10 Thoughts for February 5, 2015

1. Football: This is how the Super Bowl was supposed to end. I still think that there were multiple means of winning, but the inside slant was a poor choice, seeing as a bad throw or the receiver falling down would have also resulted in a turnover.
2. Football: I still can't get over LOI signing day's patronage of an anachronism, the fax machine. Dude, fax machines. I can't remember the last time I actually used a fax machine.
3. Technology: Ross Ulbricht, aka Dread Pirate Roberts aka I'm-not-Dread-Pirate-Roberts, was found guilty on all charges, in connection with running Silk Road, an online (primarily) drug sales website. His defense team's strategy was hilarious: The prosecution faked evidence, but we can't prove it; still you should trust us because our -- miraculously aligned -- ex post facto story fits the facts that Ulbricht is not DPR, even if we have no way of showing that Ulbricht isn't DPR. You know what was worse than that? The sort of anti-government, conspiracist-loving, tin-hat-wearing folks on Wired, who placed Ulbricht on a pedestal as a libertarian hero.
4. Technology: Anthem's hacked data is an interesting case. Apparently the hack comes with the backing of China's government. Because it's from China, it seems to me that the hackers were looking for phish-usable data. Were it from elsewhere, such as Russia, the odds would be high that this was purely a play for money. (Added: So, just before I was going to post this, I saw that Brian Krebs had finally posted a long writeup about the incident -- something I always make time for -- and it basically confirmed what I thought, that this was an attempt to grab phish-usable data, specifically to target government / defense contractors.)
5. Technology: So, I keep telling myself that I'm going to build a computer from the ground up, but every time I try to price one, it comes out so much more than just buying a refurb with those frequent discount codes, directly from Dell (note that I do not buy from "dellrefurbished.com" which is part of Dell's financing arm and not the main company, because those are off-lease computers so they're about 5 years old and crap). You can probably guess what I just did: I bought a refurb i7-4790 for $625. Nearly half of the price is equal to the retail value of the CPU, so once you add in the cost of the MoBo, video card, memory, hard drive, DVD writer, case and power supply, it'd be close to $800. But if I were to build my own system, it'd actually cost about $1500.
6. Technology: Stupid Oracle. Java wanted to update itself, only to report back that I have the latest edition, then attempted to update itself again, only to, again, report back that I have the latest edition. Here's the problem: Oracle had idiot programmers. You see, Java 7 is no longer being updated, and the platform has moved to 8, but you have to uninstall 7, then install 8. Stupid Oracle.
7. Geopolitics: If Jordan wants to get revenge, they need to create a Middle-East based ground force that is willing to go into Syria and crush ISIS. The air war is not so useful if they want revenge.
8. Geopolitics: Come now, why hasn't anyone written a word on the Obama Administration's pivot away from Pakistan, and towards India? I know that the mainstream media is lame, but this is ridiculously bad.
9. Geopolitics: Here we go again, with another round of peace talks over Ukraine. Europe, it seems, believes that this time Putin will not lie. This must be the fourth or fifth time they've tried to hold peace talks, only to be embarrassed by Putin. It's kind of simple, really: Announce arms shipments will be at Ukraine's western border on February 10th (arbitrary date) were Russia to fail to stop the rebels. With each week that Russia fails to stop rebels, another, larger shipment will be at Ukraine's border until the rebels stop. If Russia chooses war, you force Russia to escalate by massive increases in state spending, while speeding up the Russian economy's collapse, all leading to the eventual arrest of Putin by the Russian people. If Russia chooses peace, you've got peace.
10. Taxes: I did a major drop off at Goodwill today, and might have another major load this weekend. Big tax benefits, considering the load of stuff I got rid off. I might have another, bigger load this weekend. What I can't sell on Craigslist ends up at either Goodwill or Free Geek.