felt sad for him. That’s a heavy load to carry all alone.
Hey everybody! I’d like you to meet my girlfriend. Isn’t she beautiful? The black powder coat really accents her indicator lights.
Past poor decisions have taught me this:
Don’t do anything you’re going to have to lie about. If you do, don’t lie about it. If you do, make it right as soon as possible.
I have plenty of problems in my life but a guilty conscience isn’t one of them.
On December 15, 1953, led by Paul Hahn, the head of American Tobacco, the six major tobacco companies (American Tobacco Co., R. J. Reynolds, Philip Morris, Benson & Hedges, U.S. Tobacco Co., and Brown & Williamson) met with public relations company Hill & Knowlton in New York City to create an advertisement that would assuage the public’s fears and create a false sense of security in order to regain the public’s confidence in the tobacco industry.[12] Hill and Knowlton’s president, John W. Hill, realized that simply denying the health risks would not be enough to convince the public. Instead, a more effective method would be to create a major scientific controversy in which the scientifically established link between smoking tobacco and lung cancer would appear not to be conclusively known.[13]
The tobacco companies fought against the emerging science by producing their own science, which suggested that existing science was incomplete and that the industry was not motivated by self-interest.[11] With the creation of the Tobacco Industry Research Committee, headed by accomplished scientist C.C. Little, the tobacco companies manufactured doubt and turned scientific findings into a topic of debate. The recruitment of credentialed scientists like Little who were skeptics was a crucial aspect of the tobacco companies’ social engineering plan to establish credibility against anti-smoking reports. By amplifying the voices of a few skeptical scientists, the industry created an illusion that the larger scientific community had not reached a conclusive agreement on the link between smoking and cancer.[11]
Internal documents released through whistleblowers and litigation, such as the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, reveal that while advertisements like A Frank Statement made tobacco companies appear to be responsible and concerned for the health of their consumers, in reality, they were deceiving the public into believing that smoking did not have health risks. The whole project was aimed at protecting the tobacco companies’ images of glamour and all-American individualism at the cost of the public’s health.[14]
Putting aside all the late stage capitalism going on here, I still can’t get over the fact that Alphabet (Google) spent billions of dollars developing self driving car technology only to arrive at, “Oh shit. Someone left the car door open. What do we do now?”
Eons ago, I had a guy bring me a non functioning Compaq desktop and say, “Wull the fan was makin’ a lotta racket so I greased it.”
What he actually meant was, “I sprayed the entire motherboard with WD-40 because I don’t know shit about computers OR lubricants.”
I gave it a bath in electronics cleaner and it actually fired right up after that.
You forgot the incredibly expensive scam that is American “healthcare”.
Back in the days before cell phones, when landlines were ubiquitous, people in more rural areas had what they called “party lines.” It was a single telephone line shared between multiple houses. You knew which house an incoming call was for based on the ring pattern. Your neighbors could also pick up the receiver, very quietly, and listen in on your phone calls if they wanted too.
Party lines are long gone but Internet communications have their own ways of being “listened in on.” A lot of traffic transmitted over the Internet is encrypted; with TLS for instance. But, some of it isn’t. If you use traditional DNS – UDP over port 53 – everyone in between you and the DNS server can see which websites you’re visiting.
I’m not concerned about my privacy because I have something to hide. I’m concerned about it because my personal business is my business. Not anyone else’s.
When it’s the right tool, it’s incredibly useful. When it’s the wrong tool, and it often is, it racks up tech debt at an incredible rate.
Don’t even need to spend that much. Trump accepts fake peace prizes.
I’ve been seriously thinking I need to go back to therapy. Thanks for the motivation!
Honestly? The last few years have been like a slow motion Trainwreck. My wife developed serious chronic health issues a few years ago and I’ve been unemployed for almost a year and a half. We’ve gone from being in a very good financial position to being virtually bankrupt. It has not been a good time.
The problem is that it’s not just software. Shareholders and corporate “leadership” have collectively decided that they are willing to sacrifice any and all future success in order to make stock prices go up today. They don’t know where the business will be in five years and frankly, they don’t care. Virtually all of the big names have completely stopped innovating. Cramming “AI” into their shitty products and trying really hard to pretend that’s it’s something different or “new” when it’s just the same shit but with more bloatware.
Manufacturing isn’t much different. I worked at a specialized industrial tool manufacturer for a few years. They were trying to add a new “smart tool” line and demoed it at an international trade show only to get completely excoriated by their customers who were all like, “Don’t even talk to me about ‘smart’ tools when the [very expensive] tools you already produce don’t fucking work.” But that’s how it goes when your business is built on acquisitions and the way you make your stock price go up is by coasting on your brand portfolios past success while simultaneously eliminating the people who made that success possible.
I once worked with an SVP at a huge corporation that liked to engage in “bike shedding”. This guy is like seven rungs above me on the ladder and is trying to tell me what fields each SQL table should have.
Then we got a new department director who was very good at keeping upper management distracted and off our backs. Lots of people in middle management don’t justify their own salaries but I would argue that he sure did.
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Only if it can also be a microservice.
Just because someone collects data doesn’t mean that they’re using it for a particular purpose. I’ve worked at orgs that archived gobs of data - not necessarily user data - “in case we find a use for it.” Possession of data does not guarantee possession of a particular insight.
I’m not saying that no one at Google knew. Just that it’s far from impossible.
I’m still looking for a good solution that includes support for notes. I’m migrating off Exchange Online and using mailcow temporarily but the built in notes feature is sorely missed.
Years ago, I heard a lecture by the guy who investigated the case referred to in the article below. Thieves and con artists are a legitimate concern. Or at least they should be.
From the Batesville Daily Guard - Batesville, Arkansas
After fighting identity theft for seven years, country singer/songwriter David Lynn Jones is ready to take back his life.
During that time, Jones, on paper, was three people – and at times, four.
“Two guys were playing me,” Jones said. “It’s unimaginable, until you go through it . . . that someone who doesn’t even look like you can steal your identity. The damage,” he said, “is incalculable.”
Jones may be ready to sing “I Feel A Change Comin’ On” again. That’s the title of one of his singles from his heyday.
During better times, Jones released four acclaimed albums – “Hard Times on Easy Street” (1987), “Wood, Wind and Stone” (1990), “Mixed Emotions” (1992) and “Play by Ear” (1994).
His charting singles include “Bonnie Jean (Little Sister)” which was also a popular music video on television, “High Ridin’ Heroes” (with Waylon Jennings), “The Rogue” and “Tonight in America.”
He may be best-known for writing “Living in the Promiseland,” a No. 1 hit for Willie Nelson.
While Jones kept writing songs during the past seven years, he could not release them because the identity theft culprits were getting his royalty checks by having the checks sent to their address. Much of the time, that address was in Colorado.
Now, Jones and his wife, Illa, who live east of Cave City, are looking forward to teaming up to record and release a new album.
He also has unreleased albums from the past that can now be put before the public.
“There’s five (previously recorded David Lynn Jones) albums that never were released,” Jones said. He plans to make those available to buyers on the Internet within the next few months.
Fans should be patient, though, because it may take quite awhile, he said.
In February, Baxter County sheriff’s investigators arrested Danny James Sullivan, who was working at a McDonald’s in Mountain Home under the name David Lynn Jones.
Sullivan was also drawing disability checks from the government under his own name while working at the McDonald’s under Jones’ name. His aliases include Danny J. Bass and Danny J. Rader.
A day later, acting on a tip, the alleged mastermind of the plot, Janis Rae Wallace, was arrested at a home in Fayetteville. Wallace is also known as Janis French and Janis Rae Jones, the name she used while posing as the real Davis Lynn Jones’ “wife.”
She’s even booked into the jail as Janis Rae Jones.
Wallace and Sullivan, both 51, remain in jail – she, on a $500,000 bond and he, on a $200,000 bond.
They are each charged with nine counts of felony financial identity fraud, according to an affidavit filed with the charges and signed by sheriff’s Sgt. Bob Buschbacher.
The information filed with the charges and in arrest reports matches the story told by Jones – the real Jones.
“Those are all federal charges,” Jones said.
The theft started, Jones said, when Wallace stole his driver’s license while working for him.
“At the time, my Social Security number was the same as my driver’s license number, and with just that information, they infiltrated my life,” Jones said.
Soon, he was getting no mail. It was all going to the fake David Lynn Jones’ address via an address change. The mail included preapproved credit card applications that the thieves filled out; after they maxed out the cards, they reported them stolen.
“Among the stolen items via mail were personal checks and business checks from music royalties the victim had earned as a songwriter and musician,” Sgt. Buschbacher said.
“They had ‘me’ moved to Colorado; my phone was shut off,” Jones said. “This was back in 2002 . . . . By the time we realized what was going on, we couldn’t get it stopped. They wound up with my royalty checks from publishing music,” including royalties from “Living in the Promiseland.”
Buschbacher said that in the beginning, to further the identity theft scheme, Sullivan, posing as Jones, filled out an identity theft passport request victim information sheet and submitted it to the attorney general’s office. Then, he obtained an Arkansas driver’s license in the victim’s name.
Meanwhile, Jones’ elaborate and well-known recording studio at Bexar was stripped of all its expensive equipment.
“I still own the studio,” Jones said Saturday. “It’s for sale and has been for some time. These people had gone out there and took down the for sale sign and put up no trespassing signs. They were drawing money out of my checking account, which eventually caused me to be overdrafted,” he said. His interest rates were doubled because of a bad credit rating.
And to add insult to injury, Wallace convinced people who dealt with Jones financially that someone was trying to steal her identity (“She was speaking as my ‘wife,’” Jones said). So, those who could have helped would not even listen to the real Jones.
“When we started talking to credit card companies and banks, they didn’t believe it (was me),” Jones said.
The crowning portion of the identity theft scheme was yet to come.
“They started telling everybody I’d been in a horrible accident in Colorado and I was in a wheelchair and I couldn’t play and sing anymore,” Jones said. “She even wrote a letter and sent it to all of my family saying that.”
Since he had been busy with his work during the earlier part of the problems and hadn’t been in touch with family members regularly, several of them even believed the accident story, he said.
“My mother (Verna Jones) passed away during all of this and we were trying to make funeral arrangements,” and a check his brother mailed to help with those expenses went to Colorado into the thieves’ hands, Jones said. “Even my own brother didn’t understand what was going on. I told him I never got the check . . . . It’s so crazy when you’re actually experiencing it.”
The investigation revealed that Wallace and Sullivan obtained a Social Security card, a Colorado identification card and the Arkansas driver’s license, all in the name of David Lynn Jones. Wallace then obtained power of attorney over Jones, claiming he was mentally disabled due to the fake “accident.”
Wallace and Sullivan were even filing joint federal income tax returns as Mr. and Mrs. David Lynn Jones. Those returns were filed in 2006, 2007 and 2008.
Jones said as soon the investigation revealed the first name of the suspect, he knew who was behind the scheme even though she was giving her last name as Jones. Still, the identity thieves stayed one step ahead of authorities for a long time.
Before being arrested, Wallace and Sullivan were trying to get the title to some land Jones owns in Baxter County, authorities said.
A break in the case occurred 15 months ago when Wallace, as Mrs. Jones, and Sullivan, as Jones, applied in person for an identity theft passport at the Arkansas Attorney General’s Office.
As soon as Wallace and Sullivan were arrested, investigators obtained search warrants for their houses. Jones said several items found in their homes could only have been obtained by their breaking into his home east of Cave City, where he and his wife have lived for five years.
“We’ve known for years things were being pilfered, things moved around. They were hanging out in the woods, watching for us to leave (so they could get into the house).”
Investigators found pictures and other items taken from inside Jones’ house, as well as photos of the house taken from the driveway.
Jones said officers on the trail of the crooks had been advising Jones for months to be alert and stay well-armed, because one possible logical next step could be to eliminate Jones and his wife, so the identity thieves “could become us. That could have been the last (planned) step,” particularly with them applying for the identity passport, Jones said. “Who knows what would have happened next?”
He has high praise for the attorney general’s agent who felt something was wrong when Wallace and Sullivan approached him about getting that passport.
“That’s what got them caught,” Jones said.
The agent was suspicious enough to go into another room and look for pictures of Jones on the Internet. The pictures did not match the man claiming to be Jones.
“If it had not been for the attorney general’s office, it’d still be going on,” Jones said. “The attorney general’s officer said it was the worst case he’d ever seen in all his years of investigating identity theft.”
Baxter County Sheriff John Montgomery said the investigation involved personnel from the attorney general’s office, the Social Security Administration’s Inspector General’s office and the sheriff’s office.
Jones said he expects he still has years to go to clear the damage to his name.
When asked what the identity theft has cost him, Jones did not give a dollar figure. Instead, he said quietly, “It’s cost me seven years of my life.”
Awful. We started dating in high school. I didn’t like myself back then and didn’t believe I could do any better. I let a lot of things go that I shouldn’t have. Not the last time I would make that mistake.
I’ve since learned a lot, including how to love myself.