Russian separatists ARE terrorists.

There is no parsing their actions.  By seizing OSCE observers yesterday and using them as bargaining tools for prisoners, they have violated UN treaty laws and are nothing but two-bit terrorists.

Article 19 of Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949:

"Neutral and other States not Parties to the conflict shall apply the relevant provisions of this Protocol to persons protected by this Part who may be received or interned within their territory, and to any dead of the Parties to that conflict whom they may find."

In other words, neutral observers shall be afforded the same protections as neutral medical personnel.  By seizing OSCE -- which Russia is a member of -- and using them as bargaining tools in a conflict, they have broken international law.

This is not an isolated incident, either.  There have been nearly a dozen other people who have been detained, tortured, beaten with at least one politician killed by pro-Russian separatists.  They are the thugs and cowards who hide behind masks to alleviate their conscience of identification with the depraved actions they have committed against their fellow humans.

Russians who believe in the lies of (Ras)Putin and his debauchery come nationalist imperial expansion, enable these terrorists to drag the region into a war with Putin's soldiers as pawns.

Cliven Bundy, dolt.

Clive Bundy is stealing from someone

Have you heard about Cliven Bundy, the Nevadan rancher who suddenly stopped paying federal grazing fees in 1993, and now owes the federal government about $1.2M?

In his confused claim of being a victim of an over-sized federal government, he pointed to and attracted anti-federalists who believed states should have greater rights than the federal government, and that government should weaker.  I don't think I need to point out the failure of his logic: Were Nevada to own the land on which his cattle grazed, he'd still have to pay grazing fees to Nevada.  Nevada State Parks charges fees.  Nevada has a mining tax, too.  Were that land held privately, someone would be charging Mr. Bundy for his cattle grazing on it, and it would be a lot more expensive than either state or federal rates.  Check your local parking meters and garages.  Private ones charge a lot more, while public ones charge a lot less.

You don't get to continue to enjoy using something that you've stopped paying for.  You have the right to complain about anything you want, but if you're still using it and not paying for it, you're just expressing a self-entitled egotism.

Embracing Libertarian anti-federalism means you stop receiving your federal subsidy of cheap grazing rights, let alone not paying for it but continuing to use it.  You pay market rate or you shut the hell up about that subsidy.

Classic foot in mouth, Part I

You knew it'd happen eventually.  Earlier this week Mr. Bundy went off on how "the negro" was better off as a slave picking cotton.

"I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro ... I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy?"




African-Americans probably don't take kindly to the lack of reparations by those slave owners.  I think it would be appropriate to check the Bundy family tree for slave owners, don't you?

Classic foot in mouth, part II

At first reaction, Mr. Bundy was unapologetic, standing by his comments and continuing to refer to African-Americans as "negro". Then one of his daughters came to his defense, saying that he was taken out of context and had no bearing on the issue of grazing fees and federal control.

But today Mr. Bundy offered the most ridiculous apology saying, "I’m probably one of the most non-racist people in America."

So hold on here for a moment.  A guy who openly referred to African-Americans as "negros", now tells us that he's the least racist person in America?  Holy shit, folks, we've had a Mother Theresa with us the whole time, we just didn't understand how he communicated to us!

It gets better (or worse, depending on your level of cynicism).

Classic foot in mouth, part III

In an effort to rephrase his comment from yesterday, his handlers issued a public statement saying, "We Americans are trading one form of slavery for another. All of us are in some measure slaves of the federal government."

Except, slavery is involuntary and taking handout money from the federal government is purely voluntary.  No one has forced Americans in poverty from taking handouts from the federal government; for that matter no one has forced Americans to take handouts from charity groups either.

But as previously noted, he's not paying for grazing, and if the federal government doesn't receive compensation for, is 100% charity.  No matter who owns the land -- whether federal, state, county or private entity -- he'd owe someone money, but because government fees are primarily driven by costs and not profit, he'd be getting a heck of a subsidy were he paying his grazing fees.

Bottom line

So, would you rather be a cotton picking slave or a rancher getting a subsidy for your cattle grazing?

Hypocrite.

10 Thoughts for April 21, 2014

1. I've been on a tear lately, ordering small things from Amazon.  US Postal Service has done an excellent job of getting two packages delivered to Hawai'i before Amazon's shipping window even opened up.  DHL, not so much.  Sadly, DHL's shipping protocols required that it send my package to its Auburn, WA facility, then transferred to the USPS, and now on its way down in a truck to Portland.  If the package had been sent directly through USPS it would have arrived Saturday as was the case with the package that arrived in Hawai'i on Saturday.
2. Make no mistake about it, Russia is trying to undermine Ukraine.  All that Russian subterfuge may eventually result in blowback from China, one might expect.  China, after all, would be upset if the US were using military inside of Hong Kong trying to undermine Beijing, right?
3. Speaking of which, Crimea is apparently finding the transition a lot tougher and scarier than simply changing countries overnight.  
4. Portland truly is weird.  Why just the other week people got upset with the City's water manager's decision to dump 38M gallons of water because a guy peed into the reservoir.  So in Portland it's okay to pee in the drinking water, but no way is fluoride allowed.  So of course, I asked the question online at many sites: What concentration of human pee is acceptable?  Extrapolated, the EPA says it's okay for 166,666 people to pee into the reservoir every 40 days.  So maybe the answer is to have 166,665 people pee into the reservoir every 40 days, to save the 1.5 gallons per flush, per pee session, until the 38M gallons are recovered.  Maybe we should allow swimming, too.
5. Check out these concealed drawer slides.  Way cool stuff.
6. Seattle Seahawks traded a 2014 7th round pick to Oakland for Terrelle Pryor.  I don't get it.  Carroll beat Pryor's Buckeyes in the Horseshoe in 2009 with a true freshman starting in his first road game in college.  Pryor can sometimes throw ducks under pressure (though nothing as bad as Tim Tebow).  Then there's the way he weaseled his way out of punishment for his NCAA violations, by promising to return for his senior year to sit out the first 5 games in return for being allowed to play in his bowl game, only to make a swift exit thereafter when the full extent of his violations were publicized. And finally, let's not forget that he had to take the Wonderlic score multiple times.
7. Speaking of USC and Pete Carroll, to this day I still believe that 2008 defense was one of college football's finest: Fili Moala, Christian Tupou, Everson Griffen, Brian Cushing, Rey Maualuga, Kaluka Maiava, Clay Matthews, Taylor Mays, Kevin Ellison, Kevin Thomas, Shareece Wright, Michael Morgan.  That team had 3 shutouts and 3 games with just a field goal allowed.  Quarterbacks feared Maualuga.
8. The National Science Foundation issued its Science and Engineering Indicators 2014 report, and it has gained some buzz.  Particularly, that just 48% of Americans believe in evolution and that just 39% believe in the Big Bang.  But it turns out, Russians fared worse, with only 44% believing in evolution and just 35% believing in the Big Bang.  It's worth noting that the number of Americans in 1992 who believed in the Big Bang was the same as today, so intellectually we're not getting worse.
9. One hilarious -- yet extremely sad -- portion of the NSF's report, reveals that just 47% of Americans and EU residents understand that lasers do not utilize sound waves...and that was the highest rate among the group of 8 peers (US, EU, China, India, Japan, Malaysia, Russia, South Korea)!
10. Surprisingly not an easy quiz question: How long does it take for the Earth to make one full revolution around the Sun?  In 2000 -- the last year they asked this question -- only about half of Americans polled got this right.
11. Netflix is going to raise prices in the next few months on new subscribers in the US.  When there is stiff competition, margins shrink and prices drop; when there is limited competition, margins grow and prices increase.  Guess where Netflix is.  

20 Thoughts for April 20, 2014

1. Again?  Aaron Brothers / Michaels got hit twice in three years by hackers making off with customer data.  Sound familiar?  Target was hit twice, too.  My theory is, that companies which started out as brick and mortar have little understanding or adequate levels of fear of getting hacked and having their data leaked through the internet.  The exception are electronics purveyors whose own employees are thoroughly steeped in the ease by which connectedness leads to leaking data.
2. German multimedia oligarch complains that Google has too much control; seemingly ignores the vastness of its 230 magazines and newspapers, and 80 online properties it owns and operates.  I chalk this up to old Europe's ego, else Herr Döpfner is going against his own company's corporate ethos of supporting a free social market economy.  Really, here he is complaining about Google's reach, and yet his own company is looking for global expansion to become a "MARKET LEADER".  Hey, nevermind that Axel Springer owns 70% of the publications Germans read, right?
3. Went to testify before a grand jury on Thursday on what I saw last week at ~12:45am, when I had called 911 to report a break-in and three suspicious people.  I even brought a printed set of timeline notes to give to the prosecutor.  It turns out that the only person they ended up taking into custody (because he had an outstanding warrant for his arrest) admitted that he was responsible for the break-in.  That night when they stopped and questioned him, he was caught in a handful of lies and contradicted himself.  Following his admission, a search of his bag turned up two of the stolen headphones.  Busted.  Only problem is, he's a homeless adult and casually joked about his situation; as soon as he's released he's going to commit the same crimes over and over again.
4. Success!  I used my Nexus 5 as a WiFi hotspot for my Nexus 7 at LTE speeds!
5. Speaking of my Nexus 5, the updated camera app's blur function works spectacularly.  It took a moment to get used to the new interface, though.  The camera seems to work better overall, too.
6. Speaking of my Nexus 5, that night of the lunar eclipse, I tried taking photographs of the moon with my phone, through my telescope.  Didn't work well enough to justify fumbling around with it.
7. Portland is one step closer to becoming a Google Fiber community.  The City has signed a franchise agreement with "Google Fiber Oregon, LLC". Excited!
8. Yay, Russia agrees to take things down a notch!  But wait, I thought that Putin told us that they had zero involvement in Ukraine?  How can you agree to do something that involves movement of troops away from the border, if you told us beforehand that you didn't have any troops at the border?  Hmm...
9. But wait a minute.  Both sides are using the same words -- that property must be returned to rightful owners and illegally armed groups must stand down.  However, Russia thinks the US is referring to Ukrainian national forces and its allies, while the US thinks Russia is referring to Russian troops and pro-Russian militants.  Looks like they're agreeing that the other side has to disarm and stop threats.
10. I had to laugh hard when I saw that Putin had said that Russia doesn't spy on its own citizens and that it doesn't have the same global spying capabilities as the US.  My eyes rolled back so much, I think I saw my brain.  Lest we forget, Russia covertly released embarrassing recordings of a US ambassador's conversations.  Or how do you suppose Russia knows where US satellites are?
11. How polluted are Chinese cities?  VERY.  As in 9x as much as the dirtiest US cities.  Cough, cough.
12. Some great news for Oregon.  Year over year, the unemployment rate in March dropped from 8.0% to 6.9% and 46,300 people were newly employed.  The only other states which performed better (as a percentage of employment gains) were Florida, Nevada and Texas.
13. I haven't been watching much live TV lately.  Instead, I've been relying on Hulu to catch up.  One great series on Hulu: Cosmos.  The reboot of Carl Sagan's old show is spectacular!
14. The other week I completed the Breaking Bad marathon, and with time I've been able to gather my thoughts about the show.  I think everyone watching the show expected Heisenberg to become a bad ass.  Every marketing image of Breaking Bad implied it.  But the most accurate image of Walter White would be that of the very first episode, with Walt in his tighty whitey and gas mask, driving the motor home in a panic.  The entirety of the show is about Walt tending to his ego which only gets him into trouble and committing some horrendous act to get out of trouble.  He begins to split into two personas with Heisenberg triggered by his ego then back to Walter White when his son comes into his mind.  If you think about it, we're all Walter White.
15. Best bread-dipping sauce: a dip of TJ's pesto mixed into a couple of tablespoons of good olive oil -- I used TJ's Sicilian.
16. Speaking of olive oil, I bought a small bottle of Napoleon olive oil about a month ago while at Safeway...I now understand what high acid olive oil tastes like.  Yuk.  I'm keeping it for cooking only.
17. In Jackson Hole Wyoming, a creeping landslide is making its way down, having accelerated this past month (although acceleration in this case refers to going from inches to a few feet per day).  Having advanced notice that there's an active landslide, someone -- Tributary Environmental -- has been taking aerial photos for the last few days, showing the movement.  Considering that residents have been ordered evacuated, you should just enjoy the amazing aerial photos of nature having its way.  You're not going to find better photos from anywhere else.
18. Had a scruffy kid on a cheap red bike with a ribbed white tank top and baby-blue bandanna covering half his face ask if he could use my phone to call his girlfriend.  Uh huh...anything else you want to borrow?  My keys?  Maybe my headphones?
19. Oh, and Happy Easter!  (Pssst...it's my spring cleaning week.)
20. Which by the way, happens to be my father's birthday today.  Happy Birthday old guy who doesn't want to learn to use the computer and therefore can't read this!

10 Thoughts for April 16, 2014 (The Day After)

1. I'm taking this one with a grain of salt, but after talking with T-Mobile's customer service, it appears that with the shift to zero overages, my grandfathered plan means that I'll have unlimited data, 100% unthrottled!  So if accurate, I'll be paying $15 less per month than T-Mobile's comparable unlimited everything...all at LTE speeds!  HOLY COW!!!
2. Here's my LTE speed on T-Mobile at 2:45 in the afternoon in Portland:  36.31Mbps download / 11.50Mbps upload.  (At 4:29 am, it was 36.85Mpbs download / 15.29Mbps upload.) I own a fully unlocked Nexus 5 that can be used as a WiFi hotspot for my other devices.  HOLY COW, unlimited LTE data on all my mobile devices via WiFi, anywhere within T-Mo's LTE coverage!!!
3. I've been sitting on this refurbished Acer C720P Chromebook for a month now.  I thought I'd share it with you, because it's one of the only touch-screen Chromebooks out there, and it's got decent specs under the hood making it worthwhile.  There are just two drawbacks: I know that new Chromebooks with lower power Haswells (good for true, all-day long use) are just on the horizon, and the screen in these Acer Chromebooks are TN, not IPS, which means that you won't have the greatest viewing angles as most tablets these days.
   
4. Don't buy those under-$100 film scanners that save images to an SD card.  You will regret wasting the time to scan your film, only to discover that the quality is so bad that you need to spend an extraordinary amount of time retouching them in Photoshop or equivalent photo software and that they're too low of a resolution to be usable for big prints.  Instead, spend a little more and get a flatbed scanner that can do film.  This Epson Perfection V500 is what I have, and it's an older model now (going back 6 years ago when it was first purchased).  The difference in quality is unmistakable.
5. I've noticed of late, that many items stocked at Amazon (by third-party sellers) have free or cheap shipping that surpasses Amazon's free shipping pricing.  The difference of course is that one doesn't have to meet Amazon's $35 minimum to get those items shipped for free or cheaply.  Why, in just the last 7 days I've already made three separate purchases.
6. It's already happened: Russia's economy has taken a tumble with GDP shrinking 0.5% from the previous quarter.  Along with Russia's recent actions, it's probably safe to say that Russia will officially enter a recession, with a capital flight ($64B flight in first 3 months of 2014) nearing equal to the 1998 Russian currency crisis.
7. If Putin invades sovereign land to turn it Russian, a war will break out and Russia will suffer steep consequences for it.  The only country in denial over this is Russia.  An interesting thing I've observed: Russian inflation has been sitting well above 6.0% for the last two years, and was clocked at 6.9% for last month, this despite slowing GDP, an outflow of capital and a 34% decline in Russia's BoP net-surplus.  Stagnant economy with high inflation...where have I seen that before?  In fact, Russia was facing stagflation fears before the Ukraine crisis.  The current and future expansion of economic sanctions should tilt Russia further into stagflation.  Last month Russia's central bank pushed its key rate up from 5.5% to 7.0%, probably as an acknowledgement that stagflation was a threat.
8. I swear, I will eventually tackle Picketty's tome on 21st century economics and economic disparity.  But the cost and length is pushing me to procrastinate on getting it until Summer or so, when I have more time to casually read.
9. Construction is nearing an end.  I'll take better pictures when it's done.  Until then, enjoy ... some ... photos.
10. That landmark deal with Iran to reduce its capacity of near-nuclear weapons grade in exchange for lowering of sanctions, is working. That's not to say that US-Iran relations are free from friction, but that Israel has less to complain about, when it comes to how the US is dealing with Iran as an existential threat.

PS. Technically it's April 17, but the post started on the 16th and was intended to be finished on the 16th.  But I unexpectedly fell asleep early evening and woke up early morning to complete it.

10 Thoughts for April 15, 2014

1. As of noon I haven't yet started my taxes.  Applying for an extension is pointless, because you still have to go through the motions of estimating how much one owes, and if you underpay you have to pay the interest on the amount you fell short, calculated between the Jan 1, 2014 and the day you finally filed your return.
2. On why I'm not buying Google Glass today (the only day that it is for sale to the general public, in limited quantity): At $1500 for the "explorer" edition, I'm not exactly willing to part that much amount of money to be a beta tester, though I have certainly entertained the idea considerably.
3. It's nearly impossible to believe, but India's Supreme Court has beaten the US in recognizing transgender as a protected, separate gender, partly because they outlawed homosexuality last year.  This may seem like a flip flop, but Hinduism and Hijra have a long history of cultural importance in India, and technically, if you're a true Hijra you've given up your sexual organs in the process, therefore likely asexual.
4. Foolish girl from the Netherlands tweeted a fake threat to American Airlines.  Some have come to her defense that it was an obvious joke.  Do these kids remember the Aesop tale of the boy who cried wolf?  Probably not; stuck in their social media, they weren't paying attention.
5. So, I ended up trying to watch part of the lunar eclipse last night / this morning.  Clouds kept obscuring the moon off and on.  Just as it was reaching full penumbra, the whole sky covered up with clouds.  I gave up completely and went back to procrastinating on getting my taxes done.
6. Whew!  This was the absolute closest I've ever cut it to the midnight deadline.  At exactly 11:55 p.m. I dropped the state return / estimated tax payment forms off into the box.  About 8 or so years ago, I was there at 11:45 dropping off an extension. Never again!  Until next April, that is.  :D  This part of the blog post signifies that it's after midnight...and I'm still high on adrenaline, by the way.
7. As always, the most difficult and laborious part of tax season is actually getting things compiled and arranged.  Each year I tell myself to be better prepared and each year I fall off the wagon.  The one thing that bugs me every year, is that H&R Block does not automatically enter depreciation amounts from last year, properly.  They -- the inadequate software -- really screwed me up one year when the IRS changed my returns after I had just left the entire thing alone thinking that they automatically shifted the values within your depreciation schedule.  It's all my fault though...I didn't actually start my returns until...7:30 pm.  :D
8. Okay, so I might get some penalty for state and federal -- depends because I did actually follow the guidelines given from the forms, and I still ended up owing a ton more.  Let's just say that I had to pay a handful of digits in combined taxes (federal, state) tonight.  For some reason I had a disconnect last year with what I earned, in no small part because it came in just a handful of big chunks in between the vast valleys of nothingness.  
9. I tried in vain, to lower my taxes for 2013 by establishing a traditional IRA online, following a talk on the phone with my bank that I'd have to either physically go in to establish one or wait for the forms to come in the mail...I thought that this could simply be done online, but it wasn't to be so.  Instead, I tracked down my options and started an application with a fund management group with higher fund rate options.  I thought I had the deadline beat, but perhaps because the company is located on the east coast and it was past midnight their time, the transaction did not get completed.  Or it could be that it had to be business hours for the transaction to be completed in the first place.  Either way, I guess I've made my enormous contribution for the 2014 tax season which should keep me out of the penalty box for sure!  I felt all grown up today.
10. It's not eloquent, but Google's Project Ara modular phone is expected to be ready by Q1 next year.  Have you seen it?  What a crazy leap Ara is from what we currently have!  Technically speaking, it was a small company that was bought out by Motorola while Motorola was part of Google, and when Google sold off Motorola to Lenovo they kept the Project Ara team and program for itself.  I think it's a great idea and in about 3 years it'll be da bomb.

I need a wider, longer lens.

I still can't get good pictures out of this darn zoom kit lens in low light situations...and even in bright sunlight I'm having trouble.  A 72~77mm wide, ~300mm long lens (or maybe a long zoom with the same aperture) is on my list of things to get in the near-future, not just for photographing the occasional lunar eclipse but to also capture wildlife from afar.

I did get to stare at the eclipse with my telescope, but again, another thing that needs updating...toss out the 4" refractor and get me an 18" reflector. Oh, I stopped photographing as the clouds came back to hide the moon. If only it were one day earlier, there wouldn't be any clouds.

10 Thoughts for April 14, 2014

1. No, I haven't started my taxes yet.  I will start.  Soon.  Maybe later.  But definitely before Tuesday's midnight deadline.  I have the greatest benefit in the world of living within a few blocks of the post office which stays open until midnight on tax day.  I'll start later today, for sure.  Like, tonight.
2. Speaking of, despite downloading H&R Tax Cut some 6~8 weeks ago and updating the software at that time, this morning when I opened the software up again, there were updates waiting for me.  Procrastination reinforced.
3. Every eclipse -- lunar or solar -- turns into some spectacular natural event that is so rare that if you miss it then you're a fool.  And then it turns out it returns.  Again.  And Again.
4. Every time family visits, it feels like a cumbersome chore to have to clean house and entertain.  But then when they leave it feels like I got punched in the gut and something has gone missing from the heart.
5. I saw that beef prices had jumped of late.  A month ago I'd gotten 93% lean ground sirloin from Safeway for $2.99/pound and then the other week 80% lean ground beef was being sold at $3.99/pound.  You know what hasn't changed in prices?  Organic ground beef.  Still sold at $5.99/pound.
6. It occurred to me at the end of a dream, that there is no such thing as "cosmic karma" and that karma isn't a bitch, as is cited and recited in Californication over the years.  Karma is not retribution; rather, it means that you reap what you sow.  Karma is one of those words that has gained a separate meaning from its actual one, much like "irony" has.
7. Speaking of, I just finished a binge marathon of Californication Season 6.  So thankful that Netflix sent the two discs in the same turn, rather than split them.  So thankful Californication is just a 30-minute-slot show; to do Breaking Bad marathons was much tougher.
8. T-Mo's been on a roll lately.  Today they've made the move to eliminate overage charges by moving all plans and customers to unlimited minutes / texts /data, with no change in pricing.  Of course the data is not really unlimited, as the caps are still in place, but that your speeds are slowed down.
9. I logged into My Adobe and was presented with the requirement that I check on the box indicating that I had read the updated terms of agreement.  So I started checking out the terms in the little box, but after scrolling a bit, I realized this was no meager terms.  I copied and pasted it out in a word document and it came out to 20 pages.  I call this the WTF moment: When you realize that a company is trying to throw you off from recognizing major legal changes to their terms by dumping boatloads of legalese on you in hopes that your eyes will glaze over and you'll just hit the "I read these terms and understood them" button, even though you've done no such thing.  Pure evil.
10. I've had enough of the Heartbleed Bug, how about you?  Well, suck it up junior, because you have to change some of your passwords.  First though, you'll have to check with this SSL / certificate checker.  The key here is to look carefully at the date of when the certificate was issued, despite the site telling you that a given website is safe.  You see, if the certificate hasn't been updated since last week and the domain gets a passing grade, then you truly don't need to update your password, but in all other cases you will.  I don't blame you if your eyes roll to the back of your head...I have 99 passwords to parse through (I track all of my accounts) and my eyeballs rolled 360 degrees before falling out; thankfully my eyeballs are attached.

Nearly witnessed breaking and entering in the Pearl.

How strange that on the heels of cleaning up old witness subpoena papers (and writing about it) last week from an incident occurring last year, early this morning -- just before 1:00 am -- I essentially came across a breaking and entering scene downstairs in my building.

I was walking the dog back from a short walk when I thought I saw some odd behavior a block away near my building.  Three people all wearing dark clothes and appearing to carry bags of different sizes, looked like they were jostling around near my building before walking away from my direction.

Sure enough, when I got up to my building, I could plainly see the shattered glass door and a glass mannequin head on the sidewalk.  I was sure that this trio was responsible, and started following them as I called the police.  Not wanting to be a vigilante, I stayed a full block behind them while talking directions and descriptions of the suspects with the 911 operator.  (Of course it's hard to describe what people look like from a block away at night with these lousy HPS lights.  As soon as the City of Portland switches to 4500K LED lights, I won't have to struggle with seeing what's going on a block away at night.)

Oh yeah, these were definitely suspicious people.  They had split up to opposite sides of the street and one had taken an extended look at some parked cars on NW 10th.  They weren't meandering and looking around for nothing.  By the time the police showed up, they cornered two of the people but the third person had split off and it was too late (not enough officers on scene).

Long story short, from what I could gather, these were definitely the people who broke into the business as one offered a lame excuse to the officers -- that they did not see the glass which they walked right through on the sidewalk, but somehow managed to leave an object behind -- and in fact there was evidence left behind.

Now, unfortunately I did not hear or see the break in, but because I was close enough to being there at the right time, and was tracking the trio as they walked away, one of the suspects was arrested on an outstanding warrant.  This fella happened to be carrying a large backpack, and refused to give consent to search his bag.  I'm sure that they're going to find the stolen headphones, once they do get a warrant to open it up, but the issue of probable cause stopped them from holding on to the second suspect, though they did gather that person's information.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Step up silent patrols between 12:30 and 3:30 am and almost all of the property crimes will have been prevented.  This marks THREE TIMES in the last three years that I've come upon a crime while walking the dog or riding my bike, and they've all been within these hours.

20 Thoughts for April 10, 2014

It may look long, but it is not TL; DR; it's all bite-sized, even if a small chunk will fill you up.

1. Just been too busy with work / (mostly) life to post anything.  
2. Count on me as your QA tester who will manage to crash the system.  I got to play around with an Oculus Rift last Thursday and, well, someone had to reset it after I found a rift in the time-space continuum.  In my defense, I'd had two free pints of beer by that point and there was zero fear of walking off the cliff and into the water.  In my 
3. My two cents on how to help the unemployed, especially the long-term unemployed Americans: Let them go to school to boost their skills and bona fides, while paying them to do so.  Despite the rhetoric of conservatives, unemployed folks would prefer to be doing something than doing nothing.
4. Heartbleed Bug.  It's a significant compromise of Open SSL, allowing anyone with the proper exploitation tool or knowledge to suck and decrypt your data between the server and you / you and the server, which is rather ironic, because if you didn't use https, you wouldn't necessarily be vulnerable directly.  You can sort of test websites if they are currently vulnerable, but the major websites have all generally been rushing to implement fixes and temporary work-arounds, so the test is somewhat less useful at this point.
5. As a result of the Heartbleed Bug, you're going to have to change nearly all of your passwords, but you must wait until after the service providers have implemented the fixes and updated their digital certificates.  Even with patched up Open SSL, once a hacker has a certificate and the private encryption key for that certificate, they'll be able to read your information.  Therefore new certificates must be issued with new encryption keys before you can reset your passwords.  In the mean time, 2-step authentication prevents hackers from accessing your data from afar.  You have 2-step authentication enabled, don't you?
6. About cloud storage safety.  You would think that the Heartbleed Bug implies that cloud storage is a bad idea.  In many instances this could be true, but with companies like Tresorit and Spider Oak, there is no practical means of accessing your data without your password, because it relies on client-side encryption.  Therefore, even if Tresorit's / Spider Oak's SSL were compromised for a period of time and unbeknownst to you or them, your data was still safe as the encryption starts and ends on your device.  That's solid shit.
7. I want to thank my fellow condo neighbors of past, present and future, who have ignored the fact that your oversized vehicles cannot adequately fit within the boundaries of your stalls, and have therefore seized the initiative to ding my doors, bumpers and minimize the clear aisle width of the driveway aisle; without your damage, my otherwise 15,000 mile vehicle would have looked brand new, rather than its 7 years of age.  I want to thank you for your lack of concern for your leaking oil and cooling fluid, and the open flaunting of building rules to keep your shit stored away in the provided lockers, rather than piling them up in the vicinity of your storage locker and stall.  I want to thank you for farting in the elevator and failing to clean up the poop and pee in the hallways and staircases from your lovely dogs.  I want to thank management for not knowing anything about proper construction means and methods, such that you'll schedule painting of doors and frames in the middle of winter and without prepping of the surface, such that after a couple of years the paint is peeling, or schedule concrete sidewalk repairs in the middle of a freezing period, so that we can enjoy the cracked concrete sidewalks in a couple of years.  Truly, a blessing.
8. This 3D printer's Kickstarter campaign probably blew out some records for achieving goals; initially seeking just $50K, it now sits at $1.4M, and here's why: They propose to make 3D printing about as costly as some higher-end paper home printers, with a remarkable 50 micron minimum print resolution, variable up to 350µm.  I like the proposal, but I'm not sold on filament deposit modeling; I'm still waiting for the wave of laser-sintering 3D printers to come out, following the expiration of some early patents.
9. I've noticed a major shift at Dell.  Their Dell-branded consumer side laptops no longer have high-end CPUs.  Instead, you either have to buy a Alienware-branded gaming laptop or a business side Precision laptop; either way you're ponying up way more money as a result.  Or you can buy an HP with higher, better specs for less...which is probably where I'm headed for my next laptop.
10. A GAO audit showed that out of a random selection of 19 tax preparers across the country, 17 made errors.  Which simply goes to show that the tax code is too complicated for even the professionals let alone the average American.
11. Truly, still the best cookie at Trader Joe's is their Chocolate Hazelnut.  On a slightly similar note, I would like to mourn the passing of a dear cookie: The (~$6 USD) imported maple leaf / syrup cookies from Canada, which used to be stocked at the Dollar Store (and priced at $1 USD) has been MIA for the last several years, now presumed dead; everyone I know misses you.  The ones at TJs really do not compare.
12. All right, I'll say a few words about Brendan Eich's debacle at Mozilla, makers of Firefox.  All the stuff being written on either side of the issue has apparently forgotten a simple concept: Live and Let Live means tolerance is quid pro quo.  Brendan Eich was actively working to stop his own coworkers from getting married; he didn't have the right to expect others to back off from being critical of his actions.
13. And no, voting for Barack Obama who was against gay marriage in 2008, does not equate to hypocrisy.  No one gets the perfect candidate; if you understand your own ego, the only perfect candidate is yourself.  Instead, you strategically determine which candidate's values come closest to yours, and what are the consequences for voting for one candidate over the other.  Trying to distill down a vote for Barack Obama in 2008 as hypocrisy is lower than simplistic; it's duality in a pluralistic world.
14. The rise of the IKEA KALLAX is here; Expedit is truly going buh-bye.  The good news is, all of the accessories for the Expedit works for the KALLAX.
15. The Portland IKEA is the only place you can get Northwest Clam Chowder in a sourdough bowl; I tried it and love it.  Good only for April, by the way, so get it while it's hot.  At the cafe tables were signs pointing to a really awesome May special: Crab Cakes!  Nom, nom, I'm gettin me some!
16. Why the heck do touchscreen laptops have touch pads?  I hate touch pads.
17. Played around with the Chromebooks at Best Buy...there's a tiny Google section set up.  The touch screen on the Acer C720P isn't quite as good as the ones on your tablet,  Chromebooks in general are superbly executed.  Across the line, they're all light in weight, extremely thin, and the basic tools you'd want and need are up front and easily used.  The dream machine however, is not available: A 13"~14" 1920x1080 touch screen.  Cut out the touch pad, to save money.
18. Every time I handle a Samsung Android tablet, I am impressed with its weight and size.  But the TouchWiz UI, I doth protest.  Having a stock Nexus Android device is truly, the best.
19. Nope, the ending of Windows XP support does not result in a short-term spike in Windows 8 / 8.1.  Rather, it has resulted in a bump of Windows 7.  You can even see the sudden change the last several days, in GS Statcounter's daily tracking.
20. Got my hands on a treasure trove of negatives and slides from my pops when he brought them up in a grocery bag, all jumbled.  Sadly, the 6x6 show signs of wear from improper storage, so I dragged him to Pro Photo Supply to grab several hundred archival contact sheet pages to properly store and catalog them.  We're talking photos from the 50s through the 80s...lots of historical photos from my parent's trip to Southern California in the mid-50s.  The plan is to scan them to digital and retouch the best ones, and pop them into a series of photo books and print them onto canvas.

An Additional 10 Thoughts for April 2, 2014

1. Amazon took the wraps off its set top all-in-one media box, the Amazon Fire TV.  IDK though, because AIO devices tend to require compromises, and in the case of Amazon, it's once again a curated apps / games ecosystem.  With Chromecast you don't get the same capabilities, but it sure is a lot cheaper over the life of the gadget.
2. Microsoft just made a major decision to set Windows free in price, for mobile (phones / tablets) and IOT devices.  But the real problem has always been the dang tiles.  I hate those tiles with a passion.  I've mocked them for years as simpleton devices of a more robust information delivery GUI.  You can't turn a Windows Phone / Tablet into a beautiful GUI as you can with Android -- that's what our Windows desktops used to be like.  Well, you can still do that in the W8 desktop environment, but wasn't the point of those tiles UI to drive mobile adoption?  FAIL.
3. So now, naturally Microsoft brings back the Start button (some 30 months after the first complaints trickled in following the first pre-release), and what do you see in their updated Start menu?  Frigging tiles.  I kid you not, these people are total fools.
4. CBS 60 Minutes got caught screwing up again.  This time, it's about dubbing in fake motor engine sounds with videos of Tesla's all-electric chassis.  Sad, just sad.
5. Washington signed DeSean Jackson.  It's a 4-year deal, but the way it was structured, it essentially is a 2-year deal, as dead money = 0 after the second year ($16M total paid out = $16M guaranteed) and clears over $9M in cap space for the remaining two years.  Curious to know what the motivation was, behind this.
6. More Feds coming to realize that disinflation isn't a good thing.  Slowing of QE may be...slowed.
7. SCOTUS ruled that Congress cannot limit, in aggregate, how much money one gives to candidates.  Even though this is being played up as a victory by conservatives, as the decision came down to a 5-4 majority split by ideology, past elections have shown that donations and spending is bilateral.  In other words, get ready for the rise of the progressive technie.
8. I'm wondering why Chromebooks don't have detachable keyboards.  If you think about it, a screen that is a distillation of a browser window, should be usable as a touch-enabled tablet.
9. That earthquake in Chile triggered a tsunami that reached Hawai'i.  The biggest wave reached Hilo, at 1.9'.  That 1.9' tall wave (above normal surface level and not trough to crest), is not like a tidal wave, as a 1.9' tsunami means that the water just keep coming and coming with very long periods measured in minutes whereas the tidal wave has extremely short periods of just a few seconds
10. You know, someone really screwed up at the Archdiocese of Portland.  Over a hundred people associated with them have had their personal information stolen and used to file fraudulent IRS returns.  Which brings me back to why I was very upset with my friend the other year, when she used an online service to issue my W-2.  Once a company has your SSN, there is now one more point of vulnerability waiting to be attacked.  EVERYONE says that they have solid security practices.  Bullshit.  The only safe system is one that is fully isolated.

10 Thoughts for April 2, 2014

1. Over 7 inches of rain in March in Portland, making up for a dismal start of the water calendar.  Mudslides galore.  At least this morning it's nice outside, even if chilly (39F) -- what they would call tropical right now in Buffalo and Toronto.
2. Now that we've passed the ACA open enrollment deadline, I thought it good to remind ourselves that insurance is a collectivist-based program.  When you hear or read conservatives complain about the cost of health insurance, it makes one wonder why they care at all, since Ayn Rand would have been adamantly against such collectivist programs to share societal costs between the sick and the healthy.
3. We're not going to know the precise details of how many previously uninsured people signed up for health insurance for a couple of weeks.  Nonetheless, the first words out of conservatives' mouths: the numbers were cooked.  Sure sounds familiar.  Jobs numbers come in good?  Must be cooked!
4. Speaking of numbers, the ADP Employment Report was released showing 191,000 gain in employment for March.  When the BLS releases their numbers this Friday, we'll have a better idea of what's going on, but right now it looks like we're seeing a surge in hiring following the polar plunge this Winter.
5. The media is reporting about the IPCC's study and how the narrative includes getting nations prepared for dealing with the effects.  For the last few years I've been thinking that that we've passed the rubicon of climate change and we're well on our way towards some really bad consequences.  CO2 and other certain greenhouse gases stay in the upper atmosphere a very long time, such that we're probably a decade too late.
6. I read this issue of DMCA searches on your Dropbox files.  Not entirely unexpected, as this is the sort of thing that has been going on for some time now.  But the way you put an end to these types of intrusive searches is to use strong client-side encryption where only you have the key.  No company will be able to preemptively search your files to find potentially illegal content; if a subpoena comes your way, forcing you to provide the key, you'd want to hire a lawyer to dissect the probable cause assertion, since no one would have been able to casually look at your stored content.
7. I came across this today, and it describes the very thing I've told many people for a very long time: No matter what you think, if you're not on the inside, you're on the outside and are permanently disadvantaged.  That info you read online was released to insiders before you had a chance to read it.  The cute little analysis you've done off financial data was already automated via XML releases, allowing the insiders to know what was going on long before you could sit down in front of your computer.  The advice a broker is giving you, is days or weeks old.  The insiders have their own insiders, and you're just a casual outsider wanting to run with the bulls.  You built your own analysis algorithm that is successful, but guess what, those insiders have quants who earn their money beating your algorithms, then rewriting them over and over to stay ahead of we, outsiders.  It's an arms race and outsiders are permanently disadvantaged; if this wasn't so, then having connections on Wall Street would be a pointless and expensive waste of capital.
8. Alabama's Nick Saban is either genius or wildly nuts.  Upon hiring Lane Kiffin earlier this year, he's now hired Tosh Lupoi.  Both are considered talented coaches on offense and defense, respectively, though not without controversy.
9. Blackberry, what art thou thinking, with severing distribution ties to T-Mobile in the US, along with further cost-cutting measures in the distribution channel?  Coming on the heels of selling your own building, factories and slashing payrolls, it almost seems as though you've got your own little Chainsaw Al up there in Toronto, eh?
10. Finally, Paul Ryan showed off his Sparkling, Neo-New, This Time it's Different Because it's Newish, Path to Prosperity budget plan.  With all of the same devices of deception from his prior budget plans, of course, but doubling down on slashing spending on the poor (Medicaid), elderly (Medicare and Social Security) and the middle class (ACA) coupled with better (re: lower) tax rates for the rich.  Ha.

April Fools 2014 (updated)

T'is the annual tradition of April Fools, whence pranks are the norm and the truth is disguised.  Here is a list of pranks throughout the web:

• Moo.com now has a new delivery option for you, called Pug Post.  Won't get lost in the snow.

• Google Analytics presents Data-less Decision Making...for those who hate big data.

• I could definitely use this: Google Fiber presents CTTH, or Coffee To The Home.  Awesome! Even comes with predictive coffee preference.

• The Chrome team has incorporated Translate to Emoji feature into the Chrome mobile browser for iOS and Android...and it works!

• My personal favorite: Google Japan's newest input device. The laugh-out-loud moment comes at 1:49.

• YouTube announces the viral trends for 2014.  Too many trends, IMO.  ;)
• Gmail now has shareable selfies, or "Shelfies".  Works, too.   Oh, and that's an email from Kitty Purry.  You better get that one or else. 

• Google+ now has David Hasselhoff Auto Awesome Photobombs.  Just upload a new photo and use Auto Awesome to allow David Hasselhoff to photobomb your picture!

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Update:

• Missed this awesome one.  Google Apps for Business Dogs.  Let your dog do his business with ease.  And boom, we started this day out with dogs and bookmarked it with dogs.