Global weather anomalies

It’s obvious to me that people are confused, and I must admit I was too. Global warming is true, but not for the reasons they claim. The earth most certainly is getting warmer, because the government along with the air force and others are making it warmer.

English: HAARP antenna array

HAARP antenna array

It works like this.  Our ozone is being depleted, the sun appears hotter because our protection is dwindling and in some instances – gone.  They come to the rescue with planes loaded with a chemical concoction that is sprayed into the atmosphere, shielding us from the sun.  This is incredibly cheap, because they use mostly waste products that they would have to otherwise pay to dispose of.

The stuff falls to earth, we breath it in with every breath we take.  Our obituaries are full of people with lung problems.

That’s only half the story. They use HAARP and their vast array of electrical devices to manipulate the weather causing drought or floods, snow or sleet. They are trying to hide the changes to our weather. They are calling for snow this weekend, in June. It’s not natural, it’s an illusion the powers that be will play until the last minute.

So, watch this video, but ignore the part about how it’s getting colder.  Don’t believe me?  Do your own research, I have.

Ignore the stupid title.  Who comes up with this stuff anyway?

The Nth Degree

Stupidity knows no bounds, but in my experience is especially prevalent in people who always feel the need to prove their intelligence. If the first thing someone does to defend their position  is to point at their license or degree, chances are  very good they’re completely inept.  Recently I had a discussion with someone who reminded me just how offensive it is to even try to communicate with these idiots.

Techno GripeMy very first experience with someone who had a master’s degree in computer science was my first duty station supervisor in the military. This LT (JG)  was in charge of the base computer systems, and I was his first and only enlisted staff member. I had never touched a conventional computer before, knew absolutely nothing about them, and was, of course, immediately tasked with building hundreds of computers from parts and then shortly thereafter tasked with being the security point of contact for all the military users of  tens of thousands of computers across every military base on the entire West coast of the US.

The  problem is that the LT  was a degreed idiot. He may have passed a few tests and had a pretty piece of paper with his  name on it,  but he had no clue how technology actually worked, he didn’t understand the very basic concept of Boolean values and could not even comprehend what a batch file was.

Seeing that I’d get no help or answers from him, I took the  manuals home and  read them cover to  cover, read the entire IETF RFC library and many technical books on the subject  over the course of my first few weeks at that assignment. Then  I spent eight months trying to gracefully educate him on these basics…and in his gratitude he took every opportunity to treat me like crap for having a better understanding of technology than he did after years and years of his “education.”

Fast forward a few years. When my son was a toddler we spent a lot of time with his friends’ parents. One lady in particular (Maria, a college professor) drove me quite batty. Most of her family were MD’s and many in my family were DC’s, so,  knowing only this,  she treated me like a pariah. Maria would take her son to urgent care if he slept in late, had a headache or dared to talk back to her. In her mind, these were all major defects and something just had to be wrong with him.  As you can expect, this poor child was one of those kids who was branded ADHD before he could talk.

Maria stepped on my every nerve, but one specific incident stands out. She was in the middle of telling me how chiropractors frequently paralyze their patients (a flat-out lie), and I pointed out that MD’s are far more lethal than guns. In point of fact, your MD is  about 300x more likely to kill you than a gun. Not wanting to make it personal by suggesting that Maria’s family were incompetent or homicidal psychopaths, I followed that up with this simple  statement: “but you have to remember that 50% of all doctors graduate in the bottom half of their class.”

She stood there glaring at me, aghast, her jaw dropped to the floor, for what felt like a full minute. The other parents and even the children in the room were completely silent while  we  waited, watching intently  for  her response.  The only sound was the air conditioner chugging away.

Finally, she screamed, “no they don’t!” The other parents and some of the children couldn’t even contain their laughter. This woman was so high-and-mighty, perpetually attacking everything and everyone she disagreed with,  but couldn’t do fifth-grade math?  Apparently, the reason 7,500 people die each year from pharmaceutical errors is that simple mathematics are beyond the scope of medical school.

But this all pales in comparison to what happened with my latest experience with another degreed idiot. A client’s site had both an email account and an ftp account hijacked within 24 hours. The passwords  had both been randomly generated, were not brute-forced,  and only this one person, Jane,  had access to both of them.  I asked the client to talk to her and have her scan her computer for malware so we could ensure the machine wouldn’t be compromised again after a password reset. The client forwarded me a message from Jane where Jane clearly stated that she had not been infected and that it couldn’t have been related to her.

I took the time to be sure and again reviewed the logs. The only tie for these two accounts was definitely Jane, but, she was quite adamant that she had not been infected. I wrote a very civil and respectful message to her asking her to scan again, along with my regular advice for security, and the common compromise mechanisms for the specific hijack I suspected. I even offered to login and verify that the machine was actually clean and safe.

Jane wrote back absolutely livid that I would dare suggest security changes or that she might have ever been infected. After all, and I quote, “My husband and I both have Master’s degrees in computer science…” The most compelling proof of this was that she didn’t use a single carriage return in her 350+ word message. Apparently she obtained her degree before keyboards included a return or enter key.

She also went into greater detail about how she had actually been infected, and it was none of my business, but even though neither of the antivirus programs on her computer could remove it, she was just sure it was gone now. Not interested in keeping it civil, she took several swipes at my character, my skill level and my education – including a statement about how my message to her was a perfect example of why IT workers  were justifiably hated.

I wrote her again, maintaining my civil and respectful tone (my professional policy is to “kill ’em with kindness”). I reassured her that it was not a personal  attack, and that she was the only one with access to both accounts.

As expected, her response was absurd, and only proved her level of incompetence. Remember: master’s degree in computer science, okay? She explained how there was never an “infection,” though there actually were files detected by both her antivirus programs whenever she opened her browser that  both antivirus programs  were each  incapable of removing…but just because there were infected files detected by both her antivirus programs doesn’t mean she was ever actually “infected.” And because I clearly needed the reminder, “you don’t know who you’re dealing with or what you’re talking about.” Topping it off, her firewall is “locked down tight.” As if firewalls had anything to do with normal browsing behavior. I’ll bet she regularly deletes her browser cookies for her “security,” too. Sigh.

Out of curiosity, and because I “didn’t know who I was dealing with”, I googled her name and location to see just how bad the state of the world was. Not surprisingly, this woman teaches computer science at a university. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t even feign surprise. Abrasive, defensive, ignorant and technologically incompetent. Yep, that sounds about right. She simply must be teaching computer science at a university somewhere. What’s more: her husband manages the campus IT network. It finally makes sense that about 30% of all hacking attempts against our servers are from college and university IP addresses.

The most appalling thing to me is that these people each felt so justified in their behavior that they were prepared to scream it from the rooftops. Not knowing that 50% and half mean the same thing, or that an infection is an infection (but especially when your antivirus is incapable of removing it), is a sign of extremely defective reasoning. These are the “experts” for military, medicine  and education, at least in their own heads.  They are so set in their opinions that facts, reason and logic are simply vulgar words to them. These people shape the minds of technology today.

And people still wonder why Windows 8 didn’t have a start button.

What I’ve really learned from these experiences is that my policy of being nice “no matter what” is the real source of this problem. Would the LT have still treated me so poorly had I not tried to help him understand the problems with his decisions? Would Maria have still had her abrasive behavior had I not taken the effort to allow her an out? Would Jane have attacked my character had I not offered to help her? We’ll never know.

Hail the mighty Salmon

Salmon is so good for you and so yummy. Unfortunately, our days of eating Salmon are gone forever. The oceans have become so contaminated that all the fish are dying. I’m heartbroken.

We had bought some salmon prior to the Fukushima meltdown.  It was double-bagged and kept in the bottom of the freezer. We’ve used a little of  it every couple years to  wean ourselves off of this amazing food.  It’s been five years and it still looks good. I’m amazed. As I post this, we are preparing to smoke it for bagel sandwiches.

I used to work in Old Town Sacramento at Laszlo’s Gourmet Smoked Fish. I swear it was the best smoked fish I’ve ever had the pleasure of eating.  Since the business is no longer open, I see no reason not to publish the simple recipe:

Smoke Salmon Recipe
1 cup Soy Sauce
2 cups Apple Juice (or Apple Cider)
½ pound Brown Sugar
Garlic

You may have to double or triple the recipe based on the amount of fish you’re making. The  brine should just cover the fish.  Soak the fish in the brine overnight. Smoke in your smoker for at least 6-8 hours. This is the bomb!

For bagel sandwiches, spread cream cheese on your favorite toasted bagel. We make ours from scratch. Top with capers, thinly sliced tomato and onion. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

If you were unaware of the damage being done in the Pacific Ocean, check out the links below.

I believe our government is lying to us about the radiation levels in not only the salmon, but other fish as well, and by the time the government warns us about it, the damage will be long done. I would rather take a “let’s wait and see” attitude. If after a few years we don’t see a huge increase in cancer rates, I will start eating salmon again.  But wait, aren’t we already seeing an uptick in cancer?