Jan 24

Berned In

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Bernie is making a huge mistake on the identity politics gambit. That’s not going to work out. Even if he’s not eliminated by the plutocrats (who hate him), identity posturing is only something about 0.5% of the population care about. However, since they are prominent in the media, we hear their voices a great deal. They dominate the visible discourse and access to public life but most people, thankfully, have no clue about who they are.

If you ask the average person who’d be interested in Bernie what “intersectionality” or the “Bechdel Test” is they’d have absolutely no idea nor would they care. Why should they, when they can barely afford housing and medical bills? What “privilege” do they have, from their perspective, when that is true?

The identity posturing of late will alienate the voters Bernie actually needs to potentially win while swaying absolutely no one to his candidacy.

Jan 24

How It’ll Happen

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Due to climate change, we’ll probably get all three at the same time. People misunderstand “climate change.” They think it means a thunderstorm or a fire or something will kill them.

But what will kill them (more likely, their kids and grandkids) is the wars and fascist movements that arise from climate-change-induced crop failures, uncontrolled and uncontrollable migration, and water shortages.

People have an absolutely shit understanding of systems and how they work together, and how they fail.

Jan 23

A Capital Capitalism

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Apple has been pretty brilliant here — create a terrible product that costs $100+, and that people seem willing to lose and then purchase 2-3 times a year.

Now that’s capitalism.

Jan 23

Not 1930

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Nope! That is definitely not 1930 or anywhere close to it. I’d guess 1955. (And I’d be damn close to right, as I am very good at at this.) So much about this screams mid-1950s — everything from the cold cases, the fluorescent lighting (did not become common until after WWII), the Coca-Cola logo style, the salt and pepper shakers, the machine-made typography that can be seen above the glasses case, the chairs — all of it is emblematic of the mid-1950s.

This photo was not taken in 1930. Just no way.

Jan 23

Common Plague

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Which is the point. It’s to allow Google and Mozilla to bypass ad blocking and malware blocking and gain control of your network.

I will never allow that in any network I control. It reduces security greatly — meanwhile, as they did with Mozilla’s BS regarding Firefox, people buy the lie that it increases security. The only security it increases is that predatory orgs can securely send you adware and propaganda.

Jan 23

More Than Provisional

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I provisionally passed the exam a long time ago, but there are endorsement requirements for this certification — so today, after much waiting on paperwork from the organizing body, I am fully and officially a Certified Information Systems Security Professional.

Due to NDA, I can’t say too much about the test, but I will say it’s extremely difficult. This is one of the few tests I had to study a great deal for and though I passed the first time, it was not a cakewalk. (I am used to tests being cakewalks.) Don’t get me wrong, it’s a three hour test and I still finished in 42 minutes with the minimum number of questions*. But I usually finish three hour tests in 10 minutes.

I like this certification because it is vendor neutral and only requires ongoing education to renew, not the vast amount of studying required to do it all over again.

But glad that’s on the ol’ résumé.

*It’s adaptive, so the algo will ask more questions if it’s not certain of your knowledge.

Jan 23

Signs and Portents

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“Science is only good for repeatable phenomena. And most of life — the most interesting parts — don’t repeat.”

-David Acosta on the show Evil. Show is mediocre but great quote and framing.