10 Thoughts for November 12, 2014

1. Football: This quote sums up Mark Sanchez's night: "His supporting cast was infinitely better now with riches everywhere, a belated gift from the football Gods who owed him a solid." -- Manish Mehta, Daily News.
2. Football: According to ESPN, the CFB committee apparently has sent a message to teams, thinking that an undefeated season full of weak opponents will earn them an automatic.  I'm not so sure about that.  Mississippi State's got wins over worthless opponents like UT Martin, Southern Alabama, UAB and Southern Miss, but they're ranked #1.  Of course, I really don't think MSU will end up in the playoffs anyway.  They're just temporarily enjoying the view from on top.
3. Football: It can't be coincidence, that both Miami and BC have bye weeks before playing FSU, while Florida plays Eastern Kentucky before FSU.  Expect an upset along the way, and the room for the CFB to kick FSU out of the playoffs.  My playoff prediction, in order of rank: Oregon, TCU, Alabama, Ohio State.
4. Geopolitics: I'm curious what the Chinese President thinks of Vladimir Putin's actions with his wife, in front of the cameras.  This wasn't the first time he's tried to flirt (skip to last 11 seconds of video) with China's First Lady, after all -- instead of posing to face cameras, he's posing staring at the First Lady.
5. Geopolitics: So while Russia's president is trying to woo the Chinese First Lady, the presidents of the US and China were making huge plans on a bilateral agreement to slash greenhouse gases. Republicans, of course, were upset -- upset that they were caught off guard admiring Putin with adoring eyes, while POTUS did some real work negotiating with the Xi Jingping, that is.
6. Geopolitics: Remember when I said that Saudi Arabia's push for lower oil prices was surely a plan to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine?  It is working, insofar that Russia's economy is on the brink of a multi-year recession.  The irony of the Russian oil trade agreement with China, excluding USD, is that it cannot benefit from expanding oil exports to China while the Ruble-USD value falls.
7. Security: Who uses 2FA?  This website tracks who does and doesn't use 2FA.  I know that my credit union uses 2FA.
8. Temperature: I knew something was up when the central air kicked in, late in the afternoon -- the edge of the Polar Vortex descended upon us in Portland.  For the last 8 weeks or so, it's been moderate enough that I haven't had the unit kick in at all, and then in the afternoon it started up like we were in late December and the temperatures were dropping into the 30s.  The winds were howling mad, but though the temperature was above freezing the winds were so strong that shallow pools of water had already iced over by midnight.
9. Internet: FCC chair Tom Wheeler says he may ignore what Obama said, regarding Net Neutrality.  I say fire his ass, for ignoring the will of the American people who overloaded the FCC's system with comments in support of Net Neutrality.
10. Space: Trying to check in with ESA's Rosetta Mission and the landing on Comet 67P is a bit trying on the patience.  To start with, the entirety of the process takes more than 9 hours. And that process is left mostly to the imagination as the live video feed is that of the ESA mission control center and not of the actual landing -- which isn't going to be available in video form anyway, only photos.  If that isn't bad enough, the Livestream video channel is overloaded at times.  And don't get me started on the weird robotic anthropomorphism of a satellite and its lander offering emotional tweets, with the satellite retweeting its lander's tweets.