10 Thoughts for September 30, 2014

1. The University of Michigan's embroiled.  Last Saturday, Wolverines quarterback Shane Morris, visibly affected by a hit, wobbled around, needing help to walk off the field.  He was sent back in to play.  Commentators during the game and thereafter have pounced on head coach Brady Hoke.  There's a discrepancy between what Brady Hoke said one day, compared to what he's now saying, but I'm not even going to get into that discussion.  You see, this current uproar is not really about Shane Morris, I suspect, but about Hoke having lost three games in September -- a first in UM football history.  I say this because no one in the media reacted this way in 2012 when former UM coach Rich Rodriguez, as head coach at Arizona, allowed Matt Scott to continue to play despite getting hit in the head and vomiting in the field of play, against the USC Trojans.  Come this past preseason, Matt Scott threw up in a game as a Bengal, in formation.  No members of the media expressed outrage that Scott's health was being compromised.  The media has joined the criticism bandwagon, though, on Brady Hoke.
2. We got let out early from jury duty today, before noon.  The waiting is not much fun, but serving on a jury is enjoyable, at least in Oregon.  Some observations while waiting: There were a lot of people using iPhones, Apple notebooks and iPads, and not a single one of them was using a Bluetooth stereo headset.  It seems the Apple crowd isn't aware of this thing called wireless stereo headsets, instead, stuck in an earbud world; if in Portland everyone is using Apple products, then I'm the exception who, in keeping with Portland's motto, is keeping it weird; one woman who was busy with her iPad, was playing...Solitaire; I did see one person sporting a Kindle e-ink reader; I actually got a lot through a lot of digital sketches of ideas and paged through a bunch of my magazines on my Nexus 7; I wrote a medium-sized email completely using just my swiping keyboard, which reminded me of why I think Blackberry's pursuing the wrong tact with its Passport.
3. I got an email notification the other day, informing me that, if I did not use my Google Voice number, it would be revoked.  That would be bad, because I've only just begun to implement my goal of using my GV number for work-related calls.  So naturally, I picked up my phone and changed the settings to let me choose between my cell phone or GV to make phone calls every time I place a call, then immediately placed a phone call with my GV number.
4. I completed a binge of the fourth season of Hawai'i Five-O last week, just in time to catch up before the new season started.  I liked all the new characters and direction the show took, but most of all I'm glad that they didn't leave any crazy cliff-hangers in the season finale.
5. Just about the only people who can't get past the front door of the White House, are journalists.  All others, lone wolf terrorists included, don't seem to have problems getting through.
6. California became the first state to enact a plastic bag ban, though many local governments have long had a ban in place around the nation, including right here in Portland, Oregon.  At first it seems like taking choice away will be bad, but in practice you get used to it quickly and it's no big deal, especially when grocers switch to paper bags with handles.  Those paper bags with handles make it easy to collect shredded papers (and other recyclables) and transport them to the recycling container.
7. China must be facing an existential threat, that they've decided to slip malware apps onto the iPhones and Androids of Hong Kong democracy protesters.
8. Wait, didn't Apple tell the world that their "closed" ecosystem was more secure than the open environment of Android?  I love throwing that one out there -- Apple fanboys were lined up outside the Apple store in Portland this morning when I walked past.
9. Just completed my order of mini cards and business cards, through Moo.com.  Today was the deadline for 25% off -- something that happens about once a quarter or so.  Best deal anywhere, because you can print much smaller orders than traditional print jobs, and you can customize each and every single article, such that if you order 50 business cards, you can have 50 cards each with a different front image.  It's quite awesome.  Use this referral link -- http://www.moo.com/share/r8spjj -- to get 10% off, any time, if you've never used it before, as it gets me referral bonuses.
10. There was just one thing that I decided not to use Moo.com to print: My portfolio.  As much as I love their quality and choice of paper, I just realized that I need to do this in-house and allow myself to use my choice of papers and sizes that aren't limited to Moo's largest print size (8.5x11 letterhead).  Everything else I send to them, though, including my holiday card sets.

Picture of the day September 30, 2014

This was actually yesterday, but I didn't have a chance to post it yesterday.  I was in downtown and made up my mind that I was going to eat at one of the food carts on SW 10th.  This one -- Korean BBQ -- at the corner of SW 10th and SW Alder, called Number 1 Bento, was awesome.  As you can see, I had the bulgogi.  Really, really good!  Reminds me of being in Hawai'i. :D

Bulgogi bento

Photo of the day September 27, 2014

Early morning, this awesome European red slug crossed my path at the park.  Photo taken from my Nexus 5.

European red slug

Monica Wehby's pre-post-2014-elections mortem.

The general election is just over a month away, but let's face it: Monica Wehby's campaign is all but dead.  So what went wrong?

Political cowardice

Today she canceled a debate that would have put her front and center in all of the most populous counties in Oregon.  That left her with just one debate in southern Oregon -- a conservative stronghold.  That's really dumb of course, because all she's doing is playing to her own kind when she needed to broaden her support.

Normally when you're behind in the polls, you'd want to get as much face time with your opponent, to score political points in direct attacks.  Instead, Wehby now looks like she's running away from having to face off with Jeff Merkley.  Political cowardice is rarely rewarded, but this follows a trend in her short political campaign.

Back in May, the police reports of domestic disturbances involving Wehby and an ex-boyfriend and her ex-husband came out a week before the primary.  They revealed Wehby as having anger issues.  Rather than confront them, she was whisked away from reporters as soon as questions over the police reports were asked.  She then spent the next several weeks including primary election day, cloistered, with limited and controlled contact with the public.

If she were ahead in the polls, she might be able to get by, but she was already down by nearly double digits.  The two months she spent hiding made things worse as one poll suggested that she was down nearly 20 points.

Finally, when she resurfaced, her campaign was asked about the police reports, but incredulously, she pointed to the reports as proof that she was willing to fight for Oregonians.  Face palm.  Rather than confront and apologize about using violence, she created a facade that everyone saw through.  Imagine if Ray Rice were to offer his off field violence as proof that he's willing to fight for his football team.

The one-trick pony lost her sole trick

Back in May I wrote that Wehby was a one-trick pony, using her experience as an ER doctor and surgeon as cred on the ACA.  But as we found out last week, she had abdicated any authority on the issue when she delegated campaign staff to write up her position on healthcare on her website.  As a result, a staff member cribbed it (as well as all other issues) off of a Karl Rove questionnaire.

It didn't matter the excuse because it showed that either her knowledge of the issue was superficial and limited, or that she just didn't care.  Either way, she came out looking like a candidate completely detached from her campaign.

By skipping out on a debate in front of a majority of Oregonians, Wehby once again lost an opportunity to show her bona fides on healthcare -- that deserves a double face palm.

A confused strategy, if there actually was one

You would think that, a rookie candidate going up against an incumbent, would want to get in front and define herself.  Instead, Wehby's team waited a full month after Merkley's team began airing ads reintroducing himself to voters, before Team Wehby aired a single political ad.

Of late, she began airing ads touting support from a married gay couple.  But that seemed like an odd choice, because by doing so, she had effectively turned off far-right voters who'd previously prevailed in changing the Oregon State Constitution to block gay marriage.  But rather than go all in and push her support of gay marriage in a debate in front of a majority of Oregonians, she's chosen to go to her base in southern Oregon -- the very folks who were against gay marriage -- and shore it up.  She's half in / half out of everything.

And, with the Koch brothers having pulled all funding for October advertisements, Wehby's now completely on her own, in her rudderless, sinking ship.

Maybe her current strategy is actually an early concession that she has lost the race and has resigned herself towards saving cash in order to pay outstanding campaign debt -- who knows?

It was never going to happen, anyway

As much as Republicans (such as former state GOP chair Allen Alley) insisted that they could win a statewide office in what they presumed to be a bad year for Oregon Democrats, nothing could be further from the truth.

As I stated post-primary, more people voted for Merkley in the Democratic primary than had participated in the GOP primary -- that alone should have informed pundits that Wehby was facing a massive uphill fight.  Off-season elections are supposed to favor Republicans, but the primaries showed otherwise.

And not to take anything away from Wehby's candidacy, but if John Kitzhaber could maintain a double-digit lead over any challenger in a year in which the Oregon Health Plan / Cover Oregon failed, there just wasn't much of a chance that any Republican could win a statewide office running on a platform against the ACA.  So for Wehby to use the ACA and Cover Oregon as her key issue, should have been seen as a recipe for disaster.

It seems that Republicans are easily lulled into believing fantasy, stuck in their echo chamber.  The only polls ever showing single-digit leads were Republican-based ones.  It actually led the media to buy into the GOP narrative that the gap had closed between Merkley and Wehby -- in fact, it did not.

On November 4, Merkley will win by double digits and the Oregon GOP will officially be in disarray.

10 Thoughts for September 23, 2014

It's been a week since I last blogged one of these.  No reason aside from being lazy.

1. The West Africa Ebola outbreak, according to the CDC, may reach 550K to 1.4M infected by late January.  The WHO Ebola team now estimates the amount of infected will exceed 20K by November -- previously they had predicted 20K by the middle of 2015.  The infection rate continues to grow exponentially, making the 1.4M completely plausible, especially if it overlays with influenza season.  The bigger this thing grows, the harder it is to contain it.  Can you imagine, however, how the region and the world reacts, when the number of infected has grown to 100K?  Chaos, people.
2. Google officially announced that it has joined Microsoft in quitting ALEC.  That's great news, as now I don't have to boycott Google. :D  But it does make you wonder what they were thinking when they joined ALEC last October.
3. So I just purchased two 4TB refurbished Hitachi hard drives for $100 each, via Woot, to fill up my recently received Zyxel NAS.  Normally I would never buy refurbished hard drives, except according to this Backblaze post about the hard drives they use, this particular Hitachi model scores exceptionally low failure rates -- 1.5%.  For reference, a Western Digital Red model (specifically designed for use in NAS), has a failure rate of 3.2%.  Furthermore, Hitachi drives have the highest survival rates at the end of 36 months, according to Backblaze.  They're supposed to arrive next week, so we'll see how the NAS build goes.
4. The Treasury Department has unilaterally moved to limit tax inversion schemes which allow US corporations to avoid paying taxes by shifting its corporate headquarters (on paper) to another country via majority ownership.  The downside is that it will not apply to existing corporations who have already performed a tax inversion, which seems like a mistake that benefits those who've already shifted ownership.
5. If you've watched videos on YouTube of attacks from either side of a Muslim-involved conflict, doesn't it strike you as odd, that anyone would insist loudly, that God is great, while shooting at their opponent?  I would think that, if God were truly willing to intercede, both sides would see their weapons fail to operate or otherwise simply disappear.
6. Insects are apparently easily affected by Fukushima radiation exposure, leading to abnormalities and premature deaths.  Godzilla is coming.  ;)
7. Kansas is at risk of turning a hue of blue.  Governor Sam Brownback has been behind in the last four polls, all in September, including two GOP-leaning ones (Rasmussen and Fox News).  Meanwhile, with the exit of Democrat Chad Taylor including his removal from the ballot, Independent Greg Orman (previously registered as a Democrat in 2008) has led Senator Pat Roberts in all three polls this month, two of which are GOP-leaners (Fox News and Rasmussen).  The point here, is that national GOP groups are having to spend lots of money defending what they thought was a diehard red state, which is rather interesting.
8. Sticking with politics, last week Monica Wehby's campaign suffered a humiliating blow when it was revealed that her website used position points lifted verbatim from Karl Rove's poll-testing questions.  What was revealing to me, was that though she was running on the repeal of the ACA based on her experience as a doctor, she did not insist on writing at least this portion by herself.  If you trust the message coming out of her camp, she supposedly delegated this central issue of her campaign to a former staffer.  So either she's lying or she has terrible management of her own campaign staff.  Can you imagine that something so critical as policy issues hadn't been vetted one bit by the candidate herself?  T'is a sinking boat, especially now that the Koch brothers have bailed on Wehby.  
9. Did you get an iPhone 6+?  Take care with handling it -- don't put it in the pocket of your tight jeans -- because it is relatively easy to bend.  I suspect that Apple was planning to use the sapphire glass' high resistance to flexing as a means to counter the aluminum alloy chassis' low modulus of elasticity, so when it ended up replacing the sapphire glass with a flexible Gorilla Glass (or variant), it left the iPhone 6+ vulnerable.  Call it Flexgate?  The thing is, Samsung already tests for these problems, making Apple look really bad if they looked over these issues when going with a big screen.
10. I thought that with the cooler temperatures I could turn the central AC off and open the window.  But as a result of the rain, the humidity has increased substantially that the lower temperature does not compensate for the increased humidity -- I feel like it's a Hawai'i winter.  It's not as bad as a Hawai'i summer with no breeze, though -- the worst kind of summer.

"People move to Portland to move to Portland."

So true.

Portland is a lifestyle.  Read this.  (Or just move here and retire, as Fred and Carrie explain.)

most awesome illustration by Kelsey Dake

A bad interaction with Portland Police.

Folks, you know that I have frequently had good things to say about Portland Police in my interactions.  Tonight, this all changed.

Tonight, while walking the dog next to the Bud Clark Commons, a Portland Police officer stopped me by saying, "Excuse me sir, can I talk to you?  Does your dog have a license?"

I won't answer the question he asked for the moment, but this is what I did.  As I turned away from him, I told him,"Sorry but I'm not going to answer the question and I'm going to walk away."

Immediately he asked me to stop, "Sir, please stop."

I turned back and asked, "Is it illegal for me to walk away?"

He said, "Yes".

So I turned around and walked back to him.  He then asked me why I was trying to evade him, to which I responded that I didn't think I had to answer his question -- after all, here I am minding my own business and not showing any outward signs of suspicious behavior.

He then informed me that they were giving away free dog licenses, so I laughed and said, "Okay, that's fine."  And then it got weird.

Suddenly his facial expression changed and he escalated.  He began asking me rhetorical questions about why I didn't want to talk to him.  His belligerence was rising as his voice got louder.

With his voice raised asking probing questions, three other officers who were standing 15 feet away, suddenly walked closer to us and stood about 5 feet apart from us.  (Gee, you don't think I know this psychological tactic?)

He then asked me a rhetorical question that was obviously meant to be a threat, "Do you want me to take your dog away because he doesn't have rabies tags?"

Wow, in just about a minute he escalated from 1 to 7, suggesting that he would take my dog away!  Oh, I recognized the sign immediately, that he thought that he had the upper hand and would use verbal threats to get me to comply or find some other violation.

But here's the thing: He took an enormous risk, on behalf of the police force, escalating, under the assumption that he had the upper hand, or that I would take the bite.  I was shocked that he was rapidly inflating the situation.

If I were 15 years younger, I probably would have taken his cue and escalated with him, but being the wiser, and knowing that he could make life a lot more difficult by exercising poor judgment, I refused to escalate, keeping my voice at a normal level and asking him open questions about what was going on and why he was escalating things.

Perhaps it was my question over his escalation, or he realized that he lost control of the situation.  His tone, though still obviously angry, suddenly changed as he explained that he was, in effect, too upset to continue talking to me, so that he was handing me off to the county officer -- a bit curious, blaming me for his escalation, when I spoke calmly to him without raising my voice or insulting him, the entire conversation.

Let me tell you, talking to this petite female county officer was a completely opposite interaction.  I had a feeling that she was uncomfortable with his approach, and told her that I was glad to be talking to her instead of the Portland Police officer who was escalating things.  It wasn't a good-cop / bad-cop routine at all.  She was extremely helpful and offered me some tips -- one of which I stopped her because I didn't want her to get into trouble.

I did make a psychological poke at the Portland Police officer.  While talking to the county officer, I asked her if it was okay that we talked further away from the officer.  We walked about 10~15 feet away so that they couldn't listen in, and we were laughing and smiling -- out of the corner of my eye I could see that they were watching us.  In the end, I got a temporary tag and I reached my hand out to shake her hand with smiles on both our faces.  I wasn't being disingenuous, but I was trying to make sure that we were having a great conversation between two adults who understood each other, so that the officer could think long about how this interaction contrasted to his one with me.

I continued on my walk, but then thought to come around to get the officer's name.  By the time I had come back -- some 40 minutes later -- they were gone.

Finally, to answer the question about my dog's tags.  Well, based on the Fifth Amendment refusal to respond, the answer is now post-hoc (that you cannot presume that my answer was proof in itself that the original suspicion was correct): No, I did not have tags.

He wanted me to offer a confession to which I politely refused to answer the question.  His two minute-long attempt to escalate is disconcerting.

What he should have said was, "Well sir, you're putting me into a situation where neither of us probably want to see, where I would have to seize your pet and have you show proof to a judge that your pet has tags."

That's a lot easier to comply with than, "Do you want me to take your dog away because he doesn't have rabies tags?"

Don't make me your enemy.

Instead, I leave you with this photo three blocks away from where this interaction took place, of a Portland Police Officer's vehicle illegally blocking a garage door and partially parked on the sidewalk no less.  The block was mostly wide open to park (see the spaces just in front of the second garage door), but this officer was stopped in front of a garage door.  Could this have been an emergency? -- I don't see how, since the only other officer vehicle was an unmarked car behind, properly parked, not anywhere near the entrance of any building.

What a night, huh?

Global climate change: Are you smarter than five Popes put together?

This Sunday, September 21, people will be marching around the world (including here in Portland), set to coincide with the big one in NYC, on the eve of a summit on climate change at the UN.  To wit, my small contribution to this effort is a compilation of quotes from the last five Popes, on the issue of the environment.

Are you smarter than five Popes put together?

• Pope Paul VI -- “Man is suddenly becoming aware that by an ill-considered exploitation of nature he risks destroying it and becoming in his turn the victim of this degradation.”  May 1971
• Pope John Paul I -- “The danger for modern man is that he would reduce the earth to a desert, the person to an automaton, brotherly love to a planned collectivization, often introducing death where God wishes life.” August 1978
• Pope John Paul II -- “We cannot interfere in one area of the ecosystem without paying due attention both to the consequences of such interference in other areas and to the well being of future generations.” January 1990
• Pope Benedict XVI -- “In fact, it is obvious by now that there will be no good future for humanity on earth unless we teach everyone a lifestyle that is more responsible towards creation.” November 2011
• Pope Francis -- “People occasionally forgive, but nature never does. If we don’t take care of the environment, there’s no way of getting around it.” April 2013

Feel free to copy and paste and use profusely by any means.

10 Thoughts for September 15, 2014

1. Have you watched Fox's Utopia, a sort-of-reality-but-not-real-at-all show?  It's mildly interesting, but the most amusing part of the show is the narrator.  Do you know who he is?  Dan Piraro, the illustrator of the comic strip Bizarro.  Awesome.
2. The not-so-odd thing about the coalition against ISIS: No one wants to contribute ground troops but everyone is willing to contribute planes.  Right about now, I bet the US military wishes that it had those humanoid drones ready to go.
3. IKEA Portland's restaurant has a few interesting things this month, but the most enticing offer has to be the bistro's lemon froyo.  For reference, everyone else in the country is directed to this page, while Portland has its own, special page.  Hint: Portland now has weekday specials.  Thursday's chicken dinner looks tasty, doesn't it?  Monday mornings now have free breakfast, too.  PDX IKEA is the best, isn't it?
4. So, it seems like everyone blew it this weekend.  Seattle's defense at San Diego wasn't good enough to stop the Chargers, and the offense had three series of four plays or less, each with negative yards.  That sure looked a lot like USC's offense and defense on Saturday.  Worst weekend in sports, ever.
5. By the way, the flaws in USC's performance against BC were so obvious, you could read any publication covering it and you'd come away with the same understanding.
6. Okay well, it wasn't a complete loss this weekend...the 49ers did lose in their first regular season game in their new stadium, so Seattle is even with them.
7. Never name your dog "Butternut".  Why?  Three syllables always gets shortened to two syllables: Buttnut, Butters.  Everyone knows who Butters is.
8. Wait, didn't everyone including Tim Cook tell us that Apple's accounts were safe?  Well, the folks at Wired don't seem to think so: "Scummy forums devoted to hacked nudes like Anon-IB made clear that Apple’s security weaknesses were still being exploited."  Here's my favorite: "Cook’s promised changes sound like band-aids, not fundamental fixes."
9. iPhone preorders breaks record...turns out, Apple fanboys really did want larger screens after all.  Samsung enjoyed mocking Apple's leadership.
10. With rising oceans -- documented around the world -- expected to speed up, would you pay 4x more to live on the waterfront, in Hawai'i?  I wouldn't ever live on the waterfront, even if you paid me to.  I will gladly live on a short hill overlooking the beach, a half-mile inland.

10 Thoughts for September 13, 2014

At peak

1. Awesome animated series: Rick and Morty.  Binge-watched and enjoyed, using Chromecast, of course.  Hilarious stuff!  Don't miss out at the end of each show following the credits.  Soooo good.
2. Nope, the Aurora Borealis did not dip down to Oregon.  I was watching the tracking online and it peaked hours before it got dark in Oregon.  The best, strongest and most spectacular light show in years, was over Europe.  By the time the optimal period - directly opposite of the sun -- hit Oregon, the hot spot had died down, sadly.  I didn't even bother to drive anywhere because it had dissipated by sunset.  It's all a matter of (poor) timing.
3. Since we -- in the US -- didn't get to see it, here's the NOAA Aurora Spotters Flickr page of some images of the spectacular light show from Europe.
4. ESPN is still trying to milk the Pat Haden incident for all it's worth, and at this point they're just dragging themselves through the mud.  Ed Cunningham actually compared Arkansas AD Jeff Long's feet-dragging on firing Bobby Petrino (following Petrino's motorcycle accident which revealed his mistress -- another coach at Arkansas), to Pat Haden's actions.  That's below pathetic.
5. USC forgot to board the plane to Massachusetts, and so the school decided to use a bunch of JV footballers to play against Boston College, I think.  Just when you thought it was okay to go outside with your USC shirt...the team lays a rotten egg.
6. I got my Zyxel NAS box on Friday, and I have to say that I'm a little disappointed that the box is plastic.  I guess I got spoiled by the aluminum form factor of my external drives from Fantom.  I haven't yet bought hard drives to fill it up, though; I'm keeping track of 5TB drive prices.
7. Recently watched "Return of Sabata" starring Lee Van Cleef.  Like Quentin Tarantino, I adore spaghetti westerns and samurai flicks.  I own every Clint Eastwood classic.  Anyway, I mention Return of Sabata because it includes actress Annabella Incontrera, who I think is very attractive.  There's an innocence and vulnerability in her face that I like.
8. Speaking of spaghetti westerns, did you know what most of them were Italian and usually filmed in Spain and Italy, including famous Sergio Leone's trilogy with Clint Eastwood (A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly).  In Italy they were filmed at Cinecittà Studios, a world-famous location with full-size sets of ancient Rome.  I know, right?  Such arcane knowledge.
9. Best -- free -- sketching app for Android / iPad?  It's a tossup between Autodesk's Sketchbook Express and Wacom's Bamboo Paper.  Bamboo Paper succeeds in its simplicity, but the Android app lacks the colors and tools available for iOS.  Sketchbook Express is a solid tool with lots of controls, but those controls tend to get in the way of drawing.
10. Still playing Line Ninja Strikers.  Still can't seem to get a single 6-star ninja despite using up 90 gems collected from completing several quests.  I've got 15 5-star ninjas, if you can imagine.  My highest score -- 800K -- and I could see everyone below me had at least one 6-star ninja.  With even a single 6-star ninja, I bet I would make everyone else look silly.  Give me two 6-star ninjas and I'd completely dominate.  Oh, but wait, Line wants people to spend money on in-app purchases -- of course they won't let me get a 6-star ninja!  Nothing worse than someone who hasn't spent a dime on their app, to beat out thousands of others who have spent $20+ to get their 6-star ninjas.  But don't worry because I'll get there, and when I do, I will destroy everyone in my wake while letting out a Dr. Evil laugh.

BC and USC beat USC.

What the hell was that?  

The last time USC looked this unprepared and mentally out of the game was the 2012 Sun Bowl.  USC Trojans laid so many rotten eggs at Boston College, it'll take at least two weeks to air out the stink (thank goodness for the bye week).

Missing persons report: USC defense.

If this is the way Justin Wilcox's defense is going to perform against the hurry-up spread offense, this team is not going to go bowling.  On several occasions two tacklers would target one player in the option game, which of course left the other option player completely free.  On other occasions the defensive end would lose contain on the backside, leaving a reverse or a cut back wide open.  Playing against Arizona and UCLA, the Trojans would be blown out.

It's not entirely the defense's fault, though.

Everywhere around the team, they were piling up mental error after mental error.  False starts, holding, linemen down field before a pass, wide open passes dropped and overthrown.  Cody Kessler looked like he regressed back to 2013, holding onto the ball like he was the Statue of Liberty, leading to a sack -- gone was the silent 3 second count.  There were missed blocks by wide receivers, missed blocks by the tailback, and missed blocking assignments by the linesmen.  We actually saw a kick returner nearly forget to grab the football -- a live ball -- rolling around in the end zone, and down it.  WTF?

And let's stop running backwards.  I didn't think this required stating, but when you've got the first down, you don't run backwards and lose the first down; you fall forward.  Repeat after me: F-O-R-W-A-R-D not backward.

And I don't get why a coach would call a run play, down by two touchdowns in the fourth quarter.  So what if you catch the defense off guard -- they're keeping the plays in front of them so that they can slow down the game.  A total of 20 yards on the ground, dude, and you want to go to the run game late in the fourth quarter down by two scores?  Really?

It's not the end of the world.  Yet.

It's not the end of the world or the season, and thank goodness this wasn't a conference game.  Even Pete Carroll's teams would lay a rotten one every once in a while, so maybe this is one of those rotten eggs?

But geez, you've got to wonder if they're regressing.  The team's best showing was against Fresno State; the worst was against BC.  Maybe BC is a top-10 team?  I doubt it.  And if they're not, then we should be worried about where USC is headed.  How USC performs against Oregon State in two weeks will tell us a lot, especially coming off a bye week.

10 Thoughts for September 11, 2014

1. It's 9/11.
2. A cluster of very large solar flares have occurred the last several days.  Right now the prediction shows that for the next several nights, the visible edge will between Seattle and Portland, but that might dip lower by Friday night because of the confluence of a pair of flares.  We'll see.
3. By the way, if you're an Apple fanboy, by all means, get the iPhone 6+.  For the first time you'll be able to rotate your screen.  Comes in handy when you're reading certain things.  And, the more of you there are out there with NFC devices, the faster mobile payments will become widespread, benefiting the rest of us.
4. Ray Rice should have been banned indefinitely, months ago.  The NFL didn't need to see the second video, to know that Rice had knocked unconscious another human being.  If he had viciously cold-cocked a stranger, he'd be in jail and banned from the NFL.
5. Survela updated its database with the latest gmail address leaks.  I'm still good, except of course the Adobe breach, but I've long since dealt with that.
6. Don't be surprised if Portland State goes into Pullman and beats Washington State.  The Cougars are one-dimensional on offense with a meager 44 rushing yards in two games.  Meanwhile, PSU sports a 3-star (low on stars probably because he's 5'-7" with 4.5 speed) senior running back from Junipero Serra High School whose former teammates included George Farmer and Marqise Lee.  
7. I happened to be online and working on stuff, when the Oscar Pistorius verdict was being read.  There are some things you wouldn't know if you watch the news. For one, it took several hours for the reading of the verdict, with multiple breaks in-between, including lunch, and she's still not done, at least insofar that she has yet to render her punishment.  Also, the judge was amazing.  She took great pains to break down each and every argument from both sides, rendering her judgment of the validity and pertinence of every single piece of information placed into the court room.  It didn't take much to figure out where she was going early on, though, because she kept pointing to the prosecution's misalignment of facts to the time line, making their case of murder implausible and improbable.
8. Speaking of gun accidents, you can't have gun accidents in schools, if you don't have guns in schools.
9. Cats and dogs cooperating.  Just not my dog.
10. Apparently I was wrong...Republicans DO WANT US BOOTS ON THE GROUND IN SYRIA.  I find this perplexing, because 18 months ago flip-flop John McCain said, "The worst thing we could do is put boots on the ground [in Syria]", with many other GOP going so far as to state that they did not want air strikes in Syria -- this mind you, coming before they began complaining this past week that Obama hadn't done enough.  What a bunch of clowns!

Why would leaving a residual force in Iraq have prevented ISIS?

I enjoy the silliness of John McCain's echo of the conservative counterfactual tale that, had President Obama left a residual force in Iraq, we wouldn't be facing the situation we have today.

Riiiight.

We would have faced this situation a year ago instead, and we'd have US boots on the ground, dying at the front line, if it were up to John McCain and the Republicans.  Only in their fantasy world do Sunni Iraqi troops stay at their stations at the front line, repelling all attacks, just because Americans were behind them.  You and I know what would have actually happened: Iraqi Sunni soldiers would run back to the rear where the Americans were.

Secondly, ISIS began in Syria, not Iraq.  Without intervention -- US boots -- in Syria, ISIS would remain a threat to take over Syria.  But remember, a year ago more than half of Americans were opposed to military action in Syria, eventually leading to the current chemical weapons removal process.  We wouldn't have done anything except to maintain as much of the status quo borders.  Let us not forget however, that US support was firmly against staying in Iraq in the first place.

Thirdly, perhaps Republicans have forgotten, but under Al Maliki and the ongoing Sunni-Shia civil war, our men and women were being shot at from behind their backs.  This is what the GOP wanted us to defend?  It wasn't until Al Maliki was gone, did Iraq finally form a coalition government, this week.

It's all spurious garbage coming out of John McCain and conservatives, devoid of real facts.  Their hindsight, rather than being 20-20, is functionally blind.

10 Thoughts for September 10, 2014

1. First thing in the morning when I checked my emails, I saw and almost immediately grabbed this Rakuten promotional price of ZyXEL's 2-bay NAS for $80. This deal is good through 9-14-2014.  I've got an external hard drive attached to my network, but my movies on the drive are not backed up anywhere else (because they're so large).  I jumped on it because there are no other 2-bay NAS devices out there, for lower, with decent reviews.
2. PBS NewsHour's Gwen Ifill asked her guest to identify the most innovative thing Apple had introduced today.  I had to laugh.  The guest said that it was Apple Pay.  I laughed twice.  Apple Pay is most definitely not innovative, but it's the most important announcement Apple has made in years.  Androids with NFC can use Google Wallet to pay in-store; the difference is, with Apple Pay, even Android users can cheer for the hope that more retailers will install NFC readers.
3. With all of the hacks these days, I think it's important to highlight the value of Google Wallet.  Let's say that I go to an online or brick and mortar store and buy something with Google Wallet.  The store does not process your payment, Google does.  Google, Apple and Microsoft spend a lot more time paying attention to vulnerabilities and patch them far faster than retailers, even the largest ones.  Bypassing the retailer's processing system is a huge advantage to stopping your info from getting hacked.
4. So what was the last, interesting industrial design coming out of Apple?  The redesigned Mac Pro.  That was earlier this year, and stands as the most impressive work from Apple, since Steve Jobs' death.  I'm not impressed by the Apple Watch or the newest iPhone models.
5. So, are you worried about hacks?  Use this site -- https://survela.com -- to check your accounts.  As usual, I stumbled upon it and checked its web reputation before using it.  As expected, Adobe's leak showed up for me, but nothing else, including credit cards.
6. Just weeks after Iraq gained a new Prime Minister, they've come together to form a coalition government, which stands in contrast to the two years that, under Nouri Al-Maliki, failed to build a coalition.  Interesting that Al-Maliki was the Bush Administration's pick early on in the reconstruction, don't you think?  Perhaps a wiser choice would have completely saved Iraq from the current threats it faces today, and saved the US from $billions wasted.
7. From a macroeconomic standpoint, I think we should take note that raising taxes is difficult when you're still stuck under threat of deflation.  The key is inflation targeting.  If you're below inflation targets, raising taxes will push you towards deflation and the zero lower bound.  We have two prominent cases: France and Japan.
8. Then there's the macroeconomic case of why you shouldn't slash taxes on the rich.  Our favorite poster child: Kansas and the Republican conservative Sam Brownback.  By far, the most interesting race this year is the office of Kansas governor.  In one corner is Sam Brownback whose tax cuts for the rich, has led to a shocking drop in state income and slashed spending with lower-than-average job growth.  In the other corner is a Democrat who has gained support from moderate Republicans who are freaking out at the huge drop in revenue.  Right now, Paul Davis is leading Sam Brownback big.
9. Speaking of races, Monica Wehby continues to trail Jeff Merkley by double digits.  In fact, the only polls to have ever shown Wehby within single digits are all GOP-led pollsters.  Some races are predictable months ahead of election day -- Oregon's gubernatorial and senatorial races fall into this category.  The Koch Brothers could run another 10,000 ads between now and election day and it won't budge the polls by much.
10. On Obama's delay of issuing presidential orders on immigration: It's a huge political gamble.  Let's say that battleground Democrats asked for the delay.  Well, it also lowers Hispanic voter turnout in those states.  It's a double-edged sword.  I think the President should push ahead, let Republicans push back, then push back hard against the Republicans who opposed and blocked immigration reform.  Nonetheless, I found it amusing (in a hypocritical way) that John Boehner complained that President Obama acquiesced to politics on immigration reform when it came to delaying presidential orders, considering that it was John Boehner who complained about the President's expansion of power using presidential orders.

Apple followed Google.

Honestly, I'm not paying that much attention to what Apple's doing these days.  There was a time that I'd pay close attention because Apple was much better at keeping leaks to a minimum and they'd seemingly introduce a few interesting things, whether cool industrial design or unique graphic user interfaced applications.

Today, there was none of this.

We already knew every detail there was about the new iPhones, months ahead of time.  We knew there would be two new models, both with larger high-res screens, and packed with NFC.  We'd already seen the redesigned forms, too, with its curved metal edges and back.

While we knew that there was a wearable, we didn't know exactly what their form factor would be.  So when Apple showed off the Apple Watch, I think it was a major disappointment from an industrial design standpoint.  The watch's form was not appreciably different from either Samsung's Gear Live, Sony's SmartWatch, or LG's G Watch.  If you are a romanticist and enjoy the older circular form, Motorola already had you covered with Moto 360.

From a UI standpoint, Google had already revealed the fully fleshed out Wear UI at Google I|O, months ago.  That's not to say that Apple Watch doesn't have beautiful ID or GUI, but they didn't produce anything that could be called revolutionary -- not by a mile.

Which points to the fact that the mainstream media doesn't know what Android has.

My eyes rolled when various media outlets proclaimed that Apple introduce a "new mobile payment system".  Years after Androids incorporated NFC, the media has yet to catch up.

Remember when Steve Jobs mocked phones with large screens?  So now, the Apple acolytes in the MSM have determined that bigger screens is, in fact, good.

So it turns out, Apple followed Google today -- bigger screens, NFC and a wearable that looks like a watch.  Speaking of following, how long do you suppose it'll take for Microsoft to follow suit? 2016?

Football Thoughts, September 7, 2014

On Seattle Seahawks' win against Green Bay:

1. Seattle's offense looked sharp in the first game of the NFL season.  The offense's big three -- Wilson, Beast Mode and Harvin -- make it so difficult to play against Seattle.
2. Take for instance, the read-option pass, used just once against GB. The defense had to deal with Beast Mode going in one direction, Wilson in the opposite, and Harvin 10 yards down field.  It's going to drive defenses crazy.
3. I don't care what Green Bay's coach says, Rodgers deliberately avoided Richard Sherman.  It was so obvious to everyone watching the game.  Some call it "playing scared", while others call it "playing safe".
4. The D-line didn't get sacks.  Well, they say Rodgers was sacked, but he really wasn't.  He ran to the sideline and stepped out right at the line of scrimmage.  But the D-line stopped the run, with Eddy Lacy averaging just 2.8 yards per carry, and GB with a total of 80 yards on the ground.  The D-line isn't quite like last year's, but it might be good enough to get them to the SB.
5. GB was completely dominated end to end, but that Seattle's defense was able to make the stops when it needed to -- bend, don't break.  Last year, the defense was about total domination, and it may yet grow into a completely dominating force, 
6. The folks at -- yawn -- ESPN Stats like to drum up numbers to drive whatever narrative they feel is the bigger picture.  To wit: the rarity of SB champions winning their first game of the following season.  Here's what they missed: It's Pete Carroll's system that produces wins.  Just one year after his first season at USC, the Trojans became a mainstay in the top 5 for six out of seven years (2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008).

On USC Trojans' win against Stanford:

1. USC beat Fresno State last week with pure offensive firepower on the ground and in the air, while its secondary held strong and stopped the Bulldogs from converting 3rd downs.  This week, USC beat Stanford at its own game by pounding it out on the ground and stopping Stanford with an incredible red-zone defense and downright toughness.  When it mattered most, the USC defense held, including a 4th and 1 on the USC 4.
2. USC brought just 53 players to Palo Alto (a direct consequence of the sanctions); 44 of them played in the game.  USC's got a pro team, it seems.
3. USC just broke Stanford's 17-game home winning streak (the longest active streak), and have now beaten Stanford two years in a row, on the leg of Andre Heidari, with minutes left in the game (and again, followed by an incredible defensive stop).  Heidari's 53 yard field goal was the longest in his collegiate career -- every USC fan who's seen Heidari's struggles the last two years would not have believed that he would find himself in Stanford's stadium kicking his longest field goal.  He is now legend.
4. How do you define toughness?  Leonard Williams, having rolled his ankle four days earlier and looking gimpy in pregame warmups, played through and tied for most tackles in the game, with 11 (8 solo) total tackles including one for a loss of three yards and a sack.  I think he ensured a trip to the NFL draft.
5. This win was huge -- the last time a team beat Stanford at home was 2011, when Oregon whipped the Cardinals 53-30, which also marked the last time Stanford got beat by a team (Oregon), two years consecutively.  I guess what I'm trying to say, is that I think Oregon and USC will meet in the PAC-12 Championship, as bookends to Stanford's micro dominance in the PAC-12.  But wait, what if USC ends up in the playoffs facing...Alabama and Lane Kiffin?  Ha!
6. I wasn't going to write about this, but then ESPN's Jay Bilas posted a really dumb tweet following two asinine posts from ESPN's Heather Dinich.  They were upset that USC AD Pat Haden, upon text request by Sark, came down from the box onto the field during a time out and spoke to officials about a sideline infraction call against Sark -- what is supposedly against an NCAA rule.  Dinich wrote that Haden, "should’ve been the one flagged in Saturday’s game".  Mind you, in another article she directly quoted the NCAA's officiating coordinator who said that there was, "no penalty for breaking the rule," and that the rule was more of an "administration management thing".  If that wasn't bad enough, she then speculated that Haden's actions reflected potential bias in which he would likely vote against Stanford to make the playoffs, were the Cardinals in position to make the playoffs.  Of course, this is a silly assertion because voting against Stanford would mean less money for USC under the conference's revenue sharing system and less prestige for the conference.  In other words, Dinich managed to get the bias argument backwards.  On top of that, Lou Holtz is commenting on the actions of USC's AD?  ESPN just loves to manufacture drama, doesn't it?  The manure is so deep on this one, Dinich and company should open up a fertilizer side-business.  Hey, there is a bright side to it all: Haden showed that his heart is perfectly fine.

On Oregon Ducks' win against Michigan State:

1. I could practically hear the groaning from Oregon fans in the second quarter, concerned that a physical team -- yet again -- was starting to take over the Ducks and stop them.  Good thing the offense exploded in the second half, huh?
2. So, has Oregon put to bed the talk that it can't win against physical teams?  I think so, and this seems like a signal that Oregon will beat Stanford this year.
3. If Oregon had lost, they still could have made it into the playoff if the only loss was to MSU, because MSU is a high quality non-conference opponent and Oregon started the season near the top of the polls -- meaning that they would have had the room and time to recover.  With the convincing win, they're one step closer to making the playoffs and are looking solid...at least for the PAC-12 championship.
4. I was surprised that officials did not eject the Spartan player for targeting Mariota's head on that late hit.  I'm surprised no one called the officials on their miss.  Oh wait, this is the PAC-12.
5. 318 passing yards with 3 touchdowns and 47 yards running.  The way Mariota performed against a top quality opponent, I think he should leapfrog Jameis Winston to the top of the Heisman list for the week.
6. Guess what?  No one was distracted by the Colt Lyerla story.  Other than creating paperwork for Oregon, what exactly was the point of Lyerla coming out with the story of a booster who failed to follow through with payouts, then refusing to out the booster?  I can believe some of the story -- that he really wanted to go to USC -- but the way I read it, his family got suckered by a self-interested con man, who, in no way represented UO.  To top it all off, Lyerla just got arrested for DUI.  

The 2014 NFL Season is Here!

Heh. They wouldn't let me use "whiz" -- apparently it's a bad word?!?

Through the Madden Giferator, you can generate your own GIFs, thanks to EA Sports and Google.

Go Seahawks!

Update after a full year with MetroMile.

So, it's officially been one full year (12 monthly billing cycles) since I've switched to MetroMile.  I haven't yet made a claim so I can't speak to their customer service or anything like that, but I can compare my rates to my old State Farms account.

To revisit, my current MetroMile plan is actually more generous when it comes to benefits, than my old State Farms plan.  The reason why I switched was because SF's lowest mileage discount was at ~5,500 miles, and at that level I would have been paying about $1200 a year -- that, despite being with SF for nearly 2 decades.  With MM, I was billed at a really low base rate with a per-mile charge, monthly.

12 months with SF (based on the renewal policy rate that I chucked):

• 1341 miles driven;
• ~$1200;
• = ~$0.89 / mile driven in 2013-2014 period (what I would have paid if I stayed with SF).

12 months with MM:

• 1341 miles driven;
• $327;
• ~$0.24 / mile driven in 2013-2014 period.

Three things to note here.

• Firstly, my MM rates were adjusted downward, between new (annual) policies, which was something I'd never experienced before -- with SF adjustments were only done at policy renewals and it has become a very rare thing to see my rates drop.  My MM base rate was initially at $0.82 / day plus $0.03 / mile driven.  In February, my base rate dropped to $0.78 / day plus $0.029 / mile driven. 
• Secondly, yes, I really don't drive that much.  It's not that I ride my bike everywhere, but that most of my groceries are just four blocks away, and there are five coffee shops within four blocks of me, and I "work" at home.  Heh.  Even when I was working at an office, my annual mileage hovered around 3,000 miles.
• Thirdly, 73% reduction in my auto insurance, are you kidding?  Heck yeah!  That's even better than my projected 65% savings!

And good news for people in California: You can now sign up for MetroMile!  Hey, I once lived in California and I remember just how high rates were.  And even when I lived in LA, I still didn't drive 10,000 miles annually.

Want to sign up?  Help me get 1000 carbon credits and sign up, here: http://fbuy.me/bee-C

Finally, I just want to reiterate that I haven't yet made a claim so I can't offer up any information on their customer service / quality of service on that end.  When I cross that bridge, I'll write a post about it.

MSM, Apple, and the bullshit excuses of apologists.

The breach

So, you've heard by now that several dozen celebrities have had their iCloud / iPhone accounts hacked, and naked selfies leaked onto 4Chan / Imgur.  It's still early, but Apple came out on Tuesday, stating emphatically that there was no breach.  -- insert laughter --  I guess this all depends on how you define what a breach is.

The lie

In my opinion, Apple is actually lying.  On August 30, it was revealed by researchers that iCloud was vulnerable to brute force attacks, and had written a script to take advantage of this by running through a dictionary of the 500 most popular passwords against individual iCloud accounts.  If Apple did not see the brute force attack method as a vulnerability, then why patch it, two days later?  And there you have it: Apple knew it was a vulnerability and closed it, but that does not mean that the vulnerability was open for those two days; anyone who knew about the vulnerability could have written their own script and attacked iCloud users.  In fact, the stolen photos and videos show that they were taken over a period of years -- in other words, if you have an iCloud account, you were vulnerable.  That's what I would call a breach.

Up popped the Apple apologists and the mainstream media, telling us that all cloud services are equally at risk.  That's complete bullshit.  

Unlike Apple, Google and Microsoft, among many others including your bank, have long blocked brute force attacks.  If you don't believe me and you want to screw yourself, try using multiple wrong passwords to your online bank / financial account and see what happens.

Unlike iCloud, if you select client-side encryption cloud storage services such as Tresorit or Spider Oak, your information can only be accessed by devices specifically assigned by you.  No third party can access your data, midstream, unless they can break 256 bit encryption, which, while not impossible is impractical, as to require several years to break.

The reality

Where Apple does share protection steps with Google and Microsoft: Two-factor authentication, but it requires you to use it.  When you use it, any time someone tries to access your account from a device other than your own, a second authentication is required, typically code sent to you via text message -- this is where end-users who want to keep their private data private, need to take responsibility for using good practices.  If you don't use good practices in the security of your data, you cannot expect your data to remain safe.

Think about it.  These folks frequently use remote security services to keep their homes protected, and use car alarms / disabling devices for their vehicles.  But they won't use 2-factor authentication?

But 2-factor authentication does not always mean that your data is safe.  The safest means of storing data in the cloud, again, is to use client-side encryption storage.  Combine that with 2FA, and you're even safer.

Schadenfreude

It is mind-numbing how naive people are, when it comes to boasts of the relative security of iOS / Apple.  For years, Apple's devices / operating systems / browsers fell to hackers within minutes of the annual PWN2OWN challenge, even as Google's systems / devices survived.  The people who make such false claims of the relative safety of iOS / Apple are fanboys and should be ignored, period.

If you believe in the fanboy bullshit, I tell you, schadenfreude!

No really, there are forensic tools on bittorrent that will allow people to specifically access iCloud backups.  In fact, along with the brute force attack, these forensic tools may have been used in this celeb nude photo grab, and it's been available for years.

In other words, if you use iCloud, your account was easily accessible to hackers.  So I repeat to those iPhone fanboys: Schadenfreude.