10 Thoughts for March 18, 2014

1. Manage your Google account permissions.  If you're like me, you've granted many sites and apps (including Drive add-ons) some permissions to access your Google account; revoke that access back if you're not using that app / website anymore!
2. USE 2-step verification, people.  You can't afford to be lazy on security these days.
3. This phishing scam based on Google login is somewhat difficult to discern, except to note that in order for it to work, you have to click on a link that sends you to a Google Drive document.
4. The third and fourth invasions of Android are coming.  The first was the smartphone; the second was the tablet; the third is in your car; the fourth is in wearables.  Meet Moto 360, for example.  Windows is dead, dead, dead.  The IOT is being built on open source and Microsoft will not find any profit from it.
5. iPhone 5C sales are apparently (shock!) slow, so Apple UK has lowered the price (saving you £40 / $66) by halving the memory from 16GB to 8GB, and now an unlocked iPhone 5C can be had for £429 / $711. I pity the fool who pays that much for a watered-down iPhone with just 8GB, when you can get the Nexus 5 with 16GB in the UK for £299 / $495.  No wait, I celebrate your idiocy if you buy an iPhone 5C 8GB model.
6. The big bang theory has been supported by physical evidence.  A side note: This NASA explanation confirms that, "the universe should obey the rules of Euclidean geometry."  Sorry future high-schoolers, but it looks like you'll still have to take Geometry and Trigonometry even if you're born on Mars, or Europa.
7. Russia immediately accepted Crimea into its country.  Odd don't you think, that Putin and his supporters claim to give Crimea the right of self-determination, yet would not address their violent crush of Dagestan's and Chechnya's desires to leave the Russian Federation?  I think he's lying and I think Nationalism is driving his actions, not any selfless respect for rights.
8. Speaking of self-determination, Russian Crimeans didn't exactly give other Crimeans a choice in the matter: Vote to join Russia or vote to join Russia later.  I laughed when I saw that 97% - 3% vote margin (again, 97% voted to join now, 3% voted to join later), and others did, too.
9. Watching PBS News Hour, there was an expose on the issue of gentrification in the Bay Area, as a result of a high tech explosion.  Here's my quick 1/2-cent explanation of why opposition to gentrification is wrong: Ask ANY homeowner if they want their homes to be worth the same, 30 years down the line.  Gentrification is good, but requires government investment into affordable housing from the higher tax revenues generated by gentrification.
10. I think the theories that flight MH370 was flown to either Central Asia or southwest of Australia are implausible.  There are eyes in the sky and cellular towers to ping off of, over Central Asia; there's no end point if it flew southwest of Australia over water.  I'm sticking with the failed Somalia pirate angle.  Either arc angle (the Central Asia and southwest of Australia) demarcate pathways around Diego Garcia.